April 27, 2024 | by Silvianne K. Delmars |
Leo Overstory Venus in the Underworld, Part I
On Saturday, April 27, Venus comes within 10 degrees of the Sun, and is officially no longer visible in the morning sky. This marks the end of her Morning Star phase, and the start of the Inanna Underworld passage in the current 19-months Venus Leo Overstory Synodic cycle.
Venus will be at 28Aries19 (10 degrees from the Sun at 08Taurus19) at this critical transition point. Let’s take a look at the Sabian and Chandra symbols for these degrees and see what clues we can glean about the deeply transformative journey that awaits us over the next couple of months, as Venus is hidden from our view, completing her descent journey on the other side of the Sun.
Sabian Symbol
Ruby Fumizki, Aries 29
Aries 29: The music of the spheres.
“KEYNOTE: Attunement to cosmic order.
At the fourth stage of a five-fold sequence a technique is often presented. It is based on the experiences implied in the preceding symbols. In this case, what the individual who has entered into a new realm of possibilities of action should learn is the harmonic principles operating in this realm. The music of the spheres is the celestial embodiment of principles of polyphonic interplay. The individual advancing “on the Path” should seek to understand and realize his place in the vast scheme of mankind’s evolution, in the immense Chord of the harmony of the universe.
The message to the seeker for meaning which is implied in this symbol is TO LISTEN TO THE INNER VOICE; to listen without personalizing this Voice in a glamour-producing manner. It is the Voice of the Whole, of which one begins to realize that one is a tiny little part – yet a significant part, for every note of the universal Chord has its place and its ineradicable meaning.” – Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala
As we come to the underworld threshold in our Inanna journey with Venus, we receive this beautiful message of encouragement, intimating that a deeper connection with All That Is may be found, even in the darkest times. And, there is no way out but through.
Sometimes, we do need to be dragged into the underworld, to have the circumstances of our outer world drastically circumscribed, before we are finally ready to choose to tune into the stillness within. When we find ourselves stripped of our false self-images, vulnerable and afraid, without the comfort of life-as-usual distractions, and a desperate feeling of nowhere-else-to-turn, a hidden gift can surface. The motivation and space to finally turn wholeheartedly to the wise counsel within can bring deep change – if we are willing to listen and to act from the place of inner knowing. The soul’s voice, always patiently waiting, always right here, longs to steer us towards our true Self, and a closer attunement to Great Mystery.
Chandra Symbol
Aries 29: Dr. Jekyll drinks the potion
“Going against the self with a determined and fierce edge. Doing whatever it takes to throw the self off its flow and consistency. Undermining, sabotaging, subverting the ego mind and its patterns, its needs, its worldview.
Candor determined to hunt down the enemy, which is the unexamined self. Unwilling to let anybody in here get away with anything…
…The stark combination of shadow inflation with shadow renunciation. The simultaneous state of seeking to be free of self and in the process becoming hung up on self massively.
What we have a hard time with is doing anything other than cutting away at the patterns and their conglomerate tendencies. We end up being the shadow, being the one who stops the self from folly untold, and moving into those values and priorities which are there when we are accountable, again part of the whole.
A very necessary undertaking which perhaps never lets up and fails to realize that letting be is the center point of wisdom.” – Ellias Lonsdale, Star Sparks: 360 Windows into the Heart of the Zodiac
As we navigate these next few months with Venus in her Underworld experience, we are invited to take an uncompromising look within. To be relentlessly committed to ferreting out our own shadow. And to hold sacred the vital nature of the task while somehow maintaining an equally relentless space for ourselves, a compassionate understanding that just being, where we are, with all our flaws, is also enough!
Venus conjunct Eris
It is worth noting that Venus met up with Eris, Goddess of Discord and Chaos, on April 25 at 24Aries55, just before her entry into the depth realms. The Sabian Symbol for this position is Aries 25: The possibility for man to gain experience at two levels of being. Dane Rudhyar’s keynote is “the revelation of new potentialities” – if we are open to shaping our minds in the form that allows for the revelation of spiritual fulfillment. “The implied message is one of faith. Man can only experience what he deeply believes he can experience.”
Dane Rudhyar warns us with this symbol that we are on probation. And so we have another poignant reminder that the coming chaos – the dismantling of the ego-self that comes with the underworld journey – may be a hidden gift, a necessary step to gaining previously undreamt of modes of perception. A new step in evolution is possible, but it is still only a promise. Deep faith requires deep surrender.
