Venus Retrograde in Scorpio – Venus, Avalon and the Tests of the Underworld

Venus Retrograde in Scorpio

First day of Venus Retrograde in Scorpio, the isles of Avalon in Glastonbury

Venus retrograde began on October 3, 2026, and I was in Glastonbury. I woke up the next morning to the most spectacular sunrise. Glastonbury had transformed into Avalon. A layer of fog blanketed the ground as though an ocean, making the hilltops look like scattered islands and the Tor a major island. It was mystical and otherworldly.

Avalon derives from the Welsh afal (“apple”) and afallen (“apple tree”), so “Avalon” = “Isle of Apples.”

Venus and the Apple

There is an apple orchard sitting at the bottom of the Tor. It’s to the left staircase. It’s a special place; not laid out in lines like a farm, but like a garden, messy and natural. A place to be, a sanctuary… the Garden of the Hesperides.
The Garden of the Hesperides was a garden where the golden apples of Aphrodite were guarded by the Hesperides, daughters of Hesperus — the evening star. Why was it guarded? Because it held a special tree… the tree of eternal life.

Glastonbury Avalon Sacred Site Pilgrimage
As I descended the stairs into the fog-filled underworld, I found myself accompanied by two women. At the bottom, they stopped in front of the gate to the apple orchard and performed a ritual; I’m not sure what it was for… but they moved in each direction, saying, “shooo. Shooo. Shoo.”

Were they the daughter of Hesperus? – the guardian nymphs.

While I found their ritual odd, an even odder thing happened. Later I went into the apple orchard with my friend Lyn, and as we walked through the gates to leave, just in the spot they performed their ritual, I heard Lyn say “shooshooshoo”. She had not been with me earlier, did not meet them and knew nothing of the ritual happening. A little later, in the evening, near another gate just feet away from that particular gate- the first gate to enter the Tor- we made fire and sat around with instruments. A man named Joi shared his instruments with us… Shakers and drums, and we sang. At one point he began to sing made-up words. And suddenly he did it too… “shooo shoo shoo”!
Had we all become guardians of the Orchard? To me, they had picked up the frequency of the words, which continued to ring through the air and make them audible.

Venus in her evening aspect is called Hesperus. The apple is Venus’s fruit. It symbolizes love, beauty and the sacred feminine. Cut the apple lengthwise, and you will find a five-pointed star, the geometry of Venus over her 8-year cycle. Each point of the five-pointed star represents the petals of the flower. The inner five loops represent the five Venus retrogrades in the cycle, and the five outer petals, the Venus superior conjunctions. This is a time when she doesn’t make a retrograde loop, but she does disappear for a few months, returning as the evening star.

Evening Star is where Venus is now. She is Hesperus. In two more days, she will disappear, and by the end of the month she will return as the morning star.
The Descent of Venus.
Venus is always close to the Sun. As she travels across the sky during the day, both Venus and Mercury are always there with her. It is only when the Sun has just risen or has just set that we can see Venus. When Venus gets too close to the Sun, she disappears, but she is still there, only in the underworld.
The underworld: a time of testing.

Now, I’ve been told that the apple orchard at the Tor is a community orchard, but when I googled if you can pick the apples, it said it’s owned by the National Trust and “not really”… which to me meant… it’s a grey area. There were a lot of perfectly fine fallen apples. These apples are apparently meant for cider and not desserts, and I picked up some of those apples, both fallen and off the tree. It felt as though I was meant to. That I was given permission by the fairies, Venus and Land…

Today, I made just three turnovers, not for their dessert value but their energetic value – the orchard sits on the Michael and Mary lines. In Celtic tradition, a dragon or serpent guarded the holy orchard – I often think those dragons/serpents were, in fact, energy lines.

Apples and Serpents

The garden is a symbol of perfection, and when Eve ate the apple, she and Adam, who took a bite too, were tossed out of the garden. Their story is about temptation, following God’s precepts and self-control. Are apples the fruit of the knowledge of evil? Or eternal life? Venus retrograde is about those tests.

