Cultivating Receptivity
When one thinks of cultivating, the image of nurturing a seed into a plant comes to mind.
The seed naturally knows where to go and what to do.
Direction is innate within.
But it still needs cultivating…nourishment, light and space to grow.
Realize you have all you need.
Retrogrades slow energy to cultivate receptivity for evolving energy patterns coming into availability for the collective…
Traditionally seen as an opportunity to work on inner consciousness, they’re truly gateways into higher awareness and ascended frequencies.
To work with a retrograde, understand the planet, the themes and if they’re connected to any of your natal planets or points.
Explore Venus and Chiron’s retrograde through astrology, focusing on what it means and where to look in your natal chart to apply it to your experiences…
Find the passion for your expression.
Venus, the planet that governs giving/receiving and more commonly known as relationships, moves retrograde late July 22nd/early July 23rd at Leo 28 degrees, 36 minutes in the theme of Commitment {Gate 29}.
Continuing through the themes it recently traveled but in reverse, beginning with Commitment, completing on September 4th at Leo 12 degrees, 12 minutes in Retreat {Gate 33}.
Following the light and warmth of Leo season, Venus finds the passion for your expression…the commitment, the intention…what fuels you.
As Venus moves retrograde, it asks you to re-look at these themes, going back over them to ensure you understand their significance:
Beginning with Commitment to patiently persevere until you recognize which direction and actions support movement forward.
Your connection to your Higher Self purifies desires.
The theme of Commitment works to discover what delights you, re-establishing connection to what you want to fulfill, released by society expectations.
To look at desires with lightness, recognizing what you want to feel, inspiring you to move in a different direction and giving focus through intention.
Venus’ retrograde begins a re-focus on relationships, reconnecting you through one mind, one heart.
To see where to place your energy, take time for movement which deepens concentration in your subconscious emotions to bring understanding to challenges you’ve been tunnel thinking.
Tunnel thinking occurs when you identify with one way or behavior that creates a spiral of the same pattern.
But it’s stimulated by society paradigms, rather than your true self.
The one mind, one heart is created when you release identity and create harmony with the light within and the vision you have that your emotion fuels.
Bringing desires into reality.
No energy works alone. It takes a village.
Pluto and Neptune are working together to point your focus to Venus through a yod, finger of God, aspect.
Yods, or spikes as they are also known, put the attention on of the themes based on its different energy approach.
While Pluto and Neptune are in later degrees of divine feminine, Earth and Water energy, Venus is traveling in Fire, the element of light and divine masculine direction.
When you start with the yin approach, Pluto and Neptune bring, there’s a surrender to the experience in front of you.
The surrender is re-directing where you thought you were headed and even the focus of what you’re working on or with.
The yod is a rare aspect, although we’ve had a few “rare” aspects recently {like the Grand Square in both May and July} which shows the transformative times we’re in.
Unlike an inconjunction aspect where 1 planet redirects another and signifies adjustments are needed with a clear difference in approach…
2 planets in sextile, as Pluto and Neptune are, confuses at first, because both planets have a similar intent, while the planet they’re pointing to {Venus}, doesn’t yet understand what to do.
It’s compounded because Pluto and Neptune impact generational themes to evolve humanity and as a result, spend more time in each theme until it’s fully understood.
But Venus is an individual planet focused on relationship, and moves through themes in about a week’s time, so there’s an urgency to get it.
Be patient with yourself as the stress of time won’t serve you to focus on.
Instead, breathe, flow and play.
There’s a seriousness that emerges when you think time is short, especially when you’re in completing energies and all 3 planets are in later degrees as Venus’ retrograde begins.
Since there’s all 3 energy approaches present, cardinal initiating/honing in to focus/evolving through experimentation, it’s an opportunity to blend and mix up the way you manage energy in any given moment.
As collective planets, Pluto and Neptune help see the bigger picture so it seems counterintuitive that they would be helping you with Venus’ current theme of commitment.
However, it’s when you disentangle from your identity that you truly can be inspired, the fuel for your purpose.
Inspiration comes when your vessel is empty…
And Venus does have support for this, as it kicks off its retrograde, with the North Node in later degrees of Libra.
Unlike the yod aspect, Venus trines the North Node so they talk the same language and come from similar approaches.
The North Node works with the seemingly opposite South Node to bring your developed talents and skills to support what you’re becoming.
