Perhaps a relationship has changed. Perhaps the success you worked so hard for feels strangely empty. Perhaps you’re tired of being the person who keeps everything together.
You can feel that something needs to shift, even if you don’t yet know what comes next.
It is an ancient story, and a challenging one. Read symbolically, it asks us to consider what happens when the things we rely on to feel powerful, desirable or secure fall away.
Who are we then?
And what might we discover when we allow ourselves to listen?
Venus and the light we temporarily lose sight of
In astrology, Venus speaks to love, pleasure, beauty, money and values.
Underneath all of these sits a deeply personal question:
What do I believe I am worth?
During Venus retrograde, I encourage you to revisit that question. Notice what you’re longing for, what you’re accepting and where your choices have drifted away from your values.
There is a beautiful celestial image to accompany this reflection.
Around her inferior conjunction, Venus passes approximately between the Earth and the Sun. In this part of her cycle, she transitions from the evening sky to the morning sky, becoming difficult to see in the Sun’s glare along the way. Her eventual reappearance depends on observing conditions and where you are in the world.
The symbolism is moving: a light we know disappears from view, then becomes visible again.
There are times when our confidence feels like that. Our creativity, our sense of direction, even our capacity to imagine a happier future can become difficult to access.
Venus offers an image to sit with during those times. Something can be beyond our sight while still existing.
Meeting Inanna
Inanna is a Sumerian goddess closely associated with the planet Venus, as well as with sexual love and warfare. She is a complex, formidable figure whose power reaches far beyond our modern idea of a goddess of romance.
That matters when we approach her story.
Inanna has desire, authority and ambition. Her descent takes her into territory where those familiar powers cannot protect her.
In the Sumerian poem, she enters the underworld ruled by her sister, Ereshkigal. At each of its seven gates, an item of her clothing or regalia is removed. Eventually, she stands stripped before the powers of the underworld. She is killed, and her body is hung on a hook.
This is a stark story. Its darkness deserves to be taken seriously.
When I connect it with Venus retrograde, I’m offering a contemporary spiritual reading of the myth. We can explore its resonance with the Venus cycle while allowing the ancient story its own complexity.
What are you carrying through the gates?
For me, the seven gates invite reflection on the identities and protections we gather around ourselves.
The capable one.
The desirable one.
The successful one.
The person who never needs help.
These roles can become so familiar that we struggle to imagine who we would be without them.
Perhaps you’ve built your sense of worth around being needed. Perhaps you feel secure when someone approves of you. Perhaps you’ve learned to keep the peace by making your own desires smaller.
Then life changes, and that arrangement becomes harder to maintain.
A relationship asks more of you than you can keep giving. A job title stops feeling meaningful. Your body asks for rest. Something you used to tolerate begins to trouble you.
Read symbolically, Inanna’s passage through the gates gives us a way to examine these moments.
What am I holding on to because I believe it makes me worthy?
What does maintaining this version of myself cost me?
What would I want if I could answer honestly?
You don’t have to resolve all of this at once. Recognising one exhausting pattern can be a meaningful beginning.
The part of you that wants to be heard
Ereshkigal rules the realm Inanna enters. In a modern psychological reading, we might approach her as an image of the feelings we have pushed out of sight.
Grief that never had enough room.
Anger we felt ashamed to express.
Disappointment we hurried past because someone else needed us.
These feelings can be uncomfortable to acknowledge, especially if you’re used to seeing yourself as positive, spiritual or strong.
Yet there is information in them.
Resentment may reveal a boundary that needs attention. Grief may show us how much something mattered. Anger may help us recognise a situation we can no longer accept.
You can listen to a feeling and choose carefully what to do with it.
Around this Full Moon, give yourself that pause. Write before you react. Rest before you decide. Let yourself understand what hurts.
Inanna receives help
One of the most meaningful parts of the story is that Inanna has made provision for someone to seek help if she fails to return.
Her faithful minister, Ninshubur, follows those instructions. Eventually, the god Enki intervenes, sending beings who respond to Ereshkigal’s distress and secure Inanna’s revival. Her release carries a condition: someone must take her place. The story continues into the fate of Dumuzi and his sister, Geshtinanna.
For our reflection, I want to linger on the presence of help.
So many of us are comfortable offering support and far less comfortable receiving it.
We wait until we can explain ourselves perfectly. We worry about being a burden. We assume we should be able to manage.
Inanna’s story makes room for loyalty, intervention and care.
Who can you speak honestly with?
Who remembers you beyond the role you usually play?
Who helps you hear your own voice?
A difficult season can become more bearable when someone knows you are in it.
Taurus asks us to bring our worth into daily life
This brings us back to the Full Moon in Taurus.
In astrology, Taurus is associated with the body, resources, comfort and the things we value. Under this Moon, questions about worth become wonderfully practical.
Are you giving your time to something you value?
Does your spending reflect what matters to you?
Are you allowing yourself enough rest?
Can you enjoy what you have without constantly measuring it against someone else’s life?
Venus retrograde adds another layer: have your values changed?
You may discover that a desire you’ve been pursuing belongs to an earlier version of you. Or you may remember something important that you put aside.
Both discoveries deserve your attention.
Knowing your worth becomes meaningful through the choices you make: the conversation you have, the boundary you keep, the help you accept, the pleasure you allow yourself.
What does a second chance mean?
Venus retrograde is often associated with people and desires from the past coming back into our awareness.
Naturally, that can stir hope.
Could we try again?
Could this work now?
Have things changed?
My suggestion is to make space for those questions and look carefully at the answers.
What has changed in practice? Is there greater honesty, accountability or willingness on both sides? Would returning support the person you are becoming?
Sometimes a second chance involves another person. Sometimes it involves a creative dream, a neglected friendship or a part of yourself you stopped making room for.
You might be ready to write again. To enjoy your body again. To believe that love can feel safe and reciprocal.
Let the possibility become specific enough that you can recognise a healthy next step.
A quiet practice for this Full Moon
Set aside a little time with your journal. Let your surroundings be simple and comfortable.
Begin with this question:
Where have I been asking something outside me to prove my worth?
Allow yourself to answer without judgement.
Then ask:
What am I ready to stop carrying?
You might name an expectation, a habit, a role or a belief about what you must do to deserve love.
Finally, write:
As I begin to rise again, what will I choose?
Choose one small action you can take in the coming days.
Ask for support. Make time for something you love. Speak clearly about what you need. Keep a promise to yourself.
Let the action be manageable enough to follow through.
The return of the morning star
The image of Venus returning to the dawn sky holds such tenderness for me.
It gives us a way to imagine the return of something we feared we had lost: desire, confidence, hope, a clearer sense of ourselves.
Inanna’s story also reminds us that return has consequences. We come back into relationships and responsibilities. We have choices to make about how we will live.
So under this Full Moon in Taurus, take some time to consider what you want to carry forward.
What still feels precious?
What feels true?
And where are you ready to give yourself another chance?
Happy Full Moon.
Love,
Yasmin x
