Relationship as Revolution: Venus Opposite Uranus
(originally published November 2018 during Venus retrograde)
We arrive, again, at a moment of adjustment and breakthrough.
To begin with, let’s do a little reflection. What was going on for you on or around September 13? What about on or around October 31? These were the dates when Venus and Uranus opposed each other, creating part of the framework for our recent Venus Retrograde.
The third and final installment of their drama is exact on Friday, November 30. Although it isn’t technically true, I’m thinking of it as a chapter closer for that super fun Venus Retrograde window we just left (the epilogue lasts til December 17, though , so we’re not quite done yet.).
Venus is currently in Libra and Uranus in Aries. With that polarity, we’re dealing with a very specific paradox: the need for independence and the need for relationship. Some would frame that as a need for freedom vs. a need for relationship, but that’s a false dichotomy right there. The correlation between relationship/marriage and shackles is slowly but surely becoming an artifact of a time when women were seen as property -- although it is constantly amazing to see just how deep that programming goes.
When it comes down to it, many of us actually strive to connect within and through relationships that help us to be a little more free.
Still, we are inherently relational creatures. The seeming polarity of independence-vs-relationship shows up in many ways in our lives. Oftentimes, we fling towards one end or the other -- thinking, believing or just acting as if we either have to be all in and completely consumed and merged with another in ways that engulf our autonomous identities... or going off on our own, snubbing relationship all together in fear, distrust, or just exhaustion from trying to navigate the tempests of such complete merging and identity annihilation.
Some of us enter relationships and marriage knowing full well that our individual identity will be consumed -- and perhaps even longing for that fact. After all, we are kinda taught that , ‘You’re nobody til somebody loves you.’
Ugh.
These Uranus-Venus oppositions have been asking us a vital series of questions: what breakdowns and breakthroughs need to (or have) happened to liberate us into more authentic self expression? How do we hold space for the other in all of that? What is the place of freedom, authenticity and autonomy in our relationships, and where and how do compromise and collaboration need to come in?
But take it a bit further and it becomes a question about how to move forward, knowing that healthy relationships -- in every form , whether it’s the relationship with ourselves, our lovers, our families, business partners or baristas OR our relationships with the land we live on, the food we eat, the songs we sing -- are in many ways the vital component of a functioning, life-sustaining civilization.
Relationships are everything. We have to figure out how to relate in healthier ways to ourselves and to each other if we’re going to build institutions that reflect the fact that LIFE is what we value most in our society.
Therefore, doing the work of disentangling from styles of relating that are not working for us as individuals -- while being aware of our own patterns of denial and hiding -- is revolutionary work, and absolutely vital to moving into a sustainable paradigm that does not see bodies, land or resources as property.
The first of the two Venus-Uranus oppositions were asking questions about the ties we have between relationship and security. Emotional security or the security that has to do with our more tangible survival needs. It’s quite possible that you might have felt core traumas arising, even from little tiny triggers, that put you in a place of feeling like things were life or death.
This final opposition is an opportunity for further integration of what you learned from mid-September until now. But because we’re dealing with Uranus -- planet of shocks and sudden insights -- there is still an edginess to the energy. I’ll be honest, there’s also the potential for more breakdown. So just be aware.
And honestly, we can zoom out a little more. This is the last time Venus will connect with Uranus in Aries for a long time. So this little dose of liberation from old value structures and beliefs that aren’t working when it comes to our relationship with self and other has some extra special magical OOMPH packed into it, and likely resonates back all the way to 2011, when Uranus entered Aries.
The seeming opposition between self and other is one that is important to keep in mind today and in the coming week. Some advice I’d give you is to spend some time in reflection, and see what you can do to understand the core emotion that arises when you find yourself feeling stuck between seeming opposites, or polarizing towards one or the other.
For example, when that paradox of self vs. other arises for you in an uncomfortable way or during times of crisis, what emotion lies at the heart of it? You might have to dig down a bit, but what’s there? Fear? Guilt? Grief? Often those three are cozying up to one another, creating a complex web (pro tip: grief is usually the one to try to move through first). But still, explorations like this are vital. When we’re able to start working with the core emotions that lie at the heart of a complex, we gain freedom to respond rather than react.
Oh, I’m having a big reaction. There’s my core emotion of fear being triggered. I need some time to let that emotion move through me, and then I’ll be able to respond. While that’s happening, I need a bath and some water and grounding food.
As we get a little more stability in terms of working with our most loaded emotional struggles, we gain a little more freedom to ask for what we need, and knowing when we can meet our own needs or perhaps need a little bit of help.
As Venus shifts back into Scorpio this weekend, moving from her home sign of airy, intellectual Libra to that Scorpionic field where some say she’s less comfortable but I say she kicks some ass, another question arises:
After all you’ve learned about yourself and your needs, and potentially about the other(s) in your life and their needs...
What are you committed to?
You can keep it specific to whatever areas of life have been the most prominent for you through the past three months, or you can look at commitment at the levels of self, relationship with other, and relationship with community or the collective. These could be commitments to people, plans or just concepts. It’ll be helpful, however, to use the time between now and December 17 to identify behaviors and actions that support those commitments.
If you haven’t identified your core values, that’s a good place to start. Then core needs, knowing some remain constant and some shift depending on what’s up in our lives.
Commitment provides an incredible container for growth because it helps establish trust, and gives you the space to writhe and wriggle a bit as you figure things out.
Commitment can also be tricky, because it is a fixed function. We can get stubborn about our commitments and lose sight of why they were there in the first place. Doing the dance of honoring commitments and yet knowing when to revise them -- and how to do so respectfully -- is a frickin’ Herculean task. But for those committed to revolutionizing relationship structures, it’s some of the most important work there is.
A longer digression about the nature of modern relationships is definitely overdue, so I hope to have that written and coherent for you soon.
But for now, it feels like there’s a need to celebrate a bit while being open to new insights flashing in -- through dreams, through conversations, through sudden insights. If the same tensions that arose in September and October pop up again tonight or this weekend, see what you can do to stop, breathe and laugh a bit. Close your eyes and remember that the universe really does have your back -- and the incredible gift of astrology is that it gives us a heads up and ways to orient.
