​The Destiny Point in Astrology: Where to Find + How to Werk Your Vertex (Not a Medical Thing) 💫

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Hello! This is a re-publication of my post, How to Find the Vertex, or Destiny Point, in a birth, transit, or relationship chart! ⚡️🌀✨

I’ve updated it to include more info about what to do if you think your Vertex has been activated (“ew, what does THAT mean?” …read to find out! 😉), with links to free chart generators and instructions for discovering if your Vertex has been “activated” before… whether by a planet, an eclipse, or by somebody else's planets! 🙀

NOTE: I mention and link to my post about when my Vertex was struck by an eclipse in 2021, but just FYI, that post hasn’t been cleaned up or updated in hella days, but it’s def’ on my teux-deux list!

Remember to subscribe to find out when it’s live! ✌🏻

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here’s my new take on transits…

Transiting planets (+ Nodes… etc.) are basically stimuli, or engines. 🎆 

What exactly do they stimulate?

Our birth chart. ✨

Without transits, nothing would change, nothing could even be realized, including your chart’s hypothetical potential, which is what a natal chart actually is…

…just, potential. 👐🏻✨

Your Chiron is just pain, your Saturn is just boo. ❌

The whole freaking thing a permanent what if…?

But, like—what if reincarnation is totally for real, and there are all these clues, these consistent little evidences that time and space are illusory, and we’re basically in a simulacrum where temporal culture is raging out of control, like malware in our human programming, and astrology can help us pinpoint this malware in our inner narrative, and also use the power of analogy, metaphor, and simile to dissect triggers, omens, and other stimuli as they crest upon our consciousness…

…all so that we might be happier and more effective in our little fate-driven crises…

…and able to actualize our chart potential? 😳

“Free will is the ability to do gladly that which I must do.”

— Carl Jung

in which case, yes, fate, destiny, and the fulfillment of your potential would and does depend on planet transits! 🤩

Like—no matter how much you invest into LOA, you might still have to wait out a specific transit, one activating a specific piece of your chart, in order for the destined circumstances to come into play…

…or basically, a turning point. ✨

is there anything in our birth chart that might help us examine past moments of “transcendence”, or anticipate these maj’ turning points in our lives…?

YAS… the Vertex, a.k.a. the Destiny Point. 🌀⚡️✨

In a birth chart, the Vertex symbolizes a trigger point, a point in everyone’s chart that can be activated by transiting planets and/or planets in other people’s charts.

When activated by transits or synastry, depending on the planet making the contact, our Vertex indicates the theme (zodiac sign) and experiences (house) of fateful encounters and “destined” feeling moments.

(For better or worse. 😳)

and we need to talk about mine, because my chiron (“soul-wound”) and vertex (“destiny”) were tripped by the gemini solar eclipse in june 2021…

…which was officially the first moment I’d ever been completely self-aware of an astrological phenomenon as it was cresting upon my consciousness… ✨

…though it made me want to ugly-cry from confused humiliation, and then I went twice through the Sbux drive-thru in one day, now you know literally everything. 🙊

below, i’ll show you the 1-2-3s of finding + interpreting the vertex (a.k.a. destiny point ✨) in your own chart…

…plus how to find out when it’s about to get transited (or if it has been transited in the past)…

…and finally, how to evaluate where and how the destiny point shows up in your relationships on a synastry chart! 🤩🥰

I’ll also provide tips on how to cope and manage a Vertex activation, though I am mos’ def’ not an expert, and can possibly only provide hazard signals and warnings!

i provide all the links and step-by-steps for scoring free natal, transit, and synastry charts, but be advised…

…you’ll need accurate birth times (not guess-timates), as well as calendar dates for any spooky-woo moments in your past (that may have been a Vertex activation!).

SO, grab your birth certificate, or start dialing your momma and aunties! 📱

AND BEFORE WE BEGIN, let me better explain the Vertex and Destiny Point.

What is THE VERTEX, or Destiny Point, in Astrology?

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING… the Vertex isn’t a body, such as a planet, but is formed by where the ecliptic (or path of the Sun) intersected the prime vertical: an imaginary line dividing the sky into two halves, a “front” and “back”.

“[L. Edward Johndro] reasoned that if the Ascendant was determined by the intersection of the Great Circles of the Ecliptic and Horizon and the MC was determined by the intersection of the Great Circles of the Meridian and Ecliptic, there should also be a very sensitive point of energy at the intersection of the Great Circles of the Prime Vertical and the Ecliptic. He called the western axis of this point the Vertex and the eastern the antiVertex. He felt that the Vertex was the electrical, the Ascendant the magnetic and the MC the gravity axis in a natal chart.”

— AlicePortman.com, “The Vertex Axis in Relationships”

The Vertex is also referred to as the “Destiny Point” or “Destiny’s Gate,” because of its reputation for culminating into destiny and personal ascendency.

When activated by transit, progressions, or synastry, the Vertex coincides with major turning points

✨ the vertex can only be found on the right or “fate half” of your chart…

…because it pertains to fated encounters and situations, the Vertex is only found in the Fifth-Eighth Houses or right-hand side of our chart (full instructions for finding your’s below ✨).

This right-hand hemisphere (containing the Descendent angle) is known as the “fate” half of our chart, while the left hemisphere (containing the Ascendent angle) is considered the “freewill” half… 

…allegedly, because, we have more creative control over the planets, points, and angles on the left half of our chart, and less control over the objects on the right half of the chart (according to Steven Forrest in The Inner Sky).

“The ordinary Ascendant causes us to define ourselves by our experiences; the Vertex concerns itself with what we are (or can be) beyond our external circumstances. Vertex contacts feel ‘fated’ because they lead us to roads we instinctively feel, but cannot yet see. Vertex happenings invoke the Watcher in all of us–the one who knows, the one who works hand in hand with the one who experiences. This is the symbolic reason it appears on the opposite side of the chart from the Ascendant.”

— The Inner Wheel, “The Vertex versus the Nodes, Pt. I”

✨ the vertex is one of four “fate lines” to be found in a birth chart…

The Vertex, or “Destiny Point” is actually two points, comprising an angle stretching across your chart, between opposite signs and houses, known as the Ascension Axis. ⚡️

You’re probably already familiar with the other three “fate lines”, but under different names: the Magnetic Axis (the Ascendant-Descendant), the Gravity Axis (the Nadir-Midheaven), and the Karmic Axis (the Lunar Nodes).

The Ascension Axis is known as the spiritual ascendant, or the angle that draws spiritual, changing experiences to us.

“The Ascendant is who you are and how you express yourself. The Midheaven describes what you do (your career) and also one of your parents. As a result of how you express yourself and what you do, you are expected to express the characteristics and tasks of the Vertex.”

— Donna Henson, “The Vertex Report: Your Personal Destiny”

The Anti-Vertex represents the other half of “destiny’s gate,” and can also be activated by transits and other people’s planets. While the Vertex depends on other people (being on the relationship, “fated” portion of the birth chart), the sign and house placement of our Anti-Vertex speaks to what we cultivate on our own, the abilities, themes, and experiences that eventually lead into our “destined moments”.

Because the Vertex must be activated, it doesn’t reveal itself through our personality, though we might an have intuition, an instinct to develop the abilities symbolized by the planetary ruler of our Vertex sign.

“Ultimately, interpreting the Vertex axis isn’t very different from interpreting anything else in the chart. Whatever house it falls in indicates the realm of experience the ‘awakening’ encounters will occur in. The sign describes the method/process of the experience and also the general flavour of it. The rulers of the Vertex axis play a part, as do any planets conjunct the Vertex axis and the houses they rule.”

— The Inner Wheel, “Synastry Q & A: The Vertex”

But, until the Vertex is activated, we might not realize how those abilities were meant to parlay into our fate, or what role they would play in our destiny.

IN FACT, you might think of a Vertex activation as “puberty” for consciousness. We don’t decide it, we’re not manifesting it, it’s just programmed to happen. Our personality is not a factor in the process, though our personalities can develop and change with the activation.

We don’t choose it, the moment chooses us…

…and, for better or worse, we all do really want to be chosen! 🙏🏻

For more about the Vertex as part of the Ascension Axis (and the other “fate lines” in your chart), check out this post. ✨

✨ what activates the vertex?

There are 3 basic ways to activate your Vertex:

• TRANSITS TO VERTEX. Transits by other planets to your natal Vertex (which happens a lot with the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury, and Mars). Eclipses can also activate the Vertex, as I’ve discovered. And from the research, it seems like it’s not dependent on one planet transiting over the Destiny Point, but a combination of planet transits, and what else they’re transiting over in your chart.

• PROGRESSIONS TO THE VERTEX. Progressions reveal how your natal chart changes over time. If you have any natal planets in your Fifth - Eighth Houses, particularly the Sun or Moon (which progress faster than your other planets), they might eventually come upon your Vertex, and striate your inner awareness with insights related to your destiny process. During this time, you’d be living and breathing synchronicity.

• OTHER PEOPLE’S PLANETS CONJUNCT YOUR VERTEX (OR ANTI-VERTEX). The Vertex gets used a lot in relationship astrology (synastry and composite charts). Often, committed couples, besties, and super-enmeshed siblings have strong Vertex connections between their charts. Even without knowing the astrology, these are the relationships described as having a destined feeling, where both people feel the other one play’s a pivotal, supportive role in helping realize their true potential.

✨ what happens when the vertex is activated?

Fateful encounters and destined moments. 👐🏻✨

As one astrologer describes it, Vertex activations instigate a cataclysmic process, where events, meetings, and circumstances arrange themselves in such a way as to break up, dissolve, and dismantle all factors not currently aligned with your personal ascension.

The events and circumstances depend on your chart, and the configuration of transits (or synastry aspects) that helped conspire the trigger moment.

✨ how can you find and use the vertex point?

• IN A NATAL CHART > Examine your Vertex in your chart (sign, house, aspects) for hints about your destiny process. This post shows you how to start reading your natal chart, but you’ll need to come back here to find out how to look up your Vertex. ✨

• IN A TRANSIT CHART > You can cast charts for upcoming transits, estimating when (+ where) your Vertex might get tripped. Forewarned is forearmed. I show you a couple methods for tracking (or looking up) transits to your Vertex below (👇🏻), and you can learn more about reading a transit chart over here. ✨

• IN A SYNASTRY CHART > A synastry chart is created by overlaying one natal chart over another, and lining them up according to zodiac signs. In a synastry chart, you’d look for aspects between each other’s Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Midheaven, Venus or Mars, as well as your Vertex (or anti-Vertex). These connections might tell you if someone is meant to be in your life, and how they support your ultimate destiny. And FYI: Vertex activations aren’t always romantic—you can have a contact point between your Vertex and your kid’s Ascendant or Sun, for example, or connections between you and your mentor’s Vertex. I’ll show you how to find and evaluate the Vertex in a synastry chart below, and you can learn more about synastry here. ✨
  

✨ btw, the vertex is also known as the “wish point”…

Some astrologers also refer the Vertex as the “Wish Point,” because Vertex transits are reported to come on the heels of actual wishes: for a new life, new love, new purpose…

Often, the fateful meetings and circumstances of a Vertex activate seem like the answer to our secret prayers (uttered in those teary, dark-night-ish moments), and almost always coincide with major shifts in consciousness—often shifts in the very matrix of our life.

Enter “be careful what you wish for—you just might get it” scenarios.

Like—you might be wishing for skills, talents, or gifts you sense rattling around inside, and also feel you can’t access…

When the Vertex is activated, that access point is unveiled. 🔦

SO BASICALLY, by doing Mad Libs-style astrology with your Vertex placement, you might guess the who-what-when-why of these destined moments, whether they’ve happened in the past (or recently), and whether the people involved are meant-to-be!

HOW TO FIND AND INTERPRET THE VERTEX IN A Birth CHART

OKAY, I’m gonna explain where + how to score a free copy of your birth chart showing the Vertex, then share some descriptions and summaries for helping you find your Vertex sign and house…

…after that, I’m gonna show you how to find out what’s transiting your Vertex (if anything), and THEN, show you how to look for and delineate the Vertex in synastry! 😍💞

OKAY, ONE CRITICAL INGREDIENT > You need your accurate birth time for an online software to calculate a chart showing the Vertex. As accurate as you can get, because the degree° numbers of our angle placements (including the Vertex, a.k.a. our “auxiliary descendent” and “spiritual ascendent”) change every four minutes.

1. Pull up a copy of your natal chart. This post shows you how to get one from Astro.com. When you get to step #6, click VERTEX from the dropdown menu under “Additional Objects”, just under CHIRON. 👍🏻

2. Look to the right half of the chart, in your Fifth - Eighth Houses, for the letters “VERTE” (it’s missing the ‘x’ for some reason').

3. Note the zodiac sign on the outer rim of the chart, and confirm the house number between the spokes at center.

4. WRITE IT OUT > Vertex (any conjunctions?) in (the sign) in (the house). (Add the degree number to be fancy… and super-accurate. ✅)

5. WRITE OUT ITS OPPOSITE POINT > Anti-Vertex in (the opposite sign) in (the opposite house). (At the same degree, just different sign.)

6. Now, Google it all out... but don’t worry, I’m gonna link you to hella resources for every sign, house, and type of aspect you’ll need to look it all up! 😎

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ALTERNATE VERSION >
Visit + use the Cafe Astrology Vertex Calculator, just plug in your birth data. ☺️✨

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HERE’S MINE WRITTEN OUT >

Vertex ☌ (“conjunct” or side-by-side) Chiron in Gemini in the Eighth House. ♊️

Anti-Vertex ☌ Saturn in Sagittarius in the Second House. ♐️

✨ to interpret your vertex, we’ll basically break it down into keywords, mad libs-style…

Vertex (destiny) + Chiron* (soul-wound) in Gemini (connection) in the Eighth House (intimacy + power). 

(*Like that? My soul-wound is linked to my destiny. It’s like finding out that Pinhead from Hellraiser is the guardian angel of my destiny process. 😳😵‍💫)

So my passages through “destiny’s gate” apparently coincide with healing opportunities (vertex conjunct chiron), usually within the arena of my intense resource / psychological issues (eighth house), great. 👍🏻💫

✨ where am I coming up with these keywords for mad libs-style astrology…? 🤔

Retained from hella years of reading hella books + Internet articles…

And also, referring to a spreadsheet where I collect such things as keywords for astrology placements, because…

…idk why I have a spreadsheet, but I guess this is where I use it. 🤓

If keywords don’t zap to mind as you’re doing this exercise, you just need more astrology reading, and are literally remedying that by being here right now, so we’re helping each other out! 🤗💗

✨ once you’ve identified it, google for each component of your vertex placement…

SO, you’ll Google for your Vertex sign, Vertex house, and any aspects to your Vertex.

“Vertex in Gemini”, “Vertex in the Eighth House”, and “Vertex conjunct Chiron, natal” for good measure. ✅

Pop quotes, summaries, and links into a Google Doc, or Pin to your astrology boards, or wherever you like to hold and sift through mind-exploding psycho-spiritual personal data.

(Or basically, start building your own spreadsheet database! 🤩✨)

🌟 WHAT DOES MY VERTEX SIGN MEAN…?

Here are some summaries of the Vertex in the signs and houses to help you out, and links to where you can get more intel!

Remember, the sign of your Vertex indicates the theme, and draws in themes from the opposite sign (where the Anti-Vertex sits).

🌟 VERTEX IN ARIES ♈️ > Destiny process themes includes originality, first hand experience, taking the lead, and rivalry.

🌟 VERTEX IN TAURUS ♉️ > Destiny process themes include the acquisition of beauty, splendor, and comfort, and relationships that cultivate value and artistry.

🌟 VERTEX IN GEMINI ♊️ > Destiny process themes include personal integration, mental or telepathic connections, and being in like-minded relationships.

🌟 VERTEX IN CANCER ♋️ > Destiny process themes include laying roots, heart-centered belonging, and relationships built on sustenance and somatic-level entwinement.

🌟 VERTEX IN LEO ♌️ > Destiny process themes include play, validation, in finding a muse, unlocking creative potential, and relationships based on appreciation.

🌟 VERTEX IN VIRGO ♍️ > Destiny process themes include improvement, utility, ritual, and relationships that help us find our rhythm and honor our personal method.

🌟 VERTEX IN LIBRA ♎️ > Destiny process themes include collaboration, negotiating for truth and peace, and reassessing self-interest in light of others’ interests.

🌟 VERTEX IN SCORPIO ♏️ > Destiny process themes include depth, intimacy, unwavering commitment, and relationships based on intense shared experiences.

🌟 VERTEX IN SAGITTARIUS ♐️ > Destiny process themes include adventure, gaining full perspective, targeting for joy, and relationships based on pursuing and experiencing the miraculous.

🌟VERTEX IN CAPRICORN ♑️ > Destiny process themes include duty and overcoming, building a legacy or something with lasting value, and relationships that help in fulfilling one’s potential.

🌟 VERTEX IN AQUARIUS ♒️ > Destiny process themes include sharing a vision, fashioning an ideology, becoming more of oneself (individuation), and relationships based on true friendship.

🌟 VERTEX IN PISCES ♓️ > Destiny process themes include mystical healing, surrendering ego-fixations, and spiritual-based relationships.

For more summary-descriptions of the Vertex in the signs, check out this article, compare to this one from Siddhantika, and also this one from CafeAstrology! ✨

🌟 WHAT DOES THE VERTEX IN THE HOUSES MEAN?

Remember, the Vertex only shows up in the righthand or “western” side of the chart (the “fate” hemisphere) in one of houses 5-8.

Houses 5 and 6 are considered the last of the “personal” houses, whereas houses 7 and 8 are considered the first of the “impersonal” houses. We internalize the experiences of the personal houses, whereas the impersonal houses are largely externalized.

Whichever house your Vertex lands in indicates the arenas of life where your destined meetings take place, while the sign tells you the themes of the connection.

🌟 VERTEX IN THE FIFTH HOUSE > Destined meetings and fateful encounters in our passion pursuits, where we go to play, in our friendships, or within the communities or causes connected to our fun (anti-vertex in the eleventh house).

🌟 VERTEX IN THE SIXTH HOUSE > Destined meetings and fateful encounters in our daily routines and work-a-day life, with coworkers, employees, the people we service, or in the divine relationship behind and connected to our work (anti-vertex in the twelfth house).

🌟 VERTEX IN THE SEVENTH HOUSE > Destined meetings and fateful encounters in the realm of one-on-one relationships, i.e. with clients, or with professionals specializing in interpersonal services, such as law or therapy, intended to assist our personal image or self-relationship (anti-vertex in the first house).

🌟 VERTEX IN THE EIGHTH HOUSE > Destined meetings and fateful encounters within committed, enmeshed, or sexual relationships, such as with business, investors, or potential marriage partners, or the relationships we form as a means of consolidating our wealth, skills, and security (anti-vertex in the second house).

✨ to round it out, here are a few summaries for vertex house placements…

“In the fifth/eleventh house axis, there could be a propensity to experience fateful romantic or creative encounters (fifth house) through contacts with friends or groups (eleventh house). In the sixth/twelfth house axis, the turning point, or spin out, could effect our day by day living, or our link between psyche and soma (sixth house) through contact with those in the helping professions, those less fortunate or through dreams and creative fantasies (twelfth house). In the seventh/first house axis, sudden epiphanies could radically effect socially significant partnerships (seventh house) through an experience of projecting ourselves out into the world (first house). In the the eighth/second house axis, destiny may arrive in the form of an erotic encounter or intense research (eighth house) perpetrated by a desire for pleasure, security or peace (second house).

The vertex/anti-vertex by sign can signify the way we may experience activation to this axis. Aries/Libra could indicate issues between personal will and sharing, where Taurus/Scorpio may be about security versus risk. Gemini/Sagittarius could contrast knowledge and vision, where Cancer/Capricorn could emphasize protection versus enterprise. The Leo/Aquarius axis might highlight self-expression as opposed to group participation where the Virgo/Pisces might compare structure boundaries to limitless longing.”

— Kim Falconer, Astrology and Aptitude: How to Become What you Are Meant to Be

🌟 WHAT ABOUT ASPECTS FROM MY OTHER PLANETS TO MY VERTEX? >

Aspects describe the relationships between planets, some being softer (sextiles, trines) than others (square, oppositions, conjunctions).

HINT > The elements (fire, earth, air, water) and modes (cardinal, fixed, mutable) represented by the zodiac signs can help you build a picture how how these relationships express themselves and interrelate.

✨ here’s a summary of what aspects to your vertex can mean…

🌟 CONJUNCTIONS TO THE VERTEX OPPOSE THE ANTI-VERTEX > These planets help reveal where you can balance what you have (or know, believe, or do… etc.) against what you are developing.

🌟 SEXTILES TO THE VERTEX ARE TRINES TO THE ANTI-VERTEX > These planets offer an opportunity to develop your higher qualities, while flexing your already developed qualities. The real question: how to work with both in tandem?

🌟 SQUARES TO THE VERTEX ALSO SQUARE THE ANTI-VERTEX > These planets impede your development and the “higher” qualities you draw on from the Anti-Vertex. Hella bothersome. From Siddhantika’s article about the Vertex: “If planets square the Vertex angle, then the development of this planet is crucial to whether or not  I become aware enough (and brave enough) to meet my fate.  For example, if Saturn is square my Vertex angle, then Saturn development would open the gateway for Vertex-inspired experiences.  The more Saturn develops and the more we learn to use it constructively, the greater the possibility of Vertex experience.  This could happen natally or it could happen through a contact with another whose Saturn squares my Vertex angle.  If another’s Saturn squares my Vertex, their planetary development will affect my spiritual development.”

🌟 TRINES TO THE VERTEX ARE SEXTILES TO THE ANTI-VERTEX > These planets help you ease towards your Vertex qualities, drawing from the Anti-Vertex qualities. We’re floating down a riverrr… to the Verrrtex… 🎶

🌟 OPPOSITIONS TO THE VERTEX CONJUNCT THE ANTI-VERTEX > Presents the path of least resistance, or confrontations with your Vertex development. Might present opportunity to size up your potential, or gauge where your “higher self” potential actually lies, or the flimsiness of your vision for it.

🌟 QUINCUNXES TO THE VERTEX ARE SEMI-SEXTILES TO THE ANTI-VERTEX > These planets present quirky derailments where you’re able to observe and develop (or kind of lean on) the qualities symbolizes by your Vertex. According to some liner notes in Donna Hensen’s example Vertex Report: “Quincunxes to the Vertex are also semi-sextiles to the Anit-Vertex. While you're fated to develop the sign of the Vertex, help from your Anti-Vertex is just beginning to develop giving you little help from previous development. This results in minor irritations that could eventually develop into big problems such as health or financial concerns. To handle this you have to adjust to the differences of the two signs.”

HINT > This CafeAstrology summarizes the Vertex in the signs, as well as aspects to the Vertex from the planets, and for more summary-descriptions of the Vertex in the signs, compare to this one from Siddhantika! ✨

For more insight into aspects in general, here’s that CafeAstrology article again (that I linked to earlier), to be compared to this one from Dark Star Astrology, and this one from Alice Sparkly Kat (very useful for analyzing all the aspects in your birth chart). ✨

ALSO, for insight into the elements + modes (super helpful for building an intuitive picture of how the themes and experiences of your planets are interrelating), check out this AstroStyle article, and compare to this one from CafeAstrology on the same topic*! ✨

(*Build that database, yo’!)

SO, FOR ME, POUR MOI… 💕

Having Chiron in close aspect (2°) of my Vertex entwines my soul-wound cycle and healing with my destiny process. Chiron is a comet-asteroid that orbits between Saturn and Uranus, and indicates our “soul-wound” on our natal chart (read more about natal Chiron here ✨).

STRAIGHT UP, THO…

…in general, Chiron and the Eighth House are tricky to characterize. Both deal with carnal issues, situations dealing with deficiencies / gains, merging / un-merging, and evolved / evolving understandings of personal value and resource. 

Having Chiron nearby my Vertex suggests that any and all Vertex activations will entail the similar ripping and flooding experiences that characterize our “soul-wounding” (uh oh).

“Chiron is the essence of pragmatism, of gaining a palpable or ‘hands on’ awareness of ourselves so that we can metamorphose into something entirely new. This Chirotic form of transmutation is so systemic, the change so complete, the experience so intense, that most people forget it happened to them within hours. Often it can only be recognized by its effects, such as a sudden new vision, a complete path alteration in life, a feeling of being reborn.”

— Barbara Hand Clow, Chiron

GENERALLY, when Chiron gets transited (and it’s not along our Chiron Cycle, when our specific soul-wound gets re-triggered ❤️‍🩹⚡️), the transit coincides with events promoting some kind of re-education about what we might bring and use to transform a situation, based on our personal wounding / healing experiences.

OR BASICALLY, VERTEX CONJUNCT CHIRON IN MY CHART… implies that my path to ascendency involves re-integrating (Gemini ♊️) my wounding / healing experiences, and being led through the visceral resource-and-value scarcity issues that created my soul-wound in the first place. 🙈

AND THE SAME FOR YOU, if you happen to have Chiron aspecting your Vertex! 🙌🏻

IF NOT, or if you have any other planets aspecting the Destiny Point in your chart, you’ll have to do a little Google-snooping to figure out how that might color your fateful meetings and encounters. 😊

HOW TO READ AND INTERPRET TRANSITS TO THE VERTEX

While your natal chart describes potential, transits to the Vertex coincide with actual fated encounters and interactions.

REMEMBER FROM THE INTRO, until activated, everything described in your natal chart is just potential.

Often, when any planet, angle, or point of our birth chart is transited, other people will act as avatars for the transiting planet. It’s as if the planets are acting through people, performing functions related to the planet, “causing” the impact those transits are supposed to have on our charts (learn more about planetary transits here ✨).

With the Vertex, the “avatars” will deliver a message (Mercury) or spotlight a virtue (Sun), dovetailing with what our Vertex describes we’re fated to develop (by sign, house, + other nearby planets).

NOTE > These fated encounters might only happen as interactions, and not develop into lasting relationships (such as romances or friendships), or might occur in already established ones.

In any case, you might as well keep top-of-mind any planet that’s transiting your Vertex sign! ✅

✨ to find out what’s transiting your vertex…

You’ll need to score a copy of a transit chart from the day you believe your Destiny Point got tripped, OR to find out if it’s being transited by another planet.

COUPLE OPTIONS…

🌟 This Astro-Seek calculator lets you calculate aspects formed to your Vertex by transiting planets: just enter your birth data, select a planet from the first drop down menu, a type of aspect* from the second, and “Vertex” from the third. Click “calculate”, and the next page will list the calendar dates when the planet you’ve selected has aspected your Vertex! 🤩

(*Conjunctions and squares to our Vertex are felt most, the most promising for growth. Sextiles might start or inspire something between the points, while trines facilitate and support the direction you’re moving in.)

🌟 This post can show you a full out tutorial for scoring and reading transit charts, but if you want to grab one real quick, hit up the Astro-Seek Transit Chart Calculator, enter your birth data, select a date*, then hit “calculate transits”.

(*It’ll automatically display today’s date. 💁🏻‍♀️)

NOTE > This is a different chart calculator than Astro.com, but still totally cool, and will automatically display the Vertex in your chart!

