Venus Moon Throat Chakra Gateway

Yossi Kotler

Venus met with the Moon at 29 degrees Libra at 12:48 am EST. on September 10th. This Gateway is governed by the throat chakra. Read below to learn powerful ways to intact with this Venus Portal

Story Time

THE STORIES WE TELL WEAVE THE WEB OF LIFE

Inside a cave, there is all the knowledge that everybody has been looking for. Life has gone on for many centuries just outside that cave, and yet no one has ever been inside. On this day a little boy is playing near the entrance to the cave when he loses his ball and it rolls inside. Because of his curious and adventurous spirit, he overcomes his fear and ventures into the cool, dark, narrow opening. 

As he enters he hears a tapping, and he follows it deep inside. The narrow passageway gives way to a larger room and inside he sees an old woman in a rocking chair weaving a garment with a large black dog laying at her feet. His eyes lit up with amazement, as this was the most beautiful garment he had ever seen. He realized by its size that she must have been weaving it for a very long time. And thought he might have come just in time to see her finish the hem. 

He stands there for quite some time hypnotized by the scene before him. It is rhythmic. After the old women had been weaving for a time she got up and walked to the back of the room to tend a cauldron hanging over an ancient fire. Inside the cauldron is all of the seeds, and fruits, and grains, and every single building block of nature, boiling into a hearty stew. If she doesn't get up to stir the fire every so often, all of it will burn away forever and there won’t be anymore seeds, or grains, or fruits or building blocks of nature anymore.

Just as the women got up to tend the flame of the ancient fire, the black dog sees the end of the thread from her weaving project, and he pulls and pulls and pulls at that thread until he has entirely unraveled the whole project. Decades, Centuries, a Millennia of work. The old woman comes back and looks at the garment of beauty now turned into chaos, tangled there on the floor. After a long sigh, that causes a stirring wind inside the cave, she sits down, and she sees a loose thread and she picks it up. 

As soon as she starts to weave again she notices the boy and invites him in. She asks him to tell him her stories. She explains that the garment that he saw before was a tapestry of stories, and that those stories created the web of reality. The little boy said “aren’t you angry with the dog for ruining your creation, it was perfect”. She explained to the little boy that “perfect” meant, over and done, something complete, and that perfect was connected to death. She told the boy to be thankful for what unravels the world, because the world unravels at precise times, only to be rewoven into something more beautiful. The little boy asked, what are the precise times? She said, “when the world needs new stories”.

Loui Jover

This is the moment we have arrived at. Our old stories just aren’t working anymore. The old mythologies are outdated. Created to support a dying paradigm. Though this moment is chaotic, our job isn’t to collapse into fear and worry. Our work is to be like the old woman, to pick up the thread and begin weaving our own great story into the world tapestry. We can’t weave a new tapestry if everyone is bickering over the thread their neighbor got. No, our job is to make something beautiful with the thread we were given.

This morning on my way home from dropping the kids off to school, NPR did a really moving piece in which they had journalists who reported on 9/11 tell their stories. And it got me thinking just how true it is that the stories we tell in our own lives have the power to change the world. I don’t know any American who was alive (and old enough) who doesn’t remember exactly where they were when the towers went down. 

The day had mythological and archetypal elements to it. We were entranced by following the arc of the story. And I wonder if the mythology of it all is what the perpetrators were hoping they could hook us with? Our personal stories fed into the collective narrative. They made the larger story dynamic because it added another layer of polarity. For or against retribution? A hotly debated war. Elements of illusion when we learned there were no WMD's. And the trajectory of that story is still playing out today.  The story itself had the power to change futures. It was also an old story. We had the opportunity to update it, had we applied our imagination. Instead we separated into camps that further entrenched the mythological pattern. Archetypally it has played out exactly as one might have expected. Power, greed, and domination eventually led to ruin and destruction. Tale as old as time. 

One of the polarity themes I have been working on this month is truth and illusion. Astrologically speaking we have an unusual amount of planets making an opposition to Neptune. Neptune is a planet of higher ideals, oneness, spirituality, higher love, and unity consciousness. But whenever Neptune is activated in the sky, the Hindu concept of Maya is brought to the foreground. We have to ensure that what we are investing our belief in, is true and not illusory. Ironically though, Neptune also governs imagination. And it’s been interesting to hold the tension between reality and illusion, ultimate truth, and imagination in service to the cultivation of something new. Of myth, C.S. Lewis said “Myth in general is not merely misunderstood history… nor diabolical illusion… not priestly lying… but at its best, a real unfocused gleam of divine truth wrapped in human imagination”. 

Anna Sidi

Throat Chakra Blessings

This month we are exploring the throat chakra, and how the throat chakra can be of service to us inside of our current evolutionary challenge. Let’s explore that a bit. 

