reviving venus

Venus and the Great Attractor, collage by Emily

Venus and Mercury have been keeping close company for the past few weeks, and both moved into fiery Sagittarius on November 2. The Mercury-Venus conjunction wants to explore, expand and give voice to the feminine — the truth of our bodies, our feelings, our relationships.

As of Saturday, Mercury entered the “shadow” of his upcoming Retrograde — November 24 to December 13 — presenting clues as to what wants to be reviewed, reconsidered and reworked. Mercury-Venus points to relationships as key arenas for re-vision. In Sagittarius — the sign that rules faith, religion and belief systems — we’re ultimately reconciling our relationship with the goddess, our own inner divinity.

Venus and Mercury are now approaching the North Node, which signifies the evolutionary purpose of this time, offering guidance as to the best way to move forward. The North Node in Sagittarius supports trusting and acting on our intuition, aligning with our inner guidance, and opening to a higher vision and greater sense of possibility.

Exact on Sunday, Venus’s meet-up with the North Node is especially significant because it occurs at the degree of the Great Attractor (14 degrees Sagittarius). What is the Great Attractor? According to NASA, “The Great Attractor is a diffuse mass concentration fully 250 million light-years away, but so large it pulls our own Milky Way Galaxy and millions of others galaxies towards it.“

The Great Attractor

The Great Attractor takes the Venusian principle of attraction to a mind-bending extreme. It seems appropriate that the Great Attractor lives in Sagittarius — the purpose of this sign is to broaden our perspective, to take us outside our comfort zone of what’s known and familiar and into a much bigger world. Trying to contemplate the Great Attractor (my brain can barely wrap around the idea of a galaxy) is a very Sag kind of exercise.

Philip Sedgwick, who has done much work on the astrology of deep space, writes about the Great Attractor:

“Symbolically we encounter irresistible drawing power, energetic inclusiveness that leaves no frequency left behind and the ability to see behind an object, presumably rendering full disclosure. Here we have cosmic transparency, irresistible insight and knowledge, and the exclusion of nothing. Finally, there is no longer any validity to the ‘only way’ or ‘one way’ proclamations. Within ingenuity, insight and energetic alertness, option-oriented reality prevails.” (No More One Way)

Shadow Sagittarius looks like getting overly attached to one (i.e., our own) version of the Truth. At the extreme, it’s bigotry and fundamentalism, seeing the world in indelible, irreconcilable polarities — black/white, good/evil, etc. Perhaps this alignment of planets with the Great Attractor opens the potential for our perception to expand beyond duality, to a place where we can stand in our truth without rejecting or denying the validity of other truths.

Sedgwick’s take on the North Node’s conjunction with the Great Attractor is that it “refreshes life mission statements” (Stellar Insights) — which seems like a useful assignment for now (especially since “re-fresh” fits into the Mercury Retro “re-” theme). If we can trust our instincts and take a leap of faith, the “irresistible drawing power” of the GA pulls each of us toward our soul’s mission, our evolutionary potential.

As Venus approaches the North Node and Great Attractor, are we irresistibly drawn to expressing and expanding feminine consciousness? Are women increasingly speaking and standing in our truth? Are we freeing ourselves from old patriarchal perceptions, belief systems and stories that no longer serve us? Can we move into our soul’s mission from a place of love, receptivity and support, allowing ourselves to be pulled forward without needing to push, control, or manipulate?

- Emily Trinkaus