Venus Guiding Planet

You are very concerned with how others value you and all that you do. As a Venus Skill Symbol person, you may feel impelled to leave a personal impression on all you touch, hoping others will recognize, accept, value and praise your originality or worthiness. Your special skills are those requiring artistry, perception, personal charm and grace, evaluation and judgment. In meeting the demands of daily life, you do well when maintaining your emotional cool and relying on your intuition and judgment in seeking a creative solution.
      With Venus as your Guiding Planet, you do well when you allow your instincts and personal values guide you through practical life. Yet at times there may be a conflict between the preservation of your personal values and a need to be praised and treated as someone special, especially when material rewards, comfort, security and luxury figure as incentives.
      To achieve happiness, you need be especially careful concerning career, employment and personal relationships. Just any job won't do — your high expectations and sensitivity to criticism, combined with a need for creative expression and a desire to be appreciated and praised, may place you at odds with a conventional career. If you feel frustrated with your current career, a change to a career requiring creativity, judgment or evaluation may be the remedy. Similarly with your choice of companionship and mates. You need to be appreciated and loved, praised and respected, by those closest to you. Because Venus is the first planet within earth’s orbit, in astrology it symbolizes all inwardly directed energies and activities, and in today’s intensely self-centered society, it may be too easy for the Oriental Venus person to slip into the self-absorption of narcissism — the "it’s all about me" syndrome. So, appreciation of others and the development of social graces should go hand-in-hand with self-respect and self-worth.

It’s no surprise that Venus Oriental figures in the birth-charts of many artists in search of new artistic values and ideals, even though their individual styles and biographies often differ radically. Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali all have Venus as Skill Symbol. In the instance of van Gogh, the Sun is unaspected, with Venus in close conjunction with Mars. Picasso’s natal chart features Venus in Libra, rising well before a Scorpio Sun, septile Mercury rising well after the Sun. The birth-chart of Dali shows Sun and Venus in Taurus, with Moon at the Midheaven, revealing an artist with an intense need to be "original" and earn vast sums of money to satisfy an avaricious wife. Modern artist Joan Miro was born with Venus Oriental very close to the north lunar node and the Sun. Here Venus is perhaps overshadowed by the Sun, with some the Guiding Planet’s attributes shifted to Mercury, which rises twenty degrees before Venus. And, indeed, Miro’s work has a fluid Mercurial quality and his approach is distinctly mental, even if, in a sense, surreal.
      Venus Oriental also figures in the birth charts of poets and writers dealing with issues of art, values, culture and society. Joseph Campbell’s birth-chart has Venus Oriental, trine Neptune in the ninth house and bi-quintile Moon in the tenth house. Poet Arthur Rimbaud has the Sun and Venus Oriental in Libra, and poet, social satirist and wit Oscar Wilde was also born with the Sun and Venus Oriental in Libra. Venus Oriental is also seen in the charts of "macho men," such as Ernest Hemingway. Pornographer Larry Flynt has Venus Oriental close to a Scorpio Sun, with Mars, also in Scorpio, rising five-degrees before Venus — a revealing configuration. Yasir Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian people, has Venus Oriental rising forty-one degrees before the Sun, and it is very near Pluto and close to the Ascendant, suggesting his total dedication and identification with the values and needs of his people.
      A number of women who have made their way as original, creative and independent voices in the world were born when Venus was Oriental. The natal chart of singer Alanis Morissette features Venus in Taurus (an excellent symbol for a vocalist) rising thirty-nine degrees before her Gemini Sun. The exact opposition between her natal Moon in the second degree of Scorpio and Venus Oriental seems to express itself well through her edgy lyrics portraying female angst unleashed. Women of rock Chrissie Hydne and Courtney Love were both born when Venus retrograde was Oriental. Chrissie’s Venus forms a bi-quintile aspect to Jupiter, and Courtney’s Venus forms a bi-quintile to Neptune in the first house.