Mercury Retrograde Through The Houses

Mercury RX Through the Houses

1H: Mishaps that serve to undermine how you communicate your identity. Saying things that make you come across poorly, or that don’t mesh with your authentic self. Having other’s thoughts and perceptions of you be wildly incorrect or misleading. Standing by a controversial idea/belief. Mercury RX for you is about pausing to ask yourself: which ideas about myself are worth the conviction, are worth communicating, and how can I steady myself against naysayers? What opinions do I carry of myself or of my path that I can let go versus hold onto?

2H: Hiccups in your pocketbook, expenses that come out of nowhere, a need to withdraw more than more than normal. Spending on things not in your best interest, or garden-variety review of things that do or do not bring value. An invitation to become more financially literate, and to move currency in ways that intentionally support your well-being. Using momentary lags in funds to become clearer about their use and worth. Mercury RX here can also have you retooling your apparent worth, your confidence, by introducing you to situations that mirror your lack of self-sufficiency.

3H: Miscommunications in the house of communication, perception, and habitual thought. This is where Mercury RX can appear to wreak the most apparent havoc, but also where its lessons of pause provide some sublime neuroplasticity. This energy comes in to silence words that don’t need to be said, thoughts that are stale, learning that needs to be reengaged, lies that masquerade as truth. Maybe even a voracious energy to say what needs to be said. Going within here helps us to silence the chatter from the daily players in our lives, and selectively choose with whom to share ideas, when, and why. Movements in your habitat of choice, in your vessel of choice, may feel encumbered, broken, but invite you to savor the scenic routes, to find progress in what is slow, and reinvent new ways of movement that will open the highways of your life.

4H: Roommate agreements gone awry, disagreements with your family, stale décor, a confusing line of legalese in your lease or mortgage contracts that stifle the enjoyment of your nest, the leaky faucet. Your living arrangements, your family structures, the foundations that support you require some actual mental fortitude now. Mercury RX here, while literally manifesting within the universe of the above-mentioned issues, can be an invitation to sort out and sort through the ways your house isn’t actually a home. At the bottom of your chart, Mercury RX sees you going deep within, perhaps uncovering gnarlier familial issues, the roots you thought were there to stabilize you but that suffocate you. Becoming quiet to discover the disquiet. In this closer felt chaos, you can clean house, and emerge with a more supportive base.

5H: Those creative yearnings can feel stifled during this time. Projects, pieces, recipes, prose you wish to unveil to the world meet resistance, in the form of an inattentive mind, or an unconfident one. Mercury RX here can be about turning within and having a chat with your inner child, and reconnecting with those thoughts and feelings that make you feel young.  In any creative endeavor, becoming intentional about your intended message, the piece of your soul that will involve itself in that message, makes this period fertile for more authentic works. You bring more of yourself out when you allow Mercury to discover more of what is being kept within.

6H: There can be stall with getting a project done, finding the health advice or products that you need, or being able to commit to or continue a routine. Or those routines could use some dusting off—as could your desk, your refrigerator, your bookshelves.…. Mercury RX here can get to work with you (literally) by identifying the little nits that need ironing out, by organizing your organizational skills. It is a time to take inventory: of your schedules, your health, how you serve the world and yourself. Did you really need that gym membership? Or…would that gym membership help keep you more accountable? It is only through these nagging day-to-day hiccups that we become aware of how much more smoothly our machines could function, and how an intentional purification of the dusty bits serves our happiness in the long run.

7H: Hell is other people, huh? The Mercury brand of hell is less hellish, but still equally frustrating in terms of feeling on equal footing with someone else or being able to communicate ourselves into and out of and within relationships with ease. So, when Mercury retrogrades here, we, too, can descend into Hades of our own relationships: spats, disagreements, a clash of beliefs or ideas about the relationship. If you can ignore the impulse to tell a certain someone about themselves, as devastating and dashing as your take may be, Mercury RX can teach you wise and steadied conflict resolution, how to come to the table with people of different opinions and break bread, how to reflect before you raise the sword of fighting words. It may also introduce you to a line in the stand, a word that took it too far, opinions that just aren’t simpatico, that allows you to emerge with firmer boundaries.