The throat chakra is the fifth chakra in the chakra system. Not surprisingly one of the “Rights” of the Throat Chakra is the right to hear and speak truth. This is damaged when we aren’t able to speak the truth to our families in our formative years. Often innocently, parents teach us to shut down our throat chakra. “Don’t talk to me like that young lady”. “We don’t talk like that in our house”. When our parents, culture, or government lie to us there is an abuse of this right. This was certainly my experience growing up. Unsurprisingly I wound up with hypothyroidism. Or rather what we would see as a physical manifestation of an unbalanced throat chakra. Learning clear communication, and braving the wilderness of full expression has been essential for rebalancing this chakra.  

Full expression is unequivocally the theme of the throat chakra. And in exploring this for myself, I can say, our culture has heaped so much on top of our ability to be fully self expressed. We don’t really support this. Despite saying that we do, there is currently an entire movement dedicated to policing expression. Calling out people who use their voice in ways the group has deemed harmful. While some forms of speech can inevitably be hurtful, I am never a stand for censorship. In this day and age, we can control who we hear from. If we don’t like a message, if we think it’s “harmful”, we have tools like the block and delete to remove it from our field. 

The unbalanced archetype of the throat chakra is the Challenger/Defender. And we can see just how unbalanced this chakra is across the collective. However, interestingly, the poison is the medicine in this case. We often begin to come in contact with our deeper truth by voicing the things we do not want. By challenging the current paradigm. If we do this with full awareness, challenging with the voice can help open this energy center. 

For women, expressing anger is another area in which expression is culturally policed. We have a cultural meme that women are kind, loving, sweet, and quiet. Demure damsels. I have worked with so many clients over the years who obviously needed to clear embedded rage, but who were literally afraid of their own anger. Women who identify as spiritual who hold the belief that rage is a base, unevolved, expression, who stay way up in the field of love and light. The transcendental plane. Never to dip down into the primal, and release the scream trapped in their souls. 

This was certainly true for me, and no coincidence that my thyroid diagnosis came during the same period. See I was adopted. Part of the life journey of an adoptee is to make their way “back home” to their birth family. I found and reached out to my birth mother. I was told a bit about my family. I learned my mother married my father, had three more daughters, even named one of my sisters the name my adoptive parents had given me. Now my birth mother had two daughters with the same name. I will never know her reasons but after a week she returned to say “please don’t ever contact me again, I do not know you”. 

It was undoubtedly the most traumatic, fall to the floor, soaked in grief moments of my life. Because I identified as spiritual, instead of getting angry at how this woman had treated me, I decided to “hold a space of love” for her. I wanted to stay open hearted in case she changed her mind. I skipped over so many steps to hold that line. Spiritual bypassing it’s called. And yes, that is a throat chakra problem. Because my truth was “fuck her, how dare she treat me like I don’t exist”. Because I didn’t go into the truth of my pain, I manifested more than just a thyroid disorder. I also wound up with a diagnosis of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. There is growing consensus that unexpressed rage could be one cause of autoimmune disorders.  

The great thing about this underworld initiation that happened as Pluto crossed my Ascendant was that on the other side of my reclaimed rage was a new story. There was a thread laying there just waiting for me to pick it up and weave something more beautiful, true and whole. I kept trying to put the old garment back on, and step back into my old life, but it was too uncomfortable. It just didn’t fit. It felt as though the universe was giving me a choice. Choose to liquify in imaginal cells, enter the chrysalis of transformation, or die. I chose transformation. A new story where I was the heroine slaying dragons, and collecting the treasure the dragons were sworn to protect. An incredible metaphor if ever I’ve heard one. A divine truth wrapped in human imagination. Our trials and traumas are the dragons. The treasures of this life lie on the other side of dancing with them. Like Inanna, we are on the Ascent side of Venus’ journey. At each gate of Ascent Inanna reclaimed pieces of the “Royal ME”. At this gate we are reclaiming full expression as our absolute birthright. 

Federico Bebber

The Astrology

In the development of my own Astrology practice, I see Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio as the Lunar arc of the year. This parallels the hermetic teachings I grew up with. The solar creation energies make up the signs of Aries, Taurus, and Gemini. We are currently in a time of discrimination and destruction. Sorting what worked from what didn’t. Harvesting the good, and setting out what didn’t work to decompose and fertilize a new cycle. This work prepares us to bring our cyclical discoveries into the town square of Sagittarius so we can have a philosophical debate on where to go next. In Capricorn we bury our dead, and focus on the legacy they left behind, recording it all in the hall of records, before the process of integration and decomposition begins in dark part of the year. An entire process of refinement spirals again and again and again.

