How to Survive this Venus retrograde in Scorpio
As we wrap up her last 18 months in the earthly realm, we see the tales of Persephone, Inanna, and otherness rise in conversation and power in the Northern Hemisphere. As mentioned in my Libra spread over on @Paraisoafterdark, Libra represents the gradual increase of darkness and our descent into the colder winters, and for those with changing seasons, the winter months, when our harvest and survival are tested and the tone of her retrograde is relayed by almost every planet in the zodiac!
Venus rules the Sun in Libra, She is in the sign of Scorpio: house of Mars. The red one will enter leo and answer to the sun who looks to venus but cannot find her. Its the ray of mars that connects us to her distaste. Saturn, Jove and Mercury all answer to the sun in libra, returning the loop of dispositorship to Venus. Lets explore mor about this Libra seasons challenges:
Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi tells us:
“To Libra fell the indication for the condition of heat and wetness that is decreasing from temperateness, and ⟨indicating⟩ every thick, harmful, and mixed air, and winds and vapors that are thick and harmful to animals. When the Sun has reached the first point of Libra, the air changes to coldness and dryness, daylight begins to decrease and night begins to increase, until the Sun has passed through three signs, i.e., Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius...
Daylight decreases with the Sun being in Libra by the same amount as it increases with the Sun being in Aries”
A hungry, restless, insatiable Venus distorts the scales. Relational contracts are unbalanced, and we must find discernment around the muses that inspire us.
Around the fall equinox, the Eleusinian Mysteries would take place. An obscure ritual held once a year every fourth year in the Ancient Greek world. Persephone and Demeter are central to these mysteries.
The myth tells of Persephone being tasked with painting all the flowers of the earth, then being seized by Pluto; her disappearance from the earth causes great anguish for her mother. Aided by Hecate and Helios, she gains insight and demands her daughter back through slaughter and drought. Her rage prompts Zeus to heed her and fetch Persephone from the dark abyss.
She does not leave unscathed...
The tale mentions that Persephone is given 4 or 6 pomegranate seeds, depending on the account, by Hades and is condemned to return to the underworld every 6 months, as the Fates decreed that anyone who ate the underworld's fruits or drank its water would be condemned to remain in the abyss forever. With the ruler of Libra, the planet Venus, going retrograde on October 3rd, we must prepare to travel down the road to the netherworld to dispose of our relational and artistic rubbish.
Are you ready to descend?
With the aid of the Lunar (Hecate) and the Mercurial (Hermes), we travel the dark abyss, reflected in myth and underscoring the need for guidance and ritual observance when the Autumn leaves arrive. This Libra-Scorpio season will be chthonic and demand that we learn the underworld's secrets.
What has happened since 2018, the last time she visited this same retrograde?
She is visiting the catacombs and showing us the desires and parts of our psyche that are ready to be purified and released from scorpionic pessimism and grudges.
I have spent the last few months in conversation with Julia Carreras Tort from Occvlta, speaking about the power of barrenness and the many goddesses and virgins who become the most fruitful spirits across myths, yet always carry a sense of chthonic barrenness. From Lilith, Inanna, Hecate, and the Virgin Mary, we see the many aids Venus in Scorpio can summon to move through the still, cold scorpionic waters.
The Katabasis kit grew out of this deep research on how to appease the same spirits I have seen now across social media and client sessions, coming in between the scales we seek to balance this fall.
Working with Inanna and testing these incenses have allowed me to release the expectations and images of others I had conjured in my mind. Appeasing the desire for excess and noticing the entrance of relaxed states remind me of the power of Veneficum and the art of poisons, or the Pharmakea.
In the same way, as someone trans-presenting and walking the liminal line between this realm and the many others, I always questioned the fears and taboos around these same spirit retinues and plant allies; after all, I myself am demonized.
It’s the children of otherness, blessed by the Mercurial one to have signs in the feminine and masculine, akin to the Hermaphroditus and the power the Queer folk have with the ancient mesopotamian Gala’s, reminding us of the ways our tears nurture the goddesses of the underworld when the great mothers abandon us, exile us, and condemn us to the same edge of the woods where her cabin dwells.
We turn to Daniel Schulke’s Veneficum for wisdom on these shaded plant spirits and the poisons that will plague our harvest this fall:
“To the sorcerer, poison is the ingress of external power initiating crisis. The fruits of its temporal field depend not only on dosage, but also on factors such as the route of administration, the strength of the physical vessel, the purity of the Deed of Arte, and the favor of the presiding spirits.
