Is it a relationship, or are you just relating to something outside of yourself for once?

(hint: it's both)

It’s Monday, the moon is in Taurus, Venus is still at home in my first house, and I have things to say about her.

Sometimes, when I consider sect, I think we have the significations of the domiciles of Venus backwards. Why is Libra supposedly about interpersonal relationships when that’s Venus’s diurnal home? The interpersonal is lunar, nocturnal; diurnal Venus cares about the relationships we have on a larger, collective scale (ie, justice or fame). Venus in her nocturnal clothes is going to be much more invested in our interpersonal entanglements. We can see this in the way that Venus prefers Taurus, her nocturnal home: somehow it’s easier to see each other in the dark.

Venus in Libra may have to do with relationships for you, if Venus or Libra fall in your 3rd, 7th, or 11th houses. But really, what she facilitates is our abilities to relate to another—that which is outside of ourselves. This is what she teaches us through things like art & music & food, universal languages that allow us to relate to things or people we perhaps may have never encountered or understood otherwise. Venus is about relating, but not just person-to-person relationships: she cares about the way you relate to a concept, like beauty; or a non-human friend, like a flower. She cares about what we look like when we shed the expectations of diurnal consciousness and wear our nightly skins: vulnerable, yet powerful. She’s not afraid of you at your worst.

If Venus is how we relate to beauty, and not beauty itself, then Venus is also how we respond to that which we perceive as ugly, or unjust. She wants to know how you’re gonna relate to the things you hate, too. She’s not just here to hold your joy. She’s also here for your righteous anger, for your building resentment, and your wailing despair. We arrive at justice only after we have acknowledged these emotions and sought to do something about them. Justice is predicated on the idea of empathy, so to embody diurnal Venus we have to go through her in her moonlit form first. Can you witness another in their rawest expression without flinching? Can you reach behind your implicit biases to understand the plight of another? Can you relate to an idea without fretting about whether it’s going to become part of your identity? Can you observe the interconnectedness of everything and feel invigorated and supported, instead of small and overwhelmed?

I hope you can. ♥️