Venus Conjunction 2004
A Rare and Powerful Conjunction with the Sun, at the transit on June 8, 2004
Malvin Artley, our very own esoteric authority, is currently driving across the North American continent. He has nevertheless found time to pen this wonderful analysis of the upcoming Venus transit, which will affect us all. Venus at the deepest level is the Divine Mother, the source so long ago of the sacred spirits that fructified and awakened our animal ancestors with the power of the human consciousness. Malvin also publishes a regular astrological newsletter, to which you can subscribe by clicking the link at the end of this article. It was a beautiful day when I left Vancouver Island. The ferry bore me swiftly across the calm waters of the Juan de Fuca Strait. As the great engines hummed along the water yielded up its little surprises and secrets as seals and the occasional whale would surface for a moment of breath and disappear again into the depths. I wondered at their ability and thought about the stillness that their existence beneath the waters must bring to them. My heart longed for such stillness. The mountains in the distance, still capped with snow, stood as silent sentinels for the ancient land and the ageless, continual renewal of Nature as they bade me farewell. As I left the land of the First Nations peoples and was ushered into the bosom of the Motherland and the waiting, expectant arms of family and close friends, the mountain ranges gave way to vast stands of pine lining the shore. It had been a long ride. The day was bright when I left, but now the Sun began to cast its long shadows through the pines and hills and I knew that my trip was going to be very different to the one that I had planned. Due to the events of recent weeks, I traveled now into an unknown and uncertain future, and that after this trip all of my relationships would be different in some way, whether with people, land or with spirit. I also knew that when I had to come this way again on my way back to my adoptive homeland of red earth and The Dreaming that my Dreaming was to be different, too. I was looking forward, but my current dreams were unsettled. I have started with the preceding paragraph because it ties in with the tone and subject of this letter: the Venus transit over the face of the Sun in a couple of weeks. I also include it because Canada is being specifically stimulated this year and for the next 8 years because the rulers (Vulcan and Venus) of its two synthetic astrological expressions (Taurus and Libra) play a pivotal role in this transit and at this point in time, although the entire world will be affected. True to form as well, I have received a larger than average number of subscriptions from Canadians and Americans since the Wesak letter and I felt I had renewed an old connection in that northern land when I was there but for a short time. I feel Canada has something unique to offer the world in the coming cycle of Venus and I will be interested to see what I feel there, when I pass that way again and say my final goodbyes to my kindred Libran land for the time being. As is usual, this Wesak period has brought its share of liberating influences and personal intensities. Virtually everyone to whom I have spoken over the past week has commented upon the increase in the energies of the times and on how confronting some events have been. The same is true of world events, and we can see that many things that have been going on behind the scenes are being brought forward to be given account of. No one is immune. On the 18th of this month (Australian time) Venus began its retrograde phase prior to its conjunction with the Sun and passage across the face of Sol on the 8th of June. I am sending this letter to you now because that conjunction will closely coincide with the Goodwill Festival on the 3rd and will set the tone for it. I send it now also because during the retrograde phase of Venus over those two weeks there is a grand opportunity to go inward and to explore more fully one's relationship to one's higher Self, especially since this conjunction is going to be particularly combust. As we will see, above all else, Venus defines the relationship between the little self and the higher Self.
Love, Unity and BrotherhoodWe should begin to unravel what this transit will mean to us by reviewing what we know about Venus. Most people and astrologers associate Venus with the feminine archetype and with love in general. It is supposedly the planet that most fully expresses what we know of love and is the planet that is said to bring love to us astrologically.
This latter statement is truer than we know, but do we really know what love is? Most people associate love with romance, friendship, companionship and family life: warm personal relationships. 
Love does indeed underpin all those relationships. From a larger perspective, though, personal love is not true love. It has more to do with attachment than with love many times. From a larger perspective, love is the great unifying force in our universe. I have mentioned this point in previous letters. Brotherhood is seen, then, not to be a warm sentiment or ideal, but is rather the interrelatedness of all life and all peoples. Love, unity and brotherhood are all different terms for the same energy and action. Our local universe is based on love. But, if that is so, then all planets would express love in some way, and in fact, they do. It is simply difficult for us to see those different ways of love sometimes. The love that Saturn helps us to realize feels very different from the love Venus brings, for example. What Venus actually represents to us is to be found in the relationship between our own planet and the planet Venus, esoterically considered. From the ancient lore and Teachings it was Venus Who was responsible for the appearance of the individual consciousness in the humanity of our globe --our own self-consciousness. The great Lives that came from Venus in those days so many millions of years ago brought about a union between the lower, animal form of the humanity of the day and the Spirits Who were seeking experience through the lower planes of earth existence, what we know as our own personal reality of body, mind and emotions. Those Spirits are our own higher Selves. Persona and Spirit were merged via the Soul. Venus thus holds the same relationship to our Earth as the Soul does to the persona in personal terms. So, rather than representing the feminine archetype in the larger view, Venus actually represents the relationship between Self and not-self, between Soul and persona. In our perception of things on the lower planes this works out as standing for a feminine archetype somehow and it does work astrologically, but it is the belief structure of humanity that drives its success in interpretation rather than the truth of the matter. In part two of this article, Malvin examines the esoteric meaning of Venus as the Divine Mother, the source of Souls and her role in our spiritual evolution.
Read part two of The Venus Conjunction   Malvin Artley is an accredited member of the American Federation of Astrologers. His primary focus over the past 25 years has been on the sciences as they express occultism and with bridging work between the two. His special interests in those fields are the human subtle energy system and all the chakras, or energy centres, physics and technology, astronomy and all aspects of Chinese occultism.
He sends out periodic emails about astrological happenings and developments. These letters are sent out as a gift and a service. If you wish to be added to or deleted from the mailing list please let me know. If you feel inspired to pass them on please do so, but do so without alteration or charge. They are sent to people of many persuasions, not just astrologers. Blessings. Click here to subscribe to Malvin's periodic letters.
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