Venus Retrograde via the Ghislaine Maxwell Trial
A decidedly Plutonic Venus Retrograde bringing up the bones (or not) in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial.
It’s impossible not to see the Ghislane Maxwell trial as a scrying mirror for Venus’s retrograde in Capricorn. As she slips beyond the veil, in a state of invisibility — transitioning from evening to morning star — we are often made aware of the more malefic edges of the Goddess of Love.
This particular retrograde brings an intensification of the underworld themes, as Venus’s descent will have her entangled with Pluto — drawn in and out of his magnetic fields. Their first of three conjunctions occurred yesterday, as tornados unleashed havoc in Kentucky and the prosecution swiftly rested its case on Ghislaine (much earlier than expected). The sad news of the death of author Anne Rice feels like Pluto and Venus claiming one of their most brilliant emissaries.
I will probably be posting more about the trial as it unfolds, but as ever I’m stunned by the astrological parallels. Venus retrograde times remind us of the violence and depravity this planet can justify in the pursuit of harmony, beauty, and surface-level appearances. In Capricorn (and within these relentlessly Saturnian times), the wood rot, and termite trails, are, as ever institutional, political, and structural.
One of my astrology hot takes is that Venus can actually be more malefic than Mars, when pushed. The pursuit of harmony or aesthetics can conceal a multitude of sins. Buffalo Bill shimmying in a skin dress, or the pedophile that donates millions to children’s hospitals. It’s an example I use a lot, but Hilter’s most powerful astrological signature was Venusian, and his pursuit of a purified, ‘golden’ Aryan race led to the Holocaust.
All of this is to say, the images of Ghislaine and Epstein that have surfaced could double as Ralph Lauren ad, or a Harper’s Bazaar photo shoot. A flotilla of edgelord memes see people ironically shipping the couple: “I want a love like they had”. The cognitive dissonance is real, however, and I do see these memes as an attempt to address that frisson. It tweaks something in the lizard brain. There’s nothing more horrifying, in some ways, than an attractive and charming veneer concealing unimaginable depravity. Like finding a tooth nestled in a ripe peach.
Something that seems too good to be true will often reveal its inner rot at this time. If someone shows you who they truly are during Venus retrograde, it’s best to run and not walk away. As mesmerizing as the mask can be, we must try and cast an unflinching eye on those moments when it fleetingly slips. Take note when the effusively charming, but hollow, narcissist suddenly twists the dagger.If someone side-swipes you with violent projections (born from deep self-loathing), trust your inner voice and the testimony of your friends. Their power over you turns to ashes when you step into the light of your truth.
Now here we have Capricorn stellium, Ghislaine, as the face of this most chthonic of retrogrades. As Epstein’s number 2, and “lady of the house”, Ghislaine is described as using decidedly Venusian whiles to entrap her lover’s victims and win over their trust. It reminds me of Karla Homolka allegedly giving one of her young torture victims a teddy bear.
“The evidence so far suggests that Maxwell was masterful at gaining trust and manipulating insecure teenage girls through gifts, promises, special attention and even a cute pooch… As Dr. Lisa Roccio, an expert in child sexual abuse who testified during the prosecution’s case, noted last week: “When children are sexually abused, most often it is not done through the use of physical force but rather through grooming and coercion in the context of a relationship.”... Traffickers groom victims by identifying their needs and insecurities. Abusers will purport to fulfill these needs, whether they be financial, emotional or a combination thereof.”
Taking a look at Maxwell’s chart and transits, a few things jump out. First of all, she’s in a 12th house annual profection, ruled by Venus. Venusian transits will be particularly potent and fateful for Maxwell at this time (until her birthday on Christmas day). The 12th house presides over prisons, as well as one’s inner demons and patterns of self-undoing. This past year she’s been incarcerated under appalling conditions (which will sadden nobody), claiming to have a rat as a bed fellow.
In general, matters pertaining to Venus (beauty, romantic relationships, luxury, those Taurean creature comforts), can lead Ghislaine, often unconsciously, down a self-destructive path. With the North Node soon to enter Ghislaine’s 12th there will be an amplification of 12th house themes that will continue long after this profection ends: isolation, incarceration, and suffering of the soul that could lead to patterns of escapism (suicide as the ultimate escape, of course).
Venus’s retrograde is taking place in Maxwell’s 8th, where both malefics are powerfully placed in the signs of their domicile and exaltation. Her Sun and chart ruler reside here, as well, in the house the ancients saw as the Gate of Hades. There’s a ruthlessness to Saturn and Mars together, in a house that presides over big money, intense mergers (whether financial or emotional), karmic contracts with the Other, power differentials, and Shakespearean forces outside one’s control. Beneath the charming socialite veneer, Maxwell is somebody with considerable grit, resourcefulness, discipline, and a potential streak of cruelty.
As a Gemini rising, her chart ruler is here too, playing the role of liaise and psychopomp within 8th house networks of power, blackmail and immense Plutonic wealth. With her father as a CIA spook, who died under mysterious circumstances, it seems likely that she was the connector when it came to Epstein’s business of weaving the world’s most powerful elites together.
The binding agent was, of course, the recorded raping of children in Epstein’s Lolita Express, and on his private island. Whether or not Esptein was a CIA agent and fall guy, I think that both of them shared the same horrific sexual predelictions, and found a way to accrue even more power by casting that alluring Venusian web. Epstein was described as someone who “collected people” (he was an Aquarius after all), and at a certain level of wealth one’s appetite for power would naturally shift to influence, and the wielding of absolute power over his child victims, as well as his guests — the richest and most powerful people in the world.
