Retrograde, Schmetrograde...

I've spent a fair amount of time talking to a couple people (Skyla being one of them) about planetary retrogrades this year. For myself, I've always been a weird sort of Mulder-Scully cross when it comes to this sort of thing. (And if you don't get the Mulder-Scully reference, shame on you.) I want to believe, but I question pretty much everything. I mean, astrology? I've read my horoscope since I was a little girl, but I haven't expected it to come true since I was about six.

This year, though, I really started to pay attention and the parallels in what I saw in others' lives (and my own) started to make me a believer...

just not enough of one that I bothered charting such things. Then I was asked on Tuesday if something had gone retro on Monday. So I looked.

Turns out that, Venus went into retrograde yesterday (May 15). Now, this did not address my friend's issue at all, but I'd like to share a story about something that happened to me. There's this guy I know. I've met him a couple times and we're online friends, but I don't talk to him a lot or know him really well or anything. Monday evening, he posted something, and it spoke to me at a moment when I needed it. So, right around midnight I sent him a message about it (henceforth known as the sober drunk-text).

Seeing as I was sober, I debated deleting the sober drunk-text but decided against it. It wasn't like it was perverted, just... odd. I got out of bed (after not sleeping all night) to find that he'd responded. Rarely one to pass up the chance at a conversation with another grown-up, I sent something back. Thus began the conversation where nothing was said. (Point #1 in how my story relates to writing: Had someone sent me a conversation like this in a manuscript, I would have told them people never talk that way. I stand corrected. People rarely talk this way, and if they do, they don't really know why they're doing it.) It was in the middle of the non-conversation conversation that was instigated by the sober drunk-text I almost deleted that I found out Venus had gone into retrograde.

We will take a short break to find out a little about what the Venus retrograde means from ArtCharts: http://www.artcharts.com/aspects/venus/retrograde.html) "Venus symbolizes what we really want. When Venus is retrograde, there's an opportunity to reassess what you attract by taking a closer look at your values and tastes; bringing your values "down to Earth". If you don't like what you've got, think back to why you wanted it in the first place; there's always SOMETHING you're getting out of everything you have, want, desire, or attract."

I read that, flipped back to the non-conversation conversation and looked at it again. It struck me odd that on the very day Venus went retrograde, which is all about what we attract, I chose to send the sober drunk-text in the first place. And he chose to respond, giving birth to the non-conversation conversation. And then, he sent me a link to a piece of music. It wasn't the kind of thing I'd normally listen to, but I gave it a chance.

Once through the song and I was strangely zen about... everything. It was as if all the stress and worries were momentarily washed away.

Anyone who talks to me regularly knows that I've been having some struggles lately with focus. It's as if my energy has been all over the place and can't settle. There is no logical reason why that piece of music would have changed that, but it did. And I never would have been pointed toward it if not for the sober drunk-text to a guy I've hardly ever spoken to in response to something he posted... about Venus.

Yeah. I'm a believer now. No more questions, no more doubts.

As for the second way in which this story relates to writing? As I said, I've been struggling with focus lately and doubts about pretty much everything have been plaguing me. Venus is in retrograde until June 27. I'm hoping to use the energy of this time to focus and recenter and align what I'm doing with what I want out of life.

And I'll be using that piece of music as often as I need to as a reminder.