All About Venus:

Venus symbolizes all that is beautiful, graceful, and charming. She enriches our 5 senses with delightful flavors, smells, sights, sounds and sensations. Her creativity urges us to value and accumulate objects, ideas, and experiences. Venus also has a darker side. Its irresistible charm can entice and seduce, and poison our happiness. Our need to have, to possess, may become so intense that it is impossible for us to let go. When this happens, pure happiness is impossible to attain. Only in letting go- in appreciating and knowing without grasping and needing to have, we can find true everlasting happiness. This ambiguity is reflected in the myths surrounding the goddess with whom the planet is identified. Known to be the Greeks as Aphrodite ("born of foam"), the goddess of love and beauty was the oldest of the Olympian gods and emerged from the foaming blood and semen of the castrated god Uranus at the point where his severed genitals fell into the sea. She married Hephaistos (Vulcan), craftsman of the gods, but had many affairs with other gods- notably Ares (Mars)- as well as with mortals, such as Adonis, who was slain by the jealous Ares in the guise of a boar.  Venus in our chart symbolizes our passions- how intensely we are attracted toward experiences, possessions and people. Its position indicates how and when we fall in love and governs the third of our "seven ages", as described by Shakespeare. This is also the planet of gardeners and every kind of artist, as well as those who wish to succeed in business. The position of Venus in our birth chart reveals who and what we value, and how we express that appreciation. Loving intensely can make us strong, and ready to take risks and to endure in the search for satisfaction. But it can also expose us to disappointment, jealousy and a broken heart. We need to learn how to move beyond attachment. Accepting losses by welcoming change and still being loving, even in our darkest moments, is what truly endears us to others.