As with all destabilizing power, the repercussions can create or destroy; liberate or repress, illuminate or obscure. As Alchemical adepts well knew, poison is the point of first beginnings from which all must arise; it is power, both in its raw state and in all its potentials for transmutation. As Paracelsus noted
How can the past folk practices of your own personal ancestors and people who walked in your lineage help you appease the nocturnal retinues that will roam the night? The scales demand balance, and those who take, capitalize, and don’t lament the queen of the night’s disappearance will ask themselves why the scales are so unbalanced and perhaps even unfair. We must remember the same thing Inanna was consistently repeated throught her descent:
Katabasis ritual kit includes:
A physical book with 10 chapters on the descent and retrograde journey of Venus and the analysis of the myth of Inanna through the lens of ancient and medieval astrology and occultism. Paired with each chapter will be an actionable prompt for roughly the 6 weeks or 41 days the goddess spends in the Underworld.
Inanna, Queen of the night 3D Plaque for altar
Katabasis incense
6 incense sticks made from dark aphrodisiacs to bring a state of barrenness to purify our seeding desires.
Musk, Dragon's Blood, Frankincense, rose oil, saffron, willow, Belladonna, mandrake, jasmine, gold, Occvlta chthonos perfume
(Belladonna is below 0.5g in entire batch)
Cazimi Ablutions
Same recipe as above in a vial to wash your Inanna statue with a secret ritual prayer by yours truly to attune to the ancients’ understanding of the cazimi
Anabasis incense
Incense of herbs related to purification and elevation to be offered to the virgins and goddesses of light.
Bay leaf, Angelica root, rue, calamus, saffron, gold, violets, rosemary, basil and thyme, roses from Venus in Taurus ritual earlier in 2026
Venus Cloacia Balm
Balm suspended in jojoba oil and coconut oil with beeswax to aid in creating states of barrenness and aid in working the dream realm with ease and avoiding the nocturnal disruption by restless night spirits. This epithet of Venus deals with filth and purification. A nod to Austin Coppock and his Venus retrograde story back in 2022, inspiring my deepest Venus RX descent.
Phosphóros Talismanic highlighter
The name of this highlighter is associated with light and the light-bringer. The luminosity we seek will be placed into an actual illuminator to brighten our glamour and bring forth the goddess’s rise in the east.
Each of these artifacts has been created exclusively under the hours of Venus. The 3D print was made in-house in Puerto Rico.
The only talismanic material in this collection is a true-to-translation Incense of Venus,per Ali A. Olomi's Picatrix translation on his Patreon!
What magic is inside of this?
This incense has been incubating for almost an entire year as of October and was only decanted for Beta testing, which has brought an amazing connection to the divine Venus.
The pearls were enchanted and blessed while the Moon and Venus were on the ascendant on the 19th of October. The ritual started at 5:35 AM, and the second ritual took place when the moon’s light was waxing and supportive of our operation.
This operation features the moon, in her own decan, moving to a bodily conjunction to Venus while Jupiter overcomes the midheaven, exalted, in the hour of Jupiter, which the Isfahani tables share is auspicious for “speaking to judges and those who deal with the law”.
Perhaps the judges of the underworld, my dear?
The second moment meets us when the moon in the sign of the centaur on October 25th, 2025, at 5:25 AM in Kissimmee again places Venus on the ascendant and the goddess rejoicing in the 3rd house, waxing in light, in her own decan, with my tightest window of talismanic ensoulment ever!
5:10 - 5:25 AM local time gave me 15 minutes to summon her for all the tasty things AND inscribe/bless and mix these materials into one!
ELECTIONAL NOTE: NOTE THE MOON IS ASPECTING VENUS AND NOT APPLYING TO THE BENDING OF THE NODES,
The actual perfect sextile was caught in San Juan, Puerto Rico, by my Jewelred Ceciliana of Cesuka Jewelry. This collection could not have been captured in the West at ALL and is a prime example of the relationship the nymph and numen have to the region of the Antilles.
As she received the pearls I made for her and ensouled them in the island, I prayed and summoned here, a nod to the work of Kaitlin Coppock and Tony Mack.
The blessed pearls from the 19th were crushed and mixed with her lapiz lazuli and her primordial fruit: the apple! Alchemizing the first election with this second one added a palpable flair and power to the overall working.
These pearls and the second half of this collection will finish their year-long incubation and see your vanity when the goddess ascends to her throne in the heavens.
