i’ve never felt like a girly-girl in the traditional societal female gender constructs and expression. 

i’ve always felt…extra. Way more Miss Piggy than Barbie. Way more Emmett Honeycutt from Queer As Folk than Bette from the L Word. 

Lately, i’ve been feeling the pull of a more female energy. The kind of female energy that existed long before our social constructs of gender, our binary either/or black/white thinking, or the trappings of gendered language. The energy that i am coming to recognize as Venus. <– a planet that i have NEVER had or even wanted a relationship…until now. 

i’ve always erred toward a more masculine energy (again, in divine not human-binaric way)…way more Mars than Venus. 

But i decided to follow this inner light rabbit of curiosity. It was within all this energy that i opened my Mooncircles email to find THIS.

Which includes a 40 day Venus challenge. 

i immediately knew in my gut that this was for me. This is what i’m needed to do. 

So i printed off Dana’s Venus in Retrograde schedule, set my intention, and have set off on this journey. 

It’s May 15 and i’m on Day 3 of challenge and i feel like i’ve already failed. 

i had the very best intentions to connect with my Venus every day in some small way and 3 days into it, i’m feeling discouraged. Like i’m somehow “not doing it right.”

The first day (May 12) my wife and i got home, ordered a good meal (black bean veggie burger from Hunky’s), and just binged watch season 12 of Big Brother. It was good food, great wine, and fun mindless TV.

The second day, yesterday, i started out with the intention to read all about how this Venus retrograde would be effecting my 11th Gemini natal house but instead found myself hosing off the blinds in my old drag room that is slowly becoming the new mediation/magic/yoga/playroom.

i woke up this AM again upset with the ideas that i was somehow not doing this venus magic right. 

But as i wrote my Morning Pages i had a major AHA moment…

What could be more Venus than a night of pure indulging on all the things that i love and never give myself space to do because i’m always doing, doing, doing, and writing, writing, writing? (My TV, wine, & food day.)

And if Venus is all about beauty, what can honor her more than deep cleansing a space that will be used for all things Venus–ritual, magic, creativity, play…indulgence in every aspect of the senses?!?!

What i discovered this AM is that i have been doing Venus all along. 

Even today, i took the whole morning to align myself with my intuition, to do Day 1 of Biddy Tarot’s Tarot 101 course, mediate with John Siddique’s Insight Timer class, NAME (Day 7 was today and it was amazing!), and soul-write this post. 

What could be more Venus than all this?!?

Part of learning to work with my Venus is realizing that i don’t always have to get it “right” (Mars) that whatever i am doing doesn’t have to lead to somewhere or some kind of outcome (Aries), that sometimes just by simply being and following the flow of what lights me up is where the magic’s at. 

By being present vs. doing or trying to do to become in my life, i am doing the very thing i set my Venus intention to do:

Connect with my Venus every day. 

Even just free-writing this post is so freeing, so indulgent. So Venus. 

And it makes me happy to just share from the center of where i am at in the heat of the moment. 

Based on what i’ve experienced just in the first 3 days, Venus is working her magic and i’m (finally) learning that it’s not about being right, getting it right, or doing it right… 

It’s about being open to receive and courageous enough to follow those intuitive leads. 

Here’s to staying open!

🖤💡✊🏾

contigo,

xo-b