Venus Retrograde in Aries

Every 18 months, Venus, Lady of love, beauty, and pleasure, goes into retrograde, revisiting each zodiac sign every 8 years. Between March 1st and April 12th, her 40-day journey into the Underworld and back into the light  invites us to do our due diligence in the realm of relating: to review, renew, restructure, and recreate.

It’s time to check our values, to see what’s working - and what’s not.

In the first and last signs of the zodiac - fiery Aries and sensitive Pisces - the shift will be palpable. Starting in Aries, as the Evening Star, Venus’s expression during the start of her retrograde is impulsive, fiery, and tempestuous. Planets in retrograde emphasize the sign’s energy, often bringing out its shadow. Here, we are tasked to check any self-absorption, to temper our enthusiasm, and remind ourselves that things don’t have to happen right away.

Patience is a virtue.

Relationships may end or begin, yet to invest ourselves wholly in them, whatever the experience is, is pure folly. Once Venus resumes direct motion, our decisions are likely to rewound, and regrets experienced.

Thus, tread lightly. No action is the right (and best) action to take, as challenging as that might be for the typically enthusiastic Arien energy.

Slipping back into Pisces on March 27, the emphasis shifts from self-ishness to self-lessness. Sacrifice, projection, and fantasy - these are the shadows of Venus in Pisces. Both Aries and Pisces are idealistic, romantic signs that truly believe in happily-ever-after. Both can become disillusioned with the reality of real, messy relating. Mindfully removing our rose-colored glasses and not swinging from rampant self-absorption to rampant slavishness to the Other is our Herculean task at hand. Yet, we have the tools now. We know better.

Venus will unite with the Sun in an inferior conjunction on April 2nd, moving into her Morning Star phase, a shift that will bring us from the symbolic darkness into light. Venus sheds her Persephone-like skin and blooms brightly. We’ve shed our layers. We’ve moved through the twists and turns of relationship anarchy, of financial impulses, of value-shifting. We emerge with a sense of what’s truly important, what we truly love, and how to love better and more truly, without tipping the scales too far on either side. We’re ready to live and love more authentically. By April 12th, we’re home free.

It behooves us to look back 8 years - 2017 - and 8 years back again - 2009, when Venus was last retrograde in Aries and Pisces. Her journey imitates a rose-like shape, symbolising the interconnection of each cycle, an invitation to go a layer deeper. We are not regressing. We are dropping in more and more. We are learning.

Courage, bravery, and boldness are the higher expressions of Aries. Forgiveness, compassion, and unconditional, non-attached love - these are the gifts of Pisces. Let us lean in. Let us navigate our relationships with the grace inherent to the Archetype of True Love.