✨ when you have your transit chart…

Scan houses 5-8 for “VX”, and see if there any planets hovering nearby. Your planets will be blue and on the inside, while transiting planets will be in orange and outside the wheel.

HINT > Remember to peek at the opposite sign / house to see if anything is transiting your Anti-Vertex!

ALSO, remember that it’s not just the planet transiting your Vertex, but the configuration of planets that are also in transit, and how they’re impacting your chart.

So, note any other “exact” aspects being formed by other planets, which you can spot by clicking the gray tab located over the chart display labelled “Aspects Tables”, which grids out all the aspects for you. Notice which boxes have black lines around them, indicating “exact” aspects. ✅

✨ “what should I know about transits to my anti-vertex?…”

These are also significant, and tend to impact the area of our chart where we’re doing “prep work” or the “inside job” leading into our destiny process.

BUT JUST FYI, I can’t locate much literature about the effects of transits to the Anti-Vertex, but from my own inexpert transit tracking, transits to the Anti-Vertex seem to be a “peek-a-boo” opening, or insight into the destiny process…

…not really coinciding with destined moments. ❌

FOR INSTANCE, instead of a moment of clarity or hit of awareness (such as with a transit to the Vertex), the effect feels more… like… realizing the bath water has turned cold, or waking from a micro-nap, and now a different podcast episode is playing from the one you’d settled in to listen to…

…or basically, transits to the Anti-Vertex feel like something on the backend that needs adjusting or re-calibration* (IMHO). 👍🏻

(*NOTE: My Saturn almost conjuncts the Anti-Vertex of my chart, so, this is a hella biased appraisal. 😕🤷🏻‍♀️)

ANYWAY, let me provide some summaries for interpreting transits to the Vertex…

…and in the final section, I’ll focus on reading for the Vertex in a synastry chart (💞), which showcases what the Vertex does best. 😌

🌟 SUN-MOON TRANSITS TO THE VERTEX 🌻🌙 > Transits to the Vertex from the luminaries, the Moon and Sun, happen once a month and once a year. Some astrologers claim a Sun transit to your Vertex will coincide with “love at first sight”, but that might depend on other transits (maybe something also transiting your Venus, and Seventh House?). In any case, Sun-Moon transits to the Vertex seem to bring a burst of energy, or a gut-feeling, that furrow you along your destined path (as described by the Vertex placement). Obviously, these effects are amplified by a New or Full Moon. You’d probably feel thunderstruck by coinciding events if an eclipse strikes your Vertex, like literally, which is how EYE felt. This is because eclipses are essentially hyper-karmic New and Full Moon portals. (Read more about my Eclipse Moment here, and learn earn more about astrological eclipses over here. 🌀✨)

🌟 MERCURY-VENUS-MARS TRANSITS TO THE VERTEX 🧚🏻🌸🔥 > Transits to the Vertex from the swifter, “inner” planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars) might bring about actual people, “visitors” or avatars embodying the planet’s archetype: you might receive a special message (Mercury), gratification (Venus), or even a spark of rivalry (Mars), all of which would goad you towards Destiny’s Gate.

🌟 JUPITER-SATURN TRANSITS TO THE VERTEX 🕊🪐 > Transits to the Vertex from the Social Planets are much longer lasting, and more formative. Jupiter conjuncts your Vertex once every 12 years, and will shower blessings on your destiny process, perhaps in the form of a benefactor, patron, or mentor, or coincide with some kind of meaningful opportunity. Meanwhile, Saturn conjuncts your Vertex once every 30 years, coinciding with some tasks that will crystallize the themes and context of your destiny process, perhaps in the form of a authority figure, or just as likely a reconciling or clearing of old karma complicating your route to ascension.

🌟 URANUS-NEPTUNE-PLUTO TRANSITS TO THE VERTEX ⚡️🌊💀 > Transits to the Vertex from one of the heavies (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) will coincide with social, spiritual, or existential crises. Uranus will bring eureka level flashes of genius, perhaps the arrival of a tool or invention that enables you in some way, while Neptune will bring spiritual awakening, and Pluto will bring a soul-wracking, inside-out descent into the deepest caverns of psyche.

NOTE > The Outer Planets move hellllla slow, and may not ever transit your Vertex (OR Anti-Vertex) in this lifetime, but if they do, the situations will feel far bigger than you or any other single individual…

…or basically, the “fateful encounters” will link you into a “meta” issue that is tied to you destiny process, which could be ideological (Uranus), spiritual (Neptune), or chthonic (Pluto).

Whichever Outer Planet is transiting your Vertex, just note that this drawn-out experience will bring perhaps cruel-bizarre synchronicities, and that the experience itself is informing your destiny process! ✌🏻

ULTIMATELY, the themes (sign) and experiences (house) you will likely have during a transit moment is determined by your Vertex placement, but note where the ruler of your Vertex sign is hanging out on your chart, because that’s the area that’ll get “reworked” by the Outer Planet’s influence!

HINT > Here again is that CafeAstrology article summarizing aspects from the planets to Vertex, as well as a list of which planet(s) rule which zodiac signs.

Oh, and you can learn more about the concept of “rulers” (a.k.a. dispositors) over here! ✨

HOW TO Interpret THE VERTEX IN a SYNASTRY Chart 💞

OKAY, SO…. relationship astrology is where the Destiny Point really gets to shine, and maybe because not many people are tracking their transits (despite my constant admonishing ❌).

Often, the Destiny Point is prominent in the synastry charts of significant relationships. These aren’t necessarily romantic, and can be represented in charts of siblings, mentors-pupils, besties, etc., any relationship that feels destined, or any relationship where the person enters our life through a twist of fate. 🌀

FOR THIS, we’re only locating and interpreting connections betwixt-between each other’s Vertex in a synastry chart, but the conditions of the Vertex in a composite chart* can also be insightful about a relationship.

(*Click that link to learn more, but I have a tutorial about getting and reading a composite chart coming out in a couple months, subscribe to find out when it goes live! ☺️)

FOR THIS DEMONSTRATION, I’ll be using the birth data of the barista I happened to be looking at when the Gemini Solar Eclipse struck my Vertex on June 10, 2021, based on birth data that I approximated based on his phenotype (Gemini Rising), age range (45-46 at the time), and other factors gathered from the Internet and while eavesdropping in the cafe where it happened (bc, I’m creepy 💁🏻‍♀️).

THIS IS NOT ADVISABLE ❌, not only because it’s essentially stalking with synastry (…and transit charts), but also because the birth data is only approximate, and you definitely want an accurate birth time for the Vertex placement that’s displayed to be exact. 👌🏻

If you don’t have accurate birth data… welp, be forewarned that you might get excited (or frustrated) by synastry connections that aren’t even real or true. 🤷🏻‍♀️

BUT WHO AM I TO DISCOURAGE YOU, even if you only have approximate birth data, let’s do this, because we’re all learning astrology, right? Let’s put off grad school forever… 💕

Anyway…

🌟 WHERE + HOW TO GET A FREE SYNASTRY CHART…

1. Go to Astro-Seek.com, and hover over Free Horoscopes on the left-hand side of the navigation, and select “Synastry, Composite, Davison.”

2. On the next page, from the list of hyperlinks that displayed, click “Synastry charts” at the top.

3. Type in your birth data: time, date, location. You are Partner A.

4. Type in another person’s birth data for Partner B.

5. Below that, click the light gray hyperlink labelled “Extended Settings” and check to display aspects for "Vertex.”

6. Click the blue rectangle labelled “calculate chart”.

7. Ta-da, you did it! 💫
   

🌟 HOW TO READ FOR THE DESTINY POINT IN A SYNASTRY CHART >

Okay—it might seem a teensy bit complicated, but only at first glance.

1. FIRST, identify which planets are whose. Partner A will be in blue (on the inside), and Partner B will be in orange (on the outside).

2. NEXT, locate the Ascendants. Partner A’s Ascendant will be on the left-hand side, where the Ascendant angle and First House are usually located on a chart. Scan the rest of the chart for the letters “ASC” to locate where Partner B’s Ascendant has landed. (For me, Partner B’s ASC lands in my Eighth House.)

3. FINALLY, locate the Destiny Points, which will be labelled as Vx, for Vertex. You will have to approximate the Anti-Vertex, by looking at the sign and house opposite the Vertex (to determine if there are any connections there as well).

REMEMBER, we’re only looking for contact from your Vertex to their chart, and vice versa. You can save the other connections for a deeper-dive later on (again, here’s my synastry tutorial when you’re ready ✨).

✨ FIRST, locate the Vertex in your own chart…

Locate your Vertex (which is in blue). Do you notice any orange planets, angles, or points nearby? List them one-by-one:

MY VERTEX ☌ (“conjunct” or side-by-side)
THEIR ASCENDANT IN GEMINI / MY EIGHTH HOUSE (their first house).

✨ NEXT, locate their Vertex (which is in orange)…

Do you notice any blue planets, angles, or points nearby? List them one-by-one:

THEIR VERTEX ☌ (“conjunct” or side-by-side)
MY ASCENDANT AND PLUTO IN SCORPIO / MY FIRST HOUSE (their sixth house).

HINT 1 > Measure the orb, or “span of degrees” between the Vertex, planets, angles, and any other objects involved. Degrees are represented by the little gray lines in between the darker black lines, inside the boxes displaying the zodiac symbols. Every black line denotes 5°.

Any objects within a 5° orb of either Vertex should be counted, they’re in the mix. ✅

HINT 2 > Click the hyperlink above the chart itself labelled “Aspect tables”, and scan the columns labelled “Vx”. Partner A’s planets + points will be displayed in the vertical column on the left-hand side, while Partner B’s planets + points will be displayed in the horizontal column across the top. These columns display the exact degree° of your Vertex placement (mine is @ 18° Gemini) along with glyphs symbolizing the aspects formed to your Vertex by Partner B’s planets.

🌟 FOR YOUR REFERENCE, this CafeAstrology article displays and explains all the aspects, while this one summarizes aspects to the Vertex from other planets.

✨ LAST, compare Vertex placements between charts…

Recall the theme (zodiac sign) and experiences (house placement) of your own Vertex, and evaluate the same for your synastry partner. Note any orange planets hovering by your synastry partner’s Vertex (also orange). These planets are part-in-parcel to their destiny process, as described by the sign and house placement on their chart.

FOR ME, ON MY CHART… the themes of my destiny process involve communication and a meeting of the minds (Vertex in Gemini ♊️), and ascendency into power and intimacy (my eighth house).

AND IF YOU RECALL, my Chiron (❤️‍🩹) forms a 2° conjunct to my Vertex, both of which are crowding my synastry partner’s Ascendant.

FOR HIM, THE ECLIPSE BARISTA’S CHART… the themes of his destiny process involves intimacy + intensity (Vertex in Scorpio ♏️), but ascending into a vitality-driven work-life rhythm (his sixth house).

ALSO, the Eclipse Barista has Uranus (⚡️) within a 5° orb of his Vertex, both of which are crowding around my Ascendant…

…which means we share a “double whammy” between our Destiny Points + Ascendants!

My Vertex conjuncts the barista’s Ascendant, and his Vertex conjuncts mine, with my Chiron and his Uranus mixed in.

BECAUSE THE BARISTA AND I SHARE A DOUBLE-WHAMMY OF OUR VERTEX - ASCENDANTS IN OUR SYNASTRY CHART…

…the “fated interaction” might be… if looking dead-on at each other during a “cosmic trigger moment” (the June 10, ‘21 Gemini Solar Eclipse, perhaps 🤔), whereupon either of our Vertex or Ascendants were struck…

…we’d be furrowed into some version of our separate destiny processes.

Or basically, the “fated interaction” and pivotal moment would have been a super-subliminal catalyzing experience, something meant to shock and awaken us to the dormant skills and abilities underlying my Vertex placement.

And with my Chiron so close at hand (❤️‍🩹), wounding and healing would striate my destiny process, which I suppose ultimately happened (which you can read about at the bottom of my post about Black Moon Lilith in synastry ✨).

“In the Ascendant conjunct Vertex relationship, the two partners work as catalysts for each other’s true potential, wishes, dreams and desires. One of the truly beautiful and admirable things about this relationship is that each partner knows just how to encourage the other person in order to get them to deliver their best, express their deepest truths, and not least own who they truly are and what they truly want in this life. Here are two partners who truly see each other – and inspire and encourage each other to reveal themselves to the rest of the world, too.”

— Access New Age, “Vertex Conjunct Ascendant Synastry”

✨ what if not my vertex, but a different planet, asteroid or point connects to my synastry partner’s vertex…?

THIS IS TRICKY TO FIND! 😫

Planet aspects to the Vertex don’t seem to be felt or used much in compatibility analysis, but can explain the types of energy or function that one person provides the other.

This might even explain how one person can feel as though the other person contributes something meaningful to their life, even if the relationship itself is not very easy, or doesn’t have a purpose or function outside of this contribution. 🤷🏻‍♀️

REMEMBER, the Vertex in synastry might illustrate a gravitational pull, or feeling that this person is important to where you’re heading in your life…

…but doesn’t necessarily mean that your destined paths will align…

…only that you are engaging in a fated interaction. 🌀

“It is important to note that when romantic partners have conjunctions between one person’s Vertex and the other person’s personal planets (and/or going both ways), it doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship is a blissful, “happily ever after” one. That is hardly the case. However, it does suggest a powerful connection.”

— CafeAstrology, “Vertex”

If you notice one of your planets forms an aspect to another person’s Vertex, it might indicate your relationship is fateful for that person, and that your planet (or angle, whatever) plays into what that person is trying to develop in their destiny process.

What is the meaning, or significance, of the planet or angle from your synastry partner’s chart connecting with your Vertex? What does that planet (or object) signify in your their chart?

AS A REFRESHER, this Labyrinthos article explains the energy, archetypes, and symbolism of all the planets, which you can compare to these explainers from Astro.com! ✨

✨ what about synastry contacts to my anti-vertex (or vice versa)?

WELP, it sounds like synastry contacts to the Anti-Vertex are almost like a “shadow connection”, the way that we tend to project planets in our Seventh House onto others.

“The anti-Vertex allows us to process our divinity through the vehicle of ‘other’–when other’s planets fall on our anti-Vertex, we reveal ourselves through the ‘not I.’ Often, anti-Vertex contacts involve commitment and sacrifice beyond the call of duty, and we usually don’t mind fulfilling those commitments because we feel the divine pulse of our own spirit gradually unveiling in our actions.”

— The Inner Wheel, “The Vertex versus the Nodes, Pt. I”

If someone else’s planet(s) or angle connects with your Anti-Vertex, dig into the symbolism of the connecting planet, and try to evaluate the function of the connection. Compare to your true life experience of the relationship, and what it feels like and means to you.

Does there seem to be a commitment or sacrifice in that kind of relationship?

Does it feel like that person grounds your destiny process in a meaningful way (maybe like a tradeoff)?

ALSO, do you have any planets already conjunct your Anti-Vertex, such as I? 💕

Tho, from the research, it sounds like any planet connections to our Vertex - Anti-Vertex axis are ultimately beneficial, but I would add that, like most of our birth chart, it takes time and experience to tap into the benefits.

AND BE CAREFUL, because you might invest in the energy or function symbolized by that planet into someone else who’s activated your Vertex. 😳😬

what you might want to consider wHEN interpreting the role of the vertex (a.k.a. fateful encounters or destined meetings) in your synastry… 

• TIMING ⏱ > When did the relationship or interaction start? Did you record the original meeting date in a journal or an agenda? What was the vibe? Who were you with, what was the context? What were the circumstances and vibe of the next interaction?

• FIRST IMPRESSIONS 👀 > What were the circumstances of your first meeting? What was the vibe of your interaction? How did those impressions evolve over time, and due to what circumstances or events?

• INFLUENCE 🪄 > How would you articulate or describe the role or influence you each play in other’s goals, ambitions, or sense of purpose? Especially note if “purpose” or “fate” have a presence in your relationship. Like—has the other person ever described to you what they feel destined for? Do they know what you feel destined for? Have you both ever discussed what you individually believe you’re fated for, and what you individually believe the other person contributes to that fate? (…Or are you just #NetflixandChilling away your time together…?)

If you happen to have all this info, your Vertex connections in your synastry chart might be able to explain the start, consummation, or special advancement in your relationship! 

…but, I know, you’d have to just be the kind of person who documents such things.

If nothing else, maybe the info gathered from your Vertex placements helps you remember or feel back into those initial meetings…

…or maybe even help validate an intuition, some “woo" inkling you felt, about that person or your interactions! 🤯🤩

✨ but shouldn’t fate imply the capacity for some kind of significant bond with my synastry partner…? 🤨😓

While the lore hints that Vertex connections might indicate a metaphysical bond between people…

…the “purpose” of the Vertex connection / fated encounter is to goad us towards destiny, in whatever way described by the connection.

Or basically, aspects between your Vertex and theirs speaks only to interactions… not to the relationship itself.

There are so many other factors to look for in a synastry chart in terms of compatibility (see my synastry post ✨), and a composite chart is where you would look for the “meaning” of a relationship….

But the Vertex is specifically about your destiny process. ⚡️🌀

If you share Vertex connections with someone else, it only indicates that you’re co-engineering your destinies,

…or, at the very least, influencing each other’s destiny process…

…but ultimately, the destiny process itself is an inside job, something you’ll pack up and take with you when you go.

And how wonderful we have these sorts of synchronicities to spurn us onward (yay)!

Tips for Hazarding A Vertex Activation… 🌀⚡️

(…And WHAT I THINK HAPPENED WHEN MY VERTEX WAS ACTIVATED BY THE JUNE 2021 GEMINI SOLAR ECLIPSE)

TO CATCH YOU UP… on June 10, 2021, a Solar Eclipse tripped my Vertex-Chiron, I think at the exact moment I was looking into a barista’s eyes. 👁⚡️

As he called out my drink order, our eyes connected, and I saw a steely-blue flash of light. Two flashes, actually, starting in both eyes as metallic enzo-shaped swirls, which ballooned, then condensed and solidified into metallic glowing orbs, before finally flashing out…

I zombie-grabbed my mocha-drink-latte-thing, then scuttled back to my SUV, and went where I go for hope: astrology newsletters. 💡

I had seen the warnings about eclipse season— “check yo’ planets, check yo’ Nodes”—but I literally forgot about my Vertex-Chiron. Both the Vertex and Chiron are special bodies selected from a separate menu in the Astro.com chart generator, which is where I was casting the majority of charts at the time (now I use Astro-Seek).

So, in some versions of my birth chart, Gemini (where the eclipse was striking) is empty. 🤷🏻‍♀️

AND, TBH… I was not so far along in my astrology self-study that I actually understood horoscopes and blog posts regarding about eclipses. 😳

Like—when astrologers joke about people taking cover on eclipse days, I thought it was the same as when they’re like, “Ruh-roh, Mercury’s about to Retrograde!” (( said in a Scooby-Doo voice for some reason ))

Not actually like, “FATE. IS. HAPPENING…. Hide somewhere chill!” 😱✌🏻

Within a day or so of seeing the blue light, the barista started acting weird at me, and I believe triangulating me against one of the coworkers he’s been having an affair with. I’m guessing this based on (1) that coworker’s reproachful attitude towards me of late, and (2) because she showed me her natal chart hella days ago in connection to a break-up with her boyfriend/roommate, whereupon I guessed an unwise casual coupling would ensue (not out loud 🤐) largely due to codependency markers in her chart, and the fact that she does work with a janky perv (the barista ✨), though I did not anticipate the coinciding impact of the eclipse 🌗, my seeing the blue flash in the barista’s eyes, or him suddenly dressing like my ex-husband / Art Alexakis and instructing the other baby-baristas to spy and notify him of my cafe solicitations…

…but does that mean he also saw a blue flash in my eyes or is he just responding to my weird vibes and trying to shake off his clingy workplace-lover, AND I’M BASICALLY STALKING EVERYONE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD WITH ASTROLOGY, hi, I’m Plutonian. 👻

EVENTUALLY, AFTER TEN MONTHS OF TRYING TO START A CONVERSATION ABOUT ECLIPSES WITH HIM… the barista (that fucking cunt 🔥), announced he wouldn’t serve me anymore (again, the full scoop is at the bottom of my Lilith-in-synastry tutorial, with the calendar date and exact time, if you want to peek at the transit chart 🤓)…

…which worked out okay, I guess, since another cafe opened up in town anyway, and I Iearned about eclipses and the Destiny Point in astrology. 🎉

OKAY, THAT’S THE JIST OF IT, NOW HERE’S WHAT I THINK HAPPENED…

REMINDER > The 2021 Gemini Solar Eclipse occurred at 19° Gemini, in a 2-3° orb of my Vertex-Chiron (rad). ♊️✨

Based on the barista’s (hypothetical) birth chart, that same eclipse might have struck within 5° of his Ascendant (positioned @ 14° Gemini… hypothetically 👌🏻).

REPEATING THIS FOR YOUR ASTROLOGICAL EFFICACY…

The Ascendant angle is the “starting line” of our chart, and demarcates the beginning of the First House of Identity, Appearance, and Persona. Planets very close-by our ASC (or even placed in our First House) can influence our phenotype: the tighter the orb to our ASC, the more dramatic the influence… particularly in our eyes. 👁

PERHAPS… when the eclipse tripped my Vertex-Chiron (⚡️❤️‍🩹), it also struck the barista’s Ascendant (👁), and my visual hallucination was some kind of projection or psychic insight into his own coinciding transits… 🤔

…his Vertex hadn’t been activated though, just mine. 😒

SO, we will never know what he saw on that particular eclipse day (if anything), how it registered (if at all), or its consequences.

I mean—I can hazard guesses (based on intel learned about his life while eavesdropping), but we never had a direct conversation. Any opportunity to have had such a conversation seemed thwarted by his anxiety and angst, which never mixed well with my daily mood instability and tendency to derail small talk with polemic and absurd declarations (“Well, rapists are always circumcised, so…” 🤦🏻‍♀️).

Or maybe he liked my weird attention, but thought I’d eat his heart and steal his dog (not unlikely), so he needed to create a very confusing moving boundary to keep my attention (without yielding to its weirdness)…

…and, eventually, the ambiguity and ambivalence of our interactions just got too stressful. 🥵

In any case, I super-appreciate all the spooky-cute coincidences* that happened while I was in the cafe trying to extract data…

(*ONE MAJ’ COINCIDENCE… The Vertex / Anti-Vertex comprise the Ascension Axis of our chart, right… and the cafe where mine got eclipse-tripped was called “Ascendo”! 🤯🤭)

…and the barista’s hypothetical birth chart did serve as a useful proxy for deep-learning transit and relationship astrology (always a great career and relationship move 👍🏻).

“Often, Vertex contacts come into our lives, deliver their message, and then disappear just as quickly as they came, leaving us altered in a profound way, but a bit shattered. Can’t get more Uranian than that–Uranus of the higher mind, beyond mere mortality/physicality. The lover or friend who comes ‘out of the blue’ and happens to put us on our path, who helps us know who are we when we are not our earth-created ego, we when we are not our ‘stuff.’”

— The Inner Wheel, “Soul Points in Synastry: The Vertex Versus the Nodes, Part Two”

ALSO, this is crucial… not everyone wants or cares about synchronicity, about woo things that happen in coincidence with astronomical phenomena that we might be able to interpret via metaphor, analogy, and symbolism (a.k.a. astrology).

I mean—is telling a stranger they were part of a a visual hallucination you experienced during an eclipse similar to telling them about your dreams last night, or what a pop song means to you?

“Uhhh… eclipses, ya… cool, dude… thx for letting me know.” 🙄😏

NO, nope, that would have been too weird and cruel to endure…

…especially in light of all the other disillusionment I’d been feeling around that time. ❌

I’d rather crop the experience up to a “fateful encounter” just meant for me, that’s it.

“We can’t figure out the ‘why’ of a Vertex contact, it just is–and usually the sense of ‘fate’ comes from the fact that something or someone is provided just at the point it is most needed; whether or not we ever knew that we needed it before. In an odd way, the Vertex acts as a secret and sacred ‘helping hand.’”

— The Inner Wheel, “Soul Points in Synastry: The Vertex Versus the Nodes, Part Two”

✨ do all vertex activations play out this way, tho?

Nooo, probably not…

..but they do in many cases, according to most Vertex lore I’ve found. 🤷🏻‍♀️

“However, not all Vertex connections are meant to last. Some can go on for years, others can literally come and go in a matter of minutes. The arrival and departure of the planetary person connecting to the Vertex only stays present until the the completion of the ‘Turning point’. If the romantic partner has a vertex conjunction to their lover, a karmic relationship is indicated between the two - terms such as ‘fated’ is deemed quite appropriate for these relationships. One must be conscious and understanding of how long the relationship is supposed to last.”

— Tumblr, EllieMaeAstrology, “The Vertex: My Wish Come True”

Remember that Vertex activations specialize in fated encounters, so for me, the encounter was supposed to be a learning process (Vertex in Gemini ♊️) and rinse-down of my intimacy issues (Vertex in the Eighth House).

FOR SOME PEOPLE, the activation could involve people they’re already in relationship with, for which the turning point would occur, and then they’d move along their destiny process, with no real impact to the culture and integrity of their relationship.

BUT, IF YOUR VERTEX ACTIVATION ALSO DRAGGED YOU INTO AN AMBIGUOUS-FEELING SITUATION, here’s a caution… 🚩✨

When the Vertex is activated, it’s like getting a charge, a thunderbolt to your psyche. ⚡️

You might walk around carrying the charge, but it needs to be grounded….

…and it wants to be grounded in your destiny process. 🌀

THUS, a Vertex activation delivers on its symbolic promise (to instigate a change in consciousness) as long as the charge it creates gets grounded into a situation that serves your ultimate ascent (as described by your Vertex placement). ⚡️⚡️⚡️

Unless you can see that “relationship” is an important story line in your Vertex placement, or in your birth chart in general, you might be projecting the “destiny inspo” away from yourself, which might be what I did with my fateful encounter with the barista.

SO, try inventorying the other transits in place at the time of your activation, and getting super acquainted with the story lines in your birth chart. ✅

✨ do we only get the one shot, or can the vertex be activated more than once…?

Your Vertex can definitely be activated more than once! 😅

My Vertex has been eclipse-tripped before, by the Gemini Solar Eclipse in June 2011, when I consummated a relationship with my coworker*, who eventually fathered my children and became my husband (not in that order 💃🏻).

(*Who was also a barista, is this my pattern?? 😨)

Anyway, you can use this Astro-Seek calculator to find out when, how, + what has transited your Vertex in the past, and then decide in those calendar dates listed correlate with any meaningful dates in your personal story!

TO USE IT, plug in your birth data, and select any planet from the dropdown menu labelled “Transit”. Start with “conjunction” under the “Aspect” menu, but you can play around with different aspects. Finally, from the third menu labelled “Natal”, select “Vertex”.

You can also choose whether to see transits or transits and progressions! 🤩🥰

Obviously, this might get time consuming, especially if you focus on transits from the Sun, Moon, and other swift-transiting planets, but it might still yield fascinating insight!

IF YOU’RE CURIOUS ABOUT ECLIPSES SPECIFICALLY… use this Astro-Seek calculator, which shows you a 5-year time span for when, where, + what eclipses have struck (or are due to strike) in your birth chart!