8H: The contract giveth and the contract taketh away. More so than any other Mercury RX transit, the sage old advice to double and triple check what you are getting yourself into matters. Like my example above, let the trepidation it causes also invite you to think a bit more about why you want to align yourself and your assets in an irrevocable way with a person, an entity, a product. Think about the ramifications of that debt obligation, or where you overextend and share yourself with others in equally consequential ways. Get smart about literal payment plans, how they are too rigid and could use some revision. Mercury RX here, like the 4th house, can also introduce us to the deeper recesses of our minds, the things that go bump in the night. It allows a reflective lens that provides profound clarity about your human condition.

9H: You might not know what you think you know! Mercury RX here is like the professor who, in frustration, throws the papers on her desk out into the room, a confetti of information now spread about, needing to be put back together. This can be a test of professional character, a test of your faith, a test of how to best use your education and specialized skills to advance in life. The sage advice of double and triple checking your itineraries fits literally. But the metaphorical ways we invest in itineraries that we hope will land us at an ideal destination—university, belief systems, professional certifications—also matters. Mercury may frustrate your implied wisdom and belief in self, but like the professor above, intentionally putting back together the reams of information you have earned and want to share makes the message come across with far more agency.

10H: Your reputation on the world stage feels to be fluctuating. One moment you are managing others and the next your performance is under scrutiny. Where you once felt on top of the world, now you see the world receding from view. Boss and authority figures appear on shaky ground. Your ability to take charge and lead, to co-pilot your own destiny, to work well within professional frameworks becomes subject to random diversions. People who once supported your place on the world stage—clients, bosses, collaborators, family—fall back on their word or cease to show up as readily. This is a time to be intentional about the plans you have for yourself, the progress you have made so far, and if the path you are on will lead to a satisfactory result. Mercury RX here may see you thinking more critically about your public image—where it may be time to step down, turn around, or choose a more stratifying path altogether.  

11H: Gossip, backstabbers, he said-she said, subtweeting. When Mercury retrogrades in this social house, the places where we expand into community of like-minded folks can feel like a subplot of Mean Girls. There is something tenuous and stressful about the places where we could once share of ourselves freely, only to have that sharing be misinterpreted or judged. You may change your mind, become aware of group think, dissolve your place in groups whose political or societal leanings no longer support you. Mercury RX here is all about peering past the drama, and letting it inform where your values have fallen out of step with your friends and networks, and to get started on finding the tribe where those values are respected. It can also reveal where our standing in society is, and whether the alliances you have relied on are to be brought further on the journey. Where we feel unpopular, or shunned, or like we have one leg to stand on, become opportunities to carve out your true voice, to scream into what looks like the void, until someone screams back. 

12H: Quiet your mind, grasshopper. All the answers are within you. Mercury retrograde is digging deeper into this unconscious sector of your chart, perhaps dredging up private drama, psychic issues and entanglements, but also that still voice underneath it all. It feels frustrating that, at this time, the world has no answers to give you. And that the part of yourself that does have the answers is obscured. Be intentional about sitting in literal silence, not judging what comes up, in using metaphysical tools like singing bowls, tarot, meditation, whatever… to find a voice until yours returns. Sometimes, Mercury retrograde here can also grant you the fortitude to carve out necessary isolation for a creative or research project, or otherwise make it easier to turn down the volume of life for a moment.

Reframing The Trine: Don’t Believe The Hype

This may be welcome news for some of you and potentially unwelcome news for others. But only if you subscribe to the “trines = goodWOWawesome” version of astrological reality.

Yes, trines represent planetary interactions that feel second nature, that are well integrated and run smoothly. They run so smoothly that they can operate in the background of our awareness. That’s why they produce talents or success— we don’t have to try. The goodies are just *there.*

But what if that background processing has been compromised? What if malware has inconspicuously started running the show?

