The Astrology of Venus in Scorpio: Persephone and Pieces of Rose, Part 1

Rose

Shortly Venus in the heavens to retraces her steps in retrograde motion. In the divine dance of our heavenly sister around the Sun inside our own orbit around it, she appears to move, stop, and move backwards and forward again. The ancients, in their observations of the brightest star in our heavens noted the complex motion that appears from our perspective on earth over the course of time to trace a pentagram and also a rose.

These are potent symbols, imbedded in our psyches as well as our tarot cards, archetypes of life and love.

The orbit of Venus is profoundly tied with the life cycle of humans. Venus usually moves through a sign in twenty-eight days, matching the lunar month, and a woman’s menstrual cycle. Being within 48 degrees of the Sun’s position at all times, the only major aspect she can make to the Sun is the conjunction which she does every nine months, the length of a human pregnancy. She has been at turns associated with war by the Sumerians and the Maya, and with sensual love by the Romans and the Greeks. Galieo discovered that Venus could be viewed in phases, like the moon, which smashed the idea that the planets revolved around the earth. She could only be thus viewed if she moved around the Sun. So it was that Venus can be seen in the same manner as the moon, moving from “birth” to “death”.

Venus turns back onto her orbit, we are driven to look at events in our past. Venus in Scorpio is a darker Venus than most, delving into our deepest selves. We suspect or perceive the manipulations of others. Relationships with old lovers or significant women are examined with aching compulsion. We are driven to explore relationships that are magnetic in their draw, obsessive in their nature. If we are open enough, we find our own fatal flaw, and if not, find the fatal flaw in others. The story that best illustrates Venus in Scorpio is the tale of the Rape of Persephone, a tale that lay at the heart of the Eleusian Mysteries, a religion of the Greek culture that featured a risen god, established at least 1,500 years before the birth of Christ.

The Back Story of the Rape of Perspephone

Persephone, the daughter of the earth mother, Ceres was raped and forced marriage to Hades. Persephone was gathering flowers in a field, out of her mother’s site when Hades caused the ground to open up and he swept her into his chariot and took her down into the Underworld. As with all things Plutonian, Hades saw what he wanted and took it.

This story marks a period in human history where matriarchal cultures who worshipped the Goddess were overturned. This happened by stunning earth changes (the Theran volcanic explosion around 1600 B.C.) and the invasion of the warrior civilization the Mycenaeans.

Barbara Hand Clow wrote this story of Medea, “The Search for the Golden Fleece”

“. . .The violence of the Earth in my times were beautiful like the wild, wild wind. The Earth crunched and groaned so that the rocks became molten liquid. The water rose so high . . . The volcano was of such violence, the earthquakes shook all that was left in your soul; and then men decided to never trust again.”

The destruction of the powerful matriarchal Minoan civilization centered on Thera marked the first throws of the end of the Bronze Age that existed during the Age of Taurus. We see how slowly astrological ages turn over the reigns of power in the story of the Myceneans, the northern tribe that overtook and redefined Greek culture from 1600 B.C. to their eventual decline at beginning of the Iron Age around 1100 B.C., the Age of Aries. Though historians disagree with the reasons behind the collapse it is said that the Myceneans could not withstand the attacks of invading Dorians who wielded technologically superior iron swords.

In Clow’s rendition of Medea’s story and her part in the Quest for the Golden Fleece, Medea’s mission was to restore the balance of female/male energies due to imbalance caused by the earth changes. In this quest, Jason was forced to kill Medea’s brother, a sacred prince, and Medea killed her uncle to secure the throne of Pagasea for Jason. But these murders poisoned the intent of the quest. Jason refused the throne secured by matrilineal descent, looking “for a better throne”. Jason’s refusal to take the offered throne shattered the last hope for a sacred kingdom based on the king as protector of home and hearth. The trust between man and the Goddess was broken, earth was not blessed, and the imbalance remained. Jason was thus banished by the priestesses of the Moon that raised him.

From that point the power of women was diminished. Athenian women lost the vote, the war goddess Innana morphed in the playgirl Aphodite, the gods did not invite an ancient goddess, Eris, to an important wedding, and Hades was allowed to make off with the Earth goddess’ daughter and force her to be his wife.

Tomorrow: The Story of Ceres

Image of Roses courtesy of Photobucket user GreenWhite

Image of Venus Orbit published under a Creative Commons license from from Wikipedia