Just enter your birth data, and select a starting year from the dropdown menu, your current location (or the location of where you were when you believe an eclipse struck your chart), then the type of aspect you’re interested in (focus on conjunctions, squares, and oppositions).

On the next page, you’ll see a display showing where all the eclipses in a 5-year timeframe had struck your chart!

Peek at your Vertex placement (the chart won’t display it, so locate it by sign and degree°), and see if eclipses have ever factored into your destiny process! 🧚🏻✨

AND TAKE HEART, because the Vertex is an ongoing process, just like the rest of your chart! 💗

Okay—So, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO IF MY VERTEX IS ACTIVATED…?

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🌟 FIRST, DETERMINE THE SOURCE AND TYPE OF ACTIVATION.

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Was it a transit? If so, there was probably a correlating encounter or event. Inventory everything about that day, or the few days around that time. What did you do, who were you with, what was on your mind, on your heart…?

Also, check your progressions. Is there a planet conjunct or square your Vertex? When did that happen*? Where is that same planet currently transiting you? Is it also forming an aspect to your Vertex?

If so, there would be a change in tempo. You might have a feeling that something is happening, something significant, though there hasn’t been any event or encounter (yet).

(*Most planets take a year to progress 1°, including your Sun, while the Moon progresses 1° per month.)

Also also, check the synastry. Find some non-creepy way to score birth data for any new players on the scene, especially if spooky-cute coincidences are occurring while in their midst.

If you do have significant Vertex connections in your synastry (like I did with the eclipse barista, mebbe, if the birth chart is accurate), that might explain how that person was highlighted in your fated encounter!

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🌟 SECOND, DOCUMENT EVERYTHING.

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Without documentation (via compulsive journaling and solipsistic quasi-literary projects such as this, hi, hello 👋🏻), it’s very difficult to match up circumstances and events to your transit-trigger moments!

And once you confirm that this is a Vertex activation, run a little recon. Do you keep a scheduler? Write in a diary? What were your social media posts? What text messages did you send? What does your friend remember you texting her on the trigger day?

If that Astro-Seek calculator can yield specific dates when your Vertex has been activated before, get your hands on those artifacts, diaries, mixtapes, and photo albums STAT.

Just find a way to gain as much scope and leverage of your psyche as you can. ✌🏻

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🌟THIRD, BE ADVISED: THE “WATCHER” HAS COME ONLINE.

---

Idk who the watcher is (our Higher Self…? or original soul…? 🤔), but it miiight sort of feel like… you have a parallel processor… somewhere in your psyche…

…it’s like when you can feel someone watching you, except that their perspective is also part of you.

Oracle card I pulled when meditating on my Vertex moment! 😳🤯🤭

“The point of all Vertex contacts is to reveal ourselves from a perspective that is higher and deeper than ordinary conscious awareness. In a way, the Vertex is beyond the Nodes, which are all about the development of consciousness. The Vertex unveils the ‘Watcher’ in us. The one who knows. The one who is beyond the conscious Self.”

— The InnerWheel, “Soul Points in Synastry: The Vertex Versus the Nodes, Pt. 1”

SO… maybe the Watcher really is some primordial, “original self”, the piece most interested in what we make of our existence, and how we manage to fulfill our wishes and longings with the events, circumstances, and people available to us?

As your own analysis may have shown, your Vertex placement is not particularly rife with information. Your Vertex won’t tell you much about yourself, except maybe hint at some of your secret hopes and intentions….

…but, even then, it’s super vague. 😩😒

The essence of the Destiny Point is that it validates synchronicity, and by keeping it in mind with certain seasons and interactions, knowing about our Vertex can help us learn via synchronicity what is meant for us, and the events and avatars that will aid our destiny process.

ESSENTIALLY, the Vertex is epiphanous, or revelatory. It doesn’t promise anything, except a turning point, or an oncoming transfiguration of our consciousness.

…which is why i should probably mention a roman myth attributed to the vertex, the story of vertumnus, the god of the seasonal change, and his obsession with pomona, the goddess of ripe timing… 🌱⏱

Vertumnus was a lesser deity of the seasons, known for his ability to transform: he could change from a seed, to a root, to a trunk, a branch, a leaf, and finally, to fruit.

Vertumnus used this power in pursuit of Pomona, goddess of fruit, of fruition, and ripening. 🍎

However, the story goes that Pomona was super into her independence, not interested in dating, so to get his fix, Vertumnus had to to change his form every day while passing Pomona’s garden, transforming into a warrior, then a farmer, then a sea merchant, on and on…

…until one day, Vertumnus transformed into a little old lady, then walked into the garden and right up to Pomona, kissed her (😘), and started chatting her up about that way cool fellow, Vertumnus. 😌

Pomona still wasn’t persuaded by this chitchat.

Not until, suddenly, Vertumnus changed into his true form.

In that moment, for the first time, Pomona saw him for what he was (not a farmer, or a fisherman…), and fell in love. 😍

“Finally in exasperation, Vertumnus dropped his disguise and stood naked before Pomona in his true form. She thought she was seeing the sun emerge from behind the clouds and in the glorious light of Vertumnus, she opened her heart and reciprocated his love. Together still, they attend the gardens and fruit trees of the countryside.

The theme of this myth centers on a seemingly chance moment where an outstanding event occurs.

To Pomona, it was like an epiphany, a sudden turn of fate, a radical awakening of perception. ✨✨✨

To Vertumnus, it was at first a well planned strategy, then finally an act of spontaneous desperation. Imagine his surprise when Pomona finally received him!”

— Astrology Study, “Destiny’s Gate or Vertex, the Electric Axis”

What’s useful about this story is how changeability entwines with the ripe moment.

Eventually, our moment does arrive, and our masquerade is not what compels its arrival.

Instead, it’s all the little circumstances and events, the tiny synchronicities leading up to the fateful moment that changes everything.

To everything turn turn turn…
there is a season turn turn turn…
…and a tiiime for evvvery purpose under heaven… 💗🎶

MORE LEARNING RESOURCES FOR THE DESTINY POINT IN ASTROLOGY… 🤓

🌟 If you don’t feel like reading a chart (😵‍💫), you can find out your Destiny Point placement with the CafeAstrology Vertex calculator! ✨

🌟 VERTEX IN THE SIGNS ♈️♉️♊️…⚡️> To augment my (amateur) summaries above, also check out… this CafeAstrology summarizes the Vertex in the signs (as well as aspects to the Vertex from the planets), and compare to this one from Siddhantika! ✨

🌟 VERTEX IN THE HOUSES… there’s less info about this, and even some terribly wrong info (hint: if summaries include Vertex in the 1st-4th Houses, it’s garbage 😡), and the best intel I found was via Kim Falconer’s Astrology and Aptitude, which also has the full scratch on the Vertex, and every-which-way you can interpret it in the natal chart. 👍🏻

🌟 WHAT ABOUT TRACKING TRANSITS TO THE VERTEX? ⏱ > Memorize the sign and degree° number of your Vertex placement, and use this Astro-Seek calculator to calendar when (+ what) is due to conjunct your Destiny Point! (Do the same for the sign and degree of your Anti-Vertex too!)

🌟 WHAT ABOUT PLANETS CONJUNCT THE VERTEX IN SYNASTRY? > This is tricky to find for the Vertex in particular, but you can look up what the planets in synastry mean in general. This Labyrinthos article explains all the planets, which you can compare to this one from Astro.com! ✨

🌟 WAIT, HOW IS THE VERTEX THE SAME / DIFFERENT FROM THE LUNAR NODES IN SYNASTRY? 🐉⚡️> Check out this article from Dawn Bodrogi! 🕊🙏🏻

🌟 FOR DEEP-LEARNING ABOUT THE VERTEX IN SYNASTRY + TRANSITS > Check out “The Vertex in Synastry and Transits” Part 1 + Part 2. Those articles will help you begin to start picking apart how / where your Vertex interacts with each other’s, especially if there are other planets, asteroids, or angles involved. 🦋

🌟 Also, how does the Vertex factor into a composite chart? (HINT: The Vertex placement in a composite chart can also indicate a super fated relationship, learn more here! 🤩🥰)

🌟 THIS KINDA FASCINATES ME, BECAUSE MY MOM’S TWO MARRIAGES WERE WITH PEOPLE WHO HAD THE SAME BIRTHDAY, BUT DIFFERENT YEARS > “Every now and again, I speak with people who have had two (and sometimes more) ‘significant others’ with the same birth date, but different years. This means that the people they were partnering with had roughly the same degree and sign of the Sun. With the exception of one whose birth time is uncertain, each of these people were meeting more than one significant other whose Sun was conjunct their natal Vertex.” UPDATE: I DID THE CHARTS, IT CHECKS OUT, WTF FOREVER!! 🤯🤯🤯

🌟 APPARENTLY, THE VERTEX CAN ALSO BE ACTIVATED BY RELOCATION > “A location is considered strong if you have one natal planet rising and another on the MC -- add another

on the Vertex – that spot is even more important.”

🌟 “DESTINED MEETINGS” AND LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT STORIES… this might be random, but I thought of it while researching the Vertex: When Brené Brown interviewed Drs. John and Julie Gottman (psychologists who’ve written hella books on marriage and relationships), she asked them, how’d you meet? And Julie Gottman’s description of their first meeting (at the Pony Espresso cafe 😂) totally freaking sounds like a Vertex activation moment! Hear it in the first 10-15 mins of the interview… and if you know of any other stories that sound like the Destiny Point plays a role, hmu! 🤙🏻

🌟 And to get the full scoop on when my Vertex was activated by an eclipse (😌), check out this post, as well as towards the bottom of this post (where the person in my “fated encounter” acted like a butthead, and I realized I have Black Moon Lilith squaring my Lunar Nodes! 🤦🏻‍♀️)

if you also have any stories related to eclipses, synastry, or the destiny point in your own chart…

…you should definitely drop them into a Voice Memo or essay to be emailed off to me, so that we might share some kind of intimate catharsis about spooky, transcendental moments that only beloveds of the Moirai and fictional characters in Alice Hoffman novels could possibly understand. ☺️

and in the meantime, i’ll leave you with this quote, to deepen your wonder + marveling about your own strange, scary-fated moments…

“The past was what we carried with us, threaded to the future, and we decided whether to keep it close or let it go.

Fate was both what we were given and what we made for ourselves.”

—Alice Hoffman, Here On Earth (omg 🌹)

…and so you don’t forget what we’re all about here 👁🌟…

“The stars are reflected from within the black water in the cistern. I find comfort in the omen I glean from this:

light in the darkness,

truth when it seems there is none. ”

—Alice Hoffman, The Dovekeepers (🤭)

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VENUS FOREVER! What is a Venus Return? HOW DO WE CAST THAT CHART??! 🌸✨

“Natal Venus” is where Venus can be found on your birth chart, and basically describes your power of attraction. 🌀

every year, when transiting venus (in the sky right now) pulls alongside the venus in your chart, it’s called a venus return. 🌸🗓💫

A Venus Return chart is basically a birth chart for your current transits, with Venus given the kind of focus that you would give to the Sun or Moon, and can help you forecast upcoming trends with money, recreation, social life, friendship, your appearance, the way you feel about yourself, and your overall “it factor” (if any) for the ensuing year… 🤩💕

…as well as hint at any relationship detoxing or budget need-to-do’s that are in store. 🙊

this tutorial will show you where to get a venus return chart for 2022, and also how to interpret it… 🌸🐚💫

BUT FIRST, let me show you how to delineate (“break down”) your natal Venus (before adding your transits), so you have a solid base for interpreting your Venus Return. 😎👍🏻

I’ll try demonstrating how you can use your research to clot together an intuitive picture of this energy (a.k.a. “instinct” or “drive”) operates in your overall psyche, and how you might naturally enhance (or mitigate 😳) those effects @ your Venus Return. 🥳

to prep, you might want to review these other tutorials >

🌟 Where to Get A Free Natal Chart: Step-By-Steps + Hella Cute Worksheet 📝, as well as…

🌟 How to Read a Natal Chart: An Extra-Chill Primer on Natal Astrology (+ Hella Cute Worksheet 📝), plus…

🌟 How to Track Your Astrology Transits + Why You Must (Hint: Idea Fairies) ✨

I also delineate my own Venus as an example below the next section (well well well 😌😜)…

…plus link to hella astro-Venus resources near the bottom for further exploration (so you become the resident astrology expert of your friend group, ya girl 😇🙌🏻).

After we understand the condition of Venus in your chart, I’ll show you how to use the free Astro-Seek Planet Return Chart Calculator to cast a Venus Return chart every year of your life, until you die, or you finally throw the Gatsby-style sweet 16 party you’ve always wanted. 🍸🎉💫

HOW TO FIND AND INTERPRET VENUS IN THE SIGNS + HOUSES

“Here’s the thing. As with all ‘forecasting’ methods, the Venus Return has to be read in conjunction with the promise of the natal chart. There’s no point predicting a great social life if you never leave the house.”

— Jo Tracey, “When Venus Returns, Pt. 1”

To really understand your Venus Return chart, let’s get the full story on your Venus placement, a.k.a. the Venus in your birth chart. 🐚🌟

No matter which sign she shows up in, Venus’s energy is passive, aesthetic, and recreational. She symbolizes how we're predisposed to cultivate, lure, or attract what we need. Her zodiac sign tells us how she prefers to attract, whether by embodying a certain role (Libra ♎️), via affinity (Aquarius ♒️), or through personal demonstration (Aries ♈️).

Your Venus sign describes the aesthetic dimension of your personality, how you self-style, your distinctive charm, your most superlative wants and preferences, as well as how you tend to receive energy and attention.

Basically, natal Venus shows how you act when you're not trying to act... Venus's instinct is to just relax, and let everything happen. 🌸

(Here’s that bloodhound gang song, for some reason. 👐🏻✨)

By contrast, natal Mars describes our take-down urge or “prey drive”, how we go after what we want (sign) and where (house). Natal Mars’ condition reveals your primal attitude, what you need most, and where you demand the most satisfaction (whereas Venus is already self-satisfied). 🔥

Taken together (along with the other personal planets, the Sun, Moon, + Mercury), Venus and Mars comprise our personal chemistry, and are the major astro-factors in determining our chemistry with other people (when read in a synastry chart ✨).

“natal venus” refers to the default theme (sign), field of experience (house), and relationships (aspects) in which your personal powers of attraction operate 🌸🌟 >

Combined, these elements create the “mood board” of your Venusian astro-factor…

• YOUR VENUS SIGN: Describes your mood, personal style, and preferences, based on comfort and aesthetics.

• YOUR VENUS HOUSE: Shows the activities, or “field of experience”, where your Venus is most obvious. Tends to correlate with the area of your life that seems the most ambient.

• YOUR VENUS ASPECTS: Reveals “interpersonal” dynamics, the kinds of energy she takes in, her relationship patterns.

basically, for the full scoop on natal venus, we want to fill in the blanks* of the following sentence >

Venus in ______ (the sign) in my ______ (the house)… (followed by her aspects to other planets).

(*So… Mad Libs, basically. 💁🏻‍♀️)

Don’t freak out, I’m gonna guide you through each element in delineating natal Venus, but you’ll definitely end up spending some time Googling it out, or even plunging into a Pinterest spiral (🌀).

🌟 PRO TIP > Refer back to my post about reading a natal chart for tips about collating your astrology research, so you can refer back to it later on, and ultimately decide if it speaks to anything (or if it’s just bullshit). 👌🏻

🌟 WHAT’S MY VENUS SIGN?

To find your Venus sign, grab a copy of your natal chart, and look for to the zodiac symbol on the outer rim. ✅

• Once you have the sign, Google it out: “Venus in… ♈️♉️♊️”

• Gather quotes and explainers from different astrologers on your Venus sign.

• Also, note any other planets or special points sharing your Venus sign.

REMEMBER, for interpreting Venus in the signs, focus on the essentials: the elements and modes represented by the sign. You want to interpret the sign as a sense-based perception, such as a quality or texture, not as an agent or actor…

…because Venus doesn’t act, but responds. 👐🏻✨

Like--even if there are harsh aspects from other planets (squares or oppositions, I'll explain more below ✨), Venus doesn’t argue, but deflects… sometimes with charm (air signs 🪶), sometimes with emotional aikido (water signs 💧), occasionally with passive aggression (fire signs 🔥).

FOR INSTANCE, Aries is a "cardinal Fire sign.” In Aries, Venus is assertive, runs hot, wants to beat-out the competition and win you over. She flirts through playful rivalry, and enjoys proving her value (particularly in the activities attributed to her house placement, see next section ✨). Venus in Aries wants to make it there first, if not best. She feels sexiest when receiving special recognition or attribution. 🐚🔥♈️

By contrast, Libra is a “cardinal Air sign.” In Libra, Venus operates with tact, is attracted to aristocratic types, aroused by natural compatibility, and prefers social settings where she has a defined role (such as “house mom”, “bestie”, or “maid of honor”). She feels sexiest when appreciated for her taste and refinement. 🐚🪶♎️

Venus is well-defined in Libra, where she doesn’t bust a move without first analyzing the situation, and has a natural instinct for tactfulness. 🪶

Meanwhile, in Aries, Venus defines herself, and has an instinct for twisting the rules of engagement to suit her preferences. 🔥

In traditional astrology, Venus “rules” Libra and is "debilitated" in Aries. Both Libra and Aries are cardinal signs, or the most assertive version of their element (air and fire, respectively 🪶🔥). Because Venus’s basic function is to cultivate, simmer, or simply enjoy, Venus is able to shine in diplomatic, aesthetic-driven Libra (🪶), and can be awkward, even self-sabotaging in Aries (🔥).

“An exalted planet depicts the planetary condition when it receives the whole energy of itself. On the other hand, a debilitated planet is just the opposite of it. Such a planet loses its auspiciousness or possesses malefic nature.”

— Astro Talk, "All About Exalted and Debilitated Planets in Astrology"

Venus, no matter the sign, prefers to languor and react to circumstances as they happen, while “bumrush it” and “me first” are the essence of Aries.

OR BASICALLY, Venus is considered debilitated in Aries, because any sort of assertion on her part (a.k.a. the very spirit of Aries) would appear incompatible with her core energy.

If your Venus is technically debilitated and you’re bummin’,reframe it like the Astro Twins >

“Lean into any fall or detriment planets in your chart. Get support and training, strengthen the muscle (think of it as cosmic physical therapy) and you may achieve hard-won mastery over time.”

for more about venus in the signs…. 🌸♈️♉️♊️

🌟 Here’s the Astro Twins’ descriptions for Venus Signs to balance against this Well+Good article about Venus in the different elements.

🌟 To help you really explore the sensual features of Venus in the signs, also check out this Astro Style article on the elements, along with this similar article from The Cut, and a little CafeAstrology reference to round it off. 👌🏻

PRO TIP 🌟 > Check up on Taurus and Libra in your chart. Venus rules Taurus (fixed Earth 🌿) and Libra (cardinal Air 🪶). Taurus is sensual, attuned to the body, and shows where Venus digs her toes in the sand. Libra rules art and ideal-case scenarios, and shows where Venus finds it easy to get along with others and broker her trademark diplomacy.

Or basically, whatever’s goin’ down in the areas of your chart lining up with Taurus and Libra (including transits and progressions ✨), natal Venus receives gets a kickback*. 👍🏻

(*WAIT, HOW DOES THAT WORK? 🤔 > Read this article about dispositors, or basically how the “rulers” of the signs on your chart are impacted by natal planets or transits through their signs. ✌🏻

🌟 WHAT’S MY VENUS HOUSE?

Your Venus house reveals where you auto-attract. 🌸🌀

Though they bleed from one into the other, each house defines a certain arena, a field of experience, and context-specific activities. While the sign on the house tells you the themes and quality that Venus will express herself in, the house pinpoints where you feel most relaxed, beautiful, and easy to please. Activities attributed to this house will be the sort that you find most pleasurable or gratifying.

Houses 1 - 6 (below the horizon line) are called the “personal houses”, while Houses 7 - 12 are called the “public houses.”

🌟 VENUS IN HOUSES 1 - 6 > Your Venus is felt as a subjective and interior experience. You have a personal relationship with Venus. You might feel totally relaxed when in your groove (sixth house), in what you’re fashioning (second house), or in simply how you self-identify (first house).

🌟 VENUS IN HOUSES 7 - 12 > You’re disposed to experiencing Venus with out there, through inter-personal relationship, whether that’s with one or many. You might feel most beautiful with your friends (eleventh house), through divine communion (twelfth house), or when responding to your favorite booty call (eighth house).

Houses on the chart are separated by the lines, and to know which house, just look to the number on the inner rim. ✨

HINT > Venus has more oomph in some houses than others. If Venus lands nearby an angle (ASC - DSC or MC - IC), or inside an angular house (the First, Fourth, Seventh, or Tenth Houses), your Venus might be strawng. 💪🏻

FOR INSTANCE, my Venus is in my Fourth House, not too far from my Nadir, a.k.a. the bottom-most angle of the chart, showing where we “root” into the world. Our Fourth House represents our tribal heart, what we’ve inherited, and what we consider our primal territory. This is the portion of the chart where astrologers look for intel concerning matters of the heart, our ancestral identity, and how we claim personal space.

BASICALLY, planets (or special points) in our Fourth House are metabolized into our core. Venus in my Fourth House has been consolidated into the root-system of my entire chart. Venus is a vital ingredient in the well-spring from which I have sprung, and an integral piece for reaching my highest potential (represented by the opposite house, the tenth).

for more about venus in the houses…. 🌸

🌟 Here’s Tea & Rosemary’s explainer on Venus in the Houses, which you can compare to CafeAstrology, as well as the Tarot Lady and AstroTarot.

🌟 ALSO, to help you really hone in and refine your understanding, here is Astrology.com’s description of the Houses, plus a link to AstroFix’s “Signs Through the Houses” page. What’s your Venus sign? What house is she hanging out in? Look up the description on that house.

🌟 PLUS, what does it mean when any planet is close-by one of your chart angles? 🤔

PRO TIP 🌟 > Even if Venus is nowhere near them, take a peek at your Second and Seventh Houses, both ruled by Venus. Our Second House is where astrologers look for hints about self-care, our worthiness issues, how we cultivate what we want and prefer, and the basic skills we use to make a life. Our Seventh House is where we enter cooperative, collaborative, and defined relationships. Our Seventh House hints at our partnerships, whether through marriage or business (same thing). ♉️♎️

🌟 WHAT ARE MY VENUS “ASPECTS”?

Aspects describe the relationships (ding ding ding 🔔) amongst planets. Certain aspects to Venus add or deflect her attraction-magic, depending on what kind of aspect (square? conjunction?), and which planet she’s aspecting.

HOW SHOULD YOU PRIORITIZE ASPECTS? 🤔 >

There might be many aspects to your Venus, but try to focus on exact or near exact relationships, as these have the strongest influence. “Exact” would be any planet with an aspect of 0-2° to your Venus.

HINT > In the Astro-Seek software, click on the gray tab over your chart labelled “Aspect Tables”, to see all the aspects gridded out for you. Thicker, darker-lined boxes at the intersection between two planets indicate an exact aspect between them.

Once you have a list of aspects, use the description of the planets and the type of relationship symbolized by the aspect to intuit how the two planets might tussle or collaborate within your chart.

I KNOW, DUDE—out of all the pieces of your Venus placement, aspects might be the trickiest to parse out and make sense of. 😵‍💫

It might help applying the “house party” metaphor to your chart that I demonstrated in my Black Moon Lilith in synastry tutorial. 🐍💕✨

You’re examining your natal chart as a metaphor for a house party: each planet represents a guest, and the houses symbolize different rooms in the house. Aspects between “guests” illustrate the type of exchange between them, while the zodiac sign hints at the themes and quality of their interaction.

FOR INSTANCE, if your Venus squares Mars in your chart, you might tussle between relaxing into what you have... or taking it for what it's worth. There’s a contest of wills: the will to power (Mars 🔥) versus the will to succumb (Venus 🌸)…

…and the houses where both these planets aspect each other will give you clues as to their competing domains.

“Squares” indicate contests or conflict. My Venus “squares” my Mars, suggesting my “attractor factor” works counter-centrifugal to my “takedown instinct.” 😳😫😡

My VENUS (“attraction”) in Aquarius (“individuality”) and in my Fourth House (“tribal heart”) SQUARES my Mars (“aggression”, “prey drive”) in Taurus (“personal value”) in my Seventh House (“collaborative relationships”).

OR BASICALLY, for me, my ultra-individualistic Venus clashes with my steadfast, simple-organic Mars….

…and the domains, or territories, they’re tussling over are between home, hearth, and personal space (fourth house) and the roles I play in significant relationships (seventh house… ugh 🤦🏻‍♀️).

for more about venus aspects… 🌸

🌟 AstroFix’s description of Venus aspects (including Venus in aspect to the angles)

🌟 Descriptions of Venus aspects to other planets, including tips about their degree of distance, to be combined with these explanations and keywords for combining specific planets, based on their aspects

WERKIN’ OUR VENUS PLACEMENT, HAY NOW:

HEADS UP… this section is a pretty robust delineation of my own Venus placement: Venus in Aquarius ♒️, Venus in the Fourth House (♋️), and Venus square Mars.

Feel free to scroll down to the next section, Where to Get A Venus Return Chart. 💫

Below that, under Resources, I link you to every which place where you can learn more about your own special Venus situation, without having to become an expert on mine. ☺️💕

VENUS IN AQUARIUS ♒️, VENUS IN THE FOURTH HOUSE (♋️), VENUS SQUARE MARS  🙌🏻✨

THE MAD LIBS VERSION OF MY VENUS PLACEMENT >

Venus in AQUARIUS in my FOURTH HOUSE… SQUARING natal Mars.

Written out another way…

• My VENUS 🐚 (“pleasure”, “attraction”, “social harmony”, haaay ✨)…

• In AQUARIUS ♒️ (“the collective”, “systems thinking”, sign of visionaries, geniuses, mavericks, and eccentrics ✨)…

• Located in my FOURTH HOUSE 🌙 (“tribal heart”, “hearth and home”, native to Cancer and the Moon, where astrologers look for intel about close-to-heart matters).

• And SQUARING natal Mars 🔥 (“prey drive”, “take down instinct”, how we secure basic needs + go after what we want)

Here are some of my subjective thoughts / experiences that I can attribute to what I’ve read about my Venus placement.

people with venus in aquarius ♒️…

We’re married to a cause, or because of one. We swoon for idealists, romanticize rebels, and tend to be muses and midwives for big ideas, grandiloquent visions. We do not fade into the crowd. We are not like the rest. We want to be loved for our uniqueness.

AQUARIUS RULES… astrology 🌟, the Internet, fellowship, networks, the individuation process, or how we integrate the light and the dark to become our true selves (a.k.a. Jungian psychology).

In Steven Forrest’s The Inner Sky, the Aquarian instinct is described as individuality perfected. Aquarius has an urgent responsibility towards self-truth. Nonconformity is the evolutionary impulse of Aquarius.

“Their hearts may be in the right place [parents, spouses, the rest of the body politic 💫], but, whether they know it or not, their methods are treacherous.

