The Summer of LOVE

The planet Venus will retrograde on July 22nd, beginning a 44-day inward sojourn for us to explore our personal narratives around the themes of LOVE, relationships (all of them), money, pleasure, the arts, creative expression, self-worth, our personal values and the feminine.

This transit is occurring in the sign of Leo; dispensing astrological gold centered around matters of the heart, courage, inner strength, the Self (self-expression, confidence, recognition and the courage to be your true authentic Self). Leo is synonymous with the Strength card in Tarot. The energy and essence of composure, self-mastery, compassion and sovereignty.

Venus has been hanging out in radiant, majestic Leo since early June and she’ll stay until October 10th, spending the summer months retrograding, bookended by weeks of traveling direct.

I love retrogrades for the opportunity they bestow to invoke the “Rule of Re’s” (reflect, review, revise, redefine). When a planet travels direct, its forward moving, and I tend to engage with it as the energy of the sun, divine masculine essence, action, flow, external/outside/in the world centric. When retrograding, the planet slows down, traveling back over terrain already covered. I tend to see this more as moon energy; inward facing, contemplative, intuitive, divine feminine essence, illuminating, restorative. For me, retrogrades are a chance for some field study, paying extra attention, sensing into what seems “off” and what might be needed for a course correct.

This summer, the Universe is offering up an epic cosmic opportunity for us each to check in with the Venusian energies present within ourselves and our relationship with all …

What Who and How we LOVE and What Who and How we’re LOVED.

Money stories.

Our relationship with giving and receiving.

Honoring your inherent worth.

Your value as defined by you.

New realities and how you create them.

Your gifts and the ways you express, harness, deny, diminish, undermine them.

Identifying and taking responsibility for your own needs.

This is the Summer of LOVE

44 days and opportunities to reflect about your relationships. To venture beyond your comfort zones and wander off the path of predictability into the realm of your pure potential To consider new ways of connection, the power of compassion and the transformative impact of kindness. To challenge the status quo around money and explore new narratives around what wealth, abundance, success and luxury mean to you. To determine and honor your unique gifts, value and inherent worth as defined by you (and safeguard accordingly). To make room and invite in more joy, beauty, pleasure and enchantment. To be your own beloved and guardian of your self-care, self-love and the relationship with your own precious heart, brilliant mind, remarkable intuitive intelligence and miraculous, wondrous body/oracle/vessel/channel/temple.

Ritual – Field Study

Venus in Leo asks for our courage, our truth, our need to be proud of who we are, what we stand for, to lead with our heart, to show up as our true Self and claim our own Sovereignty. Venus in Leo asks of us, our hearts true desire …

If you can have what you want – what do you truly want?

Walk, journal, meditate, journey along with this question over the 44 days of the Venus Retrograde. Place this query on the altar of your heart. Turn it over and over in your mind like a Zen koan. Ask your dreams for clues, insights, guidance. Be on the lookout for synchronicities, messages, affirmations tucked inside the everyday. Be intentionally curious about yourself and what is illumed. Dare to expect an astonishingly, unfathomable, otherworldly level of delight around how your unfurling can lead you into claiming more of your own magnificence.

At the end of the 44 days reflect on how journeying with a single question can lead to living with an answer so profound it changes the way you meet everything. Gather up the gold of your knowings and fashion them into a bejeweled crown to befit your beautiful new becoming.

Acknowledge, celebrate, be proud to be who you are. Because you are truly magnificent.

With so much love,

Jo x