Astrology of 3/22-3/28: Heart of the Venus Retrograde

Definitely be aware this week of the moment that the Sun and Venus form a conjunction: every time Venus goes retrograde, she completes one point of a five-pointed star that takes about 8 years to create. It is an orbital pattern between the Earth and Venus:

This transit happens at 3:16 AM in the morning my time, PST (on March 25), and I’m planning to be up for it! The reason for this is that this is an extremely magical moment to be present with Venus and all she represents, with love and passion just to start with! Whether you like to do ritual, or just like to be still in prayer and presence with her, note that March 25th at 3:16 AM PST is not a moment to miss. If you are so diligent as to mark every Venus star point moment consciously over the 8 year period, who knows what happens? I am trying to find out myself, as the last Venus retrograde in 2015 was the first time I consciously observed the transit and even knew about this magical five-pointed star.

It’s a popular misconception to fear retrogrades, but I am certain that just looking at this orbital pattern could reveal how magical Venus retrograde truly is, even if it shakes up familiar patterns that are associated with our sense of security. The traditional advice to not enter relationship during a Venus retrograde is not just stale but unwise – let the heart guide, not some external rule. Venus retrograde is a little like Venus Carnival – the status quo of our love life can be turned upsidedown. But there’s still a party.

If you’re not familiar about what Venus retrograde means, look over my forecasts in the last few weeks and scan for places where I talk about it through transit. Enjoying and finding the adventure and spiritual value in every transit is part of my spiritual path, so you won’t find doom interpretations here: rather each transit is a sacred window into a facet of the Divine, and Venus retrograde is one of my absolute favorites. Retrograding planets gather in intensity, and who wouldn’t want a more accelerated Venusian experience? The tricky aspect of Venus retrograde is that it often re-wires us in terms of how we want to relate to people, and so it inevitably changes the status quo of relationship. It’s a great time to learn better communication as well as to do some heart and soul searching as to what it is we really desire in our hearts. It’s a time where we can learn about what love is to us, beyond love born of possessiveness or the need for security.

With that, here’s our week, with a few announcements before we dive in:

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March 23

Mercury in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn (exact at 5:42 PM PST): As this is part of a larger planetary formation, see below for interpretation

March 24

Mercury in Aries opposite Jupiter in Libra (exact at 5:46 AM PST): As this is part of a larger planetary formation, see below for interpretation

Mercury in Aries squares Pluto in Capricorn and opposes Jupiter in Libra; Pluto and Jupiter are very close to an exact square. Then Mercury is conjunct Uranus in Aries. This highlights the T-square formation between Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto at this time! Combining these elements here are some things to look for:

• Jupiter and Pluto interacting together can correlate with massive (read, Jupiter) shifts and transformations (read, Pluto). In a current space-time moment, these can seem like massive gains or massive reversals. Whether we are gaining or losing from our perspective, something benevolent is occurring. If you will think of a time in your life where you felt like you lost it all but it opened you to a new and more expansive direction in life, this would be an example. It is also possible that certain gains are waiting in the wings, but can only arrive once space is made for them. An example would be that you are wanting to expand your business and start making more money than you did before. But as it stands now, your bank that you work with is invested in the Dakota Access Pipeline, and that goes against your values. While these things might not seem connected of that level of consequence (related to the actual obstruction or freedom of money flow), energetically they totally are. If the Universe loves you, why would it funnel your next-level income money into an institution that doesn’t vibrate with your core values? The channels of receptivity aren’t structured optimally that way. If you change your container/money receptacle to a bank or credit union that is not invested in something you don’t stand with, you open up the path to start making more money like you had desired. Take this metaphor broadly (or directly because #noDAPL), and consider where your energetic leaks and sinkholes are: this is a great time to make empowering changes in your life accordingly.
• Similar to above, choosing the next level of functionality in your life has magical and desirable consequences. From a planetary point of view, fixing broken plumbing or cleaning out the long-standing mold in your fridge is not just a mundane task sucking your energy: it’s an opportunity for alchemy. These might be bigger events or things that seem like interruptions, yet they are still dynamic opportunities.

• Change is a given, but if you want anything to stay the same, let it be an attitude of being dynamic. This is not the same as going with the flow passively (though that might itself be the revelation); it’s about initiating new ways of being internally and externally. It’s taking an action or making a change.

