Venus Stations Direct in Libra: Love, Breath & Balance
Our Lady of the Sign, Ark of Mercy, an iconic Eucharistic monstrance at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Chicago.
A richly gilded church shrine depicts the Virgin Mary dressed in deep red, seated above a crescent moon with open hands. A radiant golden sunburst rests over her heart, and a halo of stars surrounds her head. Enormous golden wings arch protectively around her while two kneeling angels pray below. The gold chest beneath her bears images of the Ten Commandments, a vessel, and a flowering staff, recalling Mary’s symbolic association with the Ark of the Covenant. White orchids frame the base of the shrine.
Photo by Ally Ayala.
I had recently returned from my pilgrimage to France, where I visited the sacred sites of Mary Magdalene, and was now on my way to Chicago for the United Astrology Conference. During the cab ride from the airport, I glimpsed a church as we zoomed along the highway and managed to snap a photo. After identifying it, my daughter and I made a promise to visit for Sunday service before leaving the city.
When I entered, I understood why I had felt so drawn to it. The church was stunningly beautiful, filled with images and statues of the Divine Feminine in Christianity.
I was not raised in a religious family. My introduction to churches came during a study abroad semester in Florence, Italy, in my senior year of college. Even today, it is the artwork, architecture, stained glass, and symbols that draw me inside. If there is an ideal introduction to religious art and architecture, I’m pretty sure Italy is at the top of the list. That Sunday in Chicago, the priest spoke in Latin. I couldn’t understand a word, and I loved it, because it allowed me to sink even deeper into the beauty surrounding me.
One of the highlights was Our Lady of the Sign—Ark of Mercy. Mother Mary appears in deep red, her arms extended in a welcoming embrace, and her open hands resting upon a crescent moon. A golden sunburst rests in the center of her heart, and a halo of stars surround her head. Two kneeling angels frame her with enormous golden wings.
Her red robes also brought Mary Magdalene to my mind. In France, I had often encountered Mary Magdalene depicted in red and Mother Mary in blue. When I first approached this altar, I was unsure who the figure was intended to be. While the shrine depicts Mother Mary, my imagination finds room for a Magdalene reflection here, too: the Beloved Companion holding love at the center of her heart and offering it outward.
The balanced composition evokes Libra. Her open hands suggest giving and receiving, a generosity of spirit, and strength expressed through compassion for others.
As Venus stations direct, I find myself contemplating companionship, compromise and reciprocity, and an unexpected question:
What if the Beloved Companion is your own breath? How would that change your orientation to life?
Venus Stations Direct in Libra
The process of descent, inception, and rebirth that began on October 3 at 8° Scorpio has reached its final turning point as Venus stations direct at 22° Libra on November 13. This unfolding has brought questions of power, relationship, and personal values into focus.
What has changed? What is there room to now receive?
With Venus in her home sign of Libra, questions of love and desire become inseparable from how people treat one another.
Libra is often associated with partnership, and I wonder how much of the emphasis on “relationship with other” comes from the modern association between Libra and the seventh house. Perhaps disentangling the sign and the house is a worthy endeavor.
After all, Libras are individuals first. Your own needs, values, and desires belong on the scales, too.
What might Venus in Libra teach about being in relationship with yourself as well as another?
Libra, Air & the Breath
In my Welcome to Libra Season blog, part of my Sun Sign Series, I explored the connection between Libra, Air, and the breath. I’m returning to that reflection here:
As a yang Air sign, Libra has an outward-moving energy, expressed through ideas, language, and interaction. Its cardinal quality brings the capacity to initiate. Yet the scales suggest consideration: weighing possibilities, assessing differences, and allowing reflection to inform action.
There is an omnipresence in Air. It surrounds us, moves through us, and connects us all through the simple act of breathing. When we become aware of the breath, we begin to notice it as part of an invisible, unified field of shared connection. This quiet presence reminds us that even the unseen can be deeply intimate and powerful.
There is an “inner-outer” attunement here. Moving toward another and returning to yourself. Listening and also allowing your own voice to be heard, Libra invites reflection on what you offer to others and what you allow yourself to receive.
Ruled by Venus, Libra seeks connection that feels true and harmonious, with room for beauty, pleasure, and mutual appreciation. Yet finding balance between your values and another person’s can be difficult, requiring ongoing attention, honest conversation, and a willingness to compromise.
What challenges might arise when one person in a relationship is overly compromising or cooperative resulting in an imbalance?
Photo Credit: Daria Lanskaya via Pinterest
Libra & the Love of Justice
Lady Justice stands blindfolded, holding scales in one hand and a sword in the other. Why the blindfold?
Does she need to access her inner sight to “see the truth”?
Perhaps one of Libra’s greatest gifts is the capacity to hold one perspective while making room for an opposing viewpoint. Venus in Libra may value hearing the other side of the story, even playing devil’s advocate to explore different perspectives and weigh the evidence.
