Venus in Aries is the anti-clean girl Venus
Venus in Aries is the anti-clean girl Venus. That’s not to say she’s dirty or freaky, which is not to say that any of those things are bad. Smoothness, sweetness, and diplomacy are in Venus’s wheelhouse and sit at odds with Aries energy, Mars-led fiery cardinality: moving quickly, resisting boredom and routine, choosing the hard way if it happens to be the exciting way. Venus in Aries is Venus in detriment. There is pleasure to be had in rejecting norms that were never going to accept you anyway.
Some people are quick to think of Venus in Aries as bad at conventional long-term pair bonding. A Venus in Aries person might instead see themselves as someone who’ll unflinchingly reject, in the first instance, something that’s not working. Rejection from a Venus Aries isn’t personal, at least in the sense that it’s really not about you.
Industry’s Harper Stern (Myha’la) gives peak Venus in Aries. From her no-makeup look in Season One to her shaved head era to pointy-edged fits in Industry Season Four, to her endless capacity for burning bridges no matter how precious, Harper takes what she wants and never settles. Despite taking up space disruptively she has consistently emerged un-cancellable. Even the many bridges she’s burnt eventually find their way back to her.
Venus is by a cool, moist planet that favours pleasure, ease, connection and cultivation. In the hot, dry, action-orientated, unsentimentally self-interested cardinal fire of Aries, Venus is easily bored, assertive, aggressive, and unafraid of other people's judgment. A fire starter but not necessarily a fire-tender: the intense loves, hates, curiosities, and irritations are short-lived events, not ongoing states. This is a Venus who needs to Venus in a way that's uncompromising, a Venus that has to accept their full wildness while also making peace with the fact that they're not everybody's cup of tea.
Why are we obsessed with being likeable? Relatable? Curated and consistent? Being ‘seen’ at the right spots not because that brings joy but despite knowing from past experience that it will suck the life out of us for the next two weeks? Why do we flinch at the slightest critical blow? That’s not a green light for being passive-aggressively spiteful or to give or process feedback in bad faith. In fact these behaviours are not Venus in Aries because the defining quality of Venus in Aries is uncompromising authenticity so basically, sincerity. If Venus in Aries is angry because they feel wronged, they will say so, and not hide behind liability-first corporate “sorry that’s how you felt” speak. Venus in Aries expresses dissatisfaction directly and gets over what angers them as soon as they’re able to name it.
Beyond personal and interpersonal dynamics, Venus in Aries transits also offer insight into the social currents of the day. Venus is a planet of relating after all. This year's Venus in Aries begins with a big bang: her first aspects are with Neptune (illusions and fantasies) and Saturn (structure and limitation) in early Aries, and then a sextile with Pluto (secret wealth) in Aquarius. Here, fast-moving Venus runs into the slower generational outer planets. The sites of conflict and productive rethinking have to do with cultural transformations. Where do pleasure and shared enjoyment (Venus) rub up against institutional barriers (Saturn) and generational trends, hopes and wishes (Neptune)?
For under-16s in ‘Australia’, socialising via social media is now impossible under current policy. Young Gen Z and Alpha are called to find ways of building generational coherence IRL, which gives rise to creative opportunities for doing public assembly but which also makes them vulnerable to dangerous and charismatic radical right influencers with the skills, resources and networks for mobilising offline. For millennials and older Gen Z, social media is overwhelmingly algorithmically-mediated slop, and the Global South’s most urgent calls to action are censored to the hilt, the world’s most vulnerable people left screaming into a void of sponsored ads and tech bro monologues. In a loneliness epidemic overworked, underpaid, despairing people seek sex, love and therapy from AI, an increasingly prevalent mutation of the much maligned echo chamber.
The bake sale, brunch, dinner party, fun run, night club, sleepover, games night, and street protest, have become even more precious, for being slop-proof, for being a defence against a trend where the measure of what it means to be in this world with others is a billionaire technocrat invention.
Book a birth chart reading with a queer Melbourne astrologer, or gift an astrology voucher to your favourite spicy Venus in Aries.
Cover photo by Angelita Biscotti
