This past Friday, Venus began a quick journey through Saturn’s diurnal sign of Aquarius. In 2019, she’ll be in Aquarius from March 1st to March 26th. So, how do we work with Venus in Aquarius? How do we understand it?

Often people with Venus in Aquarius placements get stereotyped as being “aloof” in matters of relationships and love. I’d like to pop that bubble, and to do it, I’m going to use vaporwave.

But first, hit play on this to get into the mood:

If vaporwave is an a e s t h e t i c, Venus in Aquarius was a s c e t i c, which is a vaporwave joke as much as it is a wordplay joke.

Fans of vaporwave (myself included) know that part of what makes vaporwave great is finding beauty in the basic, the banal, the old and weird. It just so happens that the basic, the banal, the old, and the weird are natural descriptors of all the people, places, and ideas ruled by the planet Saturn. That includes, of course, ascetics.

Because Aquarius is ruled by Saturn, we can import all of those ideas into understanding the way that planets in Aquarius behave. It’s quite a bit different than the way planets behave in Capricorn: we’re highlighting ideas here. The ideas and ideals that Aquarius signifies involve thresholds and marginalized people, folks and things who the world is ready to overlook, pass by, or throw away.

Vaporwave artists and fans love that stuff, though. While the world ignores Windows 95 sound effects, K-mart muzak tapes, Grecian statuary, and early 90s computer graphics as relics of bygone eras, vaporwave artists delight in the weird and the wonderful found therein. Then, using the magic of nostalgia, they turn it into delicious, lo-fi art.

(You can probably tell I’m an Aquarius rising because I’m using vaporwave, of all things, to talk about Venus in Aquarius.)

It comes down to this, though: because of its use of weird and banal bits of nostalgia, vaporwave is a polarizing a e s t h e t i c; you either love it or you hate it. I don’t know anyone who is really “ehh” when it comes to it.

And Venus in Aquarius is like this: she binds well with people who have clear understanding of what their tastes are. You either love Venus in Aquarius or you don’t. Or rather, she either loves you or she doesn’t. But it’s not about passions running hot or cold. Venus’ decisions in Aquarius are all in her head, and she knows what “works” based on theory.

If Venus in Leo loves effusively, Venus in Aquarius loves based on staid, rational decision-making; she loves based on your commitment to the ideas and values that you hold in common with her. It’s the difference between fixed fire and fixed air: one is fixed on the act of loving, while the other is fixed on the reason loving.

Which brings me back to vaporwave: the whole a e s t h e t i c is a conscious choice to subvert the norms of pop aesthetics and turn them into something that imports different influences from time and space into a calculated inversion of trends. It has a purpose.

Venus’ aesthetic in Aquarius is ascetic. Saying “no” to current conventions to massage beauty out of the ugly.

Just like someone makes a conscious choice to become an ascetic, everything vaporwave values is a conscious choice, and its power as an aesthetic movement is in its ability to make harmonized statements out of that which is gauche, garish, old, hacky, and extra. It’s a descendant of Dadaism in that sense: put a urinal in on a pedestal and now it’s a fountain.

“Nate, is this an astrology post or an art criticism post?”

Honestly it could be either at this point, sorry.

Anyway, back to Venus.

While Venus in Aquarius gets panned as being “aloof,” the reality is that she can love as powerfully as she loves in any of the other signs, but it’s based on different critera. Venus in Aquarius must have a reason to choose to love someone. That’s the takeaway here.

If your loved one has Venus in Aquarius in their birth chart, that means you must learn how to dig deep underneath the actions, the emotions, and the container of your relationship with them in order to get into the why of your relationship. Into the values that are most important to them. Into the foggy depths of their cloud formations.

You can get a sense of their values by looking at the houses ruled by Venus in their chart (wherever Taurus and Libra fall), and consequently the house where Aquarius falls; for example, if Venus in Aquarius is in the 2nd house, that means the person’s relationship values will be related to matters of career (Libra in 10) and creativity (Taurus in 5), playing out in their relationship to money.

In this instance, it would be good to make sure that you and your loved one have a conversation about the role finances play in your relationship and how you can help them reach heights of professional achievement and enjoyment through purposeful, deliberate, and well-thought-out ways.

It’s a great time to have these conversations. While Venus is transiting Aquarius for the better part of this month, use this opportunity for you and your loved ones to review your shared values, with questions like these:

• What is important to you in your partnership?
• What are your matters of ultimate concern?
• And a big one: how do you as a couple, as a unit, relate to other individuals and communities outside your relational center of gravity?

If you & your boo are in in need of a define-the-relationship conversation (for good or for ill!) now’s the time to do it when love is in your head. Don’t let your relationships just e x i s t right now. Know where it is, where you are, where you’re going.

After all, to love someone is not an emotion at all. You’re thinking of limerence (Google it).

Love is a choice. And Venus in Aquarius knows how to make choices of the heart with her head fully in the game.

Featured image from KnowYourMeme