Venus Retrograde: Mid-course Correction Time May 13-June 25.

Venus, the second planet from the Sun, goes on its retrograde course around the Sun about every 18 months. The retrograde phase lasts for just about 40-43 days. On May 13 Venus goes retrograde until June 25 during which time we have time to reflect on our ideas, beliefs, and experiences with love. As long as we are tied to worn out conceptions and unresolved issues in this realm, we are unlikely to be able to move into the fullness of our ability to experience love. However we use this time for reflection, discernment, and realigning, the effects will have an impact on the next 10 years.

Love, or our perceptions of what that is, are based on what we value in relationships with others. Love is also based on how we value ourselves and our own development and growth. How do we understand how Venus Retrograde cycles affect us most? It all depends on where in our charts/lives the Natal and Progressed aspects appear, and what houses/areas of our lives the Transiting Venus is in our charts. For example, if I have natal Venus in my 6th house, concern for you during this time will most likely be about taking care of the details and beautification of your daily life, your home environment, and work space. Most likely this would make you a prolific list maker and planner about how to organize or reorganize your daily life spaces and time. During retrograde cycles you'd probably take better care of yourself, work on improving your hygiene and appearance, and spend time refreshing your living and work spaces.

In terms of relationships, you'd probably be spending more time with partners with shared interests in the daily life aspects of you, your work, and your home. Ideally, you might even attract those with whom you could live and work with harmoniously.  And if you are not with someone like that, it would most likely be a longing.  The nature of the 6th house is how your sense of order, beauty, and passion are grounded. Another aspect of this would be the sign in which Venus is transiting. Venus in Aries would have more of a quixotic and fiery nature, while Venus in Taurus would be even more soundly grounded in showing love, rather than the flowery speech of lovers. Creating beauty is Taurean domain, and Venus would be enhanced in this sign.

When in retrograde, whatever the house or sign, would signal a time when whatever is out of order in this area, wherever we are not fulfilled or satisfied, would become problematic. At the very least we'd begin to feel the need to rethink issues and conditions related to both the house (area of our lives) and the sign (energy and rulership of the sign). Retrograde times are slowing down times. They are the periods of time when whatever area of our lives are most affected, would be in need of rethinking, renewal, and refreshing.  When we get stuck in old, outworn beliefs or patterns or both, we create limitation where none need be.

Retrograde times are not times of punishment or deprivation, but of a time when we can really examine what we value in ourselves, in our ways of living and being, in our concepts about love, compassion, and beauty, and in our interactions with others in partnerships, friendships, and relationships.

Venus will enter her retrograde cycle in mid-May in the sign of Gemini, at 21'50". This period will be tumultuous as it's a time when we're going to be rethinking just about everything about how we do relationships. We are going to be aware of where we have been lost in the darkness of our own fears, wounds, and distorted views of love. Venus pulls us out of the depths of despair or awakens us to the lapses and distance we've been experiencing. Rather than making plans or making changes, we spend this retrograde time reviewing and remembering what our lives have revealed about how we value and view love, beauty, relationships, and the full expression of who we are.

Artists may revive some part of themselves that set them on the course to creating beauty long ago. We may also be awakened to those times and connections that most deeply touched us and helped us feel alive and fulfilled. This journey into exploring our experiences in and of love, may be somewhat uncomfortable, especially if the beliefs and stories we've created to rationalize or justify our experiences are built on distortions or a clear perspective of how all involved helped create what became those experiences.

Again, depending upon where Gemini is in your chart, this retrograde transit of Venus will swoop in and open our inner awareness and it will evoke the emotions, memories, passions, and woundedness that has yet to heal. As Venus transits through the houses, note how it may affect you in your life:

1st house transits will raise the possibility of rethinking the way you choose to present yourself to the world. Our worlds have all changed significantly and suddenly, so this retrograde period may be just what you need to reevaluate the ways you want to refine or redefine yourself. Some may be reconsidering their public persona, or considering adding a new dimension to what you already do.

2nd house transits are in the area of your life where you determine what you value and what your own worth is. Often this is programmed into us when we're young, but as we grow and develop, it is more and more a choice we make on our own. Who are you, and what really matters to you? What are you willing to do, what can you learn to enhance your skills and scope, and what do you want to do more of and less of? It's a time to get your priorities/values straight, and to work on integrating who you really are with what you need and want.

3rd house transits focus our attention on all forms of communication, particularly with those near us (siblings, neighbors, community) as well as the varied forms of communication. We may notice areas of this realm where you find yourself overwhelmed or out of contact. You may notice ways that no longer satisfy or meet your needs, and may begin remembering how you've compromised or rationalized others' needs over your won. Time for finding balance amid the shifts. Finding new ways of communicating is necessary now, and for you, this is even more important.

