Confusing Moon and Venus

I've noticed that I have a hard time distinguishing the role of Venus and the role of Moon in the natal chart. They seem to overlap in a lot of ways, such as with the idea of "indulgence" or the idea of "love" where Moon is mother and venus is lover.

In some of the threads here on the Moon or Venus, they are often conflated in ways that makes it difficult to understand the differences:

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49779

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70951

Maybe it's as bit silly, but I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss. How do you distinguish what Moon is doing and what Venus is doing?

Hello!

I actually wouldn't call this a silly question at all. I understand what you mean; when trying to describe the functions of one, I almost always end up blending it with functions of the other!

However, I think that it might be helpful to you to look at the first page of this thread: http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71601

Zarathu, on that thread, spends a good amount of time explaining the subconscious nature of the moon. Now, you might not go along with his framework of astrology, but it definitely helps to create a clear line between the planets. I'd been able to infer that, because the Moon is connected to security processes and reactions to one's environment, Venus might more be involved with conscious decisions about what you like and enjoy in life.

If this is at all helpful an example it's like: The Moon says that you need a coat to stay warm in the winter. It might not really care what kind of coat you get, as long as it's adequately warm. Venus on the other hand, might say that you have to get a nice looking coat, one that fits your chosen style. Something like that?

In any case, I'm a newbie (and therefore, don't take my words as anything hard and fast), but I thought that I might be able to drop in and say something about this!

Interesting that you should bring this up.

The Moon rules the brain limbic system, and early memories. This is the feelings among other things. Venus rules harmony, and recent research seems to indicate that the heart in the body is responsible for hormones that maintain harmony of body systems. Also the heart has direct, inmediated dendron connections between itelf and the limbic brain systems.

So its easy to see how they are related.

Zarathu said:

Interesting that you should bring this up.

The Moon rules the brain limbic system, and early memories. This is the feelings among other things. Venus rules harmony, and recent research seems to indicate that the heart in the body is responsible for hormones that maintain harmony of body systems. Also the heart has direct, inmediated dendron connections between itelf and the limbic brain systems.

So its easy to see how they are related.

Click to expand...

There is an intimate connection between the heart organ and feelings, of course! I thought the heart was more associated with the Sun, though.

I've read that Venus rules the thymus gland, which struck me. I heard an interesting and completely unrelated theory where the thymus gland might be responsible for feelings associated with love because of an immune response preparing for physical contact with a foreign body (i.e. lovemaking). Hormones triggered by female mice actually alter the immune system to male mice, too. It's not often talked about how the immune system works within the context of mating, and yet somehow Venus got to be associated with the thymus gland!

Silversong: I like your comparison with the warm coat. I also ran across some rulership material that likened Venus to the sense of taste while Moon is associated with nourishment. That seems similar to what you were saying!