Get your Venus blessings!

“The invisible world wants to help us,” declares visionary activist and astrologer Caroline Casey, “but spiritual etiquette requires that we ask.”  I especially like asking Venus for a little extra juju, using the Santeria ritual for Oshun (described by Casey in her Making the Gods Work for You).  As the Yoruba goddess of fresh waters, Oshun oversees the same delights that Venus does, so I call “Venus” with Oshun’s ritual and neither goddess seems to mind.

I make sure to perform this ritual every year during the Taurus cycle, which coincides this year with an auspicious moment in the Venus cycle:  She is soon emerging as the Evening Star!  Keep watching the western sky at sunset. The first night you see Venus twinkling in the sky is your moment to make a wish (what date this occurs depends on the horizon line at your location.) Pay Venus homage and ask for her blessings!  How? Just speak sincerely, from your heart. You might surprise yourself too. And, do use the Oshun ritual before or after you sight Venus, to help anchor your connection to her.

Over the years, this magic ritual has brought me many gifts–including the home of my dreams and a man to share it with.  Try it and see what miracles it can work for you!

1. It’s best to perform this ritual on a Friday—which is Venus’ day.  You’ll need a round piece of bread, like a dinner roll.  Make a hole in it and put a nickel or five pennies inside (the number five is sacred to Venus).
2. On a small piece of paper, clearly state your desires.  Fold this paper and put it into the bread, on top of your nickel.  Then pour a little honey on top of that (as Casey always says, “for obvious symbolic reasons!”).
3. Finally, place a small candle in the hole (bigger than a birthday candle, but smaller than a taper).  Casey suggests a yellow candle, though I’ve found different colors fun to play with.
4. Light the candle.  As it is burning, honor Venus:   take a luxurious bath, go shopping, make love.  Do something that makes you feel juicy, beautiful, pampered, prosperous, and happy.  Like attracts like—a delightful like-minded mood attracts Venus like nothing else!
5. When the candle is completely burned down, so that only melted wax is on the bread, take it to sweet flowing water—a stream or a river, but nothing salty like the ocean.  Toss this now ritually potent (and fully bio-degradable) roll into the water, reciting an invocation, poem, or prayer of your choice.
6. The goddess will respond to your desires in the coming weeks. She might fulfill your dreams in miraculous ways. Or she might play the trickster—revealing a blind spot that still stands in the way of your desires.