Venus Meets Pluto in Aquarius — Underworld Revelations in Love and Power

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology [https://nightlightastrology.com/].

Happy Monday, everybody. Today, we are starting the week off with a conjunction from Venus to Pluto. That's one of those conjunctions that gets a lot of clicks, a lot of interest from people who are into astrology. I'm going to give you five things to watch for today, given this combination that I think will be really useful.

Later, we're going to be doing some horoscopes this month as the solar eclipse in Aquarius is approaching, and we also have a number of planets moving into Aquarius and making the conjunction to Pluto. I'm not going to do those today. I'm going to save it for just a minute, because we're going to do those closer to the time that Mars comes into the conjunction with Pluto, and that'll be a good segue between the finality of all these planets conjoining Pluto and the upcoming Solar Eclipse.

So if you're looking for horoscopes on this conjunction, I'll tell you a little bit about how you can start thinking about that today, but then we'll do horoscopes later as more planets get into Aquarius. So that is the agenda for today.

Before we get into it, remember to like and subscribe. Subscribing helps our channel grow so much. We appreciate it. If you just click the subscribe button today when you're listening, if you're not yet subscribed, it helps us. We really appreciate it. The thumbs up also helps.

Transcripts of any of these daily talks can be found on the website, which is Nightlight astrology.com, and don't you know it. It is time for my monthly webinar this week. If you go to the events page and click on live talks, you're going to see that my talk on the 10th house and the degree of the midheaven in ancient astrology, they are not identical.

The midheaven is a degree that can float freely in the ninth, 10th, 11th houses. We're going to talk about the difference between the whole sign 10th house and the degree of the midheaven in ancient astrology. Tell you more about why this isn't just a career house. It's actually a lot more than that. So if that's interesting to you, you want to learn more about the career house in your chart. Check this out.

When you sign up, of course, you get the link to the webinar, but then you get the recording. If you can't attend live, you get the recording afterward. If you go to the events page, you'll also notice we have some spots left. I think there's 17, maybe spots left in our Mexico retreat in June. So if you want to come study with us in Mexico, check that retreat out. Immersive retreat page is right there in the drop down menu.

Silent Sundays. If you want to come meditate with us once a month, that's free. The links to join us are there. And then we have a speaker series, hey, that's also free. The end of this month, January. The end of this week, actually, January 25 and then January 31 and February 1. We have Alexandra Blair, Stormy Grace and Rod Chang giving some talks. These are free. They're free because of the Kickstarter.

So you can check out some really great talks from professionals in the field. Get the recordings to those again, if you can't attend live, that's the same for everything. Book reading. Check out our need based astrology readings. If you've never got one, you want a reading with me, I do horary readings. That's the only service I still provide outside of my training programs where I read for people in training settings.

So that is it for my sharing today. Let's get the real time clock up and take a look at it. All right, here we go. So you're going to see that as we start off today, Monday. Whoops, go back a week. Sorry. Here we go. Monday, January 19. You're going to see that Venus is coming into the conjunction with Pluto. It's depicted right here.

We're coming in after a new moon also that just happened over the weekend. Broke down that New Moon at the end of last week. But as that New Moon comes through, it means that today we're also getting the moon in the same sign. So the moon is in the same sign as a major planetary event. You really do feel it a little bit more, because the moon tends to shine a light on it.

This exact conjunction is coming through late this afternoon. So if I go forward by some hours here to get Venus into the exact degree and minute base conjunction. It isn't until about 10:30 tonight, central time, that's about 11:30 Eastern in the United States, that the two planets come together. If I zoom out a little bit and give Venus just a couple days. Take it through about Wednesday, Venus is getting into that three degree range of separation.

But then look at what happens. We're going to have a Venus or a Mercury cazimi, and that Mercury cazimi, Mercury being at the heart of the sun, is going to take place right as these two planets then cross over Pluto, which will happen Wednesday of this week, and then the sun Pluto conjunction is Thursday of this week, and then Mars gets into Aquarius.

