The Deep Feminine Wound in our Birth Chart
Uncovering the Venus Wound and why we should heal it.
Michele Sammut
9/13/20265 min read
As a woman and an astrologer with a prominent feminine wounding signature in my own birth chart, I want to share how what I call the Venus wound can show up in our life and how healing this wound can radically transform our lives.
The majority of women on the planet hold lifetimes of soul memories, ancestral memories and current lifetime experiences of feminine wounding.
I call our feminine wound ‘the Venus wound’ because unpacking the signature in the chart begins with an assessment of the Venus placement.
Venus in astrology represents our inner feminine or as Carl Jung referred to it, our anima. This inner feminine however is projected outwardly by our values, our choice of partner, our ability to receive love and support, our relationship with money and abundance, our ability to be in the company with others intimately and naturally. But it also impacts inwardly by our self-worth and our perceived self-value.
Of course, both men and women can have a ‘Venus Wound’ just as both men and women can have a Mars Wound. In this article, I focus on the Venus wound as it impacts women but men are equally impacted by this wound but the expression might be different.
So, what is a ‘Venus Wound’ when looking at the birth chart?
The wound is indicated by a Venus placement being challenged in the birth chart. There are many ways a placement in the birth chart can be perceived as challenged but I will list a few of the ways I see often:
Venus on the South Node, Venus square the Lunar Nodes, numerous challenging aspects to Venus, Venus in aspect to Neptune, Pluto Uranus, Saturn or Chiron, some sign and house placements are also generally more difficult than others such as Venus in Virgo or sixth house, Venus in Scorpio or eighth house, Venus in Aquarius or eleventh house and Venus in Pisces of twelfth house for example.
Importantly I want to note that the Venus “signature” needs to be assessed by synthesising the whole chart. In evolutionary astrology, we synthesis the whole chart and link every placement back to what is known as the soul’s evolutionary intention. This provides a profound soul story that is both healing and validating.
Something I’ve noticed when counselling or working with women over the years is that many women mostly consider their feminine wounding as something of a “Witch Wound.” This pertains to a distant memory of persecution of some kind relating to healing abilities, spiritual practices or lifestyle. While this is quite common, this is not the only origin of the Venus Wound that I find in a birth chart.
As well, I have found that the reason so many resonate with the ‘witch wound’ is also ancestral. Linking back to the ancestral memory or intergenerational trauma stored in our DNA. Many of our female ancestors have been healers or perceived witches and we hold those ancestral memories as well.
One of the Venus wounds I find quite often is around religious guilt or persecution, where the woman is seen as subordinate due to dogmatic doctrines of religion (all religions, not just Abrahamic religions). With this kind of wound, sexual purity conditioning may have played a role that was imbalanced leading to sexual blocks and irrational guilt and shame in the current life.
Venus wounds around powerlessness and prostitution are other ways I have seen this reflected in the birth chart. If a woman was a prostitute or used for sex or sexual servitude in a prior lifetime, this can manifest in this lifetime as guilt, repressed sexuality, over emphasis on sexual manipulation and power imbalances in relationships.
Other ways the Venus wound plays out is deep obsessive feelings of betrayal, distrust, powerlessness and manipulation. The manipulation often comes from the feminine as a way to survive and reclaim power.
In our current lifetime, our feminine wounds manifest in our lives as challenges in intimate relationships, money blocks, self-sufficiency wounding, survival fears, guilt and shame around sexual pleasure, being able to receive, but also going to the other side where there is a sense of men owing them something and this can lead to becoming sexually or emotionally manipulative and dominating.
In evolutionary astrology we work with a few key asteroids, which together with the Venus placement help uncover more of the story. For example, the Lilith asteroid shows us the origin of the wound, while the Ceres asteroid indicates where we might hold grief and loss around motherhood and nurturing and how we can come back into our empowerment. When unpacking the Venus wound, I assess not only the whole chart but these asteroids as well.
The ‘Venus wound’ if left unchecked can also shift into a dark feminine manifestation that feels empowering initially but can lead us down a very murky energetic path with attachments to dark forces and negative karmic accrued.
The shift into a darker feminine path can happen because women connect to a soul memory where they had their power taken away or had prior lifetimes working with dark magic and so it feels natural and potent for them to continue that journey as a way to feel empowered again.
Sometimes when we have been so grossly disempowered, we tip the balance too far in the other direction because it feels like a course correction but actually, what is more effective is to integrate the shadow into resilience, healthy boundaries but also forgiveness over vengeance.
The true Black Moon Lilith point and Lilith Asteroid can indicate shadow potential here but also ways to re-empower ourselves without the use of darkness and manipulation.
In conclusion, the feminine Venus wound is deeply complex, a potential gestalt of guilt, shame, mistrust and vengeance all bound up together. The path to complete healing often comes by working with another woman who can hold space to compassionately witness without judgement and explore the myriad ways a wound might be playing out for us.
The transformation that can result from deeply exploring the Venus Wound in our chart and working with someone to help us shift is life changing. Not only will it liberate us from blockages to help our souls evolve but we benefit from the healing in this lifetime with an improvement in our quality of life.
Sexual pleasure if dissipated can find its way back. We can dissolve old guilt and sexual disempowerment and learn to have healthy boundaries and balance in our relationships. Sometimes we know we have to choose single life until we find a partner who is truly healthy for us. An unhealed Venus wound is notorious in women who continue to choose men who trigger them and create more pain.
Healing the Venus wound helps clear money blocks, helps us receive support from others and cease manipulation techniques and coping strategies in order to reclaim our power. All of these patterns if left unresolved, go on to imprint future karmic influence creating further distortions in future lifetimes.
Healing our Venus wound is profound journey that also allows our daughters, nieces and other younger women in our lives witness the changes. Providing them examples of what healthy empowered women look like.