And yet, sharing your thoughts and being heard does not always mean receiving the outcome you want. A fair agreement may ask each person to make concessions. Emotions, attachments, and the need to defend a position can complicate the willingness to make those concessions.
Isn’t it just easier when someone goes along with what we ask of them? Of course, but at what cost? And to whom?
Justice can feel threatening when it asks someone to acknowledge harm or relinquish an advantage. It can also feel frightening when there is uncertainty about whether the process will truly be fair.
In this image, her sword points downward, a gesture that can suggest power held with restraint. There is space for discernment before action. Justice needs thoughtful consideration. The capacity to act is present, but there is no rush to wield it.
Photo credit: Şinasi Müldür via Pexels
Do You Need to Be Right?
Or Do You Want to Be in Relationship?
Sometimes, remaining in a relationship requires compromise and a willingness to release the need to be “right.”
As Venus stations direct, Mars and Jupiter gather near the South Node in Leo, while the Sun in Scorpio approaches a square to the nodal axis. This configuration invites reflection on the defensiveness that arises when beliefs, pride, or identity feel challenged.
Mars brings the impulse to act and defend. Jupiter magnifies convictions. Together in Leo, they can inspire courage and generosity, but also amplify the certainty that one perspective is the only reasonable one.
It can be difficult to notice when a conversation becomes a contest. You begin by wanting to explain yourself, but somewhere along the way, you stop listening. You prepare your response while the other person is still speaking. The desire to be understood becomes a determination to win.
What are you hoping that victory will give you?
Reassurance? Recognition?
A sense that your experience matters?
Does the other person have to be wrong for you to feel right?
What happens when you simply don’t agree with each other?
Mars and Jupiter in Leo may embolden the ego and amplify the determination to defend personal positions and philosophies. The South Node may ask for a loosening of that grip, a surrender of the need to have the last word or prove a point.
As Venus stations direct in Libra, she invites a conscious choice about how to engage with greater awareness of what fairness, mutual respect, and relationship truly require.
Photo credit: photographer unknown via Pinterest
Venus retrograde may have revealed patterns…
and now we must turn to face them.
Listening, and reviewing relationship dynamics, may have revealed that a boundary is needed, harm must be addressed, or a relationship needs to change. Mutual consideration includes both your own experience and that of the other person. The work continues through a willingness to have difficult conversations, address imbalances, and extend care to yourself and others.
Can I remain true to myself and ask for what I really need while allowing you to do the same?
And in the moment before you engage or respond, there is always an opportunity to pause and return to the breath. The breath is the first and most essential relationship that you have. That we all have.
It offers a continuous exchange between yourself and the world around you. You are always in partnership with life. It can be no other way.
With every inhale, you receive the breath that sustains your life. With every exhale, you offer breath that supports the life of the world around you. This exchange continues, often without conscious attention.
Perhaps its simplicity and constancy make it easy to overlook. Perhaps because it is invisible?
And yet, so many people seem to be searching for something. Seeking connection.
What if a place to begin is right under your nose? Quite literally.
My orientation, and the one I invite you to consider, is that connection is already present through the breath. Each inhale and exhale brings you into a relationship with yourself and everything around you.
From that central orientation, how might giving and receiving with others shift?
What becomes possible when you can pause, notice your own experience, and receive support before reaching outward again?
Come Home to Yourself
Developing a relationship with the breath can support a sense of inner security. As an anchor of your experience, it offers a place to return, to notice what you feel, to listen to what you need, and to remain present with yourself as you connect with another.
Loving, trustworthy relationships remain essential. The breath does not replace them, and yet it can accompany you into them and allow for more presence in connection.
When confrontation or debate arises, notice your breath and drop into the sensations of your body in the moment. Before answering, pause. Give yourself a moment to recognize what is happening within you.
Where the desire for harmony has become people pleasing or self-abandonment, this pause offers room to consider your own needs alongside another person’s.
As Venus turns direct, perhaps the open hands of the Marian image offer a way forward: a willingness to receive, a generosity in giving, and a heart that remains connected to itself throughout the exchange.
Carry forward what this journey has revealed, allowing love, discernment, and mutual consideration to guide your next steps.
Your own needs, values, and desires belong on the scales alongside those of the people with whom you are in relationship.
The Beloved Companion is with you. An eternal invitation to come home, again and again.
Always here. Always now. With every breath.
Questions for Reflection
Where in your life do giving and receiving feel balanced, and where does the exchange need attention?
What has this Venus retrograde revealed about your needs, values, and relationships?
When does the desire to be understood become a determination to be right?
What would it look like to consider another person’s perspective while remaining connected to yourself?
If you approached your breath as the Beloved Companion, how might that change the way you meet yourself and the world?