And at that point in time, we're really like, everything's happening in the sign of Aquarius. And then what's going to be taking place, of course, at the start of the next moon cycle is a solar eclipse in Aquarius, the first that we have before the nodes change signs. So that Mars Pluto conjunction will take place by Tuesday of next week.

And so we have a full week of major planetary ingresses into Aquarius, all of them meeting Pluto exactly as they do that little ingress. So like I said, as the week goes on and we get a little bit closer to middle of the week, I'm going to do some horoscopes just focused on that whole sign of Aquarius.

But if you wanted to get out ahead of that, take anything that we're talking about in our list of things to watch for today and apply it to the whole sign house of Aquarius in your birth chart. The topics of that house are going to be heightened in terms of their visibility or importance in your life right now.

That's a simple exercise that anyone can do if you know the house topics already, and if you don't, and if you also want some extra interpretive value from me, I'll be doing horoscopes later in the week. So again, like, what I my thought on that was just like, Could we do Venus Pluto horoscopes today? Yes, but we're also going to have a bunch of other planets entering this week, and I'd prefer to do the horoscopes when we get more of a congregation of planets about the middle of the week.

So I think I'll probably do them Wednesday. Anyhow. All right, onward, I got five things to watch for, and these are in, you know, no particular order of importance, just five things that I want to cover. First of all, on my list of things to watch for today, maybe into tomorrow, with Venus in particular, is that Venus was the goddess of good fortune.

That means that, broadly speaking, Venus transits have to do with what we find pleasurable, pleasant or desirable. Let me give you a simple example. I don't like working at the gym, right? It's not particularly fun to exert energy on the elliptical or to bench press or whatever. What I like is the result. You know, Mars is like the work. Venus is like the result.

So Mars is the sweat, the perseverance, the work, the sacrifice. Venus is how I feel when I'm done. If you don't work out, or if you don't run, or you don't do cardio, or you don't take a yoga class, then I'm sure you can understand what it's like. I don't know, take a hot sauna. The heat is uncomfortable, but how you feel afterward is amazing.

Venus is really about how we feel. That feels good, whereas Mars is so much more about the effort and they go together. They're inseparable, opposites in the ancient philosophical imagination of astrology, when we talk about Venus, we're talking about things that feel good. She is the goddess of fortune. Good fortune. So the first on my list is fortune from the underground.

Pluto is subterranean, subconscious, unconscious, underworld. When the goddess of fortune meets Pluto in a conjunction, then you'll see Venusian benefits, blessings, good fortune, pleasantness, arriving through things like new systems, Pluto and Aquarius, is often very systematic. It's paradigmatic. It's structural. This is a Saturn ruled sign so systems, platforms and technologies that provide pleasing, pleasant, good outcomes.

Let's say, for example, that you find someone who is particularly good at design, and they help you with your website, and it looks really beautiful, and you're really happy with it, and they employ some new tools for revamping your website that you weren't even aware existed, that would be very Venus conjoined Pluto in Aquarius.

Hey, I've got a nice looking website that was made by a nice designer employing some nice new strategies, similarly, anything that comes as unexpected support, blessing, benefit, money, friendship, allies, that exists in some kind of collective network, colleagues, friends, communities, the field you belong to, providing an avenue for a blessing, a benefit or some good fortune. That would be very Venus, Pluto and Aquarius.

Now Pluto's shadow is going to be about the potential for control or power or moral complexity that exists beneath the surface of such things. For example, the complexities of benefiting from something AI based while also feeling and perhaps ethically uncertain about the territory of the subject, right? Like I don't know if this is good or bad Pluto's shadow will be about what compromises of integrity or value might exist alongside of the benefit or blessing, that's always a Venus Pluto dynamic.

Yeah, there are a lot of things that work like that with Venus and Pluto. Let me give you an example that I've seen in my client practice. So many times when someone has Pluto transiting their natal Venus, they may have some kind of Dionysian awakening. Let's say they go to a party and they really let loose in a way that maybe they haven't for far too long.

