The Venus Day Post

a tale of two 8th house Venus retrogrades

Hallo bb,

Happy Venus Day! How are you doing? Venus retrograde squared Uranus on Wednesday (8/9) bringing some unexpected news (hopefully good news?) and on Sunday, Venus will meet the Sun, marking the halfway point of the retrograde bringing breakthroughs, clarity, and (at least for the day) pure pleasure.

(If you want to chat about what’s been coming up for you during this summer’s Venus retrograde, I’d love to connect with you for a 1-on-1 reading.)

As for me, well, I’m humiliated to report that I’m finally addicted to TikTok. I was very proud of having never scrolled on there before. I made it through quarantine, my first year living alone when I basically never left the house for depression rather than pandemic reasons, and a completely delusional heartbreak situation last summer and fall without ever playing with the fire that is the clock app. But now? I’m officially part of the cult. I’m astonished by TikTok’s algorithm and its ability to reflect our psyche back to us; it’s like its own form of divination.

My swiping started after a friend sent me a video (probably from a former Survivor castaway tbh) and I couldn’t help myself but dive into the abyss. My guilty pleasure is the most basic kinda “day in my life” blog girlies, and TikTok serves them up one after one. Finally! I can relax and fully shut off my brain while someone chops strawberries, makes an açai bowl and gently dabs hyaluronic acid on their face. Eventually these videos opened up another portal door: the one that leads to #SwiftTok. I didn’t expect to spend this week immersing myself in the Swifties: a fandom that obsessively combs through the clues Taylor Swift leaves in her music videos, costumes, subtle winks on social media and even lighting choices on the Eras tour. Scrolling through unhinged theory after obsessive analysis after unhinged theory felt like taking a college level course on hypnotizing a fan base via brilliant marketing tactics—even if, yes, from my novice Swiftie POV, it was totally obvious that she was going to release 1989 (Taylor’s Version) at the final show of the Eras tour about twenty clues earlier than the consensus, but why not keep the analysis going for the likes?

Anyway, that’s all to say—Venus retrograde was squaring Uranus this week: unexpected plot twists were to be expected. But I didn’t have spending this much time thinking about Taylor Swift on my bingo card. But what a wild Venus retrograde she’s having, right? She’s essentially created a monoculture around her Eras Tour that’s so strong that canceling a show would damage the economy of that city.

Taylor Swift doesn’t have a verified birth time and there’s some disagreement amongst astrologers about whether her rising sign is Scorpio or Capricorn, but I’m team Capricorn rising. The Scorpio rising chart for her is compelling: it paints her as a generous troubadour and brooding poet obsessed with cultivating her unique private world. The Scorpio rising chart is motivated by an inner child philosophy and imagination. It makes her less Taylor Swift and more Joni Mitchell. It’s the Taylor Swift “character” if you will, especially the character she created in her country music origins.

But the Capricorn rising chart reveals who Taylor Swift really is: a gifted wordsmith and cunning trickster (Mercury and Uranus on the ascendant) with a fiercely loyal and near-militant fanbase (Midheaven and Mars in Scorpio in the 11th house) who will be remembered as someone who absolutely slayed capitalism through staying true to herself and taking back what she owns (Venus in Aquarius in the 2nd house with the North Node).

Taylor Swift is 33 which means that she’s in a 10th house profection year focused on career, public image and success. Her 10th house is Libra making Venus the most important planet for her this year, and this summer’s Venus retrograde particularly resonant. Venus retrogrades aren’t always about us, but this one is definitely about Taylor Swift. As a Capricorn rising, Venus retrograde in Leo is putting focus on her 8th house: the place of shared resources and wealth, power dynamics, loss and collaborations. It’s a part of the chart that’s often misunderstood because it contains the parts of life that aren’t meant for polite conversation: death, taxes, the occult and what comes up in therapy. Anyone who has prominent 8th house placements (myself included) can tell you that the 8th house giveth and the 8th house taketh away, but a big part of receiving its gifts is through accepting that loss is natural and you can’t control everything. Collaboration is key.

Back in the spring, Taylor Swift had a wild Eclipse season. First news broke that she had broken up with her longtime partner Joe Alwyn, and soon after she began a very public fling with The 1975’s Matty Healy that seemed potentially damaging for her reputation. They broke up by mid-May though and Taylor’s Venus retrograde has been defined less by relationship drama and more by the massive success of her tour and continued project of re-recording her first six records. All 8th house topics. She released her version of Speak Now on July 7th, and at the final show of the US leg of her tour on August 9th, she announced a release date for her version of 1989. Also the song “Cruel Summer” which was on her 2019 album Lover has experienced its own kind of renaissance as Swift opens each of her touring shows with it. She decided to release it as a single in its own right and its climbed to the top of the charts. (Fun fact: Lover was released during the last Venus starpoint in Leo in August 2019). Revisiting past artistic projects is a Venus retrograde theme and with this retrograde going over Taylor’s south node in Leo, there’s something very karmic happening for her. She’s breaking curses so that she can claim her future, but she’s also really owning her Leo south node power. She’s lived many lives as a star and now the whole world—like, really, the whole world, including all these random men on TikTok who went to the Eras tour with their wives and can’t believe that “Taylor Swift is like an athlete?!?!—is taking notice.

On the 8th house topic of accumulating and sharing wealth, according to Forbes, the Eras Tour has grossed more than $300.8 million surpassing the profits of tours by Elton John, Bruce Springsteen and Harry Styles this year. Swift isn’t keeping all that money to herself though, as she made headlines in late July for giving over $55 million in bonuses to her tour staff including “life changing” $100k bonuses for tour truck drivers. The 8th house can be a place where wealth is hoarded or used to control, but its much better when that power is shared.

