One of the most important transits of the year is approaching: on October 3rd, Venus goes retrograde at 8° Scorpio.
Venus turns direct on November 14th, 2026 and leaves its retrograde shadow on December 15th. 2026.
Venus retrogrades are always intense, but Venus retrograde in Scorpio tends to be particularly intense.
1st, because it’s Scorpio – and we all know that Scorpio is THE intense sign of the zodiac.
2nd, because Venus retrogrades through both Scorpio and Libra – the 2 relationship signs. Venus, the planet of relationships, retrogrades through her own territory.
And 3rd – and this is super important – this is the last Venus retrograde where the Venus Star Point, the Venus-Sun conjunction that happens in the middle of the retrograde and marks the birth of a new Venus cycle, occurs in Scorpio.
The conjunction happens at 0° Scorpio, and this is the last time it happens in Scorpio in our lifetime. The last time in our lives!
Like any 0° degree, 0° Scorpio carries the pure, unfiltered, raw, Big-Bang-like essence of the sign.
But this 0° Scorpio conjunction is NOT the usual beginning we normally associate the 0 degree with. In the context of the Venus cycle, 0° Scorpio is an ending.
This series of Scorpio Venus Star Points began in 1930 at 29° Scorpio. Every 8 years, the conjunction moved backwards through Scorpio, degree by degree, until now, in 2026, we have reached 0° Scorpio.
So in a way, this is the conclusion – the final outcome of all the Scorpio business we have been working through for almost a century.
Depending on your age, you have most likely lived through several previous Venus retrogrades in Scorpio, each one bringing another chapter of the same underlying story that started in 1930.
This is our chance to deal, once and for all, those Scorpio entanglements that have been passed down and reinforced through these cycles since 1930.
The 100-year Scorpio door is slamming shut – for good.
Venus Retrograde – What Really Matters
What do Venus retrogrades do? What’s the essence of Venus retrograde?
Venus retrogrades are a time to reevaluate what is most dear and most true to us – who we really are, and what we really, really care about. Not what we think we should care about – the nice house, the money, the curated image, other people’s opinions – but what we genuinely want.
Venus is connected with our values – our inner compass for what feels true, right, and worth choosing. It’s our personal integrity: are we, or are we not, living in alignment with it?
Everything starts with Venus. Career, relationships, money, recognition, worldly achievements – none of it means much if that inner connection is missing, or misaligned.
If we don’t have what we want, or if we do have all the external markers of success and still feel empty, that’s a sign that we’ve lost touch with our inner Venus.
That we need to step away from the noise for a while. To spend some time in the desert.
Venus Retrograde – 40 Days In The Desert
Venus goes retrograde for around 40 days.
And the 40-day period is one of humanity’s oldest archetypal symbols for isolation, testing, and rebirth.
In religious texts, 40 days marks a period of spiritual transition or cleansing. In the flood with Noah, the rain falls for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses spends 40 days on Mount Sinai.
In folklore and magic, 40 days is also a period of time for breaking a curse, completing a ritual, or going through a major transformation.
Even the word quarantine comes from this 40-day period. During the plague era, European port cities began requiring ships suspected of carrying disease to remain isolated before people and cargo could come ashore. The Italian quaranta means “40,” which gave us the word quarantine.
There’s something about 40 days – longer than the monthly cycles we normally use to measure time – that creates enough distance for a real transition to take place.
And there’s something else that all these 40-day stories have in common: the transformation doesn’t happen in the middle of ordinary life.
Be it the desert, the mountain, the quarantined ship – we are removed from the familiar world.
The type of transformation Venus requires cannot happen while we stay in exactly the same environment – whether that means our literal surroundings, or the stories and beliefs we live by.
The 40 days are a container and a test: comforts and distractions are removed, and in that empty space we get to see what is actually true for us.
Perhaps the most well-known 40-day association is Jesus spending 40 days in the desert.
Jesus goes into the wilderness, fasts, and is tempted by the devil with food, power, and status – metaphors for the things the outside world can offer us at the expense of losing touch with what is true inside.
The real test of the desert is not whether we want things, but whether we can tell the difference between what genuinely matters to us and what looks valuable because the world tells us it is.
Sometimes – actually, many times, in fact, almost always – we don’t really know who we are or what we want. We get distracted by external expectations, rewards, approval, and noise.
That’s why we need these periods of testing, introspection, and comparison – the trials in fairy tales, the temptations of Jesus, the fasting of Moses – that put the self under enough pressure,
→ until we can finally tell what is genuinely ours and what we have absorbed from the world around us
→ the difference between a worldly template and an inner knowing that can only be accessed by going within.
Venus Retrograde – Rebirth Of The Heart
Because when external sources of pleasure and validation are stripped away, what remains is the truth.
The 40 days are not a punishment; they are the time it takes for the psyche to reorganize around a new understanding of what matters.
Whether it is Jesus in the desert, a ship held in a plague-era quarantine, or a hero locked in a tower, the 40 days require a container – a clearly defined space with boundaries, where the process can unfold without being interrupted or diluted.
In that space, different versions of what we think we want are tested against that inner Venus barometer we talked about.
What survives? What becomes stronger? What falls away? What is revealed for what it really is?
But Venus retrograde should not be understood as isolation in the sense of “I’ll lock myself in a room and wait for this to be over”. And especially not through the spiritually bypassing lens of “This too shall pass.”
No. Waiting for Venus retrograde to be over, as if there were nothing for us to do with it, is probably the most counterproductive way to approach it.
During Venus retrograde, we WANT to go into the desert. We want to do the fasting.
We willingly step away from the noise and into the depths of our unconscious because we recognize this process for what it is:
A necessary stripping away of everything that stands between who we think we are and what we truly want.
Codependency. Ego. Self-gratification. Fear of abandonment. The need for approval. All these layers have to loosen their grip so that what is true – and truly ours – can come back to life.
To support this 40-day process, Astro Butterfly School will launch a 40-day challenge called “Rebirth Of The Heart.” It starts on October 3rd, when Venus goes retrograde, and ends on November 14th, when Venus goes direct.
More details coming soon; you can subscribe if you want to get the details:
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The post Venus Goes Retrograde – 40 Days In the Desert first appeared on Astro Butterfly.
