touches he transforms. Adjacent study of spiritual wisdom supported that such a process was to be invited. It was just difficult to manage the emotional hits“ plutonian” learning experiences took on me. I seemed to be in some degree of hell when it came to my finances, esteem, and relationships. Add in being frustrated for not getting why I was unable to stop doing, being whatever was bringing the pain. I scapegoated Pluto while acknowledging begrudgingly that on that infamous“ some level” I supposed I was being helped. At some point I just forgot about Venus. She slipped through the cracks of my Pluto fear.
Time passed. It was easier connecting to the meaning of transiting retrogrades, especially Mercury. But when it’ s encoded into your psychic DNA how do you identify it in your behavior? I had a lot of information explaining what it all meant but what good is that when you don’ t recognize it in who you are? I needed to go beyond concepts and theory to see it in me. I hoped that at some point I’ d get it.
All the while I accumulated more symbolism: her representation of the feminine principal; what represents beauty to us; what we like, our personal values. I remember reading somewhere a favorable aspect between Venus and Mars gave the ability to create what you want and supports the personal freedom to do what you will. Mine are both in Virgo but over fifteen degrees apart. I couldn’ t help but feel abandonment for her. She was close but yet so far from her other half.
Years later when my struggle to know receded out of sight, I was in class listening to the teacher respond to a question. It was when he casually mentioned that natal retrograde Venus indicates an inability to recognize one’ s own beauty the mirror cracked. Something caved internally. I thought of the times when I’ d look in the mirror looking for the person that had just been complimented for what I said, wrote or did, and who I was or how I looked came flooding back to me. I
[ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13 ]
didn’ t hear what else he said. I was in the feeling I always had when looking to see the one complimented in me and instead found her missing for me.
The opaque veil between us thinned. There was an empty space I hadn’ t identified before. That was it. This was how a retrograde planet could be identified within you. It’ s the emptiness. It’ s the missing connection to what the planet represents in your sense of who you are. In Venus’ s case the inability to experience the beauty in me was the blinking neon clue hiding in plain sight. Vacant though it felt, it was Venus being as present as she could. How classic that through my suffering misperceived view of what I was missing, I missed seeing that she required from me what I was looking to others for.
Delving into this has been an important learning for me. A retrograde planet requires you to give to yourself what it represents intentionally whether or not you think or feel you know what you are doing. You do it until it feels natural to be it and then operate from what you have built within and continue adding to it.
Just as the first step to erect a new structure on the remains of an old one is to build a scaffold, you do the same. The scaffold is the knowing that you must give the planet principle to yourself. The consistent doing so fills in the planet structure on the remains of the memory. When you have built to where you can operate from there a natural shift occurs even as construction continues. At a point your structure is strong enough to dismantle the scaffold and support self-reliant expression.
Venus went direct by progression several weeks before I turned 24. I remember noticing that when I was 37 and newly separated from my first husband. Deep in disillusionment I searched to find a memory that fit all the descriptions I understood a retrograde Venus turned direct to be like. It was déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra the illustrious New York Yankee Manager was known to say. I couldn’ t relate. Five years later, taking another look, I recognized there had been a shift though imperceptible then. After she went direct I went from not knowing I could have better relationships and feel better about myself to realizing I deserve to have exactly that. How to make it so? Finding that road took a few more years. I needed my teacher / guide to appear and show the way via astrology and spiritual wisdom. I’ ve been building that structure one step at a time ever since.
Cheryl Hopkins is an astrologer, teacher and energy healer. Born in upstate New York, she graduated from New York’ s Fashion Institute of Technology with a degree in Business Merchandising. She enjoyed a successful career in sales in the womens’ apparel industry for twelve years. From there she moved into the corporate world beginning with a several year stint at Calvin Klein Cosmetics.
Though a student of human psychology and development for many years her interest in astrology wasn’ t serious until she received an astrological consultation as a gift in the mid-eighties. It elevated her understanding that astrology is a valuable catalytic tool for deepening self-awareness and changed her life’ s direction.
She apprenticed with her first teacher learning astrology, spiritual wisdom and energy healing in the early 1990 ′ s. She is a level II certificate holder in Steven Forrest’ s Evolutionary Astrology Apprenticeship Program and is the Program Director for The National Council For Geocosmic Research( NCGR) Richmond, Virginia chapter. As an energy healer, Cheryl is a PSYCH-K™( Psychological Kinesiology) Facilitator and Reiki Practitioner. She maintains her practice in the Charlottesville, Virginia area at the foothills of the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains.
Visit her at cherylhopkins. com
O P A ❥ The O rganization for Professional Astrology 14 T H E C A R E E R A S T R O L O G E R W I N T E R 2 0 1 4