However, some damage is done in going a little, maybe too far. Maybe they compromised a friendship, someone that they were there with found their behavior a little too much, or they felt abandoned because you went off and partied so hard you left your friend behind and the next morning, you're left with a complicated situation.

On the one hand, you shouldn't have gone that far. You can't go that far regularly. It would be destructive. Yet something creative and Dionysian was awakened through the experience. It's undeniable. I need to dance more. I need to create more. I need to be in my sensual body, more that could have been awakened through an experience that also just maybe compromised the friendship.

These are the kinds of things that often happen with Pluto Venus. It's like to resuscitate some dead part of ourself, a destructive and creative energy has to be unleashed. Dealing with the complexity of that kind of dynamic is very Venus Pluto. Any kind of public debate, scrutiny or ethical tension around what good blessing, benefit or satisfaction is being achieved or experienced, could come along with that's the Plutonian element.

Now, number two, individuality without applause. This is a part of any conversation in Aquarius that naturally activates the binary of Leo. Leo on the surface looks like it's a sign that celebrates individuality, but it's a kind of individuality that is visibly loved, approved of, desired, supported, worshiped by the public. You know, it's the king, it's the celebrity, it's the leader, not that all leaders are good or worthy of applause, but Leo exists as an individual whose specialness is widely recognized.

Now, what Aquarius often provides is a pushback that says, I don't care what people think about me. And so Venus with Pluto in Aquarius can represent an attraction to being different, rather than to fame or social approval. It can be about rejection of hierarchies that traditionally validate your ego. It can be about individuation, becoming more of myself that risks being less visible, less notable, less of an influencer or even ostracized.

So Aquarius is going to be both the sort of relator and the deflator. And by that, what I mean is that Venus will find ways of helping you relate to others that feels more authentic, but also will deflate some level of egoic validation that's a tricky dynamic to navigate, finding what feels more harmonious between yourself or your sort of a sense of internal alignment that may reorient you socially or publicly, but can also deflate your sense of being relevant.

That's again, it's just a tricky tension that's there Pluto will intensify the cost that you experience of being yourself without being loved or without feeling attractive to others. So this is a complex theme with Venus and Aquarius meeting Pluto. Now number three is sort of similar. I put this as belonging beyond hierarchy.

Venus will seek love, beauty, attractiveness, desire, sensual, embodied bliss or pleasure in unconventional or marginal spaces, which is why Venus in Aquarius can show up as queer or non traditional relationship structures or whatever, Venus will find a different kind of social coherence, which is a huge part of our individual sense of self is what social categories, you know, in what combination am I, if I'm a tapestry of images, then what are the images and where do they belong socially that fill out my sense of selfhood.

A lot of this for Venus and Pluto and Aquarius will be outside traditional structures. There may be some need to shift or change your aesthetic or your desires in an almost like avant garde way. And there will be maybe some need that Venus Pluto together in Aquarius can be about social provocation like and for you to breathe new life into the cultures that you identify with, there may need to be some kind of tension or, yeah, I want to call it a provoking it's a provocative energy that can reset or reorient our sense of cultural belonging or identity.

And Venus and Pluto and Aquarius are looking for social belonging through resonance, rather than rank. That's important. The resisting of hierarchies is a big part of this transit now the next one would be, I call it the trap of defiant identity when opposition becomes a new platform for the ego, we have a potential Venus and Aquarius crisis, because Venus likes to shape its desires, its tastes, its relationships, its sense of social belonging and participation through things that are often resistant, rebellious or through moral outrage.

And there can be a us versus them. You're either on the right side or the wrong side. Self righteousness can fuel and being an outsider can fuel a sense of being better than other people. So when ego reinforcement happens through anger or self righteousness against someone that you see as an oppressive force. That's a trap. You have to be careful if it doesn't mean there isn't an oppressive force.

It doesn't mean it's not okay to identify or stand against tyranny or evil or darkness in the world. It's how we do it. Pluto reveals to us, with Venus and Aquarius how our beneficence can mirror power and greed and can become its own way of trying to oppress other people. Self righteousness can be an oppressive force.