These spies lead the Water-Bearer to believe that she has a responsibility to betray herself, that if she truly loves them she would not put them through the turmoil of watching her take the heat that goes along with being a square peg in a society full of round holes…

In defending her freedom, the Water-Bearer must steel herself to meet a chilling, often embittering challenge: she must be prepared to break the hearts of people who love her.

No matter. Their disappointment and pain come from only from their thwarted desire to crush her into a mold she was never meant to fit. Their hurt is real. With one compromise, Aquarius could assuage it.

And yet she cannot compromise. She cannot pretend to be other than what she is.”

VENUS IN AQUARIUS TURN-ONS ♒️ 💕 >  Psycho-nautical voyaging, “visioneering” sessions with my friends, chartering super-niche clubs, hosting symposium-style parties, finding fellowship with strangers in strange places, systematizing the Meta….

…and conversations.

Lots, and lots…

…of talking. 😜😊

“Venus in Air people (that is, those with Venus in Gemini, Libra, or Aquarius) consider communication to be the key ‘ingredient’ in their relationships. These natives will respond most lovingly to verbal expressions of interest and affection. Sharing thoughts is, to Venus in Air natives, the most essential part of a relationship. They will be most turned off by partners (or potential partners) who are uncommunicative. Sometimes, these natives are more interested in what others might consider superficial gestures–the right words at the right time, for example.”

—CafeAstrology, Venus in the Elements ✨

For me, pour moi… conversation is foreplay. 💬💦

My love language is Words of Affirmation (…though “physical touch” is a close contender).

Which is why I love and appreciate the Astro Twins for describing Venus in Aquarius as sapiosexual >

“The person who can hold a fascinating conversation and inspire you to think outside the box, could be the one who lures you into a permanent domestic partnership. Marriage might not be your ideal with ultramodern Aquarius ruling your heart. Under this liberated Venus influence you chafe at the idea of anyone ‘owning’ you. That said, you don’t mind exclusivity! Your emotionally cool sign finds it a relief to plant into a relationship instead of playing all those aggravating head games of the courtship phase. The non-negotiable? Your mate must be a strong individual with a lush life outside of the relationship.”

SO, I am sapiosexual. ☺️✨

I am attracted to Uranians 💫, or people who turn out to have Uranus prominent in their charts, such as at 0-2° of any sign, or a stellium (“cluster of planets”) in Aquarius (ruled by Uranus). I married an Aquarian-Sun who happened to have both Saturn and Uranus (Aquarius rulers) in his First House (identity, persona, appearance).

Even without those specific placements, I lovvve beautiful minds, visionaries, people in touch with a genius or muse. 🥰🥰🥰

Literally, I start falling in love as soon as someone says, "What if…?” or “I have an idea..." 😍

And you know what is super attractive about Uranians…? 😛

…they tend to be very busy being weirdos, nurturing their own ideas and big, crazy plans…

…freeing my time and energy up for mine. 🤤💕

“Venus is the Archetypal mistress – a pleasure-loving temptress, Venus in Aquarius takes on a cool, detached and even somewhat mysterious energy. Somehow, she constantly slips right through your fingers, and you never feel like you completely have her love. Her attention is given to the love of wisdom, time with her beloved friends and the pursuit of unusual experiences.”

—AstroMatrix, “Venus in Aquarius: March 2022” 🥰💫

BIGGEST VENUS IN AQUARIUS RELATIONSHIP STRUGGLES… ♒️

Becoming ordinary. Losing focus on the big picture. Letting down our friends or causes. Losing contact with the source of our genius. 😕😞

Due to this ongoing struggle, Venus in Aquarius often feels safest in experimental or undefined relationships, the kind with unique protocols, and “secret club” vibes.

“Venus in Aquarius men and women are attracted to unusual or unconventional relationships. They don’t want to follow all the rules, although they may make quite a few of their own. They can appear quite standoffish at times, and are threatened by restrictions of any kind. Emotional types may be put off by their detached manner in love. Venus in Aquarius wants you to love them for their intellect, and to admire their visions. They value lovers who are also good friends, and they avoid emotional displays or confrontations like the plague. Venus in Aquarius will delight in shocking you with their unusual ways and their forward-looking thinking.”

—CafeAstrology, Venus in the Signs 🌟

BASICALLY, I need people who understand where I’m coming from and what I’m working towards.

I don't want to disillusion you.

Please don’t put me in the position where I have to. 😓

I’m really just doing my own thing.

(…this is me pre-breaking up with you, sorry. 💕)

IT SHOULD ALSO BE NOTED… Venus does not prefer Aquarius. ♒️💔

IN FACT, Venus is “debilitated” (vs. “dignified” or “exalted”) in Aquarius. 😬

When Venus is in Aquarius, it’s like she’s hanging out with “the dads.” Like… someone’s retired beat-cop father (saturn, the “old school” ruler of Aquarius), and the quirky maverick dad who toured with the Dead but gets social anxiety, so he tends to hide in his office listening to synth-pop, and makes your friends feel embarrassed for coming over (uranus, the “modern” ruler of Aquarius).

WHICH IS WHY, at your house party, you’ll probably find me helping set up the new wifi router, or out in the garage bickering with your dad about what his money guy said about Ethereum.

Anyway…

venus in the fourth house ( ♋️ ) …

The Fourth House is native to Cancer ♋️ and the Moon, and is where astrologers look for insight into our secret heart, our tribal history, the deepest roots of our potential. Signs on and planets in the Fourth House become the energy and tempo of our belonging space, where we feel most at home. 💗

Venus in the Fourth House suggests next-level homemaking, family inheritances, recreational snuggling, working out of a home office. Home is headquarters, friends and neighbors pop in on you at home, you’re sentimental about your home. Coming home feels GOOD… even if you only left for takeout.

With Venus in my Fourth House (roots, tribal heart, hearth + home), I work from home. Both my mother’s and father’s families “did well” in real estate. There are MANY, many futons and conversation nooks in my house.

FER SHER, being in my house is… an aesthetic experience*. 👐🏻✨

(*Rainbow lights EVERYWHERE! 🤩🤩🤩)

And I love throwing parties (…my Fifth House Sun-Jupiter coming into play 😉), many of which tend to start without warning…

…because I cannot keep these fuckers from barging in on me. 🙄☺️

Aquarius on the Fourth House suggests communal living, opening your home up to the community, fellowship, or congregation. During childhood, people with Aquarius on the Fourth tend to have resided with grandparents (and aunties 🙋🏻‍♀️), and have a deep connection to home and country.

Like—I have literally gotten down on my knees and prayed to the flag for the Republic of California…. on multiple occasions… usually following ill-advised out-of-state relocations where I was desperate for a way of coming back (...so, ya, praying to state flags works 👍🏻).

And I did have fanatically-close bonds with my grandmother and elderly aunt. 🕊

Also aligned with Venus in Aquarius, my prosperity has always depended on crowd-sourcing, community outreach, club charters, and affiliations.

Also, the Internet (ruled by Aquarius). ✨

AND… all of these things happen at home.

So… everything checks out. ✅

checking up on aspects to venus (particularly mars) … 🌸🔥

My most exact aspect to Venus is the square it shares with Mars (0°)….

So… not great?

I don’t love (ding ding ding 🔔) my Venus - Mars square.

Descriptions via Google + Tumblr witches are painfully accurate. 😬😓

“Those with Venus conjunct, square or opposite Mars are people with strong emotions and desires, especially when it comes to romance and sex. It is said that this contact more than any other has its fair share of fights, squabbles, and dish-throwing in love. However, it can sometimes be more like a sexual dance that starts out with war and ends up with lovemaking in the bed. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus has never been a more appropriate phrase when it comes to relationships. ”

— The Astrology Place Membership, Venus-Mars Aspects 💫

I am tempestuous in relationships (family, friends, colleagues), and vie for emotional dominance. I recreationally cultivate frenemies, and compete against them for creative validation (oftentimes without the other person’s knowledge or direct participation). That’s probably the Venus - Mars square with my moody Lilith coming into play*.

(*I’m about to explain accounting for chart placements beyond Venus in a mo’.) 

And… I do have a tendency to start shit… 🔪

…sometimes with the intention of creating drama…

…so that we can make up! 😃🍦

And if you peek in my cupboards, you’ll notice… for someone who drinks so much coffee and hosts so many hang-outs…

…there doesn’t seem to be that many cups or mugs…? 🤔

And that’s because I’ve thrown nearly all of them (mostly at my ex husband, psycho cousins, and most recently, a burgler-raccoon). 💁🏻‍♀️

remember that venus doesn’t determine all your relationship conditions, so consider other chart factors…

After you delineate one placement (such as Venus 🌸), you still have to contextualize it within the entire chart.

Also, while our natal chart represents our ultimate source and potential, transits to our chart (such as our annual Venus Return 💞) can detonate new cycles. In those new cycles, we unlock latent instincts, and phase into different versions of ourselves. Transits to natal Venus tend to revamp our likes, needs, and interests, although ultimately still working within our default settings.

Like… once upon a time, you might have loved single-life, and then suddenly reconsidered marriage (…maybe during your first Progressed Lunar Return, idk ✨)…

…and then a few years later, defaulted back to your core preference for independence and sublime autonomy. 🥰

This is why you want to consider looking into the areas of your natal chart that are naturally ruled by Venus, such as wherever the signs Taurus + Libra fall on your chart, as well as your Second and Seventh Houses (where Taurus + Libra fall on the natural horoscope).

FOR INSTANCE, my South Node (representing past karma) is situated in Libra ♎️, sign of partnership and social protocol, also ruled by Venus. 😳

With my divorce, I realized that my life-path was officially switching from the South Node (past karma) to the North Node (current dharma), especially as my Moon was progressing over my North Node. 🤯

FOR MY VENUS-DRIVEN LIFE EVOLUTION, the most appropriate analogy I can think of is what happened to Penny Lane’s character in the movie Almost Famous (2000).

That scene where Patrick Fugit is confronting the members of Stillwater about ditching Penny and the other Band Aids?

"THAT GROUPIE??

SHE WAS A 'BAND AID’!

ALL SHE DID WAS LOVE YOUR BAND!

AND YOU ALL USED HER, YOU USED HER AND THEN THREW HER AWAY… SHE WAS YOUR BIGGEST FAN, AND YOU THREW HER AWAY!”

Maybe it’s my Aquarian Venus (and the condition of my South Node in Libra), but being married felt like showing up to serve the music…

…then being traded to Humble Pie for a case of beer. 😡🥺😞

“Venus in Aquarius does not stay for the sake of duty or obligation but because they see the potential in creating something new together. This is a Venus that likes to work on art projects, on new life, and on visions with their people. Venus in Aquarius sees creation as something that we must all commit to together but on our own time. It’s a Venus that spends a fair amount of time waiting, considering, and planning.

Loving Venus in Aquarius is loving someone who has a vision of you together—someone who needs a vision of you together to ground them because a relationship is just two nonsensical people together otherwise. Loving Venus in Aquarius is about loving the ability to dream larger when you dream together.”

— Alice Sparkly Kat, “Loving Venus in Aquarius”

ALSO, to complicate things, and reveal the impact of the whole chart….

Venus in Aquarius generally might seem aloof and very emotionally detached, but for me in particular….

With Pluto sooo close-by my Ascendant (💀👁), a.k.a. the “starting line” of the natal chart…

When I feel attached to somebody…

I…

take…

…possession.

YOU = Jennifer Connelly…

ME = David Bowie…

…and this is Labyrinth, bitch.

(Also, ding ding ding, DAVID BOWIE, gold-standard Uranian! 👽🤤🕊)

No matter who you are or how we met, I am in hot pursuit of intense intimacy.

I want to hear every childhood story (twice). I will ask about what you dreamt about every morning. I will name and memorize every little gesture you make. I will fetch you lunches and coffees to bring to you at work as excuses to snuggle on your lap and ask about which of your coworkers are the worst.

Also, your dog lives with me now. 💁🏻‍♀️

I will set up Google alerts for your name…

…and scrapbook* every concert, festival, or long drive out of town we take.

(*…if not blog about it. 😳🤷🏻‍♀️)

I want to be part of your hunger, thirst, and most impossible dreams.

I will cling like a marsupial baby to your secret heart of hearts. ✨

I will intentionally cultivate an intense psychodynamic with you that will confound your other relationships, because I will show up to many a late-night diner outings (spontaneously, with or without an official invite), refuse labeling (“but… like… should we treat her like she’s your girlfriend…?”), will likely never show up to any of your sister’s parties (though she will not stop tagging me in those messages 😩), and will ignore your text and calls for weeks if I hear gossip that you were being flirty with that one Latina bartender with the Tinkerbelle back tattoo at the karaoke place… 🔥🔥🔥

I will complicate your life. 💕

But, like... for real, I also really need my own space.

Lots, and lots….

…of…

…s p a c e. 👽

For all my strange hobbies, my weird friends, my secretive activities….

(…which are not bad or wrong… I just like having secrets… 🤫)

Basically, I totally plan on insisting that you maintain your own autonomy, while raging like a house fire of jealousy that you’re doing it.

I'm not disloyal, but I am a chronic flirt, and a pervert, and also tend to develop quirky crushes on my friends, male and female, straight and queer alike…

….which eventually erupt into confrontations…. 😓

….but so far, have always ended with all of us sitting criss-cross-applesauce on my living room floor, sharing leftover veggie pot pie with the same fork, talking it all out while disclosing our secret insecurities, childhood wounds, and relationship expectations for the future. 🌈

That’s my basic nature, validated by astrology (🌟), and it pleases me. ☺️

so basically, no matter what my 2022 venus return chart indicates… 🌸💫

With the macro-Plutonian overlay of my chart (Pluto-conjunct-Ascendant 💀👁), combined my close-conjunct Moon-Neptune situation (🌙🧜🏻‍♀️), I can surmise that any sexual escapade or relationship upstarts for this year will feel like trying to watch a movie on Ketamine, and unfold at the tempo of Master of Puppets… 🎸

…I also know my leisure and recreational time will involve hedonistic splurging that I’m probably not entitled to (Mars and Eros in Taurus and my 7th House ♉️ ♎️)…

And that whatever my style direction or aesthetic verve, it will be inspired by my deeply-enmeshed psycho-dynamics with thunder-struck electric geniuses who happen to already be lounging around my house, or malingering in one of my designated “club houses” about town (Venus in Aquarius and my Fourth House ♒️🌙).

…and all of this will probably crescendo into a cathartic re-awakening that all involved will not be able to articulate to anyone who wasn’t there, except through metaphor, analogy, and allegory (…so, lots of references to astrology and obscure films that haven’t yet been digitalized)…

…and we will definitely be able to ascribe a soundtrack or build a playlist to it all. 👍🏻

Yes. I will over-indulge in Uranian muses, shock and awe, longwinded conversations, and outer-planetary nesting.

And I will expect to be adored for my specialness... 🥰

...and I’m totally not interested in meeting your mom. ✌🏻

ultimately, this might be the best advice for delineating and working with astrological venus 🌸🌟 >

“If Venus is so effortlessly romantic, then why is love often so messy and complicated?

You’re right to be suspicious, cosmic warrior. Though fledgling astrologers often look to Venus as a measure of long-term compatibility, this common mistake always results in disappointing outcomes.

The truth is, Venus reveals our idealization of love and beauty. Though Venus’s desires are alluring, they don’t necessarily translate to reality or — perhaps even more importantly — what is actually sustainable for our souls. When working with clients, I often refer to Venus as the ‘Marie Antoinette’ of the zodiac. Venus wants to eat decadent sweets, take six-hour baths, and be fanned by gigantic palm leaves. [Ya, dawg. 👍🏻]

While this is great in theory, these interests quickly devolve into superficial indulgences. [...😕]

And because Venus refuses to take off its rose-colored glasses, this planet lacks the perspective to distinguish ‘wants’ from ‘needs.’

Simply put, cosmic warriors, this planet is extremely hedonistic. So while Venusian energy can certainly help you redecorate a bedroom or host a bangin’ party, at the end of the day, it works neither logically nor emotionally.

Ultimately, Venus just wants to be adored.”

— Allure.com, “Venus in the Birth Chart”

for more about relationship astrology 💕 >

I have tons of references and resources to help you build a stronger, maybe even stranger understanding of how Venus operates, but if you’re curious about deciphering Venus as a thread in the relationship story in your chart…

🌟 This post shows you the crude basics of doing relationship astrology, but here’s a summary of Venus contacts between natal charts > “When Venus in one chart aspects planets and points in another, the Venus person tends to get idealized and romanticized. The person with the contacted planet tends to expect a lot from Venus.”  💘

🌟 For more depth in the relationship story, here’s a full synopsis on planets in and rulers of the 7th House (“Partnership, Roles, and Significant Relationships”), as well as an explanation of the Ninth House indicating second marriages or spouses (“Targeting, Higher Purpose, and Personal Philosophy”).

🌟 Also, a summary of the planets, aspects, and houses in synastry. 💕

🌟 This CafeAstrology article tells you what to look for in a natal chart for the relationship story.

also has venus in aquarius 🌸♒️ >

Sharon Stone ✨ Oprah Winfrey ✨ Taylor Swift ✨ Ellen Degeneres ✨ Yoko Ono ✨ and the Anti-Christ (🤣).

WHERE TO GET A VENUS RETURN CHART

Now that you’ve deep-inventoried your natal Venus (a.k.a. Venus in your birth chart), let’s find out how well she’ll be received at homecoming!

1. Visit the Astro-Seek Planet Return Calculator, and enter your birth data. (Date, time, and location you were born.)

2. Select “Venus” from the Return Planet menu, as well as the current year (or a future or past year, if you’re on a research binge).

3. Input your current location, or wherever you anticipate being during the year indicated. Et voilá, calendar dates for your Venus Returns! 🤩💕

4. Look for the date closest to the here-now (or whatever time you’re reading for). To start, then click the orange hyperlink labelled either “Return Chart” or “Birth Chart x Return Chart.”

You have the option of seeing the Venus Return chart on its own (as though it were a birth chart), and also reading it as a transit chart overlaying your birth chart, for comparison. ✨

HINT > Your natal chart is your ultimate source and potential, so make sure you’re acquainted with the themes and patterns related to natal Venus (scroll up 💕).

MORE HINTS > Take screenshots of the charts to refer back to, or save the (crazy long) hyperlinks to the Astro-Seek results pages, in order to regain access to the Astro-Seek robo summaries. ✅✅✅

HOW TO READ A VENUS RETURN CHART

A Venus Return chart is basically a birth chart for your current transits, with Venus given the kind of focus that you would usually give to the Sun or Moon.

To access the chart, click the orange hyperlink labelled “Return Chart”, then delineate what you see exactly how you would a natal chart (here’s my tutorial as a reminder ✨).

ALSO, remember that your Venus Return chart expires in one year, or basically, the next time Venus transits back around to natal Venus.

If you want to compare your Venus return chart to your birth chart, click the hyperlink labelled “Birth Chart x Return Chart." You might want to check out my post about delineating transit charts AND/OR my post about doing synastry, both will show you how to combine and interpret two charts at the same time…

…OMG, YOU’RE BECOMING AN EXPERT! 🤩🙌🏻✨

And hopefully also in for a hella chill Venus Return. 👍🏻

I recommend printing your Venus Return chart(s) onto scratch paper, grabbing a fistful of scented gel pens, and queuing up an appropriate Venusian playlist, or maybe Bess Matassa’s Spotify, because I feel she’s thought much about Venus, and probably knows best (this one). ✅

Then, get snuggly somewhere with your children’s art-making tools and sundry weird papers, and start forecasting your imminent Venus vibes! 🌺😎

7 KEY THINGS TO LOOK FOR IN THE VENUS RETURN CHART >

1. CHECK UP ON THE ASCENDANT OF THE VENUS RETURN CHART + ITS RULING PLANET (“dispositor”) > the ASC and first house represent your persona, and basically describes your orientation to recreational experience during this Return year. Wherever the dispositor of the Rising Sign (a.k.a. the planetary ruler of the Rising Sign) is hanging out in the chart also hints the kinds of arenas where you might encounter new people, what kinds of interactions you’ll have, and the kinds of activities you’ll partake in. You might spend the most amount of time on this just trying to parse out and imagine the contexts from all this. ✨

2. CHECK THE ANGLES > Note planets and points conjunct the angles of the Venus Return chart, a.k.a. the “starting lines” of the First, Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth houses. These houses hold all the power, and planets conjunct the angles apply the oomph that make your life go ‘round.

3. LOOK AT ASPECTS > Note aspects between Venus and other planets, particularly personal planets, like the Sun, Moon, Mercury, or Mars. Aspects from Venus to your personal planets indicate potential gateways. REMEMBER, the closer or more exact the aspects, the stronger the dynamic (aspects between 0-2°). Just FYI: You might make new friends with or romanticize people who are archetypes of the planets aspecting your Venus! 🤭🤩

4. PEEK AT MARS > Mars is the “natural partner” to Venus, and key in determining friendship and dating chemistry. Mars and Venus’ relationship in a chart hints at the quality of interactions you’ll experience for the ensuing year. Observe the relationship between Venus and Mars in your Venus Return chart, and also the relationship between the chart’s Second and Eighth Houses. (Here’s that article again about the Venus - Mars / Second - Eighth House polarity relationships. ✅)

5. PEEK AT THE MOON AND NEPTUNE 🌙🧜🏻‍♀️ > The Moon and Neptune represent lower and higher octaves of Venus (read more about that here: Octaves, An Introduction: The Music of the Spheres 🪐🎶). Scroll down the results page to see the Astro Seek robo-summaries for Venus, Neptune, and the Moon of your Venus Return chart, as they’ll describe the overall mood and felt-experience of the next year, in terms of leisure and relationships.

6. NOTE THE HOUSES CUSPED BY (“ALIGNED WITH”) THE SIGNS OF TAURUS OR LIBRA 🌿🪶 > Ruled by Venus, one version attracting through the senses (♉️), the other through charm (♎️). Venus rules Taurus ♉️ / the Second House (self-worth, inner treasures), and Libra ♎️ / Seventh House (partnership, relationships). Taurus is earthy, sensual, turned on by comfort and steadfastness, while Libra is airy, aristocratic, turned on by compatibility and cool factor. You don’t have to write it all down, but take a moment to download which planets (if any) are coursing through these signs: they might hint to where you’ll find the most pleasure, beauty, and enjoyment for the next 12 months.

7. REFER (OR DEFER) BACK TO NATAL VENUS 🌸 > Compare transiting Venus to natal Venus. Remember that our natal planets are the “promise,” the ultimate source and potential. So, if you’ve got wonky aspects between Uranus and Venus or between Venus and the Moon, account for those in your interpretation of the Venus Return chart. ✅
   

you’re basically analyzing your venus return chart from the p.o.v. of venus (🌸), and that’s quite multi-aesthetic, cinematic-third eye-ethereal (👁)…

…but if that’s too “meta,” just visualize your Venus Return chart as one big Gatsby party. 🍸

Keeping with the Gatsby theme, picture all 12 houses as different rooms in the mansion. Their signs describe the mood, and planets in transit during your Venus Return describe the guests and players on the social scene.

Aspects between the planets describe the tone of the relationship(s). Analyze the aspects / relationships amongst the transiting planets (especially any planets close-by any of your angles or prominent in your Venus sign ✨), as well as the aspects between the transiting planets and your natal planets. 🤩🌟

“okay—how should i interpret venus retrograde in my natal chart… and apply it to my venus return charts?” 🤔>

When Venus retrogrades, it looks as though it’s moving backwards across the sky (not really tho, it’s just an optical illusion 👐🏻✨).

Your natal Venus might be retrograde, and that just means that it takes a minute for your Venusian graces to develop (a.k.a. you’re a late bloomer 💗).

“When Venus is retrograde in the natal chart itself, the feeling nature is deep. Socializing is taken seriously, and rarely lightly. They can be somewhat shy in youth, as there can be an awkwardness felt concerning small talk and social graces, and an aversion for superficialities. Love is extremely important to a person with a retrograde Venus, but they may not be explicit about it enough for others to know just how deeply they can love. There is always more to this person than meets the eye. Their love life (and sometimes financial life) can be hidden in some manner.”

— CafeAstrology, “Venus Retrograde in the Birth or Natal Chart”

For you, feelings, value, and relationships will always be a big fucking deal.

HINT > Pay attention to when Venus turns direct in your secondary progressions, or the “secret” version of your natal chart that’s slo-mo unfurling in an alternate dimension (see my tutorial for more ✨).

If you notice that your retrograde Venus has turned direct in your progressions, spend a moment accounting for any true-life events and experiences that happened to coincide. Did any insecurities regarding matters of love and worth suddenly clear up? What were the correlating circumstances that made it so? What were the conditions in your progressed chart, or current transits at that time?

If transiting Venus goes retrograde during your Venus Return, you might experiences three Venus returns as Venus crosses, then goes backwards over, then re-crosses natal Venus. 😵‍💫

“[Venus Returns] happen about once a year unless yours falls on a retrograde period, in which it could happen up to three times. For example, mine fell on April 22, but due to Venus retrograde it looks like I get June 1 and July 19 as well. An astrologer can help you out, or you can DIY it and use a tool like Astro-Seek’s Return Calculator to find out yours.”

— Well + Good, “What is a Venus Return in Astrology?”

THREE Venus Returns, though?! Here’s some Britney to celebrate… 🥳

You might literally cast a chart for each date Venus “returns”, just sayin’…

BUT REMEMBER, those Venus Return charts cast during retrograde “expire” as soon as Venus goes direct (a.k.a. switches direction).

So, like—if you like the transit situation depicted in one of your Venus Return charts, but it’s during her “retrograde moment”, you’ll need to cast the chart again for the date that Venus goes direct. ✅

Basically, the Venus Return chart that matters most is the chart cast after her retrogrades. ✌🏻

“how do i know if i’m about to have a particularly venusian year?” 🌺 >

In a particularly auspicious Venus Return chart, you’ll spot Venus on the Midheaven or Ascendant, or conjunct the Sun, Moon, and/or another natal planet.

This applies to either your Return x Birth chart or your stand-alone Venus Return chart. ✅

But any planets conjunct the Midheaven or Ascendant of your Venus Return chart hint at the vibe and personalities that will permeate your leisure, and the wavelength of your interactions.

“can a venus return chart tell me about the timing of new (or ending) relationships, or relationship compatibility?” 😜💕 >

For figuring out relationship compatibility, you’ll want to do a synastry reading. 💕

Synastry is what astrologers use to evaluate the compatibility between two natal charts…

…but, like, it only indicates potential.

Like—you might have very compatible relationship indicators between your charts, but the timing isn’t right. No one will show up and tell you that’s what’s up, but circumstances will dictate it, or it’ll be felt by one or both of you…

(…or, in my personal experience, it’s as though booby traps are being set by house elves to create as much distance and inconvenience as possible… 😫😡😒)

This is why astrologers typically check out where + how current transits are impacting both of your charts, then peek at each of your Progressions (which basically reveal the settings of your “inner thermostat”), and look for indicators that both chart holders are primed for a relationship moment.

