Let's talk about Venus retrograde.

Before Venus retrogrades, it rises in the evening. After the retrograde, it will rise in the morning. When Venus is the evening star, it is the destroyer. When it's the morning star, it's the bringer of new beginnings.

Retrograde Venus is the meeting between the false self and the shadow self.

There's a Venus myth that's we've all grown up hearing, one that built American culture in its early stages. We're not told that it's a myth a lot of the time.

When the colonizer Cortez arrived in the Americas, it's said that the Aztec king thought he was the god Quetzalcoatl, coming back. It's said that he gave Cortez all the sacrifice and gold that he asked for, due to his naive belief.

What we're often not told is that this isn't an Aztec mythology, but an modern day American one. This never happened. The story was made up by Cortez himself. In this story, Cortez compares the newly arrived white man with a native god, and uses the European ideal of a noble savage to his own benefit.

This is the mythology we inherit today, about Venus. It is a story of strategic social identity and gold.

Venus retrograde in Scorpio will begin on October 5th, 2018. We're in it's shadow period, which means that Venus is already transiting the degrees that it will retrograde in.

What are the issues you deal with today, in terms of what you believe about yourself and what others believe about you? Who gets the pay off when you perform the identity that you do on a daily scale? How do you integrate your aesthetics and your values?

The false self is the self you use to survive. The shadow self is the self that the false self tries to avoid. We all have each of these selves. When they meet, what kinds of things do they talk about? Can they mediate a truer sense of you, or do they only joke at the possibility of being such a thing?

Try to love yourself. Especially as people of color, any expression of authenticity can become a trap. We have to learn how to navigate the land of mirrors. For whose benefit? What complexes of selfishness and altruism do we pass through?

Venus retrograde in Scorpio asks us the questions we don't want to ask out loud, the questions that embarrass us. Who are we pretending to be (and how might our skills of always pretending be useful for bigger and better goals)? How can we make more money (and what does it mean for our solidarities and sensibilities should we meet our goals)?