4th house transits involve the inner sense of feeling at home, with yourself, and in your home. How are you feeling about where you are and how you are feeling about being at home? How are your security needs being met, and what is in need of readjusting, realigning, or removing in order to regain a sense of safety, security, and comfort?

5th house transits involve our ability to enjoy life, create beauty, find pleasure, and connect with children. Your appetite for joy may be reawakened, and you may discover greater depth in your creativity and may feel the urge to break away from established and routine patterns to open yourself to unknown depths.

6th house transits focus our attention on our daily routines, the work we do, and our physical bodies/health. We may be paying closer attention to the details of daily life and routines, with an aim to create a healthier, more balanced life. It might be a time when clearing clutter and unnecessary parts of life is called for. A good time to sift and sort so that there's room for new plans, new methods and/or a new set of priorities in your daily life/work routines. When we are happy with what we do, we nourish our health and well being.

7th house transits are all about relationships, partnerships, and marriages. The places in our lives where we work in tandem with others. We associate many of our partnerships on love and marriages on love and romance. We also identify our partnerships as an extension of our own fulfillment, and during the retrograde, we may become more critical of what we perceive. No relationship or partnership can flourish and grow if it's stuck in ruts and choked off by the weeds. Time to clear the air regarding what we need, desire, and expect of, first, ourselves in relationship, and then of our partners.  Knowing who I am and what I want or expect is crucial in all relationships. We cannot bury ourselves in someone else's vision without paying a price. Nor do we want to trap anyone in our own unconscious needs.

8th house transit is a time to review life and look for the blast from the past that got you motivated, charged, or set on fire for life. When dreams die, as Langston Hughes wrote, it is often because of that dream deferred. What dreams have you allowed to die, and what might you need to do to revive them and get that passion for life back? Go deep and go out on a limb to refresh your memories, revive you imagination, and let you intuition and spirituality be the path to fulfillment and love.

9th house transits remind us of of the wanderlust that has been put on hold abruptly. Dreams and plans may have fallen apart or at the very least, changed direction or course. Time to reevaluate possibilities, and to remember Emily Dickinson's words, "I dwell in possibilities."  The nature of exploration may be on hold or may be changed in significant ways, but your quest may find new avenues, yet to be imagined.

10th house transits are all about our life purpose, often taken to be a career. But a career is only part of that quest. Life purpose is the bedrock of who we are and what our journey here is. It exists in spite of anything else we do purposely. Our life purpose is what we do to bring service, meaning, and the fullness of our human expression to life.  This retrograde time is when you examine this purpose more deeply and make plans, plans that will carry you into the next 10 years.

11th house transits are about our friendships, associations, group activities, and connections to institutions. As most of us see and experience, this has shifted almost overnight. Some of us are working and homeschooling and taking care of all the household chores. We've had to change the way we rely on others, and have become more responsible in some ways, and less so in others. This period of time, though it may be tumultuous, is a valuable time for reassessing what we need and what we can offer others. We must make some adjustments now in order not to burn ourselves out.

12th house transits are about the unconscious, hidden aspects of our lives, that appear to us in forms like dreams, intuition, sparks of ideas, and chance meetings and opportunities. What are our hidden resources, and how can we more creatively access them so that we can grow and nurture ourselves and those we love? What hidden beauty is longing to be expressed, and how might we engage with the subconscious to bring that beauty into the open?

Whatever the Venus Retrograde transit has in store for you, it's a crucial time for evaluating what we truly love, value, and desire to create in our lives. How we handle ourselves at this time, through this transit in particular, will provide the impetus, energy, and focus for what we do for the next 10 years. For those who were around for the Summer of Love in the 1970s, think back to what was growing in your life then, for this is a new opportunity to take out those old dreams, dust them off, and no longer defer from creating ways for them to come true. Blessings all.

New Moon in Taurus on Earth Day 2020

Tarot Painting by Tammy Heintz

This month’s New Moon in 3’ 24” of Taurus is exact at 7:26 P.M. PDT/10:26 EDT. Both the Sun and the Moon in the first decan of Taurus (heavily influenced by its Aries energy) conjuncts Uranus in Taurus (6 degrees). This New Moon has a major impact on anyone with planets or aspects within 29-30 degrees of Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) and within 0-8 degrees of the Fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius). It affects everyone (for we all have the Cardinal and Fixed sings in our charts/lives. Look to the houses and what those houses signify, to see how this New Moon may be affecting you.

As I write this column on Tuesday, April 21, the Moon is completing its transit through Aries, and it will enter Taurus tomorrow around 12:30 PDT/3:30 PM EDT. Earlier this morning (Tuesday) the Sun formed a square to Saturn, the Great Teacher. Saturn is a very slow moving planet, