Before We Descend:
A quick note before we head underground: my Sacred Aromatics Foundations program begins October 14th. We'll spend six weeks exploring the history, ecology, and energetics of sacred scents and oils. It opens right inside this Venus retrograde (more on that below), and I'm trusting the cosmic timing ;)
Earlybird pricing ends October 11. Join me here.
Is the light of autumn not the best?
September, for me, is yellow. It's the month of giant sunflowers and bushy rabbitbrush.
October is red. Rowan berries weigh the branches of our elder tree so low I can gather bunches with ease.
We're invited, cosmically and ecologically, to enter the dark.
I've written a longish article about some of the themes we'll experience this month...a new kind of quarantine, Venusian retribution, and the rage we transform in the underworld. More on this below.
Because first....I love this time of year. Many of you know I'm a triple Libra — new moon baby. All this to say…it's my birthday month!
And I have a present for you :)
To celebrate, I'm opening up our monthly Rewilding the Temple ritual to everyone, free of cost. These gatherings are always so powerful — to meditate, anoint, and journey together in sacred circle is such a much-needed practice for these wild times.
Again, you can join for freeeeeee as my gift to you — but you do need to register. I'll share a replay with everyone who signs up :)
>>> Join me on Saturday, October 10, at 10am PT!
Now, back to that article...
A Cosmic Quarantine is Coming
This month, Venus is diving headfirst into Scorpio's underworld territory. She is training down there. Battling demons, sharpening skills. Becoming queen.
And not only is Venus in Scorpio…she went retrograde yesterday, October 3.
Venus goes retrograde all the time — every 18 months or so — so the call to revisit Venusian themes around love, beauty, sensuality, the feminine, and what we value is nothing new.
In Scorpio this means revisiting existing underworld themes that have still not been addressed: the places our Venusian feminine has been abused and repressed will awaken and demand a reckoning.
This is kind of a big deal — one that makes this Libra-Scorpio autumn pretty f-ing intense.
If you’re a woman right now, you’re probably like I know. My witches and I are gathering for a rage circle tonight. Wanna come?
This is perfect Venus in Scorpio energy -- which I dive into in full over here.
But about that cosmic quarantine:
Venus Rx lasts 40 days. Sound familiar? Yeah…just a whole Jesus in the desert era vibe.
Even the word quarantine comes from the Italian phrase quaranta giorni, meaning forty days.
40 days is a container for transformation — and Venus, in her feminine and cyclical glory, leads us through this alchemical process.
Enter the Cave and Retrieve Your Crown
Persephone and Inanna are essential guides through the dark passages ahead.
I often feel as if Persephone is Venus in Libra — the equinox crossing, descent, and cosmic empowerment through just rulership. The sensuality of the pomegranates and the respectful relationship with Hades in the end all serve the cycles of life that create the cosmic balance Libras hold so dear.
Similar to Persephone, the Sumerian goddess Inanna finds her power through the trials of the underworld. Inanna is queen and goddess of love, sex, and war (heyyy Scorpio).
She decides to visit her sister in the realm of the dead, and must pass through seven gates. She removes an item of clothing at each gate, and by the time she enters the underworld, she is nude, stripped of her regalia and power. Her dark sister then kills her and hangs her corpse upside down.
Yet through various mythological events, she is revived with the food and water of life and returns to the surface…only to see that her husband, rather than grieving or trying to find her, has taken her throne.
I mean — the metaphors are not lost on me here. You?
But, with the power of the underworld and her divine rebirth behind her, Inanna sends her husband to the realm of the dead in her place. For someone must stay there — it's part of the bargain.
Inanna then, is Venus in Scorpio. A full on death march and rebirth. A sovereign queen who takes no shit and stings the husband who betrayed her.
Both of these goddesses descended to dissent — Persephone against the idea that a woman can only be valued in her youthful innocence. Inanna against the patriarchal overtaking of sovereign rulership.
As we travel through the underworld with Venus this season, we too have a 40-day container to excavate the underworld and mine the gold that awaits us. And we too just might return with a sting of dissent for those who would suppress our drive to restore this earth to cosmic order alongside Ma'at.
The full article holds the rest of the descent:
- Ma'at weighing hearts in the underworld,
- what Venus stirred up 8 years ago and how it's echoing today,
- and a 1930 Atlantic article (from the first Venus Rx in Scorprio this cycle) that is fascinating.
>>> Read the Full Article on Substack