In this way, the Lunar Arc is where we do narrative and story assimilation. And why the archetype of the weaver is especially potent. It is climax time.

Venus and the Moon conjoin to create the Gateway at 29 degrees Libra. In astrology, the last degree of any sign is called the critical or aneretic degree. Critical degrees are associated with hazy decision making, a sense of urgency, and endings. It’s also much like the story of the women who weaves the web of life, some of the work we are here to do gets unraveled. So I am always grateful for this degree, because it’s an opportunity find a new thread and weave it into the story.

Venus entered its home sign of Libra, on August 16th. In Libra, Venus is the Relational Queen. Not just the Sovereign Queen. Her priorities are her relationships. She doesn’t mind whether or not it’s a gooey union, or if there’s friction, it’s just that her focus is on the space between her and another. She can spot disharmony or disturbance with laser precision. In latin, the word relitari (relationship) means bringing your story back to the same person again and again. Editing and refining it, combining it with elements of theirs and creating a new thing. This in and of itself has an evolutionary function. From an evolutionary perspective, she seeks to bring things back into balance. A JUST balance, not a comfortable balance. But in order to know that something lacks a just balance, one must first feel the discordance in the field. Justness is a primary component of mature relationships and the expression of love itself. As women walking a devotional path with Venus, we are able to tap into deeper levels of our feminine essence. From this place we can lead the charge on higher, more evolved forms of communication and expression.

As Venus is in the last degree of Libra on the day of the portal, and will be moving into Scorpio later that same day and will remain in Scorpio for much of the portal, I’d like put some focus on our Scorpionic Venusian. The feminine essence, or rather Venus in Scorpio is that of the Parthenogenetic Goddess Chaos. In Virgo, we celebrate the feminine essence of Sovereignty.  In Libra, we explore the feminine essence of Connection. In Scorpio, we are looking at the essence of Parthenogenesis.  It is that single molecule, the point of origin and return, the meeting point of the masculine and feminine, or solar and lunar forces of power. Climax. The incoherent energy that suddenly organizes and erupts, giving birth to the cosmos in a glorious supernova.  This month we explore “what does it mean to be wholly responsible for creation and destruction?”

For this reason, our Scorpionic Venus’ deep connection to inner truth, inner power, and their ability to THRIVE in the midst of Chaos, bringing together disparate threads and weaving a new garment has given her a seriously bad wrap. Creation itself can only happen inside of a moment of radical truth. And our Venus in Scorpio is prepared to destroy herself, to reduce herself to ashes in service to her deepest truth. She is associated with SO MUCH POWER.  

There is a lot of hype around Venus in Scorpio being a sexual diva, a tantric goddess of desire, focused on deep, stimulating, connection. And all of that may very well be true. But I am here to say, as a native Venus in Scorpio that above all, what Venus in Scorpio finds most alluring, is most turned on by, is transformative, deep, risky, truth telling. If it isn’t true, she isn’t interested. If it doesn’t have the power to shake her foundations, she likely isn’t interested. 

The Goddess Kali, the infamous Creator, Destroyer, Preserver is an almost perfect Venus in Scorpio Archetype. She who embodies fierce love in service to truth, She who has the power of creation and destruction, who is a slayer of illusions, helps us assimilate experiences, dismantles what is outdated and not working, and works to purify and detoxify. She who helps us purge of experiences that are no longer in our highest best interests. 

She who seduces and hypnotizes at will. She dwells comfortably in the Chthonic realms. Loves depth. Doesn’t shy away from death, rebirth, and transformation. Can’t stand surface level shit, and small talk. And above all, helps us reclaim our sacred rage.

Transformation, and themes around death and resurrection are her jam. She loves the descent and ascent journey, a total regenerative cycle. In light of all of these powerful connections we see Venus in Scorpio being an ideal ally in straitening our throat chakra, and telling brave new stories with the power of our voice.

I am a Venus in Scorpio conjunct Uranus. As such, not only do I love this archetype, but I’ve done a lot of work to be able to hold and embody her out in the world. If all of this excites you, I invite you to join me as I bring her forward in our Venus Mystery School Journey at the start of the new cycle in January.

Vesta the Asteroid Goddess, in Libra. Wherever she is in the chart points to what we are feeling a devotional call towards. She is the Goddess of the Hearth who tends to our inner spiritual flame. The Libra/Aries axis is primarily concerned with cultivating the “I am” principle. Our essence self. (Aries) and having that cultivated self validated and recognized by others. (Libra). Here we are devoted to how we can communicate our deepest truth to others in a way that lands and creates a greater sense of connection. This ties in beautifully with the throat chakra work we are doing this month.