(BTW, this Alice Bell article outlines every key relationship indicator to look for in transits and progressions: The Astrological Timing of When You Might Meet Someone. 👍🏻👍🏻)

…It’s a bit of a process (😵‍💫), so I’d suggest delineating your Venus Return chart on its own, then peeking at your Progressions (⏰)…

…and if there’s someone specific on the scene (and you happen to have their birth data, you lunatic 😜), do a synastry reading. ✅

But if not caught in the throes of passion (…or obsession 😳😅), you really only need to refer to your current Venus Return chart, which will tell you plenty. 👌🏻

“It is always helpful to look to past Venus Return charts in your own life and those of people close to you in order to see how Venus Returns work for you. Chances are, you will come across some exciting discoveries. For example, in one case, Return Venus was conjunct the 9th house cusp in a year when the native met a love interest while traveling. In another case, the native met a person who was to become a very significant and special romantic friend when Sun, Venus, and Jupiter were all conjunct on the cusp of the 11th house in the VR chart. (These planets also formed a square with the nodal axis, I have found, is a very important indicator of social contacts in the VR chart).”

— Jo Tracey, “Venus Returns Pt. 2”

“what other cute, meta-karmic stuff can i also look for in my venus return chart?” >

🌟 The Moon’s Nodes, as well as any planets coming to the same degree as the Nodes, as these are often activated or prominent in a year where you meet someone who becomes a significant player in your life. This article says more about the Lunar Nodes + love astrology. 💕

🌟 Your Vertex, a.k.a. the Destiny Point, as any close-by planets in your Venus Return chart should be considered destiny accelerators in terms of magical Venusian-love-changes. 💫✨

🌟 Eclipses usually denote new players coming on the scene, or longtime love interests leaving your life. Are there any eclipses happening around the same time as your Venus Return?? When was the most recent eclipse? Did it strike any planets? …where + how does that planet feature in your Venus Return chart?  This post shows you how to analyze where (if any) Eclipses might have struck your chart. 😬✌🏻

OTHER COOL ASTROLOGY SHIT TO DO WITH YOUR VENUS RETURN >

💗 Here’s the Astro Twins’ descriptions for Venus Signs to balance against this Well+Good article about Venus in the different elements, plus Venus in the Houses.

💗PRO TIP  🌟> Astrolada suggests paying extra special attention to the days before and after your Venus Return. ✅

💗 FOR VARSITY LEVEL ASTROLOGY STUDENTS 🌟 > Learn more about Venus transits to your other planets, including what it means when Venus goes retrograde (a.k.a. backwards in the sky).

💗 Go here to find out when Venus will aspect other planets and enter new signs throughout 2022. 💫

💗MORE ABOUT NATAL VENUS  💕> How Your Venus Sign Affects Your Love Life, and also, Why Am I Always Single? Identifying Difficult Relationship Placements in Your Birth Chart… must read for Venus - Pluto (a.k.a. Venus in Scorpio ♏️), Venus - Saturn or Uranus (a.k.a. Venus in Aquarius ♒️), and Venus - Neptune (a.k.a. Venus in Pisces ♓️)… 😅🤷🏻‍♀️😇

💗ALSO, what other transits and astro-factors should be in for timing relationships? (HINT > Peek at where Jupiter + Saturn are transiting you ✅, look into upcoming Eclipses ✅, and also aspects to-from your Progressed Moon… 🌙🪐)

💗 FIND YOUR VENUSIAN MOONS 🌙💕 > Use this Astro-Seek chart calculator to find out if any New or Full Moons that will happen in the same sign and house as your Venus Return (or anytime during 2022), and commemorate with a pagan-esque moon party (or shopping binge, idk)! 🌙🎉

💗 ANY GODDESS ASTEROIDS SPARKLING UP YOUR VENUS RETURN CHART? > This article shows you how to cast a chart showing the Goddess Asteroids, and how to interpret them. 💖✨

💗 Related with that, learn about the many faces of Venus in astrology, including asteroids Aphrodite (1355) and Astarte (672) 🌟

💗 ALSO, pictures and mythology of the Venus Synodic cycle, a.k.a. Venus’s blossom-shaped orbital pattern 😧🌸🌀> “As Venus rises in the east, becoming the Morning Star, bringer of the dawn, muse of good shit to come, she is the goddess of love. As Venus rises in the west, she actually “conjuncts” the Sun and, from our perspective, becomes engulfed by its luminosity. Her disappearance from the night sky for these nine months symbolizes the goddess ‘descent’ phase.”

💗 Psst, just FYI—in the past, Aeolian Heart Astrology has emailed her email subscribers free guides guide for creating astrological magic rituals for Venus in Libra, Taurus, or Pisces, the signs where Venus loves, rules, or is exalted 🤩✨, and she might do it again! 🥰

💗 YOUR VENUS STYLE 💖 > Most flattering fashion colors based on Venus Sign with celebrity examples (SPOILER ALERT for Venus in Aquarius: turquoise, Taylor Swift 💎🌟♒️).

💗 SINCE WE’RE ON THE TOPIC > How to write a dating profile, and from the AARP blog, 7 Ways to Make Your Online Dating Profile Stand Out. 😁💕

💗 VENUS-RELATED RECOMMENDED READING > Lynne Twist’s The Soul of Money, which I found controversial, but a super Venusian perspective on finance nevertheless, to be combined with Danielle LaPorte’s White Hot Truth, or basically, a super Virgo-Venusian perspective on personal spirituality, written by your worldly and badass Gen X cousin 😍💅

💗 What else can you find in a natal chart referring to splendor and attraction?  🤔 > Look into Eros, Psyche, Amor, and other cuddly-sexy love asteroids. TD, DR; > I didn’t know it at the time, but during my most recent “Eros Return”, I spent a day and a half masturbating in front of a space heater with Audioslave’s “Out of Exile” playing on a loop, it was a self-love extravaganza, MOS’ DEF GET DIALED INTO TRANSITS TO YOUR ASTEROIDS! 🙌🏻✅ (HINT > This article has a “mega copy and paste” section for all the love asteroid numbers for Astro.com! 😳🤩🤗)

💗 What else can you find in a natal chart referring to prosperity? 🤔 > Read up on your Jupiter Cycles and the Part of Fortune in your natal chart (which is actually not about “fortune”, but well-being). 🍀🏆

💗 RELATIONSHIP ASTROLOGY  💕> This post shows you the crude basics of doing relationship astrology, and this CafeAstrology article tells you what to look for in a natal chart for the relationship story.

💗 MORE ABOUT RELATIONSHIP ASTROLOGY  💕> For more depth in the relationship story, here’s a full synopsis on planets in and rulers of the 7th House (“Partnership, Roles, and Significant Relationships”) ✨, plus a summary of the planets, aspects, and houses in synastry ✨, and finally, a summary of Venus contacts between natal charts ✨ > “When Venus in one chart aspects planets and points in another, the Venus person tends to get idealized and romanticized. The person with the contacted planet tends to expect a lot from Venus.”  💘

💗 ALSO… second marriages are likely if you have either MARS in the SEVENTH HOUSE (😳), OR… VENUS in the FOURTH HOUSE (😱), read more about second marriages or spouses indicators in the natal chart. 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️

💗 We need this one too (😓), The Astrology of Sick Love, Limerance, and Toxic/Fantasy Relationships , here’s a taster > “The Neptunian is, unbeknownst to them, using the person as a receptacle for their wildest romantic fantasies. But the more they get to know the person, the more they realize the person is not who they thought they were. They gather intel after intel that this person is not someone they are compatible with, safe with. But the cost is too great, the dream must go on. The Neptunian will discard all the information that indicates this is not a good or safe match and will hang on to that longing and incredibly intoxicating energy they feel around this person. They will get into a state of cognitive dissonance, having to juggle with completely dissonant information and feelings ("I'm in love with them they're my soulmate", and "they lied to me, disrespected me, and cheated on me").” 💔

💗ALSO > The Astrology of Breaking Up and How to Break Up with the Signs. 😁☹️❤️‍🩹

i’m gonna be totally real with you… 😅

I’m not an expert at Venus Return charts….

…nor relationships in general (Venus in Aquarius, I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️)…

…so you’ll have to let me know how useful (or not) these instructions turn out to be! ☺️

MEANWHILE 💫, if you liked learning to read your own astrology transits in this way, consider subscribing to my (often aggressive and disquieting ☺️☺️) newsletter for random updates of my sundry esoteric self-study, including the eventual conclusions and measuring out of my own Venus Return chart analysis!

Subscribe right here…! 🙌🏻

SUBSCRIBE ME! 🙌🏻✨

OKAY DUDE, thanks for reading…. 💗

…and may your next Venus Return be blissful and rad! 👐🏻✨

How to Find + Interpret Black Moon Lilith in Synastry 🐍💞

In a natal chart, Black Moon Lilith symbolizes our Lunar Dark Side, our regretted desires, where we are repressed, and where we tend to take personal liberty at others’ expense.

“Lilith is a dark place in our charts, and to know where that darkness comes from is as important as knowing where it can take us—and how, and when. First, the sign in which Lilith appears will determine how Lilith energy is expressed. The house is where it will manifest itself. The aspects, which must be very small (a 1 or 2 degree orb only), will show what planets are involved in our Lilith drama.”

— Llewellyn Journal, “What Does Lilith Mean in Astrology?”

in a synastry chart (comparing two natal charts for relationship potential 💕✨), contact between liliths might explain an inappropriate or “doomed” attraction or you feel towards someone...

Sometimes a Lilith attraction is about who we want, or how we want them—it might be attraction to a type of person (gender, culture, status, et. al.) we don’t usually go for, or a type of sex we feel ashamed for wanting, or straight-up fascination with someone in possession of what we deny within ourselves.

This person usually embodies or represents what we associate as a “bad stroke” in a tender place juuust out of reach…

…but presented with other ingredients, elements, or factors (symbolized by our Lilith-synastry person ✨), in such a way that we become curious about the area that’s being stroked.

Basically, a Lilith-driven relationship compels us to breech and explore our own taboo. 👻

“Lilith in synastry generally speaking produces a very powerful seductive lure between the two but there can also an erratic or rebellious quality to it. Most commonly seen when the two are not evolved in their Lilith, they experience a battle of wills or power struggles.

Although, this adds to the passion it is also pulling [sic] at the very seat of your souls and can eventually bring out deep resentments. Though ultimately, the highly sexually charged dynamics in the relationship will open your eyes to the ramifications of issues of control, selfishness, or lack of self control, or a need to have your way and their toxicity to any relationship.”

— Illume Astrology, “Lilith in Synastry”

Aside from helping us becoming aware of her in the first place, Lilith placement might hint at kinks we weren’t even aware we had, that can’t be worked out in ordinary relationships. Her energy can only be examined and explored within intimacy, sometimes sexual intimacy, but also emotional, or logistical.

lilith in synastry shows us where another person can help us learn about this murky terrain, and ultimately help soothe our lunar dark side… 👻🌙

• We’ve put in the effort of learning about our own repressed lunar dark side, and…

• We find someone whose own chart (+ Lilith) complements our Lilith journey. ✨

Lilith-based attractions and relationships point out the taboo or “disapproved of” energy that you might explore in proximity / relationship with the other person.

And from a “personal growth” standpoint, if you were planning a self-transformation project, a Black Moon Lilith taboo might help you recover disapproved of urges, longings, and needing.

With awareness of what’s happening (whether via transit or a Lilith-charged interaction), you might harness the energy, trace the subtleties in your body, fantasy, or personality back to their origin, and heal the shame and indignation.

this tutorial will show you where to get a synastry chart showing black moon lilith, and also how to read that chart for the taboo stimulated by that relationship 🐍💕>

I’ll point you everywhere you can go to track where and how Lilith is stalking your relationships, as well as give a guided demonstration of where a synastry partner’s Black Moon Lilith helped me uncover uncomfortable truths about my own Lilith (😳), and finally, supply you with tips from astrologers on how to manage a Lilith-driven attraction or relationship so that you might finally identify the lies bounding up your true instincts, and clear out your emotional history…

…without everything getting too weird. 💁🏻‍♀️☺️

HOW TO GET A SYNASTRY CHART SHOWING BLACK MOON LILITH 🐍💞 >

I actually have a tutorial explaining where + how to get a synastry chart✨, but these instructions will show you how to get TWO natal charts, PLUS a synastry chart combining them.

I'm doing this so you can get the full "Lilith story" in each birth chart, before reading for Lilith's role in your synastry. 👍🏻

🌟 how to get free natal + synastry charts from astro seek…

1. Visit Astro-Seek.com, and hover your cursor over “Free Horoscopes”, and from the dropdown menu, select “Birth Natal Chart Calculator”

2. Enter your birth data into the next page (you’ll need birth date, time, and location)

3. Click the gray hyperlink labeled “Extended Selections”, and check the box next to “Lilith.” 

4. Once the chart is displayed, take a screenshot, or otherwise save the image, then click on the tab labelled “Aspect Table”, and take a screenshot of this as well ✅✅

5. Do the same for your synastry partner: pull up their natal chart, take a screenshot of both the chart and the aspect table ✅✅

6. Now, HEAD BACK TO THE ASTRO SEEK HOMEPAGE ✨, select “Synastry, Composite, Davison” from the dropdown menu under “Free Horoscopes”, then click the hyperlink labelled “synastry” from the list.

7. Take a screenshot of the chart itself, as well as the aspect table.

altogether, you should end up with three charts…

• Your birth chart,

• Your crush’s birth chart, and

• Your synastry chart, combining your birth charts ✨

...Plus three aspect tables for each chart. 🥵😊

🌟 HINT 1 > You might want to print all these charts off onto scratch paper, so you can highlight and annotate the Lilith placements in each natal chart, plus the Lilith connections in your synastry. You might want to start with fully delineating each chart on its own before honing in on the Lilith story. Revisit my natal chart tutorial for pointers, and when you’re ready to focus in, visit my tutorial on natal Black Moon Lilith. ✨

🌟 HINT 2 > Spend a moment getting oriented to the synastry chart. Partner A will be blue, while Partner B will be orange. Look for major themes and interactions between ALL THE PLANETS, especially the ones most important in relationship (sun, moon, venus, mars, plus the angles). Friendly aspects amongst your “personal” planets in the synastry chart would also indicate actual relationship potential, as in, friendship, affinity, and affection (and tend to mitigate any tension created by disharmonious aspects from Lilith). If all the commotion stresses you out, revisit my synastry tutorial ✨, and try delineating the whole chart before honing in on the Lilith story. ✌🏻

HEY, BTW… Snaps to you if you’ve made it this far, especially if you’ve actually casted these charts! 🙌🏻✨

If you have, you must be taking your astrology extracurricular super seriously, and I think that’s very cool, so please email me if you get stuck and need more hints! 👍🏻💫

I’m gonna link you to all the articles you might need to get a full picture of Black Moon Lilith, plus give you a true-life example of what I was able to learn about the “Lilith story” in my own chart by inventorying the Lilith story in a synastry chart with someone else. 😳🤦🏻‍♀️

First, I’m gonna explain a little more about reading for Black Moon Lilith in astrology, particularly the kind of vibe she carries, and what makes her so elusive (and volatile) in a chart.

HOW TO READ FOR LILITH IN a SYNASTRY Chart 🐍💕

OKAY SO, there isn’t a ton of free intel available for interpreting Black Moon Lilith in synastry, and what you might find (via search engines and Tumblr witches) tends to interpret Lilith as a conflation of Venus and Mars. 😬❌

Venus and Mars are “personal” planets, correlating with our personal attraction (Venus 🌸) and prey drive (Mars 🔥). We tend to feel any contact to our Venus / Mars, whether in synastry, transits, or progressions.

In a synastry chart, connections between-amongst Mars / Venus indicate chemistry. Venus / Mars also tend to personalize the bigger, “meta” planets, especially Jupiter, Saturn, and the Outer Planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto). By personalize, I mean that Venus / Mars can make the higher, harder-to-articulate electro-magnetic frequencies from those planets perceptible and easier to integrate.

(…though any contact from the Outer Planets tends to feel super-amped up anyway. 😵‍💫)

Contact to Venus, for example, tends to feel good. We like those connections, even in “challenging” aspects, which can feel like a shiatsu massage. Contacts to Mars tend to turn us on, rev us up, translate into urges and precedence for satisfaction. 😉☺️

Obviously, your level of enjoyment with Venus / Mars synastry connections depends foremost on the condition of your Venus and Mars. If either natal Venus or Mars are fielding static, synastry connections from someone else’s chart might dial up the static…

…or, you know, ultimately soothe and smooth it out. ☺️☺️☺️

lilith, however…. is our lunar dark side. in our charts, she represents pure, child-like instinct… not motivated by pleasure or prizes (such as venus / mars), but by unmet need.

🌟SIMILAR TO VENUS 🌸 > Lilith can be comely, but not necessarily attractive. She doesn’t rely on the law of attraction (LOA), but baits, reels, and uses force of personality to get the attention she craves. She doesn’t care about appearing cute or likable (not unless in aspect to Venus). If passed over or met with boundaries, she seethes, alienates, and withdraws.

🌟 SIMILAR TO MARS 🔥 > Lilith is compelled by satisfaction and winning out, but is not necessarily reward-driven. She tends to rebel against her own cause, or abandons pursuit as soon as one of her pain-points are pressed. She’s not sexually motivated, not unless sex is her proving grounds. If disallowed from expressing aggression or competitiveness, Lilith sulks, throws passive-aggressive barbs, and tries to bait a reaction.

Black Moon Lilith shows where we’re motivated… by validation. Lilith is the amalgamation of all our unnamed, difficult to parse out primordial urges, which tend to be tabooed.

Once tabooed, these instincts slip into a blind spot of our psyche, and we’re literally ignorant of when our Lilith is being deployed. 👻🐍

Obviously, these instincts are very subjective and personal, and also commingled with shame and blame, which is why they tend to operate in our peripheral, or askance of our awareness.

unlike a connection to our Venus or Mars, a synastry connection to our Lilith feels charged, as though someone were holding a lit match an inch away from a part of our body that’s under local anesthesia.

This is how we can become fascinated with someone with whom we have zero chemistry. We crave certain kinds of attention or acknowledgement for which we have no basis to expect.

This is why Lilith can feel erotic, but also, utterly displeasing.

although lilith might feel very intimate (like a venus / mars connection), she’s more like an outer planet: unpredictable, and dramatic. 

Outer Planets are “meta” forces, crisis detonators. We don’t own them, or understand them, until they’ve worked their effect. 😖🙈

like Uranus, Lilith follows her own rules. Similar to Neptune, she prefers murky (or re-imagined) boundaries. She manipulates, much like Pluto, her motives not wholly intelligible even to herself.

“To put her in perspective Lilith is similar to a combination of Pluto and Uranus energy. A combination of the darker qualities of Pluto, Demanding, Unruly, Strong Sexual needs and desires, unique different or bizarre interest in sex, nymphomaniac, strong independent streak, a heart breaker. However, there are two sides to every aspect, placement, planet, asteroid of what not. Much of this truly depends on how well, the individual responds to the energy. ”

— Illume Astrology, “Lilith in Synastry”

Having Pluto or Uranus prominent in your chart (conjunct an angle or your Sun / Moon, for example) might make you naturally more at ease with the rawness, intensity, and ambiguity of someone else’s Lilith.

Someone with a prominent Lilith (conjunct her Ascendent, Sun, or Moon in their own chart), also might be more comfortable with Lilith contacts, as well. 👌🏻

(To help you noodle it out, this article about the Outer Planets in synastry might be useful. 👍🏻)

Remember, to understand each chart’s threshold for Lilith-type shenanigans, you’ll have to read for Lilith in each chart separately, which I’ll walk you through below (and also demo’d in this post ✨).

In any chart (natal, transit, progressions, synastry), we tend to feel aspects made to our personal planets, a.k.a. the faster-orbiting “inner” planets, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Harmonious contacts from Lilith to any of these would make it easier to value the experience from our interactions with Lilith-person.

Harmonious aspects from Lilith to either the Sun or Moon (our “lights”) would make our relationship with Lilith-person really compelling, maybe even enlightening. We would internalize our interactions with Lilith-person, and that can have a transformational effect.

Harmonious aspects from Lilith to Jupiter or Saturn involve a sort of public element, and can involve benefits or consequences lasting much long than even the relationship. Jupiter and Saturn are the social planets, and Lilith contact to either might invoke a bit of role-playing, or perversion of the status or authority.

Add one of the Outer Planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto), and you’ve got a peak or almost spiritual experience. Something that feels beyond you, and might create a sort of existential crisis, or reframing. You might not feel or predict what that might be unless there are contacts to the personal planets, too.

So, go light on trying to romanticize or sexualize Lilith contacts in your charts. Unless forming harmonious aspects to either Mars or Venus or even Mercury (with perhaps a sextile from Neptune thrown in ✨), Lilith isn’t there to realize your fantasies or boost your self-esteem.

She’s the dirty talk that debases you, the lie about birth control, the claim she could see herself marrying you before kicking you out of the car and leaving your ass on the side of the road. 🏃🏻‍♀️

ANNND… she can also be the alchemical agent that helps you change, inside-out. 

okay, i’ll show you the process of delineating your synastry chart (featuring black moon lilith 🐍), and link you where you can go for more intel to pad out your interpretations! 🙌🏻✨

I’ll also give you a true life example of how reading for Lilith in a synastry chart helped me understand as much about taboo, fascination, and ultimately, boundary-setting. 🐍✨

🌟 NOTE > I know, there are a lot of charts to flip through! It’s worth it tho, I swear—you’re becoming smarter / weirder, it’s great!!

What we’re aiming for here is to find the story, or for understanding Black Moon Lilith as a character in a drama. She’s a character in your own drama (your natal chart ✨) and in your (perhaps imaginary or hypothetical) relationship.

🌟 FIRST, LOOK AT “LILITH’S STORY” IN EACH NATAL CHART—SEPARATELY.

In all chart comparison (whether transits, progressions, or synastry), you have to start with the natal chart. Natal charts outline the potential, as well as our personal threshold for certain dynamics.

Like—for one chart-holder, Lilith might be a particularly scary placement, where adding someone else’s Lilith vibes into the mix feels like bad luck, a scary lure, or darkness falling… 🤢❌

…but for the other chart-holder, Lilith might feel like an easy icebreaker, fast affinity, or a scratch to her itch. 😉

FIRST, PLACE BOTH NATAL CHARTS IN FRONT OF YOU, THEN LOOK FOR BLACK MOON LILITH’S SYMBOL… A cross topped with a crescent moon. Circle up any planets, angles, or other points sharing the same zodiac sign and house. Also peek at the sign / house opposite Black Moon Lilith. Get a lay of the land, then start honing in.

🌟 start by inventorying natal black moon lilith by sign (in both charts)…

My Black Moon Lilith 🐍✨

Lilith’s zodiac sign tells you a little about her manipulative tendencies. Lilith expresses herself through the “shadow qualities” of the sign. This is how she’s behaving in each chart (though the chart holder may be aware of her machinations).

🌟 LILITH IN THE AIR SIGNS (Libra, Aquarius, Gemini ♎️♒️♊️ 🪶) > Lilith in an Air sign builds fast friendship and affinity through rapport, appealing to others’ sense of grace, or contorting the truth for relatability. She might rope others into a grand scheme, then turn a cold shoulder. She might say one thing (the nice thing she should say), then do the opposite. Airy Lilith often alienates through rule-mongering and should-isms, or uses her social advantage to annex contrarians. Prone to inventing rationalizations for discrediting perceived enemies. Others might feel they have to choose their words carefully, and that they can’t entirely trust the people Lilith brings ‘round. Twisted logic and fibbing abounds.

🌟 LILITH IN THE WATER SIGNS (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces ♋️♏️♓️💧) > Lilith in a Water sign bonds with others almost on sight, proclaiming new friends to be soul-mates and one-of-the-family, and by revealing secrets or relaying intense personal stories. She’s prone to taking emotional hostages, fabricating us against the world scenarios, threatening her own life if the bond should break. Might accuse others in her crosshairs as being “un-woke”, or emotionally vampiric while indulging in fits of inappropriate catharsis (laughing at a funeral, weeping on a first date). Needy, wants to be babied, desperately seeking a soothsayer.

🌟 LILITH IN THE FIRE SIGNS (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius ♈️♌️♐️🔥) > Lilith in a Fire sign treats relationships, work, or life in general as her proving grounds. Firey Lilith warps collaborations into contests of will, building camaraderie through teasing (if not harassment), and reiterates where she and others rank (on anything, everything). She vies for kudos and a starring role, then skips out on the awards ceremony and bails on opening night. Abandons apprenticeships, invents unnecessary rivalries, and often casts herself in the role of someone’s secret bully.

🌟 LILITH IN AN EARTH SIGNS (Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo ♑️♉️♍️🌿) > Lilith in an Earth sign can be insatiable, critical of others’ self-indulgence (if not materialism in general), and obsessed with quality, excellence, and perfection. She can be repressed about her own need for pleasure and simple luxury, or prone to lording such over others. Earthy Lilith can be resentful of having mundane responsibilities, or over-controlling of minutiae. Pie-in-the-sky ambitions, and a penchant for Machiavellianism.

🌟 NOTE > these are the same descriptions that are in my How to Find + Interpret Natal Lilith post. 🐍✨

REMEMBER, Lilith is our lunar dark side. We’re not wholly aware of how she perverts the qualities and characteristics of her sign. Through time, we learn her triggers (our triggers), and the types of people who tend to draw her out into the open.

Over time, you might even be able to spot archetypes (in the form of real-life humans) representing the qualities of the planets close-aspecting your natal Lilith. 😳🤯

In fact, synastry studies will help you figure out and learn to intuit the personality types that will bring her to the fore, and even begin to hazard for those awkward moments when you feel yourself lapsing into your Lilith defense mechanisms.

Compare the above descriptions of Lilith in the elements with other descriptions. Here’s the Hoodwitch’s erotic(ish) guide to Lilith in the signs, as well as Plutonic Desire’s guide to Lilith in the signs, and finally, CafeAstrology’s compassionate summaries to Lilith’s “binge + purge” cycle in the signs / houses. 🐍💫

🌟 next, inventory natal black moon lilith by house (in both charts)…

My synastry partner’s Black Moon Lilith 🐍✨

Once you have inventoried her shadow side through your Lilith sign, look into her house. Houses represent our "fields of experience.” Lilith in the Houses points to the arena in which Lilith acts out, or has acted out, or becomes repressed.

🌟 Houses 1 - 6 are the personal houses, and correlate with our interior experiences. We internalize these energies (planets) and themes (signs). We relate and interpret these energies through our identity (first house) or personal rhythm (sixth house).

🌟 Houses 7 - 12 are the interpersonal houses, and correlate with experiences we have with others, either communally (eleventh house) or by reputation (tenth house). The interpersonal houses are separated from the personal houses by the horizon line running across the center of the chart (the Ascendent - Descendent axis).

Remember, the house describes where in the house party Lilith is hanging out. She might be full-out and mingling with the rest of the gathering (Lilith in the interpersonal houses), or withdrawn into one of the rooms, trying to have her own experience (Lilith in the personal houses).

When we actually combine both natal charts (next step ✨), your Lilith will probably show up in a totally different house on the other person’s chart. In your chart, Lilith might have seemed like your best-kept secret, but gets drawn out into the open when overlaying someone else’s chart.

