What is it You Desire?

Something very rare is going to occur next year – something no living human being has experienced. It’s time to prepare. Venus will be making a visible trip across the face of the Sun on June 8, 2004 and again in 2012 in a dyad of eclipses that occurs only once in a hundred years. You’ll be hearing about it in the news.

Venus has been making eclipses through the signs of Gemini and Sagittarius for two thousand years and is now about halfway through. When sociable Venus teams up with the chatty signs of Gemini and Sagittarius, the question is likely to be, “What is it you really want?”

Venus rules our desire nature, how we express ourselves as women or what we are looking for in a woman.

Here are some unconscious uses of Venus desire nature:
• wanting what everyone else wants
• wanting something you can't have
• wanting something because someone told you couldn’t have it
• believing you couldn’t have something because someone told you you couldn’t
• wanting something someone else has
• wanting something just because someone else has it
• wanting something or someone all to yourself
• wanting anything in excess
• not knowing what you want
• wanting two things that are mutually exclusive (i.e., good health and a BigMac)
• indiscriminately giving away what you have
• wanting everyone else to want what you want
• forcing everyone else to want what you want

I hope this brings a smile to your face. But there are some more serious aspects to consider. What about wanting everyone to have the same religion you do or wanting more of the world’s resources than you really need? These are unconscious uses of Venus as well, and they are especially important today.

When Venus transits next June at 17 degrees Gemini she and seven other planets are involved in a loose Grand Cross in mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces). Symbolically, this is like holding a package of seeds and emptying it directly onto the ground rather than scattering the seeds or planting them in well-designed furrows. Let them sort themselves out … some to the birds … some to the winds … some to grow new crops.

Next June there will be a heavy sprinkling of new ideas. It’s time to begin asking ourselves, What do I desire? What will I desire? And even, what should I desire?
The last time Venus eclipsed was a dyad in 1874 and1882. In Europe, the Age of Revolutions had just ended. Marx and Engels had just published the Communist Manifesto. There were new ideas in the air, ideas that made historians call this period The Age of Liberalism. But there was an imperialistic backlash as well. Germany and Italy unified as nations, preparing the stage for World War One 30 years later. The telephone was invented in 1876, just in time to get some of these new ideas around!

Venus rules women and there were two remarkable women who appeared on the scene at this time, Florence Nightingale and Susan B. Anthony.

In Time/Life’s Top Hundred People of the Millennium survey, the first woman to appear on the list is Mary Wollstonecraft at #26. Wollstonecraft was one of the first feminists, publishing her seminal work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. Nightingale has position #41 on the Time/Life Survey and Anthony #83.

Florence Nightingale was a legendary force in nursing and hospital reform at a time when most women didn’t pursue professional careers. Susan B. Anthony barnstormed for women’s suffrage in America, brazenly casting an “illegal” vote in 1872. Her actions led to ratification of the 19th amendment 50 years later.

Aspects to the Venus eclipse in 1884 were especially positive. Many advances were made by women at this time. In 1860 the first YWCA opened in New York City. In 1869 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman's Suffrage Association. In 1871, the first sorority was founded in America. In 1872 Miss Victoria Woodall was the first woman nominated for president of the United States. In 1879 President Hayes signed a bill that permitted woman attorneys to plead cases before the Supreme Court. And in 1879, the US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of anti-polygamy laws.

The last Venus cycle initiated many changes for women in America. But as you can see, this transit is about much more than women, it’s about new ideas being seeded onto the planet.

Here are some things you can do to prepare for this transit consciously:

VENUS RULES WOMEN AND WOMEN’S ISSUES
• Review your feelings about how you're expressing yourself as a woman
• If you're a man, think about the women in your life and what they convey about you
• Let go thoughts of revenge, bitterness and retaliation ... try the power of love instead
• Read some books about the ancient goddesses
• Take on an apprentice -- tell someone younger what you think it means to be a woman
• Push yourself into a new area of your own determining
• Ask a woman you admire how she got that way
• Get your mother to tell you some stories about her childhood and what things were like then
• Read some biographies of famous women
• Write some biographies of famous women

VENUS PRESIDES OVER THE CULTIVATION OF DESIRE
• Cultivate your desire nature ... give yourself better and better mental, emotional, intellectual and spiritual food
• Release feelings that you know what others should want
• Go on a diet from desire … set yourself free from desire and be satisfied with what you have
• For a delightfully intuitive look at the nature of desire and its force in evolution, try “Botany of Desire” by Michael Pollans
• Rejoice in what you have
• Celebrate beauty and harmony in your life
• Affirm “What I want wants me.”
• Look in your checkbook and see what you value … we value what we are actually willing to spend money on
• Invest in yourself
• Invest in the future
• Invest in someone else’s future

There are exciting times ahead. You can prepare to use the energies of the Venus eclipse on June 8, 2004 to the very best advantage.