In today's wavespell emailer this venus transit is referred to as the "Great Rehearsal" because it foreshadows the big one in 2012 that, you know, really comes with all the change.
It seems right to me then that the first transit should be preceded by a brief period of strife and negative energy because I think the 2012 one will be preceded by an extended period of strife for everyone, whether they are tuned in or not. That's just my intuition though, I hope I'm wrong.
I've been depressed the past couple weeks and had some pretty disturbing nightmares last week but I'm dealing.