Check out the Lilith in the Houses articles on Advanced Astrology, as well as Jupiter Jewel’s guide to Lilith in the signs + houses, to compare to Tom Jacobs’ interpretations and this Synni Signs article on the same. 🐍💫

🌟 finally, read for the aspects between black moon lilith and other natal planets…

See those red and blue lines crossing the center of the chart? Those illustrate the aspects (or “relationships”) between-amongst the planets, whether harmonious (sextiles, trines) or agitating (square, oppositions, sometimes conjunctions).

With plenty of harmonious contacts (sextiles, trines), you can find charged-up affinity through a Lilith connection, but challenging aspects (squares, oppositions, conjunctions) can draw out her sabotaging tendencies. ✅

WANT TO SEE ALL ASPECTS TO LILITH GRIDDED OUT FOR YOU? > If you’re on the Astro Seek calculator’s display page, just click on the tab labelled “Aspect Table” to see all your synastry aspects “spelled out” in astrological annotation.

CONTINGENT WITH THAT, you might want to get familiar with the symbols and nature of each aspect (conjunctions, sextiles, squares, trines, + oppositions). This article also talks about aspects (including a great analogy for applying them, basically that aspects describe how planets see each other in a chart 🤯), and this one explains aspects to Black Moon Lilith specifically. 💫

How those aspect-relationships play out depends on the signs and houses involved, plus the alchemical reaction between Lilith and the planet (or point) she’s aspecting.

Refer to the row extending to the left of the Black Moon Lilith’s symbol. Trace each aspect symbol back to the planet that Lilith is in aspect to.

🌟 pro tip: imagine each natal chart as a house party, with lilith and all the other planets as attendees…

Her house tells you what room she’s hangin’ in, and her sign telling you how she’s behaving. Obviously, natal planets sharing the same sign + house would be part of her alchemy, the energy of those planets influencing her expression (like any other kind of social alchemy).

Lilith’s aspects to other planets in other houses hints about her reputation with those other planets: an opposition to a prominent Venus might suggest that Lilith showed up uninvited, and is now hiding out in a room where the hostess won’t notice she’s slipped in and gettin’ high with your Mercury or Eros asteroid. 😉

Once you understand how Lilith functions in the overall dynamic of your chart, you’ll have an idea of how she’ll operate in the synastry. ✅

NOW THAT YOU KNOW THE “LILITH STORY” IN EACH NATAL CHART, PULL UP YOUR SYNASTRY CHART 💞✨

My synastry partner’s Black Moon Lilith in my chart 🐍✨

In synastry, we combine two natal charts by overlaying and lining them up by signs.

Keeping with our metaphor, this is similar to combining two different house parties, and will almost certainly change up the dynamics, and where / how Lilith expresses herself.

Sometimes, your synastry with someone might make your Lilith more overt or covert. Combining your natal chart with someone else’s might place your Lilith in an angular house on the other person’s chart (giving her more oomph than she has in your own chart), or vice versa. Their chart might place your Lilith in a house governing rather mundane activities versus in a house promoting sexy, wily exploits. Her dynamics with other planets might get stronger or more volatile, or she might seem to disappear from the scene altogether.

SIMILARLY, your Lilith might submerge or amplify other planets in the other person’s chart.

In the above image, my Lilith is in my Ninth House, a “public” house, and draws out my synastry partner’s heavy-hearted Saturn out into the open, which is usually buried in his second house (along with all the insecurities that tend to correlate with having Saturn in your “worthiness” sector 🙋🏻‍♀️😬).

Erstwhile, when our charts combine, my synastry partner’s super-public Tenth House Lilith is sublimated into my Fourth House, side-by-side my close-to-heart Mercury (below image).

My Black Moon Lilith in my synastry partner’s chart 🐍✨

Notice how—in the earlier image—the other chart-holder's Lilith is close-by his MC (a.k.a. the Midheaven, or highest point of our chart)…?

...but in MY chart, his Lilith flipflops, and is hovering beside my IC (a.k.a. the Nadir, or root of the chart)?

In effect, based on our combined charts, this would take my synastry partner’s Lilith--a conspicuous, attendee of the house party represented in his natal chart ✨--and plunge her into the emotional basement of MY house party.

Instead of grandstanding in the kitchen or rec room, vying for attention from the most VIP party guest (typical for natal Lilith conjunct Sun [in a wiiiide orb] 🙄), his Lilith is telling deep secrets to my Mercury, who was probably hiding, just trying to vape and scroll through his phone in a mildewy basement closet…

…until the parties combined, and Lilith stumbled in. ✨

Do you remember that Jimmy Eat World music video about the house party where everyone was stripping down to their underwear, and the two shy, clumsy teenagers wind up in the same closet trying to awkwardly get undressed without anyone watching, and then they look up and notice each other doing the same thing, and realize they were who they were meant to meet at this thing, so they get dressed and leave together? 🥰

Here's the video, enjoy! 💕

Anyway, spend a few minutes really feeling out where and how both Liliths are showing up in the house party represented by your synastry chart. Note any aspects made to Lilith from your personal planets (the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars): these planets will make Lilith more of a felt presence in the party scene.

And the type of aspect describes whether it feels curious or, you know, aggressive. 👹

REMEMBER, whether your synastry partner welcomes your Lilith in this space depends on that person’s comfort level with taboo (👻), and how predominantly this house features in your overall synastry.

Don’t worry, I’ll explain more about that further down. 👍🏻

BUT FIRST, I'm gonna walk you through analyzing Lilith's aspects to the other planets in your synastry, starting with the Sun and Moon, then go through the rest of the planets, building off of what I described in the introduction to interpreting Lilith, so that you can better track how the taboo is stalking your synastry.

🌟 Your Astro Mami’s Tumblr page has a great summaries of Lilith in the Houses (synastry overlay), which you can combine with the more technical 12andUs page on the same thing.

🌟 Also, remember to analyze your whole synastry chart, not just for Lilith!

🌟 For more (including links and tips for integrating your Lilith), revisit my post: How to Find (+ What to Do) About Black Moon Lilith (Hint: Stop Mean-Girl'ing Your Taboo 🐍). ✨

NOW, DRILL DOWN ON BLACK MOON LILITH IN THE SYNASTRY CHART… ✨

…LOOK FOR CONTACT BETWEEN BLACK MOON LILITH AND YOUR SUN + MOON 🌻🌙

The Sun and Moon are the “lights” of our charts, the lights of our consciousness. Our Sun shines, and any contact from another planet becomes part of its shine. Our Moon reflects the conditions of our Sun, and absorbs input from any other planets forming an aspect to it.

Lilith contact to either the Sun or Moon indicate an often inside-out transformative experience or relationship. Pairing Lilith with either of these lights would add a sudden undertow to the interaction. This instant-intimate feeling can inspire curiosity or hesitance from the Sun / Moon - person.

🌟 sun - lilith synastry 🌻🐍

Our Sun is where we're most vital. Our Sun is our most dominant "light", and does nothing else but emanate. Our Sun is the light source of our consciousness, hued by transiting planets and synastry connections. We "self-actualize" not according to our instincts, but according to the opportunities and relationships that our Sun can most and best relate with.

“These people are usually drawn to each other the same way the night and sunset meet each other. They are attracted to each other the same way a moth is attracted to a flame. They can be positive or good for each other even though they have negatives.”

—Cosmic Deity, "Lilith in Synastry”

Depending on aspects, this relationship can feel like something vital and sacred is at stake. Lilith - person can become infatuated with the Sun person, which can translate into either resenting the Sun - person, or longing after their approval.

With easy aspects between the Sun and Lilith (trine, sextile), Lilith might energize you. You’d feel shiny around them. When something fabulous happens, your first thought would be notifying the Lilith - person.

With hard aspects between the Sun and Lilith (square, opposition, sometimes conjunction), Lilith might not act erotic or infatuated, but instead think Sun - person is self-aggrandizing, or harboring an inferiority complex. Lilith might feel the need to undermine the Sun person, trying to displace the Sun person’s influence by asserting her own identity, needs, or preferences. As the Sun - person, you’d feel uncomfortable in your own skin around Lilith - person.

As a result, Lilith-person might tease or needle you, or just avoid being in the same space as the Sun-person. 🐍🌻

Basically, when someone else’s Lilith aspects our Sun, it’s like stepping into the shade: it either feels like a relief from the heat and glare of our own presence, or like having our vitality siphoned off.

🌟 moon - lilith synastry 🌙🐍

Our Moon is where we’re softest. Our Moon absorbs and internalizes the subtlest conditions of a transit or synastry connection. Because there’s so many subtleties, we might not get the satisfaction of combing out, naming, and categorizing all those details. We just unconsciously metabolize them.

With easy aspects between the Moon and Lilith (trine, sextile), Lilith might draw out your sympathy. You’d feel inclined to caretake Lilith in the style of your Moon sign. If you hear bad news on the radio, she’d be who you’d call to check in on.

With hard aspects between the Moon and Lilith (square, opposition, sometimes conjunction), it’d almost be too much to bear, like having no outer wear, and stuck wearing wet socks, waiting for a storm to pass.

But that storm just like LINGERS, man 👻

“With the Lilith conjunct moon synastry placement, the Lilith person often triggers the moon person’s emotional wounds. The moon person is attracted to the Lilith person but can quickly feel afraid or unsafe... Mainly, this placement is almost guaranteed to bring up issues with the mother figure. These issues typically come up for the moon individual as they “relive” their mother trauma with the Lilith individual, although the opposite is possible as well.”

— Tea and Rosemary, “Black Moon Aspects in Synastry” 

Even without knowing the astrology, this relationship would run deep. Lilith is internalized, becoming a character or feature in the Moon’s inner world, while Lilith feels herself attuned to the moods and needs of the Moon.

Depending on the aspect, this could annoy Lilith: she might vie for freedom from the Moon’s vortex of need and fixation, or she might find herself fixated on influencing the Moon’s moods.

Remember, Lilith connections can feel like Uranus or Pluto synastry connections: manipulative, experimental, like… a piece of you has been stripped buck-naked and flung into the snow. 💀⚡️

This is why, if your Moon conjuncts your synastry partner’s Lilith, the Lilith-person might not act erotic or sympathetic towards you, but instead think you’re “over-sensitive”, and reinforce their boundaries (probably in a way that really hurts Moon-person’s feelings). 🐍🌙

Q. who feels the connection—the lilith or the planet person? 🤔

Lilith-person feels the planet-person in an all-over, but difficult to pinpoint way, whereas the planet person notices (and is more aware of) Lilith’s effect on them (and others in their shared context).

Although many younger astrologers (with blogs, anyway) describe a Lilith - Sun / Moon connection as sexy, I’ve noticed (and have heard from more seasoned astrologers), that planet-person will often interpret Lilith-person as naive, obnoxious, uncouth, or just extra. 😳

…that doesn’t mean they judge Lilith-person harshly. Planet-person might be Lilith-person’s #1 defender in the friend group, hang-out scene, work place, whatever the context. Planet-person is just tuned into Lilith-person, and might understand Lilith-person’s vulnerability in the situation.

Unless the behavior reflects a super taboo for them, the Sun person might find this person sort of endearing, as Lilith’s behavior is innate for them, easy to understand and relate with.

Also, in a Lilith-planet synastry connection, Lilith-person might not be so compelled, but frustrated by the planet-person, by their pervasive-but-difficult-to-place planet energy. Our Lilith placement represents a blind spot, a zone that we tend to dissociate from. Sometimes a synastry connection to our Lilith can feel like someone pressing on a bruise, or like… being cuddled when you’re under general anesthesia….

…that’s the eroticism of a Lilith - planet connection. ✨

Whatever the aspect, we feel Lilith-person, and they feel us, though neither might be able to find the right words to describe it…

…and because it’s Lilith, we tend to default to our animal instincts. 🐿

Whether we’re comfortable expressing those instincts depends on how well we accept our natal Black Moon Lilith, and how secure we feel unwrapping or playing with that taboo.

FOR EXAMPLE ✨, I share a Sun - Lilith conjunction with two different friends: Sun - Lilith in Aries with one friend, and Sun - Lilith in Cancer with the other.

These are two people who haven’t met, who I chill with in totally different contexts, and who have fairly dissimilar personalities (one = Libra Sun / Sagittarius Rising, the other = Cancer Sun / Gemini Rising).

In one friendship, I am the Sun-person (♈️). My Sun is exact-conjunct her Lilith, or basically, my personality is in her blind spot. I have the sense that I understand Lilith person better than she understands me, and I can tell from her sustained eye contact that she is fascinated and frustrated by her attraction to me. In our interactions, I can feel her trying to track me, probing me for clues, like a puppy trying to shake a treat out of a Kong.

Like… she is literally confounded and annoyed by my personality, but it doesn’t stop her from showing up at my house or calling me on a near daily basis. 💁🏻‍♀️

Because our Sun - Lilith connection is in Aries (🔥), our interactions revolve around playful rivalry. I just did this… Look at this thing I drew… Shut up and let me tell you what happened…

In the other friendship, I am the Lilith - person (♋️). I feel soft jealousy over the Sun-person. I’m also compelled to drop in on him at home or work to request hugs, and to chitchat about our days. I have a story to tell you… What’d you do about that thing…? How do you feel about…?

Sun-person actually points things out to me that I’m not noticing, but once observed, I realize had been happening all the while. You seem very sensitive about this, let’s change the subject… Don’t apologize anymore, you do that a lot… You don’t need to worry, I’ll look into it…

As the Lilith-person in this dynamic, I’ll often feels waves of embarrassment without any obvious cause. That scene in Talladega Nights, when Will Ferrell's character is being interviewed on camera for the first time, and his hands are hovering by his ears, and he keeps sputtering, "I’m not sure what to do with my hands... what do I do with my hands...??” (Here’s the scene. ✨)

With my Black Moon Lilith in Cancer, revealing my true feelings can make me feel overexposed and vulnerable… like I’m doing something bad… 😵‍💫

…to which my interaction with the Sun - person can sometimes have a relaxing, soothing effect…

…but also triggers all defense mechanisms, such as changing my routines to avoid him, “forgetting” our plans, or inviting other people to our hang-outs.

(…am I basically co-regulating with this person…? 🤔)

TO ME, based on these two friendships, a Sun-Lilith connection feels like being 7 years old with your new best friend, or like reuniting with a favorite cousin or childhood bestie. It’s easy friendship, full of unstated feeling and implied loyalties. You feel understood and accepted without having to explain yourself… as if this other person already knows (or recognizes) and accepts your faults.

I feel commingled security and disturbance from the Sun in Cancer friendship (his Sun ☌ my Lilith ♋️), and blended ease and antagonism from the Lilith in Aries friendship (my Sun ☌ her Lilith ♈️).

For both, our hang out sessions eventually drop from locked-eyes and buzzy excitement to sudden impatience and annoyed-exhaustion… usually from the Lilith-person.

and what kind of transformation or relationship experience can we expect from a sun-moon-lilith synastry connection?

Or basically, what skanky-dark stuff about yourself might come to light when someone’s Lilith aspects your Sun or Moon? 🤔😳

This is known as one of the most transformative Lilith connections, but the transformation depends on each person’s personal journey of accepting and integrating Lilith.

With Lilith in aspect to either light (Sun or Moon), you can expect a tugging towards one another, but also, radically disparate principles. Lilith person might feel totally captivated by the Sun or Moon person, who feels similar fascination with Lilith, but also antagonizes them with the shadow qualities of their shared zodiac sign (scroll up for summaries of Black Moon Lilith in the signs ✨).

For my synastry examples, there’s implicit and intense sense of belonging (♋️) and loyal rivalry (♈️), but without the sense that we’re performing for the relationship. We don’t have defined roles and don’t follow our normal rules for interactions. We feel comfortable acting and speaking from instinct.

And that is so freeing, right? 🥰

In these two friendships, we are at liberty to be ourselves… even if only with each other. 😮‍💨😊💞

BUT… because we’re grown-ups (🤢), this freedom might be what unravels or challenge the friendship. That instant simpatico of a Sun - Lilith synastry connection becomes complicated by the unmet needs and validation-seeking innate to our Lilith placement.

Eventually, I’m going to hold the hug a touch too long for Sun-in-Cancer person, and he’ll have to draw a boundary… ❌

(…he’ll be like, “Dude, wait, I have a gf…” to which I’ll respond, “She can’t be my gf too?” 🥺)

…and at some point, I expect Lilith-in-Aries person to storm my boundaries. ❌

Once it happens, it will stress the interaction, and require the Lilith person to claim behavior(s) they might have been relying on the Sun person to continue indulging.

Ultimately, there will be a reprising of our roles with each other, with new rules of engagement, and a new awareness about how we show up in the relationship.

And this might be super beneficial, not just for our private interactions, but for how the Lilith - person can perceive and take ownership of their behavior…

…and so much better that the experience is happening with someone we trust and knows is sympathetic to our faults, versus being called out on our Lilith tendencies by an authority figure, a customer at work, a friend’s new girlfriend, or any kind of person who we don’t share that kind of bond with.

REMEMBER, aspects will describe whether Lilith’s vibes are friendly or hostile, but the willingness to be in relationship depends on each person’s maturity and comfort-levels with taboo. 👻

NEXT, CONSIDER ASPECTS BETWEEN LILITH, VENUS, AND MARS, PLUS MERCURY (A.K.A. THE “PERSONAL” PLANETS). 🌸🔥🧚🏻‍♂️

Venus / Mars are not “lights”, but more like instincts or drives. We attract via Venus, and assert via Mars. 🌸🔥

In a natal chart, Venus and Mars indicate the dynamics, themes, and arenas of desire and attraction. Venus and Mars are also the main ingredients in chemistry. You and your besties probably have synastry connections between each others’ Venus and Mars. Harmonious aspects to-and-between Venus show where we feel mutual appreciation, while harmonious aspects to Mars show where we excite each other (sextiles, trines).

With challenging aspects, we might have dissimilar love languages, or rely on the friction in our interactions to evaluate ourselves (squares, oppositions).

Add Lilith to Venus or Mars, and it can make your interactions lit as hell, or smoke out all your insecurities. 🔥

“If someone has a natal planet conjunct your Black Moon Lilith or vice versa, particularly a personal planet (the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, or Mars), and this is a romantic relationship, this can generate some major heat, an intense, emotional, and passionate connection. But it can also bring out a lot of struggles for power, issues of domination and control (though I suppose great if this is a BDSM relationship!). If that can be controlled, it can be a transformative kind of relationship, one that could empower both of you.”

— Dark Pixie Astrology, “Black Moon Lilith + Love Astrology"

🌟 venus - lilith synastry 🐍🌸

“Lilith conjunct Venus tends to be sexual and intense almost all of the time. The Venus human will want to show off her romantic side. This is usually soft and cuddly. They would love to shower Lilith with love, attention, and affection. Lilith person would enjoy this affection for sure. However, they do not want to let themselves go. They do not want to get vulnerable and soft.”

— Cosmic Deity, “Lilith in Synastry”

Venus spotlights the dynamics, themes, and arenas where our self-worthiness and feelings of attractiveness play out in our chart. Venus cultivates what she wants and prefers. In response, Lilith will either want to be groomed by her (such as with a trine aspect), or prove herself out (such as with a square aspect).

NOTE > Conjunctions (side-by-side aspects ☌) can be both harmonious and contentious. In conjunction, Lilith and Venus are stifling-close, which sometimes forces catharsis or confrontation to happen faster, and continuously, if the relationship survives.

Also, Venus doesn’t act. She’s not an actor or agent in our chart. Even in an Air Sign, she doesn’t strategize. In an Earth sign, she doesn’t work.

Wherever Taurus and Libra fall on your natal chart (ruled by Venus) reveal where the seduction and power struggles between Lilith and Venus might spill over, and how any planets caught within might show up as archetypes in the true-life drama.

In the end, Venus’s sense of worthiness will get redressed or re-activated by Lilith. Once activated, Venus - person might be able to better understand and even mitigate Lilith person’s aggression or awkwardness.

🌟 mars - lilith synastry 🐍🔥

Mars spotlights the dynamics, themes, and arenas where we let our prey drive rip. Mars represents our takedown force, our hot button, and how we move upon the world.

In general, Mars - Lilith could indicate perfect lust (👌🏻), or a dynamic characterized by aggro lashing out.

Depending on the aspect, Lilith - person can be thirsty for (trine) or repulsed by (opposition) Mars - person. 

🌟 HINT > Lilith’s zodiac sign hints at Lilith’s preferred mode and method for taking power, whether she wants the upper hand (fire sign 🔥), or prefers acquiescence (water sign 💧).

OF COURSE, Lilith contact to either Venus or Mars can inspire fascination, but eventually, the tension will start to strain. 🥵

At some point down the line, if you’re unable to work out the fascination or tension in an appropriate, consensual fashion, Lilith will basically chicken-fight Venus / Mars. 

And although Lilith will certain cause some damage, whether it’s a physical blow (🔥) or a blow to one’s self-esteem (🌸), she’ll also do her trademark vanishing act.

This vanishment is innate to our Black Moon Lilith—it’s her default coping mechanism, a way of staving off the embarrassment or guilt of deploying behaviors or qualities that were tabooed, for which her synastry connection to Mars or Venus compels out into the open.

“There can also be a binging and purging cycle involved with the traits of Lilith’s sign or house wherein we overdo or go all out, expressing these traits in extreme, then feel bad for doing so. This leads to a purging stage in which we reject or deprive ourselves of the traits. Eventually, the need for them is strong and we go to extremes again, perpetuating this self-destructive cycle. [...]”

Everyone has this trigger, and usually other people are more aware of it than us. We can become self-aware of through time (when inventorying a certain pattern of consequences), or through relationship: by sharing Lilith in synastry with others who can safely draw her out and indicate what she’s up to.

“To work through this, we need to learn to accept these traits in ourselves and express them in ways that we’ve transformed or made to fit our lives without fear or guilt. We may have too-high expectations of ourselves in these areas, and we can convince ourselves we don’t care. It’s difficult to go there since fear and shame can be mixed in, but it’s also empowering.”

— CafeAstrology.com, “Black Moon Lilith in the Natal Chart: Signs and Houses”

It might also take some time to notice Lilith cropping up in our relationships (especially if you don’t have the other person’s birth data 😉)…

Almost exactly like Pluto, Lilith to Venus or Mars requires some kind of eventual catharsis, or tension-breaker. If not via orgasm, then through a confrontation or ultimatum that defines and defends the planet-person’s boundaries.

With Lilith connections to either Venus or Mars, there might not be a reward in terms of personal transformation (such as with Lilith to the Sun or Moon 🌻🌙), but there might be an evolved awareness of our “triggers” and compulsions in interactions.

🌟 mercury - lilith in synastry 🐍🧚🏻‍♂️

In a natal chart, Mercury represents our integrator, our ability to connect the dots, and follow the lead. Mercury rules wherever the signs Gemini and Virgo land on your chart, as well as the Third House of Primary Thought, Interconnection, and Kindred Spirits and Sixth House of Self-Regulation, Integration, and Personal Rhythm. ♊️♍️🪶✨

In more intermediate-advanced astrology, Mercury is interpreted as a “lower octave” (or softer frequency) of Uranus. Mercury can be impish, he likes spinning the dials and toggling the links, while Uranus is the ultimate trickster, operating like an electrical storm that will rip apart all ties, and throw in something totally new. ⚡️

Lilith - Mercury in synastry represents a taboo that features a mental connection expressed through raw instinct, where lack of propriety is the major turn-on, if not the intimacy of having a “secret club” of 2.

Lilith - Mercury synastry attractions might encompass scenarios like… a kinky crush you have on your cool older cousin who introduces you to satanic music… or secret meetings in your backyard treehouse with the girl-next-door who taught you how to masturbate, and you still call each other for phone sex (though you’re both married to other people of the opposite sex).

FUN FACT, Adam and Lilith were made of the same clay, and essentially siblings (from the original Lilith myths, read a version here ✨).

In fact, Lilith is sometimes noted as a hermaphrodite, or non-binary in some way, creating a natural simpatico with Mercury, a shapeshifter who could flit between dimensions (including Pluto’s Underworld 💀) and thus served as the messenger of the gods.

So, like—if Lilith symbolizes our Lunar Dark Side, the inner provocateur who causes shock and awe (Uranus ⚡️) and leads us unawares into Underworld situations (Pluto 💀)…

…then she’s definitely ride-sharing with Mercury. 😎

With Mercury - Lilith synastry, this is the classic and best version of friends as lovers. This is someone you feel instant recognition of, a person whose actual voice, upon your first time hearing it, rang a bell or strummed a chord deep inside your body… someone who adds words to a secret melody, or vice versa.

Basically, Mercury - Lilith in synastry indicates someone you can playyy with. ✨

After consummating your special bond (through mutual masturbation or a blood ritual, whichever, idk), this person becomes your secret playmate and partner in crime.

“Harmonious: The Mercury partner can inspire magic words and poetry from the Lilith partner. The Lilith partner can read the Mercury partner’s mind. Together, they can amplify each other’s psychic abilities and turn each other on with words.

Stressful: The Mercury person could use logic to demean the Lilith person’s intuitive reasoning. The Lilith partner could penetrate and brainwash the Mercury person’s mind.”

— Linda Goodman, “Black Moon Lilith in Synastry"

With harmonious aspects, you share a made-up language or telepathic bond that facilitates deeper self-understanding. This person mirrors you in some basic way, and through your relationship, helps you befriend your dark side, and find your voice. 🕊

With adverse aspects, this person might want to influence your thoughts and opinions, tell blatant lies at your expense, or pretend to not recognize you when out with their other friends. They might expect full disclosure about all your thoughts and feelings, insist on constant communication, and get defensive about your relationships with others (especially if they don’t like that person). 

With a conjunction specifically, there will be a tussle between both, with Mercury - person and Lilith - person vying for dominance (or “bestie” status) in each other’s lives… which can become confusing or complicated in a grown-up world striated by roles and rules.

“The Lilith conjunct Mercury synastry aspect creates a bit of a catch-22 in relationships. The mind is a turn-on, but one or both partners are also embarrassed by the other person’s mind at certain times. They feel an attraction to the way their partner thinks yet they also want to escape it.

This Lilith conjunct Mercury synastry aspect can also indicate difficulty communicating or mind games.

If the couple truly wants to progress and deal with their own issues surrounding Lilith (as this relationship is simply reflecting their own issues back at them) then couples therapy can be beneficial. The couple needs to learn new communication patterns before the relationship will feel completely safe.”

— Tea and Rosemary, “Black Moon Lilith Aspects in Synastry"

Basically, Lilith - Mercury contact in a synastry chart suggests true affinity, the kind that best recaptures that feeling of having connection without needing to define a role…

…though, ultimately, since Lilith in the mix (and because we’re grown ups and cast into certain roles with other non-Lilith people), boundary-setting and defining the rules of engagement might become the ultimate tension-breaker.

Do you remember The Royal Tenenbaums, after Richie’s character sabotaged his big tennis match and was hiding on the boat, and dictated that suicide note about being in love with his adopted sister Margo, then shaved off all his hair and cut his wrists to that Elliott Smith song…?

via GIFER

…and then, towards the end of the movie after they’re reunited, Richie confesses his true feelings to Margo, and she was like, “I think we’re going to have to be secretly in love…?” 🤭🥺

That scene encapsulates my final thoughts on a Mercury - Lilith synastry connection. ✨

OKAY, NOW, AFTER LOOKING AT THE PERSONAL PLANETS, CHECK UP ON LILITH’S INTERACTION WITH THE SOCIAL PLANETS, JUPITER AND SATURN…

(…a.k.a. daddy issues.)