To make sense of this, I think of a newsletter Steven Forrest once wrote about the nature of trines. In it, and to paraphrase, he likened the potential sneakiness of the trine to two alcoholics supporting each other’s drinking habit by agreeing that neither of them drink too much. Yes, technically in that hypothetical interaction, the two parties agreed. That’s a harmonious interaction. But the result of that interaction isn’t actually that great. It’s actively damaging even.

It is possible that planets involved in a trine can aid and abet each other in manifesting as negative behaviors. Planetary enablers. Unlike a square or an opposition, there is no friction to jam up the airwaves, no internal struggle, no negotiation, no pause. Even conjunctions relay a heavy vortex of energy that sticks out in our awareness. With a trine, the faucet is always running without obstruction.

If you’ve heard the idea that “difficult” aspects can create very successful people, then you may understand that some level of internal conflict or struggle can help push us to overcome. And sometimes with stellar results.

But with trines, there is no adversarial force that can emphasize or make obvious a potentially damaging behavior (or perspective, belief, attitude, etc.). There is no struggle.

As a result, some trines manifest as major blind spots. Unless there is a proactive hijack of the background processing, by understanding the nature and potential of the planets, signs and houses involved, some trines can infect your life with malware, and you wouldn’t even know it.

And yes, I know the totality of a person and their chart is more than just one aspect. But understanding parts of the chart in isolation cand build towards better understanding of the chart as a whole.

Let’s look at some examples, hypothetical and real.

Trines involving Jupiter are perhaps the most illustrative. Left unchecked, Jupiter trines can manifest as flagrant excesses. Let’s say someone has Jupiter trine Mercury. Their mind is chalk full of inspiring ideas and vast amounts of knowledge. Maybe they can easily convey their messages to the masses or wrap their head around abstract or philosophical concepts.  But the trine that supports their intellectual growth is the same trine that can contribute to unchecked idealism, rigid and dogmatic perspectives, or constant spiritualizing. You may imagine that this person thinks big but easy spirals when their ideas don’t play out well in reality, or when their intellectual talents are questioned by others, or when they cannot spiritualize themselves out of real-world problems. The blind spot? Potentially thinking that you know it all and thus closing your mind to other perspectives. Potentially deluding yourself or thinking with unfounded grandiosity. Sure, this may not ruin their lives – but it may periodically jeopardize their relationships, reputation, or mental health.

Let’s look at a Moon – Saturn trine. In popular astrological literature, these folks are responsible and mature down to the bone. That is true and it is a handy asset for survival in the material world. But if trines are free-flowing faucets of energy, we can imagine that the more gnarly archetypes of Saturn bleed into a person’s emotional landscapes too. They are hard on themselves, deny themselves, or suffer from chronic inadequacy that makes them feel unlovable. These lemons can become lemonade. Or they can sour a person’s spirit with a practically automatic and constant stream of negative feelings.

Kurt Cobain had both trines mentioned, between the signs of Cancer and Pisces. And let’s also throw his Pisces Venus into the mix (he had a Pisces stellium with Mercury, Venus and Saturn forming trines to his Moon and Jupiter in Cancer. His Sun was also in Pisces but wasn’t, by degree, as tightly involved in these trines). It goes without saying that Cobain was supremely gifted and influential. But also supremely troubled in ways that appeared inescapable. He had an unquenchable desire to love and be loved by others, a romanticism that led to much heartache. His struggled with his attempt to just be a bachelor and was pulled into the orbits of women he was infatuated with for better and worse.

His mother’s divorce and unstable childhood also impacted him greatly. With the Moon (nurturing, childhood, mom) as his most elevated planet and trine his chart ruler Mercury, this early seed of unhappiness imperceptivity directed his life. Moon – Mercury trines contribute to great artistic and creative talent, but also muddy a person’s ability to think objectively. Feelings can become facts for these folks, and negative impressions can easily infect the way you view yourself and the world.