Venus retrograde Tests

Venus is love and beauty and fertility, but she can also be jealous, vain, superficial and manipulative. In Scorpio, she is particularly susceptible to jealousy and manipulation. In Scorpio, it also brings up themes of power and our shadow.
Venus will conjunct the Sun on October 24th at 0 Scorpio, a critical degree. There will also be an important asteroid there with them – Achilles. Achilles was a mortal/divine hybrid. His mother dipped him in the river Styx in order to make him immortal. But she held him by the heel, and this part made him subject to mortality. In astrology, Achilles symbolizes the area in our life that can lead to our downfall or demise. It’s our weak spot. As Achilles joins Venus and the Sun at this critical degree, we will be tested. What is our Achilles heel? How do we deal with that shadow?

Is eating the apple good or bad?

In Avalon, it is good. It grants wisdom, immortality and a passage to the otherworld. As part of the Grail elixir — golden apples melted in the Grail cup produced a drink that brought “wholeness, wisdom and immortality.” It is said that the apple is fairy food, a bridge between mortal and divine worlds. To eat it is to accept the goddess’s gift. But in Christianity, the apple is very different, and so are the snakes that guard the tree – Eve, snakes and apples spell our downfall.

Yet there is a fine line between good and bad, right and wrong… and often it’s all about perspective. My perspective on the words “shoohooshoo” was mine. From my friend’s perspective, she spoke those words to catch her breath. At the fire, she didn’t hear these words sung by Joi… And another thing happened at the fire. A man showed up telling us that as he walked down the Tor, he decided to give up smoking. He gave us tobacco and then went to his car and came back with cake, dates, olives and a joint. Temptations he was releasing, each of us faced with our own temptations… one took the tobacco, another the joint, someone else the dates, and I took the chocolate cake. But every single one of these is a vice or also a virtue – tobacco, chocolate and cannabis are culturally sacred in some cultures.

But did you notice the wordplay I did with myself about taking the apples? The National Trust (official authority) may have said no. But the fairies (the guardians of the land) said yes… The real test was how I dealt with my own perspective, shadow and integrity…

I was tempted to tell you I took only the fallen apples – in case someone from the National Trust read this. It would be wrong from their perspective. The test was not the right or wrongness of taking the apples or eating the apples, but the lie I was tempted to tell.

Telling a lie would have changed the energy of the apple. The temptation to lie was my shadow. So that the National Trust wouldn’t find out. So that you wouldn’t think lowly of me if you had an opinion. So that so that so that…
The test for me was not about right or wrong, as there are many perspectives… but to be in integrity with my choices. Not to lie, and to accept the inherited shadow of my choice.

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.” ― August Wilson

As I take a bite of my turnover, I accept this Venusian gift into my body. It has given me the wisdom to help me navigate the underworld and my own personal tests!

I’ve recently released lecture #3 on the moons of our solar system. In the Tychos and Binary Star Astrology, Venus is a moon. Venus (and Mercury) display moon phases, and in the ancient world of Egypt they were both considered moon deities. I explore the idea that their moon phases were perhaps known in the ancient world. At the inferior conjunction, when she is closer to Earth, in front of the Sun and is like a New Moon, we explore how this happens in the Binary Star Astrology model.

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10/14/2026

Reclaiming Albion: Territorial Consciousness vs One World, One Spirit

“We should reclaim Albion as our own.”

Someone yelled this as I entered West Kent Long Burrow in 2024. It was a pagan call to arms by a group dressed like magical folk, and making a pilgrimage on the summer solstice. The call was made in jest… but in jest is always the truth! Something had been lost culturally and religiously by the Celts and the Druids, and they were staking their claim to their heritage and beliefs!