The Sun’s Activation
As Venus disappears, the Sun is 10 degrees away, at Taurus9.
Here are the symbols it is activating:
“A FULLY DECORATED CHRISTMAS TREE.
KEYNOTE: The ability to create inner happiness in dark hours.
In northern or mountainous countries where the Christmas tree symbol took form, we find a contrast between the tree outside – bare and normally covered with snow – and the tree inside the home – loaded with decorations and gifts for the family. If we follow up the meaning of the preceding symbol, we see that snow has come outside; but the prepared and closely united group has created abundance, beauty and happiness within, overcoming the cold barrenness of the outside world — just as man had overcome, in a previous symbol (Phase 35), the natural obstacle to his progress. The Christ symbol is also included in the background — that is, the vivid faith in a transformed future.
This fourth stage symbol suggests the ever-present possibility open to man to transfigure the darkness and deprivation of the low point of a life cycle by incarnating in it an antiphonic response celebrating the ever remembered and always expected high moments of life. It evokes man’s undying FAITH IN CYCLIC RENEWAL.” – Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala
Once again, the symbol offered at this time of darkness and not-knowing is one of faith. Our lives are lived in cycles within cycles, with every ending seeding a new beginning, however improbable it may sometimes feel at the time.
The Chandra Symbol for Taurus9, A talkative woman with tape over her mouth, echoes the themes of self-inquiry and accessing our inner knowing in the depths explored above.
“The creative force at odds with itself. What you would do, you would not do. Facing the truth–that everything personally generated fails to satisfy. Spirit is ached for in its absence. Something missing. Massive pride screeching to a halt. A very high vibration. Inward places calling you. But the abyss features radical self-overcoming. And there is nothing to say, everything to do, with nobody left to do it–except the forgotten one inside who knows the way.” – Ellias Lonsdale, Inside Degrees
Mars Continues His Rebirth
As the Sacred Feminine plumbs the depths of the involutionary journey, Mars is continuing to rise in the morning sky, embodying the archetypal evolutionary journey of the Sacred Masculine. The Gemini Synodic Overstory Mars continues in his Rebirth and Growth of Wisdom phase, conjuncting Neptune on April 28 (just after Venus enters the depths), and then entering Aries on April 30 and meeting with the New Moon on May 4 at 03 Aries 25.
As I mentioned in the previous article for the Inanna Journey, Mars is making this 5th moon conjunction at the same degree where Venus met with the New Moon at the 8th Gate of Death by Intent earlier this month. The Sabian Symbol for this degree, Aries4 is “Two lovers strolling on a secluded walk.” It invokes the vital importance of exploring the ‘dynamic, open, unresolved togetherness’ of resonant polarities in this world of duality in which we operate. And, echoing the symbols above, the vital need for solitude in the process. You might wish to revisit my previous article, Inanna – 8th Gate of Death By Intent: Wing It, Raw and Wild!
The Current Dance of Venus and Mars
In the TOTAMS paradigm, both the Sacred Masculine and the Sacred Feminine partake of the full spectrum of archetypal possibilities – there are authentic solar and lunar expressions for each, yin and yang, involutionary and evolutionary. For me this adds an even deeper significance to the current dance of Venus and Mars.
After their Sacred Marriage time together, with many clues pointing us towards a whole new way of relating, busting old co-dependent patterns, and culminating in their exact meeting in expansive Aquarius, Venus and Mars are now going their separate ways, in very opposite – and quintessentially feminine and masculine — directions.
Leo overstory, sovereign, masterful Venus is approaching the final descent to the depths in her journey of death and eventual rebirth. It is time for the solar feminine to surrender to the involutionary, archetypally yin journey of down and in. Meanwhile, Gemini overstory, energy-shifting, creative mind Mars is following the evolutionary, uber yang promptings to go up and out.
Both processes are vitally important to the current collective story. We must somehow learn to pay homage to both, and to experiment with inhabiting our own individual balance in this dance, which will be different for each of us at any given time, according to the wisdom of our personal soul rhythms and our soul blueprints as so beautifully delineated in our natal charts.
More to be said …
There is a lot more to be said about Venus’ journey through the underworld over these next two months. I will be taking a deeper dive into her activations with Jupiter, Uranus, the Moon, and the Sun and contemplating the messages encoded in the corresponding Sabian and Chandra symbols. So stay tuned for Part 2, coming up soon!