In my practice, I often very un-purely merge Aphrodite and Venus together. I love them both and think of them like shapeshifting sisters in the same cause, as they both hold similar (if not the same) energy and are related to each other through the evolution of the goddess (Venus is a part evolution of Aphrodite after all), and I love any and every excuse to celebrate them. So, if you are into Aphrodite and Venus anything as much as I am, you will be thrilled to know that friday is a festival day of Venus!
The Festival of Veneralia
April the 1st is known as the festival of Veneralia, celebrated in ancient Rome. However, I am celebrating this a little differently than the ancient folk did – let me tell you why.
In ancient Rome the Veneralia celebrated Venus as Venus Fortuna, the Goddess of Good Fortune (the Romans always loved Venus as Fortune) and as Venus Verticordia, which translates to Venus Changer of Hearts, and the unspoken suffix on that was ….from lust to chastity.
The festival was founded in 114BC after three Vestal Virgins, the symbolic priestesses of the heart-flame of Rome, had sex with some men. To atone for this TERRIBLE THING (ancient Rome, like ancient Greece, was not a super woman friendly place and did like tight control of female sexuality and power) they put the virgins to death and founded the cult of Venus Verticordia, to help encourage women’s hearts/pussies to be chaste, loyal and “pure” so they wouldn’t have sex with anyone who they weren’t allowed to have sex with (ie. anyone they were not married to).
I know 😬 right?
Ancient Venus was very different to the romance-and-lust mythology modern paganism has given her and might be a bit weird for us seeing Venus as the dampener of pussy desire…
…but, being real, modern neopagan views of the gods are very rarely closely like what they were historically known for, and a lot of modern pagan mythology isn’t ancient, it’s created by bookish dudes in the 19th and 20th century.
A version of Venus created to control female sexuality and keep it socially acceptable is a little discordant for our modern views of free-and-sexy Venus, but 2000 years ago was a very different world and society which needed very different things from it’s Gods. If there was a socially important code of sexual morality everyone had to abide by, it makes sense that there was an aspect of Venus who presided over it
Venus Verticordia became a beloved deity that women turned to for help in their marriages – I imagine for help in staying faithful, for stoking desire in the one place it was allowed, and all those niggles and trials and challenges that come up when you are both a mother (the Roman purpose of marriage was to make babies) and a sexual being.
How to Celebrate Veneralia
In Ancient Rome, this is the day that the temple statue of Venus would be cleansed, washed, (I bet) repainted, and bedecked in Myrtle leaves (her sacred flower). It’s very like the Aphrodite festival of Aphrodisia – people would go to the temple, make offerings and pray to her.
To celebrate Venus and call in her good fortune and blessings on our love relationships, we can give her offerings. We can read her poetry, dress in our finest clothes, and place fresh flowers out for her. Pray to her in gratitude for all the good fortune and beauty in your live, and ask for her blessing in any area of your life you need it.
Then honour her by going and doing Venusy things. I always feel like Venus is the earthy aspect of Aphrodite (which is totally a Demi opinion and is in no way backed up by any expert or historical anything) so dancing, cooking great food, tending your garden, making your spaces beautiful, getting or giving a massage and connecting with friends and family are some VERY Venusy things you could celebrate with.
Veneralia Bedroom Blessing!
If you are partnered up this Veneralia, you can perform a bedroom blessing and call in Venus to bless your relationship!
🌹 Go into your bedroom and do a big spring clean – open the windows, hoover the floors and change your bedsheets. Cleanse the space in whatever way you life – with smoke, with water, with sound – and release any old stagnant energy that’s been kicking around – that argument you had three weeks ago about how french folk pronounce croissant, when you couldn’t sleep and felt like you wanted to murder them because their snores were too loud, and all that static from screen time that needs cleaning up.
🌹 Pray to Venus as you tidy up, asking her blessings on the challenging parts of your relationship and offering your gratitude and appreciation for the beautiful parts. As you fold and reorganise the drawers, feel your relationship realignining into harmony. As you smooth out the sheets, see you connecting and comminicating with love and intimacy.
🌹 Spray your sheets very lightly with linen spray, an essential oil spray or perfume (a simple essential oil spray might look like 3 drops of either rose, jasmine, lavender or myrtle oil in a spray bottle filled with water and shook together) and scatter them with rose petals, asking for Venus to bless your union.
🌹 See your room filling with deep red and gold, blessing the sheets, the pillows, the drawers where you keep your clothes. See harmony amplifying as you sleep next to eachother, as you hold hands, as you rummage around trying to find clean pants in the morning before work together.
🌹 Seal with a prayer: Venus! Bless our partnership! May our love be sweet as honey, our communication as clear as a sacred spring, and may we be a harmonius team blessed by your grace. So it is!
Remember, love isn’t just delicious sex and rom-com happy endings and heady spirals into bliss – it’s companionship, it’s team work, it’s all the little bits in the day, like when you both try to not be the one who takes the bins out or when you listen when they tell you the same story for the thousandth time or when you remember how nice it is to have someone to share your favourite TV show with.
I feel (again, this is Demi Opinions here) that the earthy Venus holds this part of love so clearly – fleshy, grounded and everyday – and this everyday love is so worthy of a divine blessing.
