AAh, Venus and Pluto are dancing the tango together again, this time it’s an opposition.  Sure, Deb, all that fancy astro-jargon – but what does it really mean? Venus is the planet of Love, Beauty, Art, the goddess in all of her fertile glory.  Venus represents all that we desire, wish for and want.  Pluto is the god of the Underworld, darkness, transformation, death, rebirth, all that is hidden, taboo or forbidden. When they dance together, we are taunted by what we yearn for, yet cannot attain.  We are filled with passion and craving.  We feel we are attracted to someone or something that we must have, it stirs us on a visceral level.  Most likely we cannot have the object of desire because they belong to someone or something else. Pluto and Venus often indicate a triangle.

Now this triangle is frequently, but not exclusively, a maddening situation where one person feels drawn to another who is married or in another relationship.  If you are in one of these situations, a transit of Venus and Pluto as it is now may heighten your longing and cause you to act upon your obsession.  And of course, this creates the soap opera that is so present with Venus and Pluto.  A hot little secret just between the two of you, did they or didn’t they? Everyone wants to know.

Many of us are born with Venus and Pluto together in our horoscopes, so when these moments come about, these dramas are heightened and often hover around us, luring us in.  But if you are living with this on a regular basis in your own horoscope, you often find that your relationships usually involve some third party that creates this triangle. And it may not be another love object – it could be the loved one’s cat.  Or mother, grandmother, boss, best friend or job.  Something or someone is in the way of achieving perfect bliss in love.  An entity is enticing and distracting one of you from a commitment in your life.  If you find you can’t resist temptation and you go for a wild ride, you are irrevocably changed. Your life is never the same – you know too much.  

Here’s a story about that…

Once upon a time when gods and goddesses roamed the earth, Demeter, the goddess of agriculture was gathering flowers.  At her side was her young daughter, Persephone.  As she continued to collect flowers, it suddenly occurred to Demeter that her daughter was missing.  Frantic, she wandered, looking everywhere on earth for Persephone. She traveled many miles in search of her daughter, but to no avail. This caused the goddess to experience great sadness and therefore the land suffered. No crops would grow, the land was ruined, the ploughs were broken and animals died. Upon learning from reliable sources that her daughter had been abducted by Hades (Pluto) and taken to the Underworld, she appealed to Zeus, her brother, to have Persephone returned. After all, it had been Zeus that gave Pluto permission to take Persephone since he was looking for a bride.  And Demeter vowed to Zeus that if her daughter was not returned, the earth would continue to suffer. 

It was arranged that Persephone could return to the upper world, except for one small detail. She could not have had anything to eat while she was in the underworld, or the Fates would prevent her from leaving.  But Pluto had offered Persephone a pomegranate and she had eaten the seeds of the fruit.  After a discussion and negotiation, Persephone was permitted to leave the underworld for only half the year, each year. The remaining half of the year she was to live with Pluto in the underworld, as she was now the goddess of that realm.  And each year, for half the year, the earth experiences a dying of all its agricultural.  In the other half of the year, the earth is rich with life.

Life was never the same for Persephone, as she lost her innocence and learned of the shadows and passion of desire. So it is with Venus and Pluto, we are taken into a mysterious realm where our relationships are irrevocably transformed and we accept life in both darkness and light.