• Crisis or something “not working” is an opportunity for editing and refining. It deepens our roots, our bottom line, the health of our foundation or soil. This would be an important time to remember that problem-solving or seeking answers is actually an alternative to spiraling into victim mentalities which keep us overwhelmed and treading water. When you have the choice to pick yourself up and “do the thing” that you know you need to do to feel better, to get aligned and centered, do it. When we react to crisis with panic, we make it harder for ourselves to get back on track. (See Bentinho Massaro’s lesson on how to remain calm in intensity, from a larger free online academy called Trinfinity about enlightenment and empowerment… I’d recommend the whole thing highly to anyone wanting to accelerate their ability to be at peace and to manifest).
• One gift of Mercury is often misunderstood as a problem: it’s this ADHD thing, it’s short attention span, it’s scatteredness. Another way to look at this is that Mercury is present for what is actually happening/available in the present moment, especially when Mercury transits the sign of Aries. We can go through a situation with a set, rigid plan of how things are going to happen, but given this particular astrology, there are larger opportunity channels flowing through our ability to be present with what actually is happening in any frame of time. The maturity involved with this is in perceiving where spontaneity is the path and not a distraction, or when the distraction is part of the path!
• Contrary to the point above, some distractions are more trickstery in nature; and show up to reflect our level of being unsure about a given plan or commitment. Sometimes they are opportunities to commit to what we really value, even in the face of being tempted to go back to an old pattern or way of being that we’re ready to let go of. It’s important to remember that the symbols and the appearances of reality around us are not visions of ultimate meaning. We are still the one perceiving those things, and it is our internal navigation system that echoes a “yes”, “no”, “I’m not attached”, or “I don’t know” to the symbols and messages we perceive.
• The choice of resistance or equanimity to thoughts. The ability to perceive the perceiver, and to allow thoughts to pass through without forming compulsive attachments to them or without trying to stop them. Take note of when your thoughts are desires; and be gentle and detached about these desires. See if these desires or the path toward them end up showing up on their own and through your inspired actions. If God and the Universe (or the externalized answerer of prayers) is actually inside of you, imagine how much more magnetic you are when things flow through you than when you constrict and tighten around any form of desire with the fear of it not being granted or the panic around how to “get it”. Zoom way out at this version of yourself and see how nothing can actually get in when we close up in that way.
• These outer planets are asking us to evolve; to break up our addictions and patterns, and to actualize ourselves at a new and accelerated vibration. The degree to which we experience these transits as crisis or as leveling-up depends on where we are at in this process. These transits can touch us where we are sensitive or easily triggered; as these are spots that we heal and grow. It would help to utilize Mercury’s interaction with this T-square this week by being open to messages and media on how to evolve right now. Ask questions and seek answers! Don’t use your mind to rationalize how stuck or messed up situations are just how things are going to be. Be smart and use your mind for solutions, and if one isn’t accessible, find your best way to get centered and to an emotional vibration of clarity from which you can embark on seeking or allowing the answers to come to you.
• Stress is likely – but let it compel you to grow. These are awakening transits, and sometimes the shift in vibration is not a gentle ascension in cloud space but more like a yanking, changing gears. It can depend on how developed the work that we’re doing is, or if we are just getting startled into a new threshold.

March 25

Sun in Aries conjunct Venus in Aries retrograde (exact at 3:16 AM)

(Image: Manit Srisuwan Goft)

• Who am I? this transit can ask of us. Who am I meant to become? This Venus in Aries has an energy of the love of destiny. In partnership where a destiny is being co-created, the question is who are we? What is our purpose and how does relationship fulfill it?
• This transit speaks to a spark in our consciousness or in our lives around the destiny of actualizing our love natures, actualizing our Venusian dimension of self. Do you feel dissatisfied with yourself, with your love life, with your job, with money, etc? Venus in Aries can compel us to set off on a destiny path toward meeting those things. As it goes in the Hero’s Journey, the hero’s external prize at the end has always been on the inside. But the hero couldn’t only sit in a cave and meditate to get there – they had to meet the dragon, had to cross a river over a shaky depilated bridge, had to test themselves against the elements. Our externalized, adventure-theme life is a mirror reflecting back to us who we are and how we are growing. It is not in a bubble that we “become”, but it is in interaction and relationship that we become. How do we sit with this paradox, that everything is already inside of us, yet we must interact with all that is to meet it?
• Venus in Aries retrograde has in many ways highlighted the sexiness and magnetism of a person being autonomous. How often is there a dance between the unavailable desired person and the one pining after that unavailable person? While many other factors apply to that kind of dance, one thing that is playing out is that autonomy is attractive because it is the ability to connect with a person whose on top of their own life and game. They aren’t expressing need: therefore their love is a kind of co-creation rather than a love based on deficiency. Of course this is glamorous sounding but not always what we experience – Venus in Aries can be like a love warrior, learning about one’s love nature through a series of new experiences which can be trials, losses or victories. Venus in Aries could just as easily be a love-underdog. To desire love and to not have it, to feel our aching vulnerably and loneliness, is some love warriorship right there!
• Deficiency-based love (not feeling complete, needing another to feel complete) is not the same as being unworthy of love… people who don’t have it together still need love. In a way, they end up having to advocate for and champion themselves by seeking out and getting what they need by asking for it, or creating themselves and finding support networks to the extent that they feel happy and start to more easefully attract relationship and love. Many people access the depth of their own love nature by merging with an experience that sufficiently mirrors a part of their Soul back to them such that they can begin to hold it themselves.
• Personal growth and self-development is met in the mirror through our experiences. We also often meet people who are aligned with our own lessons and karmas so that we can work them out together.
• Aries is deeply concerned with the right to exist. It wants to become, to be; it is the sign of Spring and of birth. In relationship, a vitality within the relationship is present when both individuals feel and act in accordance with their right to exist, as well as respecting the other’s free will and right to exist. This means that we trust that when we’re mad or upset or something is off, we can talk about it and be; without having to pretend we’re not angry or not disturbed to keep peace. And this also means we respect the needs and boundaries of others. The working through of any conflict is an opportunity for a shared experience and a deepening of connection. Breakdowns in relationship or in communication are openings to deepen love, not threats to love.
• Please share in the comments this week what resources or experiences have opened you up to your deeper love nature so we can help lift each other up. For me, a potent one was Love and Awakening: Discovering the Sacred Path of Intimate Relationship by John Welwood!

March 26

Mercury in Aries conjunct Uranus in Aries (exact at 8:05 AM PST): As this is part of a larger planetary formation, see above section on the Mercury-Uranus-Pluto-Jupiter alignment for interpretation.

Thanks for meditating on the planets with me this week! This is one of the more wild weeks I’d say, so use its potency to blast through your stagnancy and get on track with what you are really here to be and do! In the words of Andrea Gibson, “it hurts to become”.

~Sabrina Monarch

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She also enjoys kundalini and ashtanga yoga, hiking and creative writing. You can subscribe to receive her weekly forecasts by email here.

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