VENUS RETROGRADE IN ARIES & PISCES
Holy moly, Mars is finally direct in Cancer. Since early December, we’ve been teary-eyed ninjas navigating a weird laser grid. Solutions seemed to just keep crisscrossing into conundrums - our ambitions slipping over our own drool, tripping wires and setting off emotional alarms. I know for some of you, it's been a generative time or maybe a mixed bag - martial tension can sometimes click things into place. I'm not sure where you fall on the chaos spectrum, but I suspect we’ve all been trying to befriend some discomfort. Mars is still hovering slow in the sky for the next few weeks, yet its implied momentum forward is worth celebrating. As we integrate its lessons, Venus idles nearby to go backwards on March 1st. This countermove also brings us closer to eclipse season, so let us pause and take a breath - tomorrows Pisces New Moon is a sweet wisp of relief before we settle into another window of potent astrology.
Maybe I am a freak, but I am excited by how tumultuously strange March is. I love eclipse season and also adore the powers of Venus Retrograde. Venus Retrogrades are a break from the usual trappings of looking good and being agreeable. It pierces through false collective standards, which is why it often correlates historically with social protest. The reflex to *people please* or *make nice* suddenly pulls back and turns inwards, giving us 40 days to strip away outdated trends, reinvest in our core values and embody them with conviction. Venus goes retrograde in the same sign every 8 years, so think about what was happening March of 2017, and again - 2009, diving into the ruins of old circumstances may be an excavation of lost treasure.
Venus is the planet of love, and so from March 1st-April 12th, any imbalanced relationship dynamic will be difficult to ignore. You may already be feeling *breakup energy* filling the air, but often with retrogrades, there is an alchemical process that needs to be negotiated in order to breakthrough, and so take your time to settle into any major interpersonal decisions.
Venus will travel backwards from the disobedient enthusiasm of Aries into the steamy eyed Pisces urge-to-merge. Toggling between sovereignty and self-sacrifice, we are made to find union between our selfish and selfless parts, stretching our capacity to love while also maintaining boundaries and honoring our preferences. Cue the creepy Meat Loaf song...
Overlapping with eclipse season while Mercury also goes retrograde March 14 and era defining Neptune slinks into Aries March 30th, this Venus adventure promises to put on a show. Actually, when I saw the astrology of March, I thought of the Titanic - hot magnetic romance, sunken jewels, rich people going too fast with poor visibility. The Titanic capsized in 1912 during an Aries Eclipse while Venus was in Aries, Mars was in Cancer and Mercury was retrograde in Aries, similar vibe. Though this time, I see the lower class passengers uniting to demand their space on floating doors. How might we band together on this sinking ship ?
Take a breath and connect to your community and core self, drop into your creativity and humor and remember: your focus belongs to you, it is your possession and you choose what to give it to. There are timelines that don't lead to icebergs, there are timelines where icebergs are allies, there are futures where we exist in our fullness together - as long as we are willing to make that choice.