In the themes of Beginning and Harmony, the Lunar Nodes in final degrees of Aries and Libra are working on themes of individuality as it relates to others, your relationships.
To discover the rhythm of resources and commitments when you let go of the ordering of things.
As Venus moves along its retrograde and reaches the mid-level degree in Leo, approximately a week after Lion’s Gate {August 8th}, it will trine Chiron.
At this time, what is hidden can be more easily seen.
Throughout the summer, Venus brings experiences in the themes of Commitment {Gate 29}, then the pursuit of Answers {Gate 4}, followed by guiding to Virtue {Gate 7} and stopping with Retreating to remember your Higher Self in all things {Gate 33}.
To explore a summary of the themes Venus retrogrades through, visit this blog post: Retrograde Review 2023
Less than a full day after Venus retrogrades, Chiron follows. Venus and Chiron are both are in the element of fire, which brings the passion that fuels, and spreads quickly with intent.
While Chiron begins retrograde at a mid-level degree, it does initiate understanding at the highest, witness, level of Arousing.
Rising from the Ashes
On July 23rd, Chiron moves into retrograde at Aries 19 degrees, 57 minutes and completes December 27, 2023 at Aries 15 degrees, 27 minutes.
Already in the midst of shaking foundations to awaken patterns that are supportive to higher levels of consciousness, Chiron moves you into a slower inner journey to gain clarity.
To see patterns clearly, take a breath to reset your energy and notice where in your life there’s uncertainty, and a pull to find clarity to release discomfort.
The uncertainty is built from the fear of not knowing but rather than ask for clarity through thinking, it’s an energy that works through being present in the moment.
Allowing the body to feel what it needs to feel, to be present with it before understanding it.
Channeling the energy in service of creativity, which naturally brings about connection to Higher Self.
Clarity comes spontaneously in the moment when present.
Initiating inner presence and creating without agenda brings awareness.
If you find yourself worrying about the future, trying to force an outcome or possibly even caught up in another’s expectation…
It’s leaning into the lower or fear-based energy, which creates uncertainty.
While it may sound easier said than done, clarity emerges when you trust the turmoil is disrupting what needs to go.
Turmoil is trapped energy, re-creating from an association with the past that is limited your present growth.
Witness new understanding emerge when you see spirit at work…
Be gentle with the experience, even when it disrupts your understanding, to awaken true clarity and emerge with hope.
Hope prepares you for the next energy, Detachment, similar to final degrees in astrology symbolizing completion.
This means you feel a bit of the old world and the new emerging, until you release the past patterns and hold they have on you.
The detachment supports releasing expectations which empty your vessel for the new the North Node is guiding you to, throughout this summer.
And reconnects to your inner rhythm with the South Node.
As the Initiating Grand Square prepares to complete, the Sun in Leo brings focus so you can see where you’ve been telling yourself a limiting story.
There’s a pause to embody emotions with focus…where do you desire the energy to lead?
The void of creation is empty of past and future.
Anticipation is the origin of source…to be able to be in a state of being that allows energy to move into form.
The Lunar Nodes are rearranging patterns through initiating awareness, asking to embrace new ways of being, leaving the past for what is not yet clear.
While Pluto in retrograde, in a similar cardinal energy, clears up confusion as you loosen the hold on systems for stability.
Take a breath, put your hand on your heart and ask what can you do in the present?
The Sun shortly moves into Leading with the Heart {Gate 31} supporting the move out of the mental construct into the present action state to realize, rather than fantasize, your vision.
For individual guidance, explore these options…
Meet Deb
Hey there! I’m Deb Farina, a life and spiritual coach, who also mentors entrepreneurs, to find your true/soul expression.
As a life coach and an energy mentor, I guide you to reveal conditioned perspectives, illuminated through intuitively guided esoteric knowledge that is channeled.
As a career coach and entrepreneur mentor, I support you to release your individual expression, guiding your gifts to emerge in benefit of the collective and your soul journey.
All at your divine pace and timing.
With over 20 years of coaching experience {10 as an entrepreneur}, I’ve been called to specialize in spiritual growth and development as well as focused expansion in relationships and business.
Unlike traditional business coaching, mentoring guides you to grow your business in alignment with your energy, deepening your connection and focus of intuition so your strategies are never limited by conditioning.
The intuitive strategy approach develops and brings trust in your gifts while the energy understanding affirms the natural approach of your design to express.
I reside in New Jersey with my husband, Vince and cat, Josie.