I was reminded of this incident a couple of days ago when I was again in the area. I decided to walk the perimeter of Silsbury Hill and then walk over to West Kent Long Burrow. On the way, there are several gates that I needed to pass through; gates meant to keep the cattle and other animals in. As I approached the first gate, a woman approached me. I said hello to her, and she didn’t respond. I thought that perhaps she was from another country and didn’t speak English. Sometimes, when you don’t speak a language, you ignore, not realizing what people are saying or out of fear of having to try to speak the language. But then, as she approached the gate, she turned around and asked me, in a very hostile manner, the direction to the Avebury Stone Circles. That’s when I heard her British accent. I responded and pointed her in the right direction.

I’m not saying that this was her problem, but it could have been. And I’m going to pretend that it was because it speaks to where we are as a world and gives me a chance to mention the British Poet, William Blake’s Albion.

There is a weird environment right now in the UK. People are feeling a loss of culture and identity. There is astrology to explain it. When we look at it geodetically, Neptune and Saturn’s astrology lines are going right through the country. Zero Aries is Greenwich! England is straddling Pisces and Aries geodetically, so the energy of the Saturn and Neptune conjunction is really strong in this country. Right now, Pisces and Neptune are dissolving, and Aries wants to create and maintain an identity. The dissolution of the USSR and the Berlin Wall came with the last Neptune and Saturn conjunction in 1989 – Borders changed. And so the reality is that something like that might also happen in England/UK, but also impact the world. The UK’s identity, borders and boundaries affect not just the islands of the UK, but also ripple out to all of its colonies, the Commonwealth and even the United States, its former colony. Immigration is the stated issue: Land and Borders. Identity and shared belief.

Obviously, somebody was here before the British. And somebody conquered. The Romans, the Norse, the Gaels. It’s been speculated that even Egyptians settled long ago in these lands.

A couple of years ago, when I was in Montserrat, Spain, a group of us decided to do a meditation right outside the Church in the Abbey courtyard. I had a very deep discomfort because we were in the courtyard where the monks lived and in a Catholic Church. We had asked permission, and the priest, annoyed by our question, brushed us off and said yes. I don’t think he knew what he was permitting! In the circle of the courtyard, we intended to meditate and do deep breathing, but something completely different happened. The energy shifted, and we entered into a trance. In mine, very strong grandmother energy came through. I was reminded that there were many, many people on that particular land going back; it was used and “owned” by many.

And so it was okay to be there.

I suppose territorialism is natural. Wanting an identity is natural – it’s an Aries thing. But the truth is, we are all human and we all belong on this earth… There are no ‘real’ boundaries… and that’s a Piscies thing!

So, how do we feel OK within ourselves with dissolving boundaries and borders of the world? The Saturn Neptune conjunction will be exact at zero degrees of Aries – a world point – so the reality is, this is something we will all feel!

Maintaining our identity and a sense of who we are is an inside job! And it’s none other than William Blake, who can help us to understand this. William Blake wrote a mythological Albion.

He saw Albion as a whole and integrated state – a spiritual being, one that had fallen into separation. The separation of Albion resulted in a masculine Albion and Jerusalem – the feminine, spirit or anima of Albion. Blake called the people of Albion the sons and daughters of Albion. But coming together in their sexuality created a wholeness. However, Jerusalem was then further divided into two aspects of the feminine, Jerusalem and Vala – Jerusalem being the divine feminine and Vala the feminine of the natural fallen world, but one within which jealousy, oppression and patriarchy rule.

Albion’s separation is a myth/prose/poem about the state of separation, materialism, distrust, and fear in our world; science and materialism rule and spirit (Jerusalem) is lost. The goal in Blake’s reckoning was to find a way back to Jerusalem… the new Jerusalem, not as a place, but a divine feminine that needed to be found and reintegrated with Albion for the return to wholeness.