Let’s look to his Venus – Jupiter trine. Again, responsible for behemoth creative talents and adoration from others. But this trine also inflames indulgence and the need to feel good all the time. In a person like Cobain, this made drugs an obvious and easy escape hatch. In everyday people, it may create shopping, gambling, or food addictions. Or straight up laziness.  

Pluto trines are also tricky. Yes, for instance, a Moon – Pluto trine can endow a person with deep emotional resolve and resilience, even a psychic capacity that can be used suss out helpful information others would miss. The capacity for positive transformation of self and others is tremendous. But Pluto deals in darkness. A constant flood of subliminally intense material can easily overwhelm a person and create a gloomy outlook on life or make them act on their darkest impulses.

Pablo Escobar had Moon in Aries trine Pluto in Leo and is obviously known for the lengths he went in order maintain his drug empire, with some biographies estimating he killed people in the thousands. He grew up in poverty and resolved to, in response, become a powerful person. This evokes the Moon’s involvement—early childhood experiences which compel one to overcorrect or cope in extreme ways (Pluto).  And with trines, that reaction is natural and automatic. Vladmir Putin and Kim Jong-Un, two famous dictators, have Mars – Pluto trines, which has an enabling influence on coercive or violent actions, and can spur powerful propaganda machines and cults of personality.

In our own lives, Mars – Pluto trines can manifest as steely willpower that helps us beat the odds and accomplish great feats. Or as profoundly destructive behaviors like substance abuse, a trigger-happy temper, or taking masochistic pleasure in self-sabotage.

This is in no way an attempt to subvert the nature of squares or oppositions, to paint them as universally positive or easy to deal with. Rather, this is about correcting the trine PR machine, and all machines that deal in this = good or that = bad binaries. But I also don’t intend to spook you out about your own trines. When a simplistic and blindly positive narrative is counterbalanced by a more cautious and thoughtful one, I think neutrality, or at least perspective, can be achieved. And from there, chart analysis becomes less paint-by-numbers and more coloring in the shapes, shades and shadows that actually match your life experience.

In my own life and astrological practice, I’ve found it helpful to work with the entire universe of possibilities that aspects can create. This means not biasing myself or my clients into thinking anything about their chart is overwhelming good or bad – but rather, looking at the chart as a complex and malleable matrix of potential.

 😊

Reframing Taurus: Respecting the Wisdom of the Body.

Does Taurus even need to be reframed?  I felt this preemptive question tickle up my spine as I sat down to write this piece. Behind it my own assumption that Taurus, of all the signs, is the least vexing, the least due for a paradigm shift or critical thought. Taurus hates a shift and has no appetite for a critical anything.  But it is this grasp for simplicity, a Taurus virtue, that has perhaps relegated this sign to the nosebleeds of my life, of all our lives. Taurus grasps for what is uncomplicated, and in our tortured existence, with all our striving and trying and therapizing—uncomplicated is a herculean feat. If you’ve ever sat down to meditate, you know this. Being silent and still is hard. Before you know it, a moment of stillness turns into a cacophony of thought. Isn’t claiming a little simplicity, a little peace, the most vexing of all? Almost antithetical to our increasingly frenetic human race? Taurus energy is what watches us all contort ourselves into this performance we call life, waiting for us to remember that a rose blooms without interference. That we all could bloom with a little less interference. Taurus is the part of you that remembers, however briefly, that you are not a human doing, but a human being.

Taurus is a fixed Earth sign, unmovable, reliable. Lunar cousins with Cancer, sharing the compulsion to take care and nurture. Where Cancer moves like bodies of water, Taurus is the Earth upon which those bodies stretch, bend, expand, dry up, and flood over. Taurus is what holds together, the structure that supports experience and emotion. Taurus takes the burst of life that is Aries and gives it shape, it settles ash into grass. The Moon is an exalted guest in Taurus, telling us that the emotional body is a body. That if you want to feel supported through your own experience and emotion, your own life, you need to listen to that body. Our bodies are finely tuned machines, flashing at us like dashboard indicators, relaying key information. And Taurus is the part of us that listens.

