Within the Underworld
January 20, 2026: Venus meets with the moon in Aquarius
Venus is not to be seen.
Venus crosses the horizon line on February 15, 2025 in Pisces.
The Gatekeeper Speaks
Ah, hello there, my dear. I’ve been waiting for you. Come, come, I have a gift for you. It is not quite time to ascend, to return, to bring this gift out into the open. Right now, this gift is for you to hold. Hold it gently, here in the dark. Let the secret joy of knowing this is here permeate your being.
I know your dreams, your desires, your passions. You are so alive with your innocent wanting. Here we hold potential, the yes whispered in the dark, the beginning of stirrings, without needing to make anything happen. We will build, my dear, oh yes we will build. There will be a time for hard work and focused effort. But for now, let yourself be supported. Let yourself feel the support that is already there. Let yourself know the structure that is ready to arise to hold you as you ascend. This holding in the dark is not static. Oh no, we are beginning to begin.
It is as if the space is a refined consciousness intimately in contact with its very nature at each point of its spaciousness. And this total openness and contact becomes an intimacy with everything, totally independent of mind and memory. No loneliness and no sense of aloneness. Simplicity of Being has ushered me, through the door of aloneness, into its inherent intimacy.
-A.H. Almaas, Luminous Night’s Journey
Burgundy
The Quality of Empty Presence
The absolute emptiness allows the perception or the feeling, allows whatever is there, to be so, fully and clearly. So the absence or the nonbeing doesn’t mean there is an empty space between you and what you experience. Emptiness means that space is gone, distance is gone, you and your experience as two separate things is gone. The intimacy between you and what you experience is total.
-A.H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book 5
Inquiry Questions
Take some time to drop in, deepen into the quiet of your unfolding soul, and explore what is here now in your awareness, rising as Evening Star.
Sacred Warrior, what is your experience of surrender? What stands in the way of fully receiving from your ancestral lineage?
Bold and beauteous One, what do you need to release in order to be fully empty, ready to receive?
Sacred Warrior, what is needed to release the need to demand respect, knowing you already are the pregnant void?
Bold and beauteous One, what are you beginning to dream into being?
What is your own unique lens through which to explore this Essence of Burgundy, the quality of empty presence, for Venus’s ascent as Evening Star? With whom do you journey this cycle?
Ritual Space
Take some time to drop into ritual space as you receive the initiation of this gate. We step into liminal space, time out of time, in ritual space. We connect with the lineage of those who have watched the stars for millennia, receiving the gift of Venus's journey, aligning ourselves with the cycles that are already unfolding. We remember our nature as beings who cycle, change, transform. We remember how to receive knowing directly, rather than needing others to tell us what is so.
You may wish to create an altar, light a candle, and anoint yourself with oils. Sit with this gate, the quality of Essence that is being called forward. As you deepen in surrendering to receiving initiation, ask who would come to guide you in your journey with this quality of Essence? What of yourself do you offer in return? What is calling to be set down at this gate? What pattern, belief, way of being in this world, is challenged by this quality of Essence? What are you ready to release in order to deepen more fully in this journey?
What gift is revealed in the releasing of this pattern, belief, or way of being? What has more freedom to be itself in this release? You may see this directly, or may need to live with this initiation throughout the whole cycle and come back and answer this question before entering into the next gate. You may wish to draw cards to receive guidance in this way.
As you complete your experience in ritual space, take time to offer thanks and adoration to the archetype, to Venus, to your personal guide that arose for this journey, to your ancestors and lineage. Offer thanks to the land that holds and nourishes and grounds you. In the giving and receiving we remember our deep connectedness to all beings everywhere, throughout time and space.
Remember and Record
We are still in the Underworld phase, slowly moving towards Evening Star ascent. This is the slow unfurling, the beginning to begin phase. Go slow, luxuriate, and begin. Begin softly. Pure potential is here, ready, waiting.
This is a building year. A year of the ancients, the ancient grandmothers, the primordial that still unfolds. We have guides of mushroom, dragonfly, fern, shark, these creatures who have been here through the changing of eons, and yet still growing and here. Consider that perhaps we don’t quite know yet how to build in this way. We know the force it and domineer it and shame it ways, but what is the grandmother’s way? The way of mushroom? Maybe building doesn’t look the way we think it does.
What does need to happen though, is to show up. So this is where we begin. Learning to create structure that supports showing up not drains or shames. We begin with daily showing up to write “I receive guidance by…”
Create the structure that will make this easy for you. You might make a note on your phone, set a daily reminder to go off daily, and take 30 seconds to write it out. You might put your journal by your bathroom sink so that while you are brushing your teeth in the evening you consider it, then write it. Pair this new habit with an already established habit, set reminders, let structure hold you.
This is also the time to begin gathering your intentions for the year. Write down what seed you received and what is being brought forward through you. Gather images for your vision board. Begin to make the abstract concrete. See it, read it, write it.
Nourish your blood and bones this cycle. Savor foods that support health, warmth that comforts, minerals that build. Whether you take time to sense your heartbeat or appreciate your skeleton, pay attention to your blood and bones, and the subtle minerality of your body.