William Blake saw the problems of the integration of the spirit extremely well. He imagined the attempt to use the feminine Vala to reintegrate spirit, but saw it failing. He spoke of these things before the second, third or fourth wave of feminism, pinpointing the current issues of feminism so clearly. Feminism that has not in itself reclaimed spirit and put itself in a place to accept the integration back into Albion, back into the masculine. Jerusalem, the divine feminine, remains Vala until she can relinquish grievances. Until she can let go of the delicious need for the upper hand, resentment, blame or unforgiveness in the deepest and truest sense!

If you are not familiar with Albion, Mark Vernon summarizes and analyzes the myth/poem extremely well.

As above, so below… William Blake’s Albion is a perfect metaphor for what I see in the Tychos. In fact, I have been exploring the idea that our Sun may be feminine. Ceres, Demeter, Amatarasu, and even Isis are the Sun. And Vala, like Persephone, Persephanie or Amatarasu in the Cave, is the Sun in the underworld. And if we use Blake’s myth as a metaphor, Ablion is Mars and Jerusalem is the Sun, the two partners of our solar system. (To understand astronomically why the Sun and Mars are binary star partners, please check out this video or the chapter in the Tychos on the ESI’s of Mars1 )

From Copernicus/Kepler came the separation of science (astronomy) from spirit (astrology) and then a further separation when we dismissed, undermined and ridiculed spirit altogether… making it a masculine it material and masculine in order to be acceptable. From Copernicus/Kepler came the “age of enlightenment,” and with even this term, an inversion. It was an age of darkness!

In the Tychos, I personally find a model that helps me to understand not just the outside world, but also my inner world. It helps me to understand the separations that have occurred and that they are only cycles – ones that include times of darkness and separation. And this means we can come out of darkness, and we can find our way back to the truth.

In the end, Albion realizes that he must align with freedom, forgiveness… for this is the way back to uniting masculine and feminine, material and soul.

It’s an inside job… all of it. And that’s the promise of

https://book.tychos.space/chapters/5-mars#52-mars-two-empiric-sidereal-intervals-es

10/14/2026

When Eclipses Were Watched Not Predicted

Photo by Yusuf Onuk on Unsplash

I’m writing this in the weeks leading up to the Aquarius eclipse of February 17, 2026, with my attention already stretching ahead to the Leo eclipse we’ll witness under the dark skies of Montsec, Spain.

In Babylon, astrology was a practice of patience.

Knowledge of the sky was passed from father to son, teacher to apprentice, not as theory but as vigilance. They stood together on rooftops and temple platforms, memorizing the horizon, watching the wandering stars night after night. Meaning didn’t arrive all at once. It emerged slowly, through repetition, through seasons, through decades of shared attention.

This idea of the long watch has always felt familiar to me.

Years ago, during a reading, I was told I had once been part of a father–son astrology team in Mesopotamia. I didn’t know what to do with that information at the time. I didn’t try to prove it or build a story around it. It just resonated as I connected with being a part of a long game watch. Then I read Astrology in Ancient Mesopotamia; The Science of Omens and the Knowledge of the Heavens by Michael Bagiant and discovered that this was in fact the case.

Later, when I began studying ancient astrology more deeply, I noticed something unexpected. The sky didn’t feel foreign. The logic of omens, the patience required, the emphasis on watching rather than predicting — it all felt intuitive, as though I was remembering a rhythm rather than learning a system.

Whether this is memory, metaphor, or something else entirely doesn’t matter to me anymore. What matters is that astrology has always come alive for me through experience, not abstraction. Through staying with the sky long enough for it to speak in its own way.

This is something our modern relationship with astrology often misses.

We inherit the calculations, but not the continuity. We know the dates, but not the waiting. We read interpretations, but rarely stand still under the stars long enough for meaning to arrive on its own.

Babylonian astrology wasn’t about mastery. It was about responsibility — to the sky, to the lineage, to those who would come after. You didn’t just watch for yourself. You watched so someone else could continue the work.

That kind of attention changes you.

And I suspect this is why eclipses mattered so much to them. An eclipse wasn’t an event to be consumed. It was a rupture in the familiar order — something to be witnessed together, recorded carefully, and understood only over time.