What your Venus sign says
Venus is the planet astrologers associate with love, pleasure, beauty and money: the things you are drawn to and the way you draw others in. Where your Sun sign describes who you are, your Venus sign describes what you want and how you go about getting close to people. That is why it comes up so often in dating, compatibility and style: two people with the same Sun sign can have very different ideas of romance because their Venus signs differ.
| Venus sign | How astrologers describe the love style |
|---|---|
| Aries | Bold, direct, loves the chase |
| Taurus | Loyal, sensual, slow to commit and then steady |
| Gemini | Flirts with words, needs variety and conversation |
| Cancer | Tender, protective, wants emotional safety |
| Leo | Generous, romantic, loves grand gestures |
| Virgo | Shows love through care and small, useful acts |
| Libra | Charming, fair-minded, in love with partnership |
| Scorpio | Intense, loyal, all or nothing |
| Sagittarius | Free, funny, wants a fellow traveller |
| Capricorn | Serious, reliable, in it for the long term |
| Aquarius | Friend first, independent, unconventional |
| Pisces | Romantic, devoted, sees the best in people |
The calculator gives you the full reading for your sign, the element and mode it belongs to, and, with a birth time, the house. Venus in the 7th house puts love into partnership; Venus in the 10th house puts it into your public life and work, and so on through the twelve houses.
Why Venus changes sign so often
Seen from Earth, Venus usually spends about four weeks in each sign, so people born only a month apart can have different Venus signs. Every 19 months or so, Venus appears to slow down, stop and move backward for about six weeks. Around those retrogrades it can stay in one sign for up to four months, and it sometimes re-enters the previous sign before moving on. About one person in fourteen is born with Venus retrograde.
The results show the exact dates Venus entered and left your sign in your own time zone, and a table of every Venus sign in your birth year. A sign that Venus re-entered while retrograde is marked, so the table matches what you would see in an ephemeris.
If you don't know your birth time
Because Venus moves at most about a degree and a quarter a day, it changes sign on only about one day in thirty. On most birthdays your Venus sign is certain even without a time. When Venus did change sign that day, the calculator tells you the local clock time of the change, so you can check which side of it you were born on. The house needs a time: without one, the house is left out rather than guessed.
Venus signs and compatibility
A traditional way to compare Venus signs is by element. Venus signs in the same element (fire, earth, air or water) are said to share a love language, and fire with air or earth with water are said to complement each other. Astrologers also look at how one person's Venus meets the other person's Mars, Moon and Sun. The synastry chart lists every one of those contacts between two charts, and the composite chart blends both into a single chart for the relationship.
Your Venus lines on the map
Venus has four lines on your astrocartography map, showing where it was rising, setting, overhead and underfoot when you were born. Places near them are read as places where love, beauty and pleasure come more easily; the Venus DSC line in particular is the classic line for relationships. Read about each one in the Venus lines guide, see them on your free astrocartography chart, or start with the lines for love.