It's very subtle, because it hides itself in goodness. The Venusian alternative here might be about releasing resistance, even as we identify ourselves with things that may exist contrary to another group or political or ideological or philosophical category or group or something like that. And then the last one on my list is beyond otherness, when there is a very real way in which Aquarius is always supplying us with the fuel that we need to become who we are, regardless of how approved or validated it is, however, that's it's not the destination, the otherness, the distancing or leaving of familiar or approved hierarchies or structures or, you know, the needing or seeking validation in traditional ways.

Otherness, any kind of otherness that we go through or experience, is a vital part of how we become an individual that's not just selling ourselves out for quick or easy approval or belonging, or, you know, whatever. However, what all these ancient mystical traditions teach us is that binaries rise together. So when we step outside of a binary, like Pluto or like Aquarius and Leo, what we're doing is we're seeing a tension that's being held, that has to be held because it always arises together between being someone who's likable and can fit in in ways that are sort of traditional, or that, you know, we do care what other people think about us, and we do need some forms of recognition or approval.

We need to be celebrated, loved and seen as special by people we can't if you pretend to reject that your rejection will often become the subtle way in which you bring that back. In you seek approval by being other or different. And even though it doesn't feel like you're seeking approval, you are because your approval is found through trying to wield your otherness over those you resist or defy.

And this is a like, it's just like a it's a trap that we have to be really careful of otherness and any elements of our experience that push us to the margins or take us outside the village or city walls and that bring us into thresholds, or liminal spaces of identity. I'm always thinking about Heraclitus saying the soul is explored forever to a depth beyond report you are not your otherness any more than you are a cheesy, you know, way of seeking validation or fame or approval.

When we try to grasp or hold anything, even our marginal status, we're still playing the same game. And so this is one of those experiences at its best, because Pluto really calls out the bullshit of subtly smuggling ego back into our insistence on being different. And so this can be such a beautiful transit when it comes to being other without putting like It's like that saying you've heard me say before, keep it a secret even from yourself, your otherness is something that becomes real when it's just integrated.

And it's not something you're trying to draw attention to, or you're not trying to draw attention to, in opposition to something else. You just let it breathe, you just let it walk, you just let it become the what you inhabit. And this is a transit that can really emphasize Yes, you are different in these particular ways, but yes, you do also need approval, and the easiest way to hold that tension is to just integrate who you are and just be it.

Just be about it. You know. All right, well, that's what I've got for today. Hope this was useful. It's my sign off. And hope you guys are having a nice start to your week. Let me show you what's on my altar today. So well, let me get this set up. All right, let me show you what's on my altar.

Let's go here so you'll see that I have a little bust of Yoda, and I have been thinking a lot lately about where some of my earliest interest in Taoism and the I Ching came from. And you know, when I started working with the I Ching, it was, gosh, I think it was about 2008 or nine. And at that time, I was starting to get interested in yoga and Taoism, Buddhism, you know, all of the Eastern philosophy, and starting to get into astrology, all of which was inspired by my work with Ayahuasca.

And then I realized pretty early on that one of the reasons that Taoism made a ton of sense to me was that it reminded me of the philosophy of Star Wars. And of course, it turns out that George Lucas and the Star Wars universe was inspired by such philosophies from the ancient world. And Yoda, to me, was really sort of one of the first sages of my life.

And I'm sure many people know exactly what I'm talking about. So I found this in Disney World when we were there with my family, and I bought it so that I could have it in my office. And this week, I am thanking the way that art and characters in art, music, literature can sometimes become like real conduits for wisdom.

Sometimes we think it's just got to be, you know, it's only Tic, not Han, you know, who I've been listening to a lot lately, and who is very much like Yoda, very wise. But no, it can also come through art. Art can be a medium for truth, and so I'm celebrating that this week on my altar, just saying a little thank you to Yoda and the character of Yoda and all of the muses that brought that character together.

What a powerful character in the collective imagination. So thanks, Yoda. All right, that's what I've got for you for today. Hope you're having a good one. We'll see you again tomorrow. Bye.