Taurus energy pulls us closer to ourselves—the gravity of what is gratifying. Comparing Taurus to the Earth is hardly novel—Earth in all its resolute roundness, the most there a thing can be. Earth is nothing without the nature that animates it and the animals that call it home. Earth is nothing without the persistence of life. Enters the word instinct, or how we fix ourselves to a set of patterns and behaviors that provide reward. In spiritual circles, it may be called intuition—or how we bypass the complications of conscious reasoning and land immediately on the answer. Don’t go down that dark alley. That low drone sounds like a lion, run. Break up with him, he’s cheating. These conclusions conclude themselves, no mental interference needed. The reward is a saved life, saved time, cutting through the B.S. Intuition is simple. Animal instinct is simple. We make following it hard. We are suspicious, chronically alert, in our heads, scheming ourselves out of the present moment.  We are trapped by our own intellect, our beliefs, our ego…what if-ing and romanticizing. We put distortions of the mind over Taurus matter, and then wonder why we feel so anxious all the time. Meanwhile, your body knew the answer the moment you posed the question. That is your animal instinct. Listen to it, and you’re in the realm of Taurus. Listen to it often, and you persist.

Here's an experiment. Where is your body right now and what is it doing? What is it wearing and what does it feel like? Chances are, these are strange questions. You’re here but you’re not really here are you? You’re thinking about what someone said yesterday or trying to sail a sea of tomorrows. Take a deep breath, feel your belly rise and recede, be here now. Any relief? Then you’ve experienced the wisdom of Taurus.

In meme Astrology, Taurus is boring, lazy and predictable. Other times, materialistic, stubborn and selfish. Taurus sleeps too much, eats too much, shops too much. But what if these behaviors, these Taurus instincts, represent an automatic and natural attunement to what one needs to survive? What if it’s not too much, but just that you have denied yourself? Taurus eats when it is hungry. Taurus sleeps when it is sleepy. Taurus masturbates when it is horny. Taurus replenishes when it is empty---whether lack of creature comfort, lack of support, lack of money, lack of calories, or lack of orgasms. Taurus keeps reserves, like squirrels that bury nuts to prepare for winter. Answering the call of this animal wisdom, what the body needs—that is not lazy or indulgent. It is wise. It fits you for survival. It soothes a life that is anything but. It positions you as well-rested and nourished, calm, and the squirrel as fed.  We deny ourselves, our bodies, our desires. We ignore calls to stop, to moderate and to slow down. We curtail, make excuses, ask for bottom shelf. Taurus doesn’t. Taurus understands that we are embodied, dense, married to the physical plane—so why not care for it? Why not demand exquisiteness from it? 

I always like to bring up Taurus in relation to Scorpio, the sign that smiles back at Taurus in the mirror, in that uncanny valley way that we think we catch our reflection blink when we didn’t. The Taurus-Scorpio axis is one of survival and security, the scorpion enacting sophisticated and finely evolved mechanisms to stay alive in the desert. Shrewd, calculating, alert. Compare this to the rich, open fields of the wild bull, or the green pastures of cows—there’s a lushness, a natural harmony with one’s environment. And that is the difference between Mars (ruler of Scorpio) and Venus—the difference between fighting and receiving. The entrance of peace after war. One person’s lazy and indulgent is another person’s desire to be catered to, to attract rather than procure, to save precious energy. It is receptivity made routine, because to Taurus, why strive when what you want can simply arrive? Is that lazy? Or efficient and wise? It takes a special kind of creature to wait on desire, to be given the thing, to experience it—and so enters persistence, tenacity, the ability to make millions out of a molehill. The Taurus reticence to divert or change doesn’t make it necessarily stubborn—but perhaps tuned into a result that others cannot see or fathom or dare work towards. Taurus is patient enough to see a thing through to its natural end.

