Venus
Venus is the second planet of the solar system and, in astrology, ruler of Taurus and Libra. It represents love, beauty, pleasures, aesthetic sense, affective bonds, money as felt value (not just material) and everything that produces enjoyment. It is, alongside Jupiter, one of the two traditional "benefics".
Origin and etymology
The name Venus is Latin. Venus was the Roman goddess of love, beauty, fertility and victory, equivalent to the Greek Aphrodite. Daughter (in one version) of the foam of the sea produced when the blood of Uranus fell on the ocean after being castrated by Cronos. Her Sumerian-Babylonian form was Inanna/Ishtar, goddess of love and war, and her Egyptian form Hathor.
Astronomically, Venus is the brightest body in the sky after the Sun and Moon. Because of its brightness it is called "morning star" when it appears before dawn and "evening star" when it appears after sunset. This duality — two manifestations of the same planet — inspired in many cultures the idea of Venus' double nature: deep love and surface love, Aphrodite Urania and Aphrodite Pandemos.
What Venus rules
Venus represents the capacity to love and enjoy. How you love, what attracts you, what gives you pleasure, what you consider beautiful, how you bond affectively. It also rules values in a broad sense: what you value and what you monetise (money as "what is worth"). In the body it is associated with the throat, kidneys (aesthetic filtering of the body), feminine hormones. In art, harmony and proportion are its domains.
Venus takes approximately 225 days to orbit the Sun. In natal charts it always appears close to the Sun (no more than 48° angular distance), because its orbit is interior to Earth's. Its transits are fast but powerful: when Venus passes through an area of your chart, things become easier, more pleasant and attractive in that area. Its retrogradations (every 18 months, for 6 weeks) are moments of love and aesthetic review.
Venus in your chart
Look at the sign and house of your natal Venus. Sign: how you love and enjoy (Venus in Aries: direct, passionate, impulsive love; Venus in Cancer: protective, sensitive, homely love; Venus in Capricorn: mature, committed, serious love). House: in which area of life you seek love and beauty (House II = in the material; House V = in romance and creativity; House VII = in partnership). The Venus-Mars combination in synastry is the key to erotic chemistry.
Also known as
- Aphrodite (Greek)
- Inanna/Ishtar (Sumerian-Babylonian)
- Hathor (Egyptian)
- Morning Star