Venus rules not only Taylor Swift’s 10th house of career and public image but also her 5th house of creativity, sex and romance, as well as her IC which relates to her home as well as her legacy. As discussed, this retrograde has included a lot of her digging into the archives and revising past creative projects, but there’s also a theme of reconciliation for her in both romantic or creative relationships. Through this retrograde, Taylor has reconciled with both her ex Taylor Lautner (who was featured in a music video for her version of Speak Now) and her ex BFF Karlie Kloss who showed up to the final show of the Eras tour on August 9. I’m not going to get into the #gaylor stuff on here, but if you know you know, and all I have to say about it is: maybe Taylor Swift is gay or bi or whatever, but also, whirlwind borderline romantic best friendships are a real thing and the crash afterwards is … very hard. Often require their own breakup songs. Doesn’t need to be a sexual relationship to have a profound impact. Sometimes platonic is worse. I speak from harrowing personal experience.

ANYWAY, during the last Venus retrograde in Leo in 2015, Taylor reconciled with Kayne West, publicly forgiving him for what happened between them at the 2009 VMAs. Unfortunately that reconciliation didn’t end up going so well—it was only a few months later in early 2016 that Kanye dropped “Famous” which led to an ongoing public battle between them leading to Swift basically going into exile until she could smooth over the drama. Let’s see if anything gets messy, particularly between Taylor and Karlie Kloss come early next year, but I think because Taylor is a Capricorn rising who is now past her Saturn Return, she knows what fires are worth stoking and stays away from the rest.

All in all, Taylor Swift is having a fantastic Venus retrograde. She navigated her public breakup, avoided the major damage that usually comes with dating a beyond problematic fuckboy like Matty Healy, and stayed true to her purpose of slaying capitalism and sharing that wealth with others. Even though the 8th house can sometimes be associated with scary things like loss, debts and messy power dynamics, it’s also a place to gain power and influence people. That being said, there’s another Capricorn rising pop star who’s experiencing the uglier side of an 8th house Venus retrograde: Ariana Grande.

Ariana Grande turned 30 in June, and is in a 7th house profection year focused on relationships, marriage and contracts/agreements. Like Taylor Swift, Grande is a Capricorn rising and has a Moon-Jupiter conjunction in her birth chart. Moon-Jupiter is an aspect that makes someone a naturally popular with the people, a local celebrity if you will. But Ariana’s Moon-Jupiter in the Libra 10th house gives her less of a populist and more of a “people’s princess” vibe. There’s something a bit haughty or untouchable about her.

Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, two Capricorn risings having very different Venus retrogrades.

For Ariana Grande, this summer has been defined by scandal (another key word for Venus retrograde). On July 17th during a New Moon in her 7th house opposing Pluto and squaring the nodes (read: unearthing lots of fated drama), news broke that Grande and her estranged husband Dalton Gomez were headed for divorce after two years of marriage. A few days later on the 20th, as Mars opposed Saturn (keyword: messy roadblocks)—an aspect that Grande has in her own birth chart—it was announced that Grande is dating her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater who before this news broke was seemingly happily married to his longtime partner Lilly Jay. On July 27th, after Venus stationed retrograde, Lilly Jay broke her silence after being blindsided by the news of Slater and Grande’s affair to say to the press that “Ariana is not a girl’s girl.” A phrase that will go on to haunt Grande and become a mantra in this news cycle. As the retrograde has gone on, reports keep coming out about how Grande and Slater were “sloppy” in hiding their affair while Wicked was shooting and Slater was definitely still with his wife, most recently, it seems that Grande is giving Slater his space.

Affairs. Divorce. Power dynamics. These are all 8th house topics. The pervading theme of this Ariana Grande narrative though has been her fans coming to terms with the fact that she’s always been like this. She literally has a song called “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored.” The clues were hidden in plain sight. Ariana Grande is not a girl’s girl. There’s a sense of loss that comes with this, especially in a culture where we project so much onto celebrities. If the people’s princess could do something like this then who’s to stop anyone from doing it? Ariana Grande is also experiencing her exact Saturn Return this year, as well as Uranus going over her natal Venus. Her desires are shifting rapidly and her darker side is being unexpectedly revealed, all while she must grapple with her entrance into true adulthood. Especially for those born at night (as Grande is), the Saturn Return can be a deeply humbling experience. The people’s princess knocked down to Earth.

Comparing these two very different Venus retrograde experiences for two people who are not only close in age and do the same job, but also have (in some ways) very similar birth charts: I’m struck by how 8th house topics really come down to balancing the books. Part of this is both of them being Capricorn risings and Swift being post Saturn return while Grande is in the thick of hers. (Taylor Swift’s last Venus retrograde in Leo in 2015 was the prelude to her fall from grace and look where she is now!) Ariana Grande, like anyone struggling with a difficult 8th house transit, needs to fire her bookkeeper, open up (literal or figurative) Quickbooks and start collecting receipts. The 8th house rewards showing your work, and luckily Venus retrograde brings a chance to reflect, review and start over if one must.

Let’s see how these stories as well as our own keep developing. If you’re a Capricorn rising, Pisces rising or Libra rising, 8th house topics might be front of mind for you right now (whether that’s financial, emotional or both). If you want to talk about it, book a reading and I’d be thrilled to hold space for you.