The Frog, the Goddess & the Green Wheel of Evolution~ Venus Retrograde 2026

The Dance of Venus~

Every 584 days Venus undergoes a spectacular cycle of death and rebirth during her retrograde period. This current Venus retrograde spans from 3 October to 13 November. The descent begins in the deep fixed waters of Scorpio before moving back into balanced and relational Libra on 25 October.

During this phase Venus will connect with the heart of the Sun (cazimi) in what has been termed the “Venus Star Point” (Arielle Guttman). This conjunction acts as a celestial new moon for Venus and marks the seed point of a new 584-day Venusian cycle. For us it is an opportunity to review and reflect on all things Venus.

The Sumerians allegorized the astronomical movements of Venus in the Myth of Inanna and her descent to the underworld before her resurrection three days later. The three days Inanna spends in the underworld mirrors the exact three days when the physical planet Venus is closest to the Sun and invisible to human eyes. Behind the veil a great mystery of renewal is unfolding.

The “three-day” timeline serves as a powerful cosmic and metaphorical marker that mirrors the exact duration the moon disappears before the rebirth of a new lunar cycle.

In the ancient world, three days was the minimal time required to make sure a person was truly dead.

In mythology stories of death and resurrection centred around a three-day period are often grouped under the archetype of the dying and rising god— Jesus, Attis, Osiris, Dionysus/Zagreus.

But the oldest myths of a three-day death and resurrection belong to an ancient Mesopotamian goddess – Inanna, and later the Akkadian Ishtar.

The “Dance of Venus” speaks to the rebirth of the Goddess.

If you trace the points where Venus aligns exactly with the Sun (Venus Star Points) over an eight-year period, they map out a nearly perfect five-pointed star or pentagram, sometimes referred to as the Venus Rose. In each eight-year cycle, Venus meets the Sun ten times. Five of these happen when Venus is moving forward (Superior Conjunctions), and five happen when Venus is in retrograde (Inferior Conjunctions).

The Star Points pair up to form the five distinct “petals” or points of the star in five specific areas of the zodiac. In our current retrograde period, the Venus Star point occurs in the early hours of Saturday 24 October, at 04.50 BST. This astronomical alignment marks the precise moment Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun at exactly 0°45′ Scorpio.

Venus Retrograde~

What does this mean for us, and how can we work with Venus retrogrades and Star Points?

Venus retrogrades can be considered relational and value focused upgrades. But first we must surrender the old ways of being that keep us in stagnant, stuck or negative patterns. During this 40 day window, we are invited to surrender what is no longer in service to our soul’s evolution and our heart’s opening.

We journey for 40 days and 40 nights through the desert of our soul looking for droplets of moisture or signs of new plant life. This is when we may realise that the verdant abundance we thought we already had was nothing more than a mirage.

It is a time for Reflection, Review, Realignment and above all Renewal.

What is ready to be transformed in us?

In relationships we might think in terms of our emotional or relational patterning that operates from previous wounding or conditioning. In terms of money we could use this time to examine our core beliefs around what we believe we deserve, what we have to do to earn a crust, or what we believe we are worth. It is also a time to consider whether our physical environments reflect our soul and inspire joy and pleasure or whether the places and spaces we occupy reflect drudgery and hard edges. Creatively it could be a time to reconnect with the wellspring and cup of life that offers nourishment and inspiration. Symbolically the glyph for Venus (♀) may connect to the earliest depictions of the Grail as a sacred vessel.

What is particularly interesting about this up-and-coming Venus Star Point is that it lands at the very beginning of Scorpio (0°) and marks the final Venus Star Point in Scorpio of a 100-year cycle that began in 1926. Venus, the planet of eros, is taken into the heart of the Sun in the sign of Scorpio for the very last time in our lifetime.

In Family Constellations, practitioners frequently map out a family “traumagram” back four generations to the great grandparents. Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (how environmental factors alter gene expression without changing DNA code), have been found to reliably pass down the line for four generations before finally beginning to fade. The trauma experienced by your great grandparents may have a bearing on your life today. In terms of the relational or intimate field, a lot has changed in a hundred years and yet… the core wounds that took root in our great grandmothers may continue to be felt and unconsciously expressed through us.

The first Venus Star Point in Scorpio in the 20th century occurred on 21 November 1926. My maternal grandmother was born the following May. For me, and maybe for some of you, the Venus Star Point in Scorpio has accompanied four generations of my family line almost exactly.

This four generational patterning is also seen in the womb connection; a pregnant woman carrying a female foetus also carries the egg cells of her future grandchild. A profound stressor experienced by the great grandmother can therefore directly affect the cellular development of the grandchild and continue to reverberate into the fourth generation.

When I consider my own matrilineal line going back four generations to my maternal great grandmother, I have a deep felt sense of how her death in childbirth created a profound abandonment wound that has painfully reverberated through the female line. From my grandmother’s tragic loss in the first few days of her life, to my mother’s loss of her father in the first few years of her life, these painful experiences have shaped the emotional field of us all.

For those who study astrology you may also be thinking of the Pholus connection in relation to transgenerational trauma and healing. In mythology the skirmish that breaks out between Hercules and the Centaur race is caused by the opening of a skin of wine gifted to the centaurs by Dionysus. The gift came with the proviso that it would not be opened for four generations. Whether out of a misplaced sense of graciousness or the demands of Hercules, Pholus opens the skin too early thus setting in motion the events that lead to his own death and Chiron’s wound.