I always bring in mythology to anchor the importance of any sign I reframe. Myths get straight to the essence of a sign. For Taurus, I choose Oshun, the orisha (goddess) of water, sensuality, beauty, fertility, and love in the Yoruba religion. She is the embodiment of Venus, ruler of Taurus. In one version of the myth, Oshun was the center figure in the creation of the world—savior of humanity, restorer of balance, bringer of sweet water and nourishment. Though, Oshun’s role wasn’t deemed worthy at first. Of the 17 deities sent to populate the Earth, Oshun was the only woman. In perfunctory patriarchal fashion, they diminished her importance, her gifts, and her contributions. So, she left. She did not try to convince them of her importance, and in classic Taurus fashion, sat unbothered, admiring herself in the mirror, knowing they would fail. And they did. Earth was barren, dry, devoid of lush and life. The male deities complained of their failure to the Supreme God, Olodumare, who noticed the glaring absence in their midst. Where was Oshun?  Without her nourishing waters, the world was bereft. Life couldn’t bloom. Realizing her importance, the gods welcomed Oshun back, and the world animated with life, bounty, and beauty. In the end, Oshun told them to never dare diminish her significance again. Boom.

Oshun parallels the critical ingredients that Taurus energy brings into the world. Oshun’s story also parallels the shaft Taurus often gets in comparison to other signs. And the societal buy into masculine behaviors as superior to feminine ones (energetically). Beyond memes of naps and snacks, Taurus represents that which makes life a feast of the senses, that which silences the soul in a world that has too much volume, that which takes its time in a world hurrying us to hurry up. That which dares to enjoy. Taurus represents what just makes sense, not in our brains, but in our bones.

The Soft Life: Venus in your Natal Chart

As you know, archetypically, Venus represents what we find pleasurable, what we enjoy, what simple delights have the power to restore equilibrium of soul and spirit. Venus in the natal chart can show us where it is soft, where life can become tenderized. Venus shows us the specific path of least resistance in a life that constantly pushes against us. Venus is for everyone. Everyone has Venus somewhere. Plus, Venus is dynamic. There is no one size fits all approach to softness. Venus’ methods of malleability are myriad, diverse, and unrelenting.

The sign Venus is in in our charts shows us the energies we may embody to step into softness, what activities or mediums we may move to and through to beautify our experience of life. Please keep in mind that for this article, we will be working within archetypal ballparks. The house of and aspects to your natal Venus can mitigate the expression of your soft spots. Nevertheless, admission into the archetypal ballpark can give you an idea of what may feel like a home run for you.

Keep in mind that these vignettes and explainers may also be valid for whatever sign Venus happens to be transiting through. It may represent a 3-4 week period of experimenting with new ways to experience softness and ease. Or even a period of challenge and integration, where life opens a door to softness you’ve previously not seen the value in or been able to walk through.

Let’s begin.

Venus in Aries: May find softness through active pursuit of anything novel, stimulating or challenging. The throughline for Venusian Arians is direct experience with life itself. Always wanted to try rock-climbing and a climbing wall opens near you? Try it. Always wanted to go to a vineyard and smash grapes but all your friends are busy? Do it. As an Aries, solo jaunts may be preferable anyway. Want to become friends with the cool girl across the room? Walk over. Here, the softness enters after a rush of adrenaline, after shooting a shot, through the satisfaction of knocking something off the bucket list, and the pleasure of proving your fear voice wrong. Softness here can also look like passionate engagement in relationships worth fighting for, or an unrelenting insistence that your art, your heart, your beauty, your value…be valued.

Venus in Taurus: May find softness through anything which requires full engagement of the senses. If you can see it, taste it, hear it, touch it or smell it—do it. This Venus placement may actually find softness through the soft life examples I introduced at the beginning, as Taurus loves a good cappuccino, or the feel of expensive sheets. But when we peer deeper, we find that this Venus sign softens when life becomes simple. Anything which uncomplicates the life—a walk through the woods, gazing into the eyes of a pet—or anything which grounds—like mindfully eating your favorite meal--introduces ease. And when you answer the call of animal instinct—so sitting when tired, or even masturbating when horny. Wink wink. Anything that softens the body, softens the Taurus.

