Hi my loves,
As promised, here’s another perspective of Venus’s inferior conjunction and rebirth as the Morning Star, because we all go through transformations in different ways.
This time, let’s take things from another perspective. Venus follows an eight-year cycle, moving through five points in the sky. Generally, these five points or astrological signs Venus moves through are Aries, Libra, Leo, Capricorn, and Gemini for the next decade or so, with small shifts of Scorpio to Libra and out of Aries to Pisces.
During the inferior conjunction, the light of Venus is lost in the glare of the Sun as Venus passes in front of it. From Earth’s perspective, it appears that Venus has disappeared. When Venus becomes visible again, it is as the Morning Star. Venus is whole and complete after traveling through the dark of the night as the Evening Star.
The tale of coming back to ourselves varies for us all. For some, it is a descent into the underworld. Going deep within our unconscious to find the parts of ourselves that have been repressed and knitting them back together.
For others, we may find ourselves living our lives. Doing what is natural to us. That is what Oya is doing when she stops in some versions of the story under a hunter’s stand. In others, she stops within the brush; no matter the case, she does not notice the hunter, whether Ogun or Chango, who watches her closely. When they see Oya, it is not as a woman, but as a water buffalo. Majestic and powerful. She stops in the brush and removes her buffalo skin. Setting it to the side, hidden, she exchanges the position of her buffalo skin for her baskets and bottles of goods to be sold at the market. And in her beauty and grace, she goes off to the market.
The hunter sees it all. In some versions, Ogun asked for a bride who would know and see him fully. He was told to go sit in the hunters stand and wait. In other versions, Ogun or Chango are just out hunting for the day. Either way they are there and wisely they do not shoot the water buffalo or disrupt the woman who emerges from its skin. The hunter takes the buffalo skin from it’s hiding spot and goes to market. Watching the woman sell with ease and make her money. He buys from her, but promises that if she comes home with him he will pay her there. She doubts but follows him. There he convinces her to eat and drink. She does beginning to warm to him. But soon she is ready to go. Oya returns to where her skin should be, but it is gone! She looks for it. She turns to the hunter and says that he must have taken it. He must know where it is. But the Ogun or Chango feigns ignorance. He asks her to join him, to be his wife since she cannot return to what she was. With little choice, Oya agrees.
Sometimes we are not entering the underworld, but find ourselves there. We take precautions to keep our inner parts safe. We play many roles, water buffalo, market woman, maiden, and Orisha. And without our knowledge, a part of us is taken. Hidden away and we have to adjust. To learn to go on.
Oya marries the Hunter. But she is not welcomed by his other two wives who question who she is, her heritage, her outsider ways. But Ogun/Chango loves Oya. He takes to her bed and over time they have children. We now add wife and mother to the list of identities that Oya has. Not sacred animal, ruler of the market place, Orisha of winds and storms, or she who guards the gates of the cemetery. Oya takes on the human roles of wife and mother. Her freedom taken and exchanged for connections with others.
But one day the other wives did something about the situation, ply Ogun or Chango with wine and food. They get him to tell them that Oya was a water buffalo whose skin he hid in the rafters. With this news, the next day, when the hunter goes off to battle, the wives taunt Oya with their news, revealing her skin’s hiding place. With not a second thought, Oya retrieves her buffalo skin and leaves. Ogun or Chango sometimes pleads with her to stay. In her fury, Oya charges at them, but perhaps it’s the cries of her children who do not recognize her or the overwhelming feeling of finally being complete again that calms her. She stops from gorging the hunter with her horn for taking away this part of herself. She turns to her children or the hunter, depending on the version of the story, and breaks off a horn. She hands it to them and says that if they ever need her, to call her by her name and she will come. To call for Oya, and she will come.
What if your underworld journey starts with having a part of you taken away? Something that you would not have given up for the world? A change that forces you to grow in ways you would not have chosen, but adjust and transform to survive. Then when the opportunity to reunite with that aspect of yourself again arrives, you snatch it up.
A return to wholeness that includes expansion. Oya was gained more experience and connections as a wife and mother. Her identity was expanded, but so did humanity. When Oya left her horn as a way to summon her, she left a part of herself with us, by choice this time.
This Venus retrograde may be a time when a part of you that was taken away returns. That you realized that the roles that you have played were helpful for your survival, but now it is time to become whole again with the wisdom that this life you built served a purpose.
We all experience our unconscious in different ways. Find your story. Find your path and take the first step.
With love,
Kamilah Rose