(…Jk, jk. 😉🙃)

Jupiter and Saturn are considered the “social” planets, and indicate where public mores and conventional attitudes impact our charts. Jupiter corresponds with our luck, opportunity, and boon cycles, whereas Saturn corresponds with our set backs, hard knocks, and teachable moments. Jupiter could be a mentor, patron, or benefactor, while Saturn might represent a boss, bureaucrat, or member of the morality police.

In a synastry chart, Lilith to either Jupiter or Saturn can be a much needed overturning of the “rules of the world”, or the toppling of structures that have loomed like barriers, rather than supporting us, in our lives. Trines and sextiles suggest admiration, of having a mutual philosophical outlook or core principles. Squares and opposites denote rebellion, a wanting to shoulder-check the other, knock the other down a few pegs. Conjunctions hint at tussles and vying for leverage in the interaction.

Also, abuses of power, self-esteem issues coming to the fore, and totally grody rumblings with naive realism. 🥺😓

Lilith to Jupiter suggests a risk to long-term plans, personal jeopardy, and ethical dilemmas. Jupiter wants leverage, and Lilith either wants it too, or given a shortcut (if not special favors). Lilith - Jupiter contacts draw out our entitlement complexes.

“Both are drawn to each other and reinforce each other’s needs for pleasure and expression of individualism and sexuality. Both understand each other’s deeper expression of untapped untapped rage. Jupiter person may enhance and magnify Lilith person’s inner wounds and dramatic emotions. Lilith person can find purpose and meaning from Jupiter person’s influence.”

—12andUs, “Jupiter and Lilith Aspects in the Synastry Chart: How do You Expand Each Other’s Vision and Ideals?”

Lilith to Saturn suggests a risk to personal status, long-term consequences, and dissolution of the structure of your life (internal or external). Saturn wants control, and Lilith either wants to take or yield it to him, depending on Lilith’s mode (her zodiac sign) and aspect to Saturn. Lilith - Saturn contacts draw out our authority complexes, and unpack our issues around resentment and responsibility. 

“There may be a strong and karmic attraction, bringing these two together at a time when it is most needed. Saturn person is not one to instigate change, however Lilith person’s rebellious nature can help expose inner deceit and abuses of power which Saturn person will then continue to scrutinize and work around.”

— 12andUs, “Saturn and Lilith aspects in the Synastry Chart: How do you help each other create security and structure?”

TRUE ✨, Lilith to the social planets does imply a lovely undermining of Patriarchy (🥰)…

…but at the risk of disgrace and discredit (ugh). 

Whatever “power over” Lilith might gain through her relationship with Jupiter or Saturn, it will come with a shocking confrontation of her own naïveté, and potential long-term injury to her goals and reputation. 😬

Lesson well learned. ✅

Regardless of the actual role of Jupiter or Saturn, Lilith contacts to either in synastry imply some degree of rebellion and scandal, even if low-key.

Depends on the conditions of Jupiter and Saturn in both natal charts, how each chart holder relates with the tasks and tutelage represented by each, and Lilith’s aspects to both / either in the synastry chart. 💫

BONUS, OR SUPER-SECRET LILITH CONNECTIONS: LOOK FOR LILITH IN YOUR MIDPOINTS 🐍🎯

What if you’ve inventoried your synastry chart through-and-through, but still can’t find anything that explains your wild fascination with someone? 🐍💕

WELP, that could mean that their Lilith might be nestled in one of your midpoints (or yours in theirs).

Midpoints are now they sound: they are the “middle point” between two planets or objects in your natal chart. Midpoints in synastry are fun for a little special insight into energies that feel stimulated by another person, though there’s no connection between the actual objects in your charts.

Transits, progressions, or other people’s angles / points / planets hitting a midpoint can “activate” both planets. Your Sun-Moon midpoint is consider the holiest of midpoints, but you can also find out your Mars-Venus midpoint, Moon-Venus midpoint, and other steamy-pleasant-romantic planet midpoints.

I have a midpoints tutorial coming up in a couple months, but you can cast a chart for your Black Moon Lilith midpoints using the Astro-Seek online calculator, and selecting for Lilith. ✅ 

NOTE > You might notice a connection to one of your midpoints more than your synastry partner. When there’s one in place, it can make that person feel like the most Lilith motherfucker you’ve ever encountered… or make you feel crazy for a Lilith experience. 😛

🌟 HINT > With midpoints, only exact aspects count (0-1°). You might want to refer to the degree numbers listed under “planet positions” on the page displaying your Midpoints chart, to help figure out which of your partner’s planets might be hitting the midpoints between your Black Moon Lilith and other planets (if any).

To start you off, this article explains more about midpoints in general, and this explain says more about using midpoints in synastry. 💕

OKAY, ALL GREAT STUFF, BUT WHAT ABOUT LILITH + SEX? 😜

Lilith is a maj’ astro-factor in sex chemistry, largely because Lilith generates intrigue. Because this placement reveals where we tend to dissociate, contact from someone else’s planet to our Lilith can feel electric-erotic. We become sense-alive to where we were previously numb. We just feel urgency and craving. We want to download Lilith-person into ourselves, draw her in, and fuse her with our DNA.

Like—I want to fuck you so much that I’ll do it in this catshit-smeared corner of your grandma’s basement, even while you’re running a fever and with an open wound on my leg…

And afterwards, disgusted with us both, I might say mean shit expressing my dissatisfaction with who I’ve turned out to be, and totally ignore you at school, work, wherever we run into each other…

Annnd this might be what we do every 4-6 weeks until one of us leaves for college, or otherwise moves out of town. 💫

HOWEVER… some people don’t feel sexy about Lilith at all, she makes them want to punch the butterflies in their gut, or scratch at their skin, or withdraw into a dark room for a weekend. 😬😡😖

Lilith reveals our secret shame.

“Is Lilith an indicator of a person’s sexuality? No, not explicitly. However, it can certainly point us to areas where we’re repressed or feel that are taboo or shameful, and some work through these issues in their sex lives, so like many astrological points, Lilith contains some shades of sexuality. ”

— CafeAstrology, “Black Moon Lilith in the Signs + Houses”

Even if they enjoy the intrigue created by a Lilith synastry connection, some people will just be too turned off by the taboo or looming consequences. 🙈

Depends on how the chart-holder actually feels about their sexuality, and whether there are other comforting synastry connections in place.

🌟 when it comes to lilith synastry + sex chemistry, look for the following connections…

🌟 For hot, you’d want Lilith-Mars contact.

🌟 For easy and splendid, you’d prefer Lilith-Venus. 🐍🔥🌸

🌟 If you want to deep and also compulsive, you’d want Lilith-Moon, and to feel alive, you’d get that from Lilith-Sun. 🐍🌻🌙

🌟 For affinity and the ability to bond over your connection (especially if your synastry partner is more friend than lover material), you might want some easy aspects between Lilith-Mercury. 🐍🧚🏻‍♂️

🌟 For a tryst that might jeopardize your reputation or shake your foundations, or if you crave role-play or to root out some deep-seated authority issues, Lilith-Jupiter or Lilith-Saturn will provide. 🐍🕊🪐

🌟 And or a spiritual catalyst, you’d want Pluto-Lilith and Uranus-Lilith in the mix (this might zap and destroy something in its wake), and for a romantic or softening effect, throw in Lilith-Neptune (though this can entail disillusionment). 🐍💀⚡️🧜🏻‍♀️

Keep in mind that Outer Planet connections might elevate your connection, but without synastry elements that promote appreciation, camaraderie, or affinity, you might feel totally bereft after consummation…

Like—existential pain and crisis. 😬😞

REMEMBER, Lilith contacts in synastry bring a bit of shame and blame, hopefully leading to some kind of breakthrough or breaking point.

We hope the mounting pressure escapes via orgasms, and doesn’t end in a knock-down, drag-out fight…

…or painful feelings of rejection, invalidation, and exile (Lilith’s core themes 😓).

“Again, there will be sexual attraction with a Lilith contact. But there’s no suggestion of harmony, or even getting to first base. 

If your Sun conjuncts a man’s BML, he’ll feel your presence on an animal level (BML is not about love or empathy). [😬]

But there’s no guarantee that he’ll pursue you to the ends of the earth. What is for certain is that there will be a struggle for dominance as your ego triggers his issues with female power. He may respond with anger, defensiveness or a one night stand that never develops further. Or, he may run in the other direction. 

Then again, if there are other contacts between you that provide stability and emotional connection, you could be a powerful force that he embraces. It all depends on how comfortable he is with a woman who will not submit. ”

— Sasstrology, “Black Moon Lilith in Synastry”

OBVIOUSLY THO, you don’t need any kind of synastry connection betwixt-and-amongst your Liliths, it just adds a hint of intrigue and gimme dat.

But even with hot or pleasing contact between Liliths, it doesn’t mean anything will actually happen, or if it does, it won’t play out how you want, hope, or expect. 😕😓

for example, in this plutonic desire post, the astrologer speaks to her personal experience with lilith-mars in synastry…

“In the synastry of my last relationship we have a double whammy of Mars conjunct Lilith. One is happening in my 1st house, the other in my 8th house. You may think ‘WOW, that’s some hot shit going down there’. Wrong. We have a lot of square aspects in our synastry that include Lilith, which causes an obstacle for these raw energies to flow. The sex ain’t hot, passionate or intense.”

Plutonic Desire offers the most comprehensive articles for delineating the sexual compatibility of your Lilith connections. Start here with an examination of the sexual implications of your natal Lilith (Lilith in the signs, houses, and aspects to natal planets), then visit this article for more about the combination of elements that comprise our sexual style. ✨

here’s a tiny example, based on my natal + synastry lilith connections with the chart holder i used in an example above ✨…

From our natal charts…

🌟 LILITH IN THE TENTH HOUSE / PISCES ♓️ > Sex scandals, romantic + sexual escapism, submissive + voyeuristic. Deeply repressed emotions, and must learn to draw a line between reality and fantasy.

🌟 LILITH IN THE NINTH HOUSE / CANCER ♋️ > “Emotionally manipulative man eater” (excuse me?) who must learn about respecting others’ feelings, not lying to get what they want, and not taking their lovers as sexual hostages. 🤷🏻‍♀️✨

From our synastry chart…

🌟 My Lilith (“taboo”) conjunct their Saturn (“authority”) in Cancer (“emotion”)

🌟 His Lilith (“taboo”) conjunct my Mercury (“mental connection”) in Pisces (“spirit”).

If we look at the elements of our Lilith placements: both in Water Signs ♓️♋️, each with “hazard warnings” about submissiveness and emotional codependency, but denoting an amplified psycho-spiritual connection that is felt and mostly intuitive.

If you read my post about finding your Progressed Moon 🌙⏰, you’ll know that I’ve been frequenting CODA, or Codependents Anonymous, unpacking my own hidden tendencies of attaching to intense people as a means of regulating my own intense emotions (all coinciding with my Moon progressing through my Sixth House of Health, Regulation, + Personal Rhythm, read more here✨).

I don’t try to blame emotional codependency on my Lilith (in some circles I do), but my interactions with my synastry partner has definitely been a true life excavation of my shadow tendencies, and a useful way for alighting and unpacking my own longing, urges, and hidden motives (scroll down to the next section for my true life explanation of Lilith in Synastry ✨).

Overall, in most situations, Lilith synastry connections bring the dark side into our sex, or our attraction to someone else is influenced by dark motives.

With other synastry connections, the relationship and interaction could be a safe place to purge and explore the darkness bound up in our Lilith, or become a place of abuse, chaos, or mayhem…. the kinds of relationships we want to quit, but become addicted to.

“If your BML is activated and you find yourself getting caught up in obsessive patterns, know that you cannot compel the other person to love or accept you. His acceptance is not where your true nourishment lies, and the harder you push, the more you’ll manifest the “Lilith as angry outsider” scenario.

Black Moon Lilith’s true power is within you, but the difficulty lies in confronting the very uncomfortable energy that’s been awakened. One of her keys involves accepting what you cannot have, and where you cannot go. The painful paradox is, when she’s activated, she often lusts after the very thing that’s not available to her.”

— Sasstrology, “Black Moon Lilith in Synastry”

So, like—with Lilith in synastry, your sex could be lit… 👌🏻🔥

…but everything else might get scary and weird. 😵‍💫😓

Remember, Lilith is definitely not Eve. In synastry, she’s not the answer to our romantic longings, but a kink… Lilith doesn’t pursue sex and pleasure without ulterior motives, which vary according to her moods.

In safer cases, Lilith is our pal who lets us finger her while we’re watching Scrubs on her brother’s big screen, who doesn’t expect us to also ask her to homecoming, or act sad if we don’t sit with her and her friends during lunch.

In other cases, Lilith is the girl who feigns drunkenness so you’ll sleep with her, then throws a tantrum when you reject her offer to move into your apartment and make you breakfast. 

And then fakes a pregnancy, to score a second date. 💁🏻‍♀️

BASICALLY, no matter how sexy, carefree, or fun she seems, when Lilith starts getting shady and manipulative, we go home to the Moon, or romping around with Venus. 🌙🌸

Through the experience, we learn that fascination, intrigue, and magnetism won’t substitute for actual self-esteem, for accepting the void within that we can only ever grope for (or have groped by someone else).

With maturity, you might eventually recognize the erotic-tinged-anxiety of a Lilith-connection only means there’s an urgent pain to be exposed, and that—like many, but not all erotic endeavors—we must realize it together. 🦋💫

“Harmonious Lilith aspects between partners will show how you can bring magic into each other’s life. Like a good Mars/Venus connection, it will show how Tantric your sexual relations could be. It also shows how magnetically attracted you are to each other – the all important chemistry. Hard aspects to the personal planets may show an irresistible, obsessive attraction, the sort that hypnotizes you into abandoning your more regular Moon/domestic commitments. Hence, her reputation as a “bunny boiler.” On the other hand, she can break the spell of entrenched habitual behavior.

Therefore, synastry connections with Black Moon Lilith show where you feel this magic and how it plays out. Double whammys (for example, your Lilith aspects their Sun and their Lilith aspects your Sun) are great because they give each partner the opportunity to be “The Lilith,” and that makes them the most powerful of all. ”

— Linda Goodman (forum answer)

SO, if you want to secure that Lilith vibe in your life, you’d want a fair Lilith exchange (“double whammies”), as well as pleasant aspects between Sun, Venus, and Moon, plus Mars (for excitement) and Jupiter (for benevolence), with a little Neptune (for romance), and a bit of Saturn as a practical bonding agent. ✅👍🏻

You’d also probably want to peek at the love asteroids in your synastry , because they “sparkle up” the connections and zones in your synastry chart. 💖

NOTE > I have more tips for managing Lilith-driven relationships below, just before the resource section. ✨

TO HELP FURTHER YOUR ANALYSIS OF YOUR SYNASTRY CONNECTIONS > Here’s the link again to my synastry tutorial 💕, to be combined with this article: Planets in Synastry: A Beginner’s Guide to Relationship Astrology. ✨

ALSO, FOR ASTRO-BASED SEX CHEMISTRY SPECIFICALLY > This article about what indicates sexual attraction in a synastry chart (ya girl), and also, an article about your sexual horoscope to be compared to this blog post assessing your sex style according to your Venus / Mars placements. ✅ 

LILITH IN SYNASTRY, AN EXAMPLE: LILITH SQUARE THE LUNAR NODES ✨

In this example, I’m going to illustrate a version of how relationship (even a tenuous one) can help you be made aware of Lilith, and where exactly she stalks you in your relationships (and reflexively, your own chart).

There will also be a comment about how transiting Lilith (in the sky right now) can influence your interactions, and draw out behaviors reflecting those archetypes and qualities.

I'm going to use the same charts from the screenshots above, as well as from my original synastry tutorial (for consistency). 💕✨

🌟 NOTE: this section is a hella long delineation / diatribe pertaining to one synastry aspect, and mostly just for my own catharsis regarding the mysterious sequence of events that unfolded in the wake of the gemini solar eclipse in june of last year (2021).

🌟 #ICYMI… I was in a cafe when the June ‘21 Gemini Eclipse tripped my Vertex, a.k.a. Destiny Point as a barista was handing me a beverage, whereupon I became obsessed (#Plutonian 💀) and began stalking via transits to his hypothetical natal chart, and basically learned how to do synastry. ✨

Keep reading for insight into Black Moon Lilith square the North / South Nodes in synastry, or scroll down to the next section: Managing Black Moon Lilith / “taboos” in Relationships. 🐍💕✨

🌟 BTW… I have a post coming this summer all about tracking Lilith transits (in commemoration of my own Lilith Return, an astro-event that happens every 9 years, subscribe here to find out when it goes live ☺️✨). 

HAAAYYY! 🙌🏻✨

🌟 first, what are the lunar nodes, how do they operate in a natal chart, as well as in synastry…?

As opposed to a single planet (such as Venus or Mars), the Lunar Nodes are not actual objects. They show where the Sun and Moon crossed paths for the year you were born (and also indicate where eclipses were sparking during your birth year).

They’re also on an axis: your North Node (“current dharma”) is in the sign opposite your South Node (“past karma”). The sign / house of each reveal themes, qualities, and arenas you’re well versed and capable in (south node), or where you feel a bit gun-shy, and need / want to grow (north node).

If you’re looking at just your natal chart, you might notice planets (or objects) squaring your Nodes. Squares from natal planets to our Nodes reveal our “karmic missed steps”, or basically, what we might battle within ourselves in fulfilling our bigger, karmic projects.

“A planet square the south node represents a person, circumstance or issues that crossed, vexed, afflicted or undercut the intentions or needs of the person in the prior lifetime. It is therefore an issue left unresolved from the past, which pressures for resolution again in the present.”

— Steven Forrest, Yesterday’s Sky

When you notice a planet squaring your Nodes, investigate its associated archetypes and energy for insight into what energy or function has tripped you up on the path to destiny. 👐🏻✨

Black Moon Lilith squaring the Nodes shows where your sense of autonomy might steer you into the weeds vs. carrying you closer to your soul’s preferred destination. Lilith indicates where your raw instincts might have undermined your own process.

“Lilith-Nodes aspects indicate that developing a healthy relationship with the natural wild within has been an issue in many lives. These people need to shed cultural labels that get affixed to those who live Lilith stories and tap into the truth about humans: we are extensions of the natural world, we all carry the energy of the uncontrollable wild within us, and all need to make peace with who we really are.”

— Tom Jacobs, “Natal Lilith Aspects”

BASICALLY, if Lilith squares ANY planet on your chart (natal or synastry), that planet’s energy becomes compromised, or hijacked, by a power struggle. Planet-person might have handily accessed this planet before Lilith-person came on the scene, but once the relationship gelled, that planet’s energy became elusive. 

🌟 IN A NATAL CHART > If Lilith squares one of our planets, we don’t necessarily notice an inner conflict. We struggle to access the energy (or information) symbolized by that planet, but blame the struggle on events, circumstances, and other people. We deflect the issues resulting from this struggle. We might gather examples of others abusing or “behaving badly” with that type of energy (the energy of the planet or point being squared), and use that as an excuse to ignore or deny our own capacity.

🌟 IN A SYNASTRY CHART > If Lilith from one chart squares a planet or point in another chart, you can expect tension, a power struggle, and eventually, confrontation. Lilith-person will not be wholly tuned into how they hijack, sabotage, or straight-up battle with the other person. Depends on the other person’s Lilith sign, and the house their Lilith lands in for the planet-person.

🌟 in a synastry chart, another person’s lilith squaring your nodes suggests that they divert and distract from your karmic project… 🐍🌟

When someone else’s planet squares your Nodes (any planet), that person embodies your “karmic missed steps.” That other person ends up representing the energy of that missing element that must be learned and integrated into your psyche for you to fully lean towards your North Node (a.k.a. your current dharma).

With Lilith in particular, it would be behaviors that Lilith-person might not be aware of (or even agree with) that knock you off your path. They might be shadow qualities you are eager to play into, fully aware that they distract you from your “meta purpose.”

Unless mature, Lilith-person might not be aware where she casts a shadow. On her end, she’s trying to get validated, and that validation comes through getting her way. When she squares a planet in her partner’s chart, that planet becomes the locus of control (symbolically). 

Basically, Lilith - person unwittingly gets in the way of our karmic project….

…and if we ourselves are unaware, or willing to play into the distraction (…because the taboo is just so much more compelling), we get dharma-crampy. 😵‍💫

THERE’S ALSO THE POTENTIAL… that Lilith-person’s validation-seeking process inspires or helps us appreciate and better use the energy of the point or planet she squares. Once the initial power-struggle is noticed and addressed, planet-person + Lilith-person can move forward in their lives, more mindful and able to articulate what’s happening in their relationship.

IT’S ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE… that even though another person’s Lilith might be doing something to our chart, it doesn’t necessarily mean that person embodies the Lilith archetype, or is performing taboo-ish stunts.

Much of the time, our Liliths are doing something to other people’s charts, and it is not even barely nerve-wracking or alluring…

…though it’s always a tiny bit antagonistic. 👻

WHAT’S MOST IMPORTANT, is understanding the role of Lilith in each natal chart separately.

That’s the only way to gain leverage over her sneaky machinations in your relationships.

Also, so that you can get wise to how you might resist or rebel against the helpful mirroring of a relationship.

🌟 until delineating our synastry chart, and the “lilith transit moment” that i describe in detail below, i hadn’t actually realized that my black moon lilith squares the lunar nodes in my birth chart… 😳😬

…or that that my synastry partner’s Black Moon Lilith also squares his Nodes.

What I had noticed: the barista’s Saturn conjuncts (is side-by-side) my Lilith, and that my Mercury conjuncts his Lilith.

But look closer. 🔎

My Mercury conjunct my synastry partner’s Lilith 🐍✨

In HIS chart, natal Lilith is at 2° Pisces (underneath my Mercury)…

My synastry partner’s Saturn conjunct my Lilith 🐍✨

And in MINE, natal Lilith is at 13° Cancer (spread-eagled underneath his Saturn… jk, jk). 😳🤭

My synastry partner’s Black Moon Lilith squaring his Lunar Nodes (natal) 🐍✨

WHICH MEANS…. my Lilith also squares mine! 😱

When you look at the aspect tables of our synastry, at the columns showing aspects to our Nodes, the barista and I exchange two “exact squares” (“exact” aspects have thicker lines around their boxes). 

My Mercury @ 4° Pisces squares the barista’s Nodes, while his Saturn @ 13° Cancer squares mine. ♋️♓️

And both those planets overlap our sneaky Liliths.

And, and… I literally never noticed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

(BECAUSE BLACK MOON LILITH IS OUR BLIND SPOT! 🤭😖)

So, we both have Black Moon Lilith squaring our Lunar Nodes.

We both have Lilith issues that make us dharma-crampy. Lilith, that shadowy blind spot, has stalked and gotten underfoot of our separate karmic projects.

These issues have NOTHING to do with each other, or anyone else really. These are issues resulting from our own historic tendencies to run berserker from the priorities, responsibilities, and relationships that happen to be aligned with our personal destinies, as astro-cryptic and deep-recessed in our muddy psyches as they are. 👁🧠

SO BASICALLY…

• Black Moon Lilith squares the Lunar Nodes in our separate, individual birth charts.

• His Black Moon Lilith (“taboo”) exact conjuncts (is side-by-side) my Mercury (“voice”, “point of view”, the inner integrator)

• My Black Moon Lilith (“taboo”) exact conjuncts his Saturn (“structure”, “foundations”, the inner patriarch)

🌟 okay, so what is the “felt” experience of this kind of synastry connection…? how would it play out…?

ACCORDING TO WISER ASTROLOGERS, for me, his Saturn would grip in place my moody-murky Lilith ♋️, his manifest “authority” would supposedly help “crystallize my magic into solid form”…

“Harmonious: The Saturn partner feels poetic, loosens up and inspired to break the rules when the Lilith partner waves their magic wand. The Lilith partner crystallizes their magic into solid form, thanks to Saturn’s discipline.

Stressful: The Saturn partner could put the Lilith partner’s sexuality on a leash, constricting them too tightly and thereby trapping their creativity. The Lilith partner may enjoy teasing and tempting the Saturn partner out of their responsibilities – and seducing them away from their work.”

— Linda Goodman forum answer ✨

(…hello, welcome to my astrology blog. 💁🏻‍♀️)

FOR HIM, my Mercury would outline his vague-and-ghosty Lilith ♓️, my “voice” and “perspective” bringing clarity, helping him connect the dots and realize his self-undermining, the foil and delusions of his karmic purpose (you’re welcome, asshole 🖕🏻).

Essentially, my Mercury would lure HIM towards awareness of his own Lilith’s deviations, while also unraveling the primary beliefs that have guided and justified his wanker tendencies, the very ones derailing his creative purpose (or something, mebbe). 👐🏻✨

“Harmonious: The Mercury partner can inspire magic words and poetry from the Lilith partner. The Lilith partner can read the Mercury partner’s mind. Together, they can amplify each other’s psychic abilities and turn each other on with words.

Stressful: The Mercury person could use logic to demean the Lilith person’s intuitive reasoning. The Lilith partner could penetrate and brainwash the Mercury person’s mind.”

— Linda Goodman forum answer ✨

TAKEN ALTOGETHER, based on our synastry, you would think that we both would be able to press forward in our separate karmic-dharmic projects, based on how our personal Liliths could be brought into our awareness via each other’s Saturn and Mercury contact (theoretically anyway).

BUT UNFORTUNATELY, we cannot know for sure the experience of my Mercury on his Lilith…

…and for that, we can blame transiting Lilith, a.k.a. Lilith in the sky right now. 😤🐍💫

In about three months (August 2022), I’ll have a tutorial about tracking and inventorying Lilith transits, including how to delineate a Lilith Return Chart (squee 😆), but for now, I have to explain the event coinciding with transiting Lilith.

In this particular event, when Black Moon Lilith transited upon a certain point in his chart (on the day before his birthday, aww 😢), the barista exiled me from the cafe. 🐍❌

This particularly Lilith transit struck a point on the barista’s chart that has been struck before, by a different transiting object…

…both occasions coinciding with the barista having a fucked up outburst.

• Both occurred at times where we were alone. Not alone alone (there were 3 witnesses to the second weird outburst, one of whom being the grounds keeper at my kid’s school), but alone, as in, no buffer.

• Both “alone” moments were flukes, or the only two occasions where we were “alone” enough where I was adrenalized, thinking, “PERFECT, now look for an opening to confirm his birth data and if he saw a flash on Eclipse day…!” 🤩

What makes this asshole thing astrological, is that it was a follow-up to a previous asshole event that occurred when transiting Nessus (a.k.a. the abuse asteroid 😵‍💫) was transiting his Sun, while simultaneously, the transiting Sun was coming side-by-side with natal Nessus (referred to as a “double whammy”). 

And when the barista did the next asshole thing, transiting Lilith (in the sky right now) had come conjunct his natal Nessus.