Venus in Gemini: May find softness through mental stimulation and curiosity. Like Venus in Aries, Venus in Gemini is an energy that must go up and out. And best if that activity can involve your brain. Trivia night at the local pub? Yes. A bus tour of a city? Absolutely. The Venus in Gemini person giddily absorbs tids bits and bobs, and better if other people are around too. Softness here is created through neuroplasticity—through active learning, wordplay, cracking a joke, communication, and freely following anything that is shiny. To come alive again and again with childlike wonder. Because Mercury rules what we have two of in the body, work with the hands or arms is also implicated. Like the hand-eye coordination of a ping pong game. And never forget the power of a deep breath—Mercury rules the lungs too.

Venus in Cancer: May find softness through enmeshment with community, home, hearth and heart. Of all the Venus signs, Cancer is the one most likely to see softness as an inside job—both inside the home and inside the heart. Active attention to all that it is you feel can feel like the soft slumber that comes after a good cry. Softness here is created through being soft with the self, like a loving mother. Cancer is the initiator of connection with other human beings, so to be able to align hearts with those in community and find chosen (or given) family worthy of your tender heart is an integral soft life ingredient. Also, creating softness for others by initiating care, nurturance, and support returns softness to you tenfold. And never underestimate the power of comfort and familiarity—whether through a recipe, an old show, or through a nostalgic drive down memory lane.

Venus in Leo: May find softness through vulnerable self-expression and the celebration of life itself. Here, instead of boldly going for the sake of experience like the Arian, the Venusian Leo temperament fixates on that which will bring it closer to itself and its potential. Like, following the urge to go to an open mic after declaring to yourself I can sing dammit. Maybe you can, maybe you can’t, but the risk of exposure is needed if you are to grow more in love with yourself. That is the main throughfare to softness with the Leo—the post-performance glow. Whether it is stepping off a literal stage, telling a joke, or going for an absolute compliment-grabber of a haircut—to be seen, received, and regarded for simply being for who you are is where tenderness lives. Leading, guiding, and generosity of spirit soften you too—like the popular girl complimenting the uneasy new kid on their outfit, or the boss recognizing the singular talent of someone on their team. Celebrating others helps you to celebrate yourself helps you to celebrate life in all the different ways it is embodied.

Venus in Virgo: May find softness through meaningful service and tending to the small details of life. The simple act of maintaining a vegetable garden or dedicating yourself to an intricate work of art or writing can invite in a sense of warmth and the satisfaction of a job well done. Even better if the fruits of your labor can be enjoyed by others, or a pet, or a plant, so that their lives are softened by your gracious service. The critical eye of this Venus also invites in softness through attention to that which is often ignored—like clean baseboards, silverware which is complementary in color to your dinnerware, the specific brand and color of red lipstick that will highlight your specific undertone for a specific occasion. Venus here surrounds herself with small reminders that life’s beauty can show up in the mundane and in the process of turning what is into what could be.

Venus in Libra: May find softness through harmony. The harmony of a musical composition. The harmony between colors and shapes. The harmony between words in prose and stanza. The harmony between individuals in relationship. And the harmony that could be between the individual and society. Softness here comes through a classic attention to beauty, that which provides ultimate serenity of spirit. Libra also socializes this need for harmony, finding and creating softness by being the intermediary between two fighting friends, reminding each of them of the value of the other. Softness can come through seeing the validity in everyone’s truth, that perhaps there is no one truth, effectively defanging the poisonous bite of extremity. And softness can come through the simple act of sharing time with a complementary soul. Cultivating elegance and grace of spirit, not just of appearance, creates a reverberation of tenderness from the inside out.  Like conditioner nourishing the strands of tangled hair, so do you have the ability to smooth out what feels knotted.