Across from Libra, Eris in Aries(thought to be ruled by Libra because of her strong bent towards divine justice) is concerned with many of the same themes. She is not afraid to upset the apple cart in service to divine retribution. She speaks justness and rightness with resounding clarity.  Eris in Aries is still in a powerful square to Pluto. This square has been triggering much of the underlying events, the targeted demolition project of 2020/2021. This isn’t a comfortable transit for those hoping to preserve the status quo, or those who are waiting for things to go back to normal. But for those looking forwards, Eris is pointing the way. She comes with the message that progress means full expression in service to Truth with a capital T. This square aspect is pointing to everything that is untrue. It is also sharing that themes around death, birth, and resurrection, are the building blocks of epic stories everywhere. They will be incorporated in the mythologies we are writing now.

Saturn in Aquarius Square Uranus in Taurus- This aspect is really the drive behind the evolutionary challenge. Saturn wants to conserve while Uranus wants to push forward. All year there has been this push pull of polarity by the different groups within culture. Aquarius is traditionally ruled by Saturn. Here Saturn represents the lay people, the everyday citizen. Humanity itself. And how it self organizes and self sustains. We see here how the “authority’ within each group is asserting itself.  We are watching these groups rub up against each other, creating frictions, heating up the collective, creating the necessary energy for alchemical transformation. The primary mechanism being used is that of the voice, of competing forms of expression. This month we are being asked to pay special attention to our individual contribution to the greater cacophony being broadcast.

Saturn is the last of the “traditional” planets. We often interpret Saturn as a “social planet”. Meaning what he is doing in the sky influences the collective on an overt level. Uranus is said to be the first of the “transpersonal” planets. What he does affects the “collective unconscious”, or the undercurrent of our 3-D reality. Much like Jung’s collective unconscious, we can see how Uranus works both on a personal level, and in the collective simultaneously. The interplay between conscious and unconscious aids in individuation. 

Lisa Hewitt

The Archetypes

Overactive Fifth Chakra

In Anodea Judith’s book, “Eastern Mind, Western Body”, she discusses the Challenger/Defender archetype at length. One of the issues at cause with this character structure is suffering from some betrayal in the formative years. This causes an overly developed fifth chakra. One in which Challenger/Defender is a  skilled communicator often exerting power through speech. They are tough cookies. With them, it’s vulnerability that poses the challenge. If you find that this is you, vulnerability and clear expression in equanimity is your work this month. 

Deficient Fifth Chakra

The Silent Child is the Archetype of the deficient fifth chakra. The Silent Child describes levels of suppression where feelings of frustration, anger, and sometimes even violence have gone unexpressed. This archetype holds its cards close to it’s chest. It doesn’t reveal it hurts in an effort to appear in control. If you resonate with this archetype your work this month is to find healthy ways to channel your expression. If beginning with speech is too daunting, try painting or art that can help you empty of these oppressive feelings. Write a fiction story whose character embodies the expression you are holding inside. Then, in time, move bravely into clear, concise, communication. Without feeling the need to apologize for your expression. 

The witch wound is a throat chakra wound, in which women were burned at the stake for living out their truth and fullest expression. If you find it especially difficult to balance this chakra, you may be the descendent of a women who was tried and executed for being a witch. In which case, ancestral work may be an important part of your healing journey. Feel free to reach out to me and I can put you in touch with someone who does powerful ancestral work.

Working With

The Throat Chakra

Stones

Aquamarine- Aquamarine is a talisman of the seas and brings a siren song of clarity and truth even when the waves around you are rising. This gem soothes fears around the throat, loosening the grip of anxiety, and keeping you connected to your one true voice

Lapis Lazuli-Stone of truth, a companion of seers, sages, and public speakers as it encourages eloquence and expression. Writers too will beautifully benefit from this block-breaking stone as Lapis knows how to tap into that creativity. 

Amazonite-Like the Amazonian warriors, it’s a gem that guides us to a place of agency and trust in our own power. This can all start with the voice and our ability to filter our own truth from the chorus that surrounds us

Sodalite- Has a strong energy field, and is considered to be the stone of poets as it rouses creativity and helps you find the words. Sodalite connects to the throat chakra and also the third eye chakra, calling in that wisdom to back up your communication. For those who don’t want their words to be empty, Sodalite grants you the knowledge to fill in the gaps and to bring meaning, magic, and melody to the sounds that spill out. 

Exercises and Practices

Try these practices to help strengthen and balance your throat chakra.

Toning

Singing

Humming

Writing out your feelings, then reading them out loud to yourself in the mirror.

Ask a friend to roleplay a difficult conversation with you, even if you don’t plan to go through with it. 

Write a drama and act it out with your friends or children.

Express embedded rage by screaming in your bedroom while no one else is home.

Chanting and using Mantra is a regular part of activating all chakras but is an essential part of throat chakra balancing.