Venus Retrograde in the 9th House

By Bridgette Nicole Diaz

"I hate the College of Arts and Letters! It is a place where people are trained to make a career out of spending their lives sitting in one corner, meditating in introspection about their own egotistical 'art' and worshipping authors they don't know when there are people out there who are starving and lost or are in desperate need of their guidance and help!" I unleashed this tirade on two of my close friends and course mates. They must have been taken aback by the venom that finally spewed out of my mouth. They had been egging me to tell them the reason behind my decision to shift from BA Creative Writing to BA Political Science. They knew I was doing pretty well in my course, so they knew grades weren't the issue, so I gave them the answer they were looking for.

But, if they ask me the same question now,  I would just dismiss the issue and blame the mishap on none other than Venus.

As someone who had been soaked in modern astrology for five years, I thought Venus stood for what you find beautiful, pleasurable, artistic or romantic. I've also heard that it tells you what your values are, but I don't think I ever understood what that meant until the retrograde happened. What was even more stupefying was the fact that it happened in my ninth house-I'm a Sagittarius rising, and yes, I do feel strongly about ninth house matters.

I was struggling with how my values as a person, as a member of the Filipino society and as an "Iskolar ng Bayan" was translated through my education. What was I being molded into by my education? Was it something that I believe in? Something I personally would stand for?

Ever since I could remember, I knew that my fieriest desire was to help the people. At the time, I couldn't believe that there was a way to that with my face buried in books about high-end, European literature. I felt pathetic. There I was in the College of Arts and Letters or CAL, being much like an elitist, flaunting my knowledge of Greek and Roman culture as depicted by their great authors and such while the people in the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy were directly learning social, economic and political theories, studying the masses and society as a whole and learning ways to make everyone's situation better. As far as I was concerned, the subjects that were taking up most of my time had no direct effect on the improvement of society or the government. I could not feed the poor the novels I wrote. I felt useless and worthless-I felt like a scum of a human being. How dare I study the arts and serve myself when there is greater glory in being of service to the people who are in fact counting on me to bring change?

As I write these things, my past thoughts appear more and more ridiculous to me. When the retrograde ended, my dad guided me through some kind of catharsis, and I changed my mind. It was final. I wasn't shifting anymore, and as time went by, my resolution became stronger and stronger: It was completely uncharacteristic of me to underrate the power of the pen-especially as someone with the Midheaven in Virgo and Fortune in Gemini. Writing was also something I valued. I just forgot how much I did so. And as for serving the people? I believe I can hit two birds with one stone just like many prolific Filipino writers have.

So yes, I am staying in Creative Writing, and I am absolutely in love with my course.

Venus may be the planet of "pretty," but beware, it can make anything appear horrid to you--even the things you love the most.