The Venus Occultation “Eclipse” of the Sun May-June 2012 – Part 1

by Robert Wilkinson

When Venus is retrograde, the “Inferior Conjunction” it makes with the Sun is said to be an “occultation,” or even an “eclipse” of its own kind. What does this mean?

Interestingly, through a friend of the site I was reminded that Venus was also in Gemini during its 2004 retrograde period. She couldn’t access the old material, but I found the original three part series in my old article files, and see that Venus is tracking very closely to what it did back then, but with different aspects to the outer planets.

Studying past Venus retrograde periods might give us insights into how that particular retrograde function works, especially when we look at subsequent major transits to those Venus retrograde spans and the stationary points. To that end, I’ve posted some links at the bottom of this article to past Venus retrograde articles over the past several years.

For today, since the original 2004 articles are lost in cyberspace, I’ll use parts of them in the articles coming over the next few days, edited to update the information where needed. And away we go!!

Astrology at Work and Play -- Exploring the meaning of the Venus “eclipse” of the Sun

Much has been made of this “eclipse” (or “transit,” or “occultation”) of Venus to the Sun. Though it’s rare, it’s not all that rare. From the NASA site, we read that it usually occurs twice every 105 or 121 years, mas o menos. Here’s the astrophysics of the phenomenon of a “transit of Venus,” aka the “occultation of Venus:”

A transit is the passage of a planet across the Sun's bright disk. At this time, the planet can be seen as a small black disk slowly moving in front of the Sun. The orbits of Mercury and Venus lie inside Earth's orbit, so they are the only planets which can pass between Earth and Sun to produce a transit. Transits are very rare astronomical events. In the case of Venus, there are on average two transits every one and a quarter centuries. A transit of Venus occurs only if the planet is in inferior conjunction with the Sun (between Earth and Sun) and is also crossing the through Earth's orbital plane (the Ecliptic). During the present period in Earth's history, Venus's orbit crosses Earth's orbital plane in early June and early December each year. If the Venus is passing between the Earth and Sun at that time, a transit will be seen.

During the six millennium period 2000 BCE to 4000 CE, Earth experiences 81 transits of Venus across the Sun. These events can be organized into two groups:

All Transits = 81 = 100.0%
June (Descending Node) = 44 = 54.3 %
December (Ascending Node) = 37 = 45.7 %

When a transit of Venus occurs, a second one often follows eight years later. This is because the orbital periods of Venus (224.701 days) and Earth (365.256 days) are in an 8 year (2922 days) resonance with each other. In other words, in the time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun eight times, Venus completes almost exactly thirteen revolutions about the Sun. As a result, Venus and Earth line up in the same positions with respect to the Sun. Actually, the two orbital periods are not quite commensurate with each other since Venus arrives at the eight year rendezvous about 2.45 days earlier that Earth. After the third eight-year cycle, Venus arrives too early for a transit to occur.

The next transit season occurs either 105.5 years or 121.5 years later at the opposite node of Venus' orbit. Once again, a pair of transits will often occur separated by eight years. This recurrence pattern of 8 + 105.5 + 8 + 121.5 years can be seen repeating itself in the catalog of Venus transits. An example of the pattern can be seen in the transits of 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882, 2004 and 2012. Occasionally, one of the eight year "double-transits" may disappear from the catalog for several centuries because one of them is a near miss. For instance, note the "missing" transits of 1388, 1145, 0902, 0659, 0416, etc..

In the next few articles in this series, we’ll explore some specifics of this Venus retrograde in Gemini, and what it indicates in the weeks, months, and years to come. Stay tuned, since this Venus retrograde period is tightly aligned with Jupiter, and heralds many things to come between July 2012 and April 2013!

Copyright © 2012 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Jennifer]

Hello Robert
I am a little concerned that I will be meeting face to face someone I have been speaking to by phone for two months in a couple of weeks time during this venus retrograde period which will also be right on top of my natal venus which is also retrograde at 21 deg 40. I have read that meeting someone new on venus retrograde is not a good omen for the relationship. Would that be different for someone who is effectively having their venus retrograde return? I didnt plan for it to happen this way but I cant change it so how do I handle this if at all? Thankful for any advice on this.

[Caroline]

Hello Robert
It looks to me that transpluto is stationing direct eleven minutes before venus stations retrograde. Do you have any comments about this.
Thank you for your articles.