Venus in excess and deficiency

Herbalist Sajah Popham on Venus in the body — the kidneys, the womb and the veins, too relaxed or too tense — and the herbs he gives for each, checked against the old books and the trials.

16 October 2026 12 min read ▶ 36-min video 27 sources · 13 peer-reviewed

Share X Facebook WhatsApp

A simple figure with Venus's parts of the body marked — the throat (Taurus), the kidneys (Libra), the womb and ovaries, the bladder and the veins of the legs — beside notes from Lilly and Ptolemy

In brief

For herbalist Sajah Popham, Venus rules the kidneys and the female reproductive system, and her nature is to relax. In excess the tissues grow too lax — leaks, heavy periods, prolapse, varicose veins; in deficiency too tense — painful periods, cramps, a tight urinary tract. The astrology is the old one: Lilly put Venus's diseases in the womb and the kidneys. His herbs are mostly tradition. Where they have been tested, vitex helps PMS (not “oestrogen dominance”), raspberry leaf made no difference to labour, and black cohosh did no better than placebo for hot flushes. For a leaking bladder, the best-tested remedy is pelvic floor training.

1647 Lilly puts Venus's diseases “principally in the matrix and members of generation; in the reins” — the womb and the kidneys

52% vs 24% of women with PMS who responded to vitex and to placebo, in its best-known trial 170 women (BMJ 2001). Its trials are for PMS, not “oestrogen dominance”.

2,027 women in 16 trials of black cohosh — no clear difference from placebo for hot flushes Popham gives it for period pain, which hasn't been tested.

192 women in the raspberry leaf trial — no significant difference in labour 2.4 g a day from 32 weeks of pregnancy.

Learn from the source

Sajah Popham

Herbalist and host of The Plant Path; founder of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism.

He teaches herbal medicine through the energetics of plants and people, and herbal astrology alongside it.

evolutionaryherbalism.com ↗ Every summary of Sajah Popham’s work →

The lesser benefic, the kidneys and the womb

Venus in the body

Sajah Popham recorded this episode for Valentine's Day, and he widens Venus beyond romance to everything and everyone we love. In the body, he says, she rules above all the kidneys and the female reproductive system, through her two signs, Taurus and Libra. This is the old tradition. Ptolemy counted Venus among the beneficent planets, and William Lilly, in 1647, called her “the lesser Fortune”, after Jupiter — so, as Popham says, she is seldom the cause of disease on her own, though too much of a good thing stops being good. Lilly put her diseases “principally in the matrix and members of generation; in the reins, belly, back, navel” — the womb and the kidneys — and even gave her “diabetes or pissing disease”, the copious urine Popham describes.

The golden body from the 3D body map with Venus's two zones lit in pink, Taurus at the throat and Libra at the kidneys, and the womb and ovaries, bladder and leg veins marked, beside four notes: the lesser benefic, the kidneys and the womb in Lilly, Taurus and Libra, and the veins as a modern addition — Venus in the body. Sajah Popham's governances of Venus — the kidneys, the womb and ovaries, the bladder and the veins — beside Ptolemy and Lilly.

For members

Read the whole summary

9 sections, 4 diagrams, the video with its chapters, 23 claims checked against the research, 27 sources with the names of the people who did the work and links to it — and downloads in PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

🔒 Too relaxed, or too tense
🔒 The bladder and kidneys
🔒 The womb in excess
🔒 Vitex and the two kinds of PMS
🔒 The womb in deficiency
🔒 Varicose veins and haemorrhoids
🔒 Venus and Mars
🔒 What the research says

See membership I’m a member — sign in

The Research Library is part of every paid plan: Crescent, Half Moon and Full Moon.

Venus in excess and deficiency

In brief

Learn from the source

Venus in the body

Read the whole summary

More in these projects