There is a lot to explore when working with Pholus and Chiron in ancestral astrology.

Curiously, in my own chart the degree of this coming Venus Star Point is exactly conjunct asteroid child. Given that for me Libra/Scorpio spans my fourth house, I feel that the Venusian areas that are presenting themselves for renewal in my life relate directly to childhood and family. With my natal Venus in the 7^th house, I am charting a link between patterns, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that may have been imprinted in my psyche during infancy and childhood (and farther back), and how my intimate relationships have unfolded.

I am also becoming more conscious of issues around value, self- value, creativity, and how I handle and perceive money. The full Venusian gamut really.

From 25^th October to 13 November, Venus moves through the late degrees of Libra (29 to 22). This will conjunct my Black Moon Lilith, Moon, IC, and Uranus.

As my maternal grandmother also had a Moon/Black Moon Lilith conjunction in Libra, I am feeling the stirrings of things from the past that are ready to be made conscious and be transformed. My dreams and real-life experiences are also showing this. In a dream from a few nights ago I was opening new waterways in deep cavernous places. Upon waking from the dream, I had the impression that I was developing more emotional capacity while at the same time, flowing into new territories of my creative life.

Perhaps one of the best ways we can work with Venus retrogrades is our ability to track the events of our own life through the Venus Star Points. Venus’ meeting with the Sun happens with remarkable precision. For example, the last Venus Star Point in Scorpio happened eight years ago when Venus was retrograde on October 26, 2018, at 3° Scorpio.

Can you trace what was happening for you then?

The Green Goddess~

One of the good things about being an avid journal keeper is the ability to look back on old diaries and see if anything stands out from that time.

Here is my entry for that exact date:

Day 6 of cycle. Full Moon in Taurus + 2.

At the top of the page, I had written the words “Water Renewal”, and I go on to write:

Dreamed of a woman clad in green Lycra. She was super bendy like a gymnast and shapeshifted into a frog. She was rolling with other green… (could be women or colours)— just rolling verdant green— like a wheel.

In my entry, I continue to write about frog medicine— singer of songs; transformation; cleansing; emotional rebirth; the awakening of creativity; purifying negative energies; water energy.

All of this I would say is pertinent to a Venus retrograde, and a Venus Star Point in Scorpio. I particularly like the images of the fast-spinning green wheelwoman dressed in green Lycra— The Green Goddess! And of course, green is the colour associated with Venus.

I have to admit the frog woman of my dream did look a bit like Diana Moran, the “Green Goddess” of the 1980s who even looks like a frog in this photograph!

Not long after this dream I journeyed with “Kambo” frog medicine for the first and only time, however in a shamanic sense, frog had visited me on several occasions over the years.

As I write this, I am sensing a whole new meaning to the image of the frog in fairytales (might be another post).

Symbolism of my dream:

The combining of a wheel (representing cyclical movement, cosmic order, and fate) with the colour green (representing growth, healing, nature, and the heart) is a powerful symbol of evolution.

In Eastern esoteric anatomy, the energy centres or chakras are literally translated from Sanskrit as “wheels” (chakras). The Heart Chakra (Anahata) is traditionally visualized as a spinning wheel or lotus with 12 spokes or petals, and its elemental colour is green. Anahata Chakra acts as the bridge between the lower physical chakras and the higher spiritual chakras.

Also of note, in that same entry I wrote about a first couples counselling session I had with my partner of that time, that very day. We trundled on in an unhappy relationship for another year and a half, however the Venus retrograde had worked its bitter-sweet magic and once the relationship was able to be viewed through a clearer lens, it ended. By the time of the next Venus retrograde in May 2020 (in Gemini), we were living separate lives.

Things that are initiated during a Venus retrograde period, much like lunar or solar eclipses, can take a while to percolate through to consciousness and the events/ experiences of our lives, but we can be sure that something is always at work. And sometimes the effects are more immediate.

There is so much more I could write about Venus and my journey through the relational/intimate spheres, but I’ll save that for a future post too.

And I’ve not touched upon how I have charted Venus and Venusian-like themes relating to money, self-value (or lack of it) and creativity in my own life and through exploring the charts of my clients.

At a certain level (for me) this is all wound up with both ancestral and family patterns, and the intimate/relational spheres of being. It runs deep.

I am pointing to this briefly to show how we can work with cosmic and celestial events in tandem with our dreams, relationships, and experiences past and present. Weaving and layering the psyche in this way creates rich and potent resources of personal power, awakening and self-knowing. Charting our inner journey with right brain navigational tools such as symbolism, dreams, and stories provides a mine of creativity, inspiration and healing.

If you are taking the time to work in this way during the current Venus retrograde period, here is the exact 8- year sequence for this specific Scorpio/Libra “petal” of the Venus pentagram.

· 2010: October 28, 2010 (Retrograde point at 5° Scorpio)

· 2014: October 25, 2014 (Direct point at 1° Scorpio)

· 2018: October 26, 2018 (Retrograde point at 3° Scorpio)

· 2022: October 22, 2022 (Direct point at 29° Libra)

· 2026: October 23, 2026 (Retrograde point at 0° Scorpio).

Note: If you would like to work with me on this (or any other astro based session) I am available for astrological consultations where we take a deep dive into themes that are alive for you by charting your astrology, working with myths, dreams, and your experiences through a creative, right brain and symbolic lens.