Returning to Ghislaine’s chart, I think we see Epstein as represented by Jupiter, bang on her Midheaven in Aquarius. A distorted Jupiter will play the role of the Zeusian nymph chaser, whose rapacious appetite will leave endless destruction and trauma in its wake. I do see Epstein as both a lover and surrogate father figure for Ghislaine, as well as a provider of the luxuries and high-life that her Leo Moon would crave. Maxwell’s Sagittarius Venus, in the 7th, has a deep desire for committed partnership, but there’s that Jupiterian boundlessness too, and perhaps a desire to be “chosen” against impossible odds. The lover as a proxy for something more ineffable — even spiritual.
It’s interesting that her 7th house ruler is right there with the MC, suggesting that her lover would also be her business partner. The Aquarius midheaven reflects the cutting-edge scientists that Epstein had a particular fondness for “collecting”, not to mention Epstein’s obsession with eugenics and his desire to seed the human race with his DNA. Perhaps at some point Maxwell was no longer able to sexually satifsy Epstein, and sublemated that lack into feeding him endless victims for his insatiable Jupiterian appetities. I believe that she participated in the abuse as well, but her laser-focus would be on Epstein and his needs. She got off if Epstein got off.
The Lolita Express itself reminds me of Zeus’s old trick of morphing into a swan or bird of prey to lull his victims into a sense of false complacency. In the guise of a beautiful albino bull, he transports Europa to the island where he ends up raping her (remind you of anything)?
In any case, transiting Jupiter’s imminent departure of Aquarius, into its domicile of Pisces (thank fuck), will soon leave Ghislaine without a buffer in 9th house affairs. Legal proceedings fall into what the ancients called the House of God (God as the final judge of course), and Saturn’s already bringing hard lessons to that area of Maxwell’s chart. Without Jupiter’s protection, Maxwell could be vulnerable in the new year. A lot depends on how long the trial stretches on.
As an aside, I discovered today that Maxwell is rumored to have run one of the most powerful Reddit accounts, under a male pseudonym, Maxwellhill. This tracks with her Gemini rising and its ruler in stealth-mode in the long shadows of the 8th house. That extraordinary image of her breaking the fourth wall — sketching the courtroom sketch artist as they sketch her — is some Gemini fuckery for sure. It’s interesting that both Maxwell and Epstein have mutable rising signs, united as shape-shifters and social chameleons. Mercury has associations with children, so she moved through that realm with ease, while Epstein’s chart was steered by Jupiter and the principle of endless expansion (i.e, seeding your own master race).
Returning to Venus retrograde though, (which is especially charged for Ghislaine through to Christmas), Venus will be stationing retrograde on the 19th just two degrees away from her Saturn. Pluto will be making its slow but inevitable creep to her natal Saturn through the first three months of 2022, a transit that tends to bring ruthlessly transformative forces, often outside one’s control. This was the signature that opened the gates of hell to covid, and Maxwell will be experiencing her own period of intense contraction and loss to bring about a necessary inner transformation. It’s one of those transits that can make or break you.
Occurring in the house of “other people’s money”, I’d hazard a guess that however the final verdict shakes out, her wealth, status and powerful connections will be stripped away in some fashion. Considering the intensity of her bond to Epstein (that haunts her even after his death), there’s a sense of a final reckoning here and some sort of resolution of that karmic contract. Even if Epstein shape-shifted his way out of paying for his evil deeds, it would appear that Maxwell will take on this karmic debt for the both of them.
I actually have a contact on the ground in NYC, attending the trial in person. (Follower her on Instagram: @_melissa_margaret_) Melissa was kind enough to send me an event chart for the beginning of the court proceedings, taking into account late jurors and a lagging start time. I will have more to say about this chart in another post, but what struck us both was Mercury applying to a conjunction with the Sun — just a degree away from Cazimi. I agree with Melissa’s astute analysis that Mercury, empowered in the inner throne room of the Sun, could bring power and force to the testimony of the victims and witnesses. The clarion call of the truth could cut through the vested interests that smokescreen this case.
It’s interesting as well that the prosecution rested its case weeks in advance. The cazimi occurred in the Sagittarius decan associated with the 8 of Wands, with its themes of swiftness and inevitability in bringing matters to conclusion. The fear persists, however, that a full and thorough accounting of Epstein’s misdeeds, and the naming of the powerful people implicated in his depravity, will be left in the underworld. Many believe that the prosecution has already seriously fumbled the case.
There’s also the matter of the event chart’s Mercury being a hair’s breadth short of “true cazimi” (within 17 arc seconds of the Sun), as if we get tantalizingly close to the seat of power, but then the velvet curtain is drawn again. The flight logs are buried. The sick webbing of horrific mutual secrets, binding the world’s richest and most powerful elites together, continues to hold. Spider’s silk is supple but powerful as iron — it’s the Venusian perfection of its symmetry that makes it capable of bearing immense pressure.
Even if Maxwell is brought to some sort of symbolic justice, the cynic in me believes that these networks of power will continue to spin themselves, fractal by sticky fractal, in the depths of the underworld that few care to explore. The fact that Omicron is the main trending story speaks volumes. Then again, Pluto has a way of bringing invisible, subterranean forces to the surface — sometimes with the drama of a centuries’ long dormant volcano. To be continued…
In the meantime, the Dance of the Seven Veils in high Art Nouveau style (as a palette cleanser!):