I’ve gone ahead and outlined all of the details right here, so that we might deleanate the true-life events alongside the astrological events taking place on the charts... ✨

…which is legit the only way you’re going to learn how to decrypt actual astrology charts, and no longer have to rely on Tumblr witches to describe and predict how astrology can impact your life (ok?).

🌟 on the day of the barista’s first outburst, transiting nessus (the “abuse asteroid” 😳) was exact conjunct his natal sun, while the transiting sun was exact conjunct his natal nessus (the abuse asteroid in his own chart) @ 26° gemini in his first house of identity, persona, + personal appearance ✨ >

Here is the chart concerning showing when transiting Sun-Nessus double-whammy ✅ >

HINT: Astro.com lets you cast charts where you can input any asteroid you want (vs. Astro-Seek, which does not)

You can read more about my incredulousness at making this observation about the Abuse Asteroid coincidence in this post about reading a synastry chart ✨, but in a nutshell: Nessus, the abuse asteroid, shows where we have been abused, and thus, how we tend to display abusive behavior.

As this astrologer notes, “[O]ne theme of Nessus may be ‘blaming God for the evil you do’ -- or situations in which somebody does something to you and gives God the responsibility.”

When other transiting planets conjunct natal Nessus, you might have a disturbing moment, especially if your Nessus close-aspects one of your other planets, particularly your Moon (where we store our memories).

HINT > To find out where Nessus lands on your chart, hit up Astro.com, select “Natal and Transit” under Chart Type, then select “Nessus” from the drop down menu labelled Additional Objects, or by typing 7066 into the box labelled Manual Entry.

You’ll have to pay attention and track your transits (and document your life) when planets are transiting through your Nessus sign to notice events and patterns that might be related to deep-down issues (hint: this post shows you how to track your transits ☺️✨). 

So basically, he acted like an asshole, and it happened to coincide with a Sun-Nessus double-whammy transit… which is very interesting to know, but still left me feeling said and confused about the interaction. 😠😓💫

Anyway…

🌟 and on his latest fucked-up outburst (tuesday, march 1st, 2022 @ approximately 3:48 - 3:53 pm), transiting black moon lilith was exact conjunct his natal nessus 🤭 >

Here is the chart ✅…

Also notice at the top, where transiting Nessus is conjunct transiting Jupiter, and BOTH are conjunct his Sun….? 🤭

🌟 HERE’S THE SCENE… Barista was standing approximately 5 - 7 feet away from where I was seated, laptop perched on my lap, facing him while he was standing behind the counter with the espresso machines and sinks and… like, all the usual coffee house shit. Barista’s hips and shoulders were turned towards me, though he was standing perpendicular from the cafe entrance, cash register, and the all-important Chores List and related tasks, his face looking down at his cell phone (…it must be said). 

He had just been regaling me about all of his recent aches and pains (…which might be culminating into a maj’ health crisis, based on the transits to his Sixth House of Health, Routine, + Rhythm that I’ve been stalking, and also because the Scorpio Eclipse later this year is scheduled to trip HIS VERTEX*✨, well well well… 😳😱). 

(*UPDATE > I was wrong 😅, the Oct 25, ‘22 Scorpio Eclipse is due to strike this turd's natal Uranus, not his Vertex, tho they’re only 5° away from each other. Go here for descriptions of what might happen when an eclipse strikes a specific planet, such as Uranus ⚡️, and go here to read more about what might happen if an eclipse strikes your Vertex a.k.a. Destiny Point. ✨)

To date, those 3 - 5 minutes he spent telling me about his health issues are probably the longest amount of time he’s ever spoken to me directly… 

…and I took this as a great sign that I was going to finally get catharsis about my June 10, 2021 Eclipse Moment (squeee I deserve this 🥰).

via GIPHY

AND DUDE, I literally had the perfect question to ask that would open the conversation up to astrology (squuuueeeeee).

So, I looked up and in my cheeriest voice, asked my Q. 😃😊

He didn’t look up. ❌

I repeated the Q. 😃

Waited. 🙂

Suddenly, still not acknowledging me, he dropped his cell phone on the counter, zipped into the back room… (“Hey… hello…? HELLO??”… one of the other patrons glances over at me)… then zipped back out, plucked up his phone, did a little pirouette to resume the same position: face down at the phone, but hips and shoulders turned in my direction (where I am tucked into a corner table that’s facing the wall at that weird, perpendicular angle… so, like, it’s a weird angle for him to be facing, unless he was expecting to resume the conversation… 🤨).

I asked my question a third time, loud enough that the three other customers on the other side of the seating area have all looked up. 

…but that fucker is still not acknowledging my fucking question, and his body language is totally confusing me, and I am now distraught 😫

via GIPHY

SO, I stamped my feet on the linoleum, and said, “HAY! You’re ignoring me!”

“What?”

“I’ve been trying to ask you something, but you’re legit not hearing me…”

(“…because you’re on your fuckin’ phone” = how I wanted to finish that sentence…)

“WELL, that’s because I have, like, 60% deafness in one ear… from surfing… and… you know what, if you don’t like it, YOU DON’T HAVE TO HANG OUT HERE*…” 

(…and then literally two seconds after that…)

“…but what were you trying to ask me?” 😄😁😇

I mumbled “Nvm, I forget”, logged into astro.com (which lets you cast charts for transiting asteroids), packed my laptop and scooted.

MY QUESTION!!! > “What are you doing for your birthday?” 

…which was the next day…

…and coinciding with a New Moon that was exact conjunct his stupid fucking Sun. 😩😞

UGH.

YOU IDIOT. ❌

via GIPHY

WHAT I HAD SEEN ON HIS TRANSIT CHART ON ASTRO.COM > At that moment, transiting Black Moon Lilith was exact conjunct his natal Nessus. 

About a week later (on Monday, March 9th, between approximately 10:30 - 11AM), while one of his barista-coworkers happened to be chilling at my house with my lesbian friend and her pig, I strapped my toddler into the jogger, and strolled around the corner to the cafe.

Whereupon, this psychopath announced: “I can’t serve you anymore.” 

POUR QUOIS?? > “Because you can’t bring that in here.”

“My baby??”

“NO, no, you harassed me about my disability… and I hate people who are like that!”

I was more confused than I have ever felt about anything. 

Crypto currency and karmic astrology make more sense than this.

Aliens make more sense.

SO, he basically told a lady with a baby stroller to leave the cafe (in front of everyone)…

….because she had harassed him…

…about his… surfing-related… disability. 👐🏻

😑 😑 😑

BTW, WHAT I FOUND OUT LATER > Another coinciding astro transit was in play: for the past few months, Saturn has been conjunct (and retrograding over 😬) the barista’s Mercury in Aquarius, which is also his chart ruler, a.k.a. the planet overruling his entire natal chart… 

…and according to this astrologer, when Saturn (which brings the heavy 🪨) transits Mercury (which governs perception and communication 🧚🏻), our sense awareness diminishes > “Physically, this can be a time of nervous ailments that affect your speech or hearing. Communication may be difficult either because of delays or misunderstandings. You may feel isolated from others due to an inability to put your thoughts into words.” 🤯🤭

so, that’s what happened irl, but what happens when black moon lilith (“taboo”) transits upon natal nessus (“the abuse asteroid”)? >

Lilith in a natal chart reveals our personal taboo, or the particular shady behaviors we deploy that cause us shame, guilt, and resentment.

When she transits one of our planets, we might find ourselves expressing the drive, instinct, or energy represented by that planet in a subversive way, via the shadow qualities of the sign they’re in.

With Black Moon Lilith conjunct Nessus, this abuse hot spot in the natal chart gets stroked, by a teasing, phantom energy that’s difficult to name or recognize, and become the shadow qualities of Gemini (lies, gossip, verbal cruelty).

(FOR MORE HINTS > Visit this article about a 2022 conjunction between transiting Sun, Nessus, and Black Moon Lilith, rhapsodizing about how mythical Lilith took responsibility by removing herself from the abusive power paradigm in paradise between God and Adam, with god = the Sun, and Adam = Nessus, it’s hella good, dawg! 😍).

So, I guess, when Black Moon Lilith transited him, depending on how the barista interprets his own Nessus in Gemini / Nessus in the First House, he might have felt on a subconscious level that his preservation was at stake…

…even tho he’s a big kid, and as I will not stop emphasizing, I am of much smaller stature and totally non-threatening in every single way. 😇🥺

Like—that fucking shithead totally could’ve called me out for a lot more accurate things: hustling customers (for copywriting gigs, or their birth data), for gossip-mongering on my astrology blog (welcome ☺️), for distracting his staff, or even for just lingering around with my shy, weird, 300 ton-heavy vibes (when he’d rather be Googling about his symptoms)… 📱

…and if he had just called it how it was, I probably would’ve saluted him and scooted onto my next delusion / distraction… 💃🏻

…without him ripping open a new wormhole of toxic karma. 😖😒

And yes, I did have a 34-minute conversation with Luis at the Better Business Bureau of Santa Barbara CA, but chickened out from filing a report (and forcing conflict resolution from the business owner 🐍🔥), only because…

Well, I guess I don’t really want to go back anyway, especially when “gossip reports” around town says the other baristas are talkin’ shit (you fuckin’ losers, COME COLLECT YOUR DOG’S TOYS AND GET YOUR GROSS BEER OUT OF MY FRIDGE)…

…and I mostly just rather leave him to die and end up in whatever landfill he’s destined for anyway. ✅

btw, none of this has anything to do with lilith in synastry… ✨✨✨

…but I hope it’s a valuable illustration of what you can uncover about your own bizarre interactions with psychopaths working in your neighborhood who want to publicly humiliate local toddler moms… with lies. ❌  

And regardless of the fruitless distraction created by this terrible person, his birth chart became the perfect macguffin for helping me learning upper-division astrology… 🌟

IN MY OWN FINAL ANALYSIS 🧐 > I needed the barista’s chart to help realize my own “shadow tendencies”, and how I’ve let myself get knocked off my project. 😓

I never noticed Black Moon Lilith squaring the Lunar Nodes in my natal chart…

…not until deep-inventorying his Saturn in our synastry 🔎

ALSO, remember that my Mercury conjuncts his Black Moon Lilith, both squaring his Lunar Nodes, and while researching about my Mercury (to intuit how this placement might impact or detract from his own karmic/dharmic project), I found this ✨ >

“The Neptunian girl [with Mercury in Pisces 🧚🏻♓️] is a kind and sympathetic Samaritan woman who is completely incapable of doing boring routine work. To be happy, she needs to create and see the recognition of the results, but to sit down and start systematically writing books, poems or music is almost as difficult as putting together accounting reports. The driving force, including the intelligence of the romantic and feminine beauty, is the state of falling in love, inspiring daring, brilliant results that will shock her.”

BASICALLY, the barista’s Lilith lured me into writing a quasi-astrological manifesto regarding his birth chart and eclipses…

…which wouldn’t have been conceivable if I hadn’t believed my soul was being taken hostage by eclipse fairies, guardian angels, or whichever aliens are controlling the meta-narrative of our personal destinies…

…and which I was also convinced was only intelligible via astrology charts. 🧚🏻👽🌟

I only craved all this intel because of a weird eclipse thing that I guess didn’t happen to anyone but me, but ended up becoming the inspiration for a long-haul and possibly useless research project.

“The state of falling in love, inspiring daring, brilliant results that will shock her.” 🤭🤩

some tips if you’re in a similar (bizarre) situation, and have noticed that black moon lilith squares your lunar nodes > 

First, confirm whether YOUR or THEIR Nodes are being squared. If their Lilith squares your Nodes, then ask yourself:

• Is there something about the relationship that feels underfoot, or distracting you from moving towards a goal or transformation? Do you blame this person for feelings of disappointment, distraction? Do you feel anger, guilt, embarrassment, or anxiety?

• What past event or relationship might Lilith reference? Which goals or projects were you undermined from pursuing? What were you trying to prove? To who?

• What kind of validation is Lilith-person looking for? Is that even something you can give them? (Their Lilith placement will better articulate this than they can. 👍🏻)

• Where does your Lilith make you feel vulnerable? What vulnerabilities do you feel are coming from the Lilith-person? Do you feel yourself playing with or against those vulnerabilities? …do you feel as though your vulnerabilities are being preyed upon, or as though a part of yourself is being smothered, or overshadowed?

• Basically, do you feel like you have the upper hand? …or do you yield the leverage?

in general, when it comes to a difficult aspect from a planet to the lunar nodes (in synastry or your natal chart chart), ask yourself >

• What do I need to start now… what have I put off?

• Where do I need to take initiative?

• What do I need to adjust, release, and refocus?

Scroll back up for the information about making Lilith known and understood in your relationship for hints and inspo about how you might approach the issue, in a way that helps validate the Lilith person, and also easing the tension created by her in your own chart. ✌🏻✨

“…the key point is that squares (as distinct from oppositions) to the south node correlate with vexatious situations in which our own blindness or error play a large role. Blindness and error are part of life and we all succumb to them. 

And always remember one of our cardinal insights into spiritual evolution: you were even dumber in the past! These past-life lapses should not be greeted with guilt or shame, only with the recognition that we are all wounded, that we all run the risk of repeating old patterns, and that there are better choices available.”

— Steven Forrest, Yesterday’s Sky

ULTIMATELY, this was a useful research project, in that it brought to light and clarified an unknown entity or character that’s been operating in my own narrative…

…and that she’s known, I’m able to appreciate her.

BECAUSE, Black Moon Lilith is the protagonist of our personal sacred quest through a profane world bent on demoralizing and denigrating our basic instincts.

Black Moon Lilith speaks to what about our personality might be transformed by breeching a taboo, facing our regrets, and aligning more wisely with the energy of our conviction.

Through her, become our own guardians. ✊🏻

When Lilith aspects our Lunar Nodes, we’re lucky enough that this guardianship becomes part-in-parcel to the realization of our ultimate soul goals.

And through others (in synastry 💕), we can become aware of the lure and drama and maybe even meta meanings of our faults.

And I think I can gauge that this all-consuming research binge on the intricacies of Black Moon Lilith in synastry has certainly helped clarify and fortify my own bizarre talents, as well as discern and value the difference between MY Lilith issues versus YOURS (and this turd’s who's working at the cafe).

anyway, this is an example of focusing on one “planet”, black moon lilith, in a synastry chart…

🌟AS MENTIONED, there will be a future post all about tracking your Black Moon Lilith transits, but if you’re curious about where Lilith is currently stalking you (and your relationship), check out this article about transits to natal Lilith. ✨

🌟 For a bigger scope of relationship astrology (and for delineating other links in the rest of your synastry), you’ll want to revisit my synastry tutorial, and I also recommend Stephen Arroyo’s Person to Person Astrology. ✨

🌟 Also also, go here to learn more about the Lunar Nodes in your natal chart and here for an intro to the Lunar Nodes in synastry. ✨

🌟 And if you’re thirsty for more on the abuse asteroid (weirdo), check out this astrologer’s notes on Nessus > “Nessus is a planet that addresses the healing of abuse patterns. The abuse can be psychological, physical or sexual in nature; it can be 'potentially inappropriate' contact or behavior; and it can involve revenge. Nessus has themes that feel like 'the return of karma' and what goes around comes around. Actions have consequences, but you can almost always discover the source. Nessus is a very good diagnostic tool in handling situations with these themes. It shows us where and how we've been hurt in the past, and how we're likely to hurt others -- and how we can heal those hurts.” ✨

🌟 Finally, IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN HEARING MORE ABOUT ECLIPSES (🤩😛🥰), I have a post in the works all about locating and delineating the Fate Axes in a natal chart, so that you might also start tracking “karmic moments” that might distract you from your divorce proceedings, and also help you discover new, hella niche skills appreciated on the Internet, subscribe to find out when it goes live. 👍🏻✨

IF STILL WILLING TO VENTURE WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD…

(A.K.A. HOW TO MANAGE LILITH-DRIVEN ATTRACTIONS IN SYNASTRY)
🐍🦋✨

SO… what if you want to keep your Lilith-person around, and preserve the special-good feels of your skank-driven cuddle sessions…? 💞

You already know from my post about natal Lilith that it doesn’t work to repress, deny, or pretend-away your taboos.

Similarly, you don’t want to let Lilith go unnamed in your relationships. 😬

With Lilith in synastry between natal charts, the attraction or relationship hooks onto a potential taboo, one that might be transformed by meeting our fear and shame through this other person. 

Sometimes Lilith taboos force a confrontation with what you forgot you missed, had stolen from you, or pretended to have already had happen (but never quite sealed the deal). 

…but you forgot that you forgot until the taboo gets triggered by these skanky vibes in your midst.

Maybe you don’t refer to your relationship regrets or disappoint as “Lilith”,  but if you and your friends, lovers, and alibis have some kind of lingo in place to describe her behavior (and patterns), you might be able to dilute the taboo in the glow of shared awareness.

“As we’ve seen, the true Black Moon for an individual represents a cache of emotional history that requires much patience, acceptance, self-love and forgiveness to deepen into and navigate successfully. When Lilith is active in relationships the positive or negative quality of her influence depends on how each party responds to and reacts to her. In other words, their individual relationships with the energy will determine how they react to Lilith in each other. For this reason it is imperative for each individual in a relationship to take responsibility for his or her own emotional and relationship histories and take steps to heal whatever in them needs healing.

Lilith’s themes coming up in relationship can be a signal that one or each person needs to revisit his or her own Lilith energy to clean up any outstanding debris from relationship histories that might be getting in the way. When this happens, flight may seem the easiest thing to do. Yet Lilith can exist in healthy relationship with others. It is important to her – she and Adam are halves of a whole, after all – and she can be in healthy relationship if she makes space within it to be true to herself.

[…]

If you find yourself in one or more ways rather like Lilith but find yourself in relationships where she is not really welcome, this is a signal of one or more things: you are not expressing Lilith, not taking responsibility for yourself, not honoring yourself first, or not recognizing that your outer reality needs to reflect your inner reality. Take any such relationship patterns as a cue to focus on your own willingness and ability to express what your true Black Moon has to say about who you truly are on the inside.”

— Tom Jacobs, “Lilith in Relationship”

Basically, with Lilith-based attractions, you need protocols in place. Even after she is named, we will have to own our Lilith, as well as stay sensitive to the existence of our beloved’s Lilith.

Here are some tips, compiled mostly from research >

🌟 FIRST: Get accurate. This article shows you what to look for and how to interpret the “relationship potential” in a natal chart. Apply to both charts separately (yours and theirs). Compare the needs and expectations you think you have to the relationship potential described in your natal chart. Compare the relationship story in your natal chart to your actual relationship experience, not the narrative you’re clinging to (no one has to know but you).

🌟 SECOND: Claim your motives. Lilith’s hallmarks are resentment, jealousy, and vindictiveness, or basically, the emotional outcroppings for unstated expectations. Reality check your hopes. Name the stakes involved. Say what the relationship means to you. If that kind of conversation doesn’t feel appropriate, then it might not have long-term potential. That’s fine, just focus on your own experience, and be wary of what feels like a fib or manipulation (from them towards you).

🌟 THIRD: Experiment. Detach from a specific outcome. Hold off on rule-mongering. No ultimatums. Leave a margin for error, anticipate impropriety, and a probably a few confrontations. When the confrontations arise, note what actually felt lost or gained. How do each of you feel about the impact?

🌟 FOURTH: Invent secret club rules… eventually. Strike balance wherever you can’t agree. If boundary-lines are being honored, allow for pointing out each other’s fault-lines. Install an accountability process. Reclaim your wants and needs. Invite deeper self-disclosure.

🌟 FIFTH: Actually unpack the baggage getting tripped by Lilith. This is your opportunity to clear out your emotional history, in real time. Shame, blame, and fears will come up. You’ll have to redefine (or learn to define) your boundaries, and redress your defense strategies while they’re being deployed.

Again, if all that feels beyond your relationship… it’s not a relationship. 

It’s a kink, a fascination that refers to unclaimed hurts and longing. 

“A relationship of any kind is a balance of power. In intimate relationships, the shift of the balance can one of the most exciting parts; however, it becomes destructive when the shift comes at the expense of one partner. Looking at the sign and house of Black Moon Lilith in your natal chart (as well as any major aspects to other planets or angles) shows you a continuum of behaviors that can either empower you to feel like an equal in a relationship or to make emotional mincemeat out of your partner or yourself.”

— Sasstrology, “Palpable Power: Lilith’s Role in Relationship Dynamics”

Does this person seem more aware than you, like they know something you don’t (and aren’t saying anything)? Does the other person blow smoke, or throw shade?

AND ALSO, what do you think you’re hiding? Where are you blowing smoke, or throwing shade? …are you thinking thoughts or performing behaviors that you’ve done in past relationships…?

ALL OF THAT… is in your blind spot.

That’s where Lilith’s gettin’ high and giving out hand jobs. 😳😬

As long as you expect to explore the relationship from darkened corners, and anticipate some disappointment and triggering, you’ll get something special from your Lilith relationship.

You’ll have to be open to seeing Lilith play out in her trademark raw, erratic way. Lilith-driven attractions and intimacies can be ambiguous. Even if you sense the potential, it might not be able to lead anywhere, or expand beyond a very narrow kind of interaction. You might want to address the issues, but the other person might not. 🤷🏻‍♀️

“People with strong Lilith energies can thrive in relationships if they admit their true, wild-inspired natures, love themselves for it, and choose partners who in their own lives can do the same. Those who have developed conscious awareness of their Lilith sides seek partners who either have strong ties to the energy in themselves or are open enough to accept the energy in others. If you find yourself in one or more ways rather like Lilith but find yourself in relationships where she is not really welcome, this is a signal of one or more things: you are not expressing Lilith, not taking responsibility for yourself, not honoring yourself first, or not recognizing that your outer reality needs to reflect your inner reality. Take any such relationship patterns as a cue to focus on your own willingness and ability to express what your true Black Moon has to say about who you truly are on the inside.”

—Tom Jacobs, “Lilith in Relationship”

BEAR IN MIND, you don’t have to identify with or have a prominent Lilith for her to come into play. Neither does the other person. With some people, our Lilith qualities are more pronounced.

At least with astrology, you can inventory the Lilith story in both of your charts, and meta-cogitate on whether you’re actually at a level of soul-maturity to breach the taboo, then decide whether the relationship would nurture you, or just throw more salt in the wound.

And you might have to be willing to discuss with the other ALL THE EXPECTATIONS you actually do have (though might pretend as if you don’t). Your own Lilith (and aspects she forms to other planets in your chart) can outline the secret territory where you will retreat to formulate revenge plots.

You might have to mutually abandon your past behavior, as well as cultural tropes about how you OUGHT to behave, or what kind of relationship it should be, as well as expectations and about where it will go, and how it will validate you (to yourself, your friends, your parents, etc.).

Obviously, all the archetypes, themes, dynamics, and the arenas parsed out and described in your synastry chart can jumpstart your subconscious, and help you better pinpoint when issues start cropping up, and where they might lead back (yay, thx, astrology!).

There remains a risk that you might come to a sad conclusion about the interaction…

…though also gain new awareness into a piece of your psyche you hadn’t even realized was in play.

Sometimes, you will play the Lilith. 

And sometimes… you just have to let people disappoint you.

Sometimes hurt and disappointment are the only way to face down our trauma and drama, get integrated, and move forward.

“In myths the hero is the one who conquers the dragon, not the one who is devoured by it. And yet both have to deal with the same dragon.

Also, he is no hero who never met the dragon, or who, if once he saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing. Equally, only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the ‘treasure hard to attain’. He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. This experience gives some faith and trust, the pistis in the ability of the self to sustain him, for everything that menaced him from inside he has made his own. He has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means.

He has arrived at an inner certainty which makes him capable of self-reliance.”

— Carl Jung, “Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity”

REMEMBER, from an astrological perspective, you’d want to see contacts between more than just your Liliths. As long as there are pleasing, harmonious aspects between the Moon, Venus, Mars, and even Mercury (for building affinity and ease of communication), your Lilith-driven attraction has potential. 

Otherwise, if you feel an attraction, but there’s no other factors for compatibility, it might be safer to chalk the attraction up to a kink, an itch in a weird place, a tooth cavity you can’t not tongue, a tickle that makes your nerves vibrate…

…which means the connection is pure sensation, and that’s totally fine, until the dragon pops up.

MORE RESOURCES FOR EXPLORING + HEALING LILITH ISSUES IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS 🐍💞

• LILITH ASPECTS IN SYNASTRY > Lilith to Sun, Moon, Venus and Mars, and compare to this article on the same: Black Moon Lilith aspects in synastry.

• LILITH IN ASPECT TO THE SUN AND MOON, PERSONAL PLANETS, and OUTER PLANETS, plus a delineation of Lilith in the SYNASTRY chart of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton! 😍🐍

• WHAT ABOUT LILITH ON LILITH? 😋👯‍♀️> Lilith conjunct, trine, square, or opposite someone else’s Lilith in a synastry chart.

• USEFUL LILITH READING LIST 📖🐍 > Ester Perel’s Mating In Capitvity: In Search of Erotic Intelligence, and also recommended in my post about natal Black Moon LilithCarolyn Elliott’s Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Unleash Your Power 🐍👻

• READY TO ALSO TRACK LILITH TRANSITS? > Tom Jacobs descriptions of transits to natal Lilith (also more links to Lilith in the Signs, Houses, and Aspects ✨)

• FYI: PRIAPUS IS THE "MASCULINE" COUNTERPART TO ASTROLOGICAL LILITH 🍆🐍 > "Priapus (h22) and Black Moon Lilith (h21) are usually seen as inextricably linked in astrology, usually because both tend to orbit on opposite ends of an axis together (though not always). Priapus is considered the perigee (closest to the Earth) and Lilith the apogee (furthest from the Earth).” Read more about a personal account of Priapus in a natal chart in this forum discussion, as well as Mystic Medusa’s write up about Priapus, “an over-sexed gardening god”, and how to find him in your own chart! 🤩

• Does your synastry show an aspect between Lilith and Chiron, the wound healer? This astrologer answers a question regarding Lilith and Chiron in a natal chart, and how it manifests in interpersonal relationships > “So, we’re looking at an aspect between the indicator of the most primal wound, as well as your most unique skill (Chiron) and Lilith, a youthful and assertive impulse that gives a confident, rebellious voice to anima energies, and who takes full charge of and responsibility for her sexual expression–and when thwarted can be more than a little vengeful.”

• FASCINATING, and a bit on-topic: a conversation on an astrology forum about Lilith in synastry, and lots of comments about Nessus (the abuse asteroid I mentioned above) in the mix.

SO BASICALLY, Black Moon Lilith in synastry indicates the potential for profound sexual bonding, and also, sympathy for where and how we need validation.

And depending on where you’re at in your own astrological cycles, and in your exploration of the archetypes you’ve charted to explore for this incarnation, you are supposed to and guaranteed to make mistakes.

I’m mentioning this, because even if you’re a “Lilith person”, or have played the Lilith, it’s important for you to know: you are lovable. 

You are here, you are part of our human family… 🤗

…and also entitled to heal and resolve mistakes you did not realize you were making.

BTW, THANK YOU FOR READING! This was a big essay!

And if you have Lilith / synastry questions, feel free to email me, and I’ll help you as best I can. ✌🏻

And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to come here. 😁

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O, hay—how about scoring a digital Lilith altar card for makin’ your phone cute ‘n taboo…?

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