Planetary Magic Practices: Venus

Cards featured from the Smith-Rider-Waite deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith (left), the Next World Tarot by Cristy C. Road (center top), the Delta Enduring Tarot by Egan (center bottom), and Dust II Onyx Tarot by Courtney Alexander (right). Also featuring oils from Sphere + Sundry's Exalted Venus and Venus in Taurus series', water from Sphere + Sundry's Venus in Libra series, and Dori Midnight's Pleasure Activist Potion

On our journey through the days of planetary magic, Friday brings us to the day of Venus.
 
Venus is the benefic of the nocturnal sect. Venus unifies and reconciles. It is the planet associated with love and relationships, beauty, attraction, the arts, aesthetic harmony, and our values. It is a planet that draws us together and connects us, puts us in touch with our tastes and our pleasures, and offers us the joy of being held in supportive and life-affirming relations. Venus rules the signs of Taurus and Libra, and is exalted in the sign of Pisces.
 
For today—or any Friday—you might make a small altar for Venus with the things you have available. You can look to the list of correspondences below for the kinds of colors, stones, numbers, and tarot cards you might incorporate. Add things that you associate with Venus—maybe love letters or objects you associate with loved ones and lovers, adornments like perfume and jewelry, artworks, or objects that bring you pleasure. Flowers are always appropriate for Venus. Once you build your altar, take some time to be with it as an aesthetic experience. Notice how being with your altar to Venus makes you feel. Drop your attention down into your body and observe what sensations arise as you spend time with the objects you’ve gathered for Venus.
 
Venus is currently too close to the Sun to be visible in the night sky, but she will return to the western sky around dusk from October 10 through December 31. When the time comes, I hope you take an evening walk to witness the sparkling beauty of Venus as the Sun sets.

Whether you’re working with or without an altar, I invite you to take some time to meditate with Venus. It could be five minutes, ten minutes, or longer. Visualize Venus in your mind’s eye (you can look up pictures of the planet if you don’t know what it looks like), or visualize the glyph for Venus. Notice what your body feels like as you imagine Venus. Remember or call up experiences in which you felt truly loved and connected to sources of love and care. Remember experiences when you felt so moved by beauty that you were transported into a world that was more like the world in which you want to live. Recall times where you felt intimately attuned to your own pleasure. Notice what these memories feel like in your body, not just as thoughts in your mind.

In meditations like this, I also work with mantras coming from the yoga tradition. For working with Venus, I use the mantra: “Om Sri Shukraya Namaha.” I use a mala and repeat the mantra 108 times. I also sometimes use mudra, described below.
 
However you spend your time meditating with Venus—repeating a mantra, recalling experiences that you associated with Venus’ significations—tune in to the sensations that begin to accumulate. These could be physical or they could be more subtle energetic shifts in your awareness. The practice here is for Venus to become more than just an abstract symbol or something that you think of as “out there” in space. As you begin to notice what Venus feels like within your body, this becomes a state that you can return to and work with in your magic, and how you understand Venus astrologically—in your birth chart or in its transits—will begin to take on more embodied significance as well.
 
Venus
Day: Friday
Number: 7
Colors: Emerald green and pastels
Metals and Stones: “ruby and part of silver and glass and blue stones and coral and malachite and has part of quarts and lodestone” (Picatrix)
Chakra: Anahata, the Heart Chakra
Mantra: Om Sri Shukraya Namaha
Mudra: For Venus, I use Padma Mudra (Lotus Mudra) because of its association with anahata—the heart chakra. I also sometimes use Shukra Mudra, which comes from Indian dance traditions (pictured below). Form a fist with both hands with the thumb on the outside of the fingers, palm-side of the hands facing the heart with the left hand higher than the right.
Tarot: The Empress—although The Lovers would make sense to me as well.
 
Kaitlin Coppock of Sphere + Sundry also has several beautiful series of talismanic offerings dedicated to Venus: 
Venus in Libra: https://sphereandsundry.com/product-category/series/venus-in-libra/
Exalted Venus: https://sphereandsundry.com/product-category/series/exalted-venus/
Venus in Taurus:​ https://sphereandsundry.com/product-category/series/venus-in-taurus/
I work with offerings from all three of these series, and I highly recommend them as companions in your journey with Venus.

I also recommend Dori Midnight’s Pleasure Activist Potion as a companion to support you in connecting to your own pleasures: https://dorimidnight.com/apothecary/pleasure-activist/

From Mudras of India by Cain Carroll and Revital Carroll

Glyph of Venus

From Mudras of India by Cain Carroll and Revital Carroll

Sources:
 
Kaitlin Coppock, “Planetary Magic: A Beginner’s Guide,” WellBeing Astrology 2020, editor Kelly Surtees, Universal Media Co, 2019: 92-95.
 
Austin Coppock, “Intro to Planetary Magic,” https://austincoppock.com/shop/intro-to-planetary-magic-course/[online course].
 
Richard Fish and Ryan Kurczak, The Art and Science of Vedic Astrology: The Foundation Course (Asheville Vedic Astrology, 2012).
 
Cain Carroll and Revital Carroll, Mudras of India (London: Singing Dragon, 2013).
 
Gertrud Hirschi, Mudras: Yoga in your Hands (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc, 2000).
 
Thomas Ashley-Farrand, Healing Mantras: Using Sound Affirmations for Personal Power, Creativity, and Healing (New York: Ballantine Books, 1999).
 
Richard Palmer, “Delving Into Tarot and Astrology in the Golden Dawn Tradition,” Biddy Tarot, https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-astrology-golden-dawn/.
 
Joe Rao, “When, Where and How to See the Planets in the 2019 Night Sky,” December 27, 2018, https://www.space.com/39240-when-to-see-planets-in-the-sky.html.

If you missed the previous posts in this series, you can find them here:
The Sun
The Moon
​Mars
Mercury
Jupiter