Venus in Scorpio: May find softness through the catharsis of that which is intense and radical commitment to honesty. Resolving to have a difficult talk with a lover, exposing your haunted past to a friend, putting the rawness of what you feel into song, sharing a dark joke about death—all create a release from which softness can enter. The soft life here looks like becoming unafraid of what used to scare you. And sharing this softness by holding someone else’s hand to hell and back where others would let go. Nothing binds you up like a lie, or like living unauthentically. Untruths create rigidity in expression. Softening into who you are comes at the price of revealing all of who you are to those trusted enough to hear your story. While the truth can sometimes be hard to swallow, it is still infinitely better than choking. Softness may also come through relationship to what is hidden, the mysteries of life, the occult, or that which turns the invisible gears of life. The Venusian Scorpio softens the rough edges of life by acknowledging what lies below the surface and showing us that everything is survivable.

Venus in Sagittarius: May find softness through open horizons and the creation of meaning. Softness comes in the form of finally booking that backpacking trip or that reading from your favorite astrologer or entering yourself into a chili pepper eating contest. Quite possibly all in the same week. Softness is found through these journeys of mind, foot, and mouth, and the necessary freedom needed to dive into them. There is a unique ability here to find softness anywhere in the world, through any belief system, and through immersion into any culture. Diversifying the soft life here is natural, ruler Jupiter ensuring an expansive outlet into just about any area you could imagine.  Venusian Sagittarians don’t need comfort, luxury, or status to feel softened. You just need to know that something is possible. No border, no boundaries, only open space, and the promise of adventure. Softness is in the personal significance of these quests, the meaning they give you, and the meaning they give to life.

Venus in Capricorn: May find softness through commitment to a worthy goal. To be able to build towards something long-lasting, or to build life with another person, that is where Venusian Capricorns delight. Here, softness enters through a sense of pride and accomplishment, a sense of proving oneself to oneself and an earned self-respect. Antithetical as it may seem to softness, nothing can divorce Capricorn energy from ambition and work ethic. But to get to work towards what matters to you, versus spinning your wheels as a cog in someone else’s machine or doing all means to no end, is the differentiating ingredient. The phrase, do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life rings true here. Softness looks like purpose for Venusian Capricorns. Taking life seriously, moving with earnest towards a personal mountaintop, reveling in the milestones along the way and treating yourself in accordance with all that you achieve…that is how you feel softened.

Venus in Aquarius: May find softness through adherence to individuality no matter what. There’s a kind of rebel spirit here, a fixed determination to do the opposite of what others or society tries to coerce you into. Come from a family of scientists? Go into acting. Everyone is turning left? Buy a jetpack and beam yourself up. Raised to hate a certain kind of person? Grow up and that kind of person. In fact, it is my own Venus in Aquarius that inspired this piece to begin with, finding the soft life initiative incredibly reductive and trite. I’ll determine what a soft life is for myself, thank you very nuch. Venusian Aquarians benefit from being a friend to all, from welcoming in all the myriad ways human relationship can deliver an expansive mindset, softening the absolute rigidity of tribalism, nationalism, racism, sexism, ableism, etc.  Aquarius finds softness by eating dessert first, by dancing to the beat of a drum only they can hear and by inviting others to dance with them. Expectation is taxing. Living life on your own terms is freeing. And freedom is oh so soft.

Venus in Pisces: May find softness through genuine connection with consciousness. Venusian Pisceans know that while you and I look like separate entities, we are in fact all connected, all one.  Venus in Pisces softens when it softens into this awareness. You are not really your body, but the energy animating your body. You are not your thoughts, merely the witness of your thoughts. Trippy. But it allows for a type of escape that feels like transcendence. This doesn’t mean disappearing from the world, but rather, the ability to watch the world through the tender distance of compassion. Close enough to hold space yet removed enough not to buy into the propaganda of material reality. That is why art created and shared from this placement touches the soul. Softness here looks like a universal compassion for the plight of the human condition, and the willingness to heal in a world hellbent on causing harm. This is why Venusian Pisceans want to merge with others, so that they may also experience the softness of simply being, accepting, and surrendering.

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My hope is that this talk has opened you to new, more relatable, more personal, and more profound ways of living a soft life. It doesn’t have to be pretty, or showed off, or expensive…it just has to feel good. And we are all entitled to that feeling.