The Loveliness of Things—Venus Retrograde—March 1st to April 12th.
Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time—Maya Angelou.
In these first hope-filled days of spring, a benevolent sun settles over city parks and woodlands. And for a brief moment, people look up from their screens and smile at the loveliness of things.
February is a month dedicated to Love. As cloyingly sentimental or overtly commercial as this celebration may seem, Valentine’s Day has survived world wars and financial crashes. On February 14th in most places on this earth, millions of people demonstrated through chocolates and cards, music and flowers, their longing to love and be loved. “Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved”, writes author Alain de Botton.
At sunset this month, Venus, goddess of beauty and love, shimmers in a sky striated with peach and gold. On Valentine’s Day Venus was luminous, reaching her greatest brilliancy as if declaring Love’s power to overcome all human sorrow. She lingers languidly in the evening skies and dazzles us with her beauty till mid-March, then she vanishes beneath the horizon, triumphantly reappearing as morning star in the last days of April.
The ancients tracked the passage of Venus in a perfect pentagram across the skies, ascribing her disappearance from sight to her descent into the Underworld. This descent into the darkness was a dangerous time for humanity. When Venus vanished from the skies, the pre-Colombian Mayans believed, kingdoms became unstable, regimes toppled, and an ancient bloodlust stirred in the heart of warriors.
In myth, Innana (Venus) is stripped of all her valued regalia and exquisite clothing. She enters the Underworld vulnerable and exposed for 40 days and 40 nights. In modern times, the Underworld is a symbol of our own unconscious where we may encounter a truth that reverberates viscerally. The trial of these times are a cosmic reminder for us to dissolve, discard out-worn values and beliefs. In astrological language, Venus describes our self-worth and self-esteem, as well as the people or things we cherish and admire. Venus describes our loveability, how we give and how we receive love. We may be prompted to reconnect with our heart’s longing as we reevaluate our intimate and business partnerships, our friendships, our finances, our creative expression, and importantly, what value we place upon ourselves.
Between late January and mid-May this year, Venus becomes a maverick, expressing her qualities in unusual and unexpected ways as she moves over the Aries/Pisces area of our birth charts as well as the birth charts of our fallible leaders, and of nations.
Venus entered her shadow period on January 28th at 24° Pisces. On March 2nd, she stations Retrograde at 10° Aries and stations direct at 24° Pisces on April 13th. She will leave her Retrograde shadow on May 16th at 10° Aries.
The last time Venus moved Retrograde through Pisces and Aries was eight years ago, so as we reflect back to the themes or our responses to events in 2017, we might get a sense of where we might need to focus our attention over the coming months. Venus and Mercury meet in Aries on March 12th then Mercury stations Retrograde on March 14th as we pause before making decisions and pay careful attention before signing any important documents. The few days before and after Retrograde and direct stations are risky times to enter into negociations or make long term decisions.
As Venus moves apparently backwards through the heavens, she will accent the building energy of the important Neptune/Saturn conjunction at that first initiatory degree of Aries, mirroring trigger points politically and economically, as well as important events and choices in our own lives as we grapple with what is “real” or illusionary.
As Venus begins to gather speed, moving direct, she passes over the important Aries point on May 1st, she will also energise this jetstream of powerful political and cultural currents that will sweep away what has been built, and will ebb and flow, long after we are gone. As civil rights activist and writer, James Baldwin once said: “No time can be easy if one is living through it.”
As we move through the turbulent maelstrom of this moment in human history, with its darkness and its light, we might remember that there are cycles within cycles. As author John Steinbeck wrote during the darkest days of the second world war, “all the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up… it isn’t that the evil thing wins—it never will—but that it doesn’t die.”
In our own private lives, Venus accents the impulsive, assertive, risk-taking Aries energy in our birth chart, as well as the caring, compassionate, intuitive part of ourselves as she moves through Pisces between now and early June.
Venus’s Retrograde passage may expose our vulnerabilities, our blind spots, and our lack of self-compassion.
Most of us are unskilled at self-love. It is often easier to look for what is wrong in our relationships or in the world around us, than to place our attention on what brings joy to our hearts. As we take time to hear our inner pulse beat, may we honour the stability of our own substance, resist the meaningless quantification of likes and retweets, and protect our tender hearts and minds from corrosive comparisons.
As our earth strains beneath the weight of our appetites and numbers—and so many of us sense the ultimate ending—Jonathan Franzen writes in his book, The End of the End of the Earth “even in a world of dying, new loves continue to be born… this is now the time to give yourself over to what you love, perhaps in new and deeper ways. Your family and friends, your animal friends, the plants around you, even if that means just the little sprouts that push their way through the sidewalk in your city, the feeling of a breeze on your skin, the taste of food, the refreshment of water, or the thousands of little things that make up your world and which are your own unique treasures and pleasures.
Make your moments sparkle within the experience of your own senses and direct your attention to anything that gladdens your heart.”
These posts continue to remain AI free and free of charge to all lovers of astrology. If you’d like a private astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com or visit the consultations page of my website: www.trueheartwork.com
Sophie Davidson
February 19, 2025 at 3:20 amThis is just precious and beautiful in every way. Bless you for capturing the essence of existence through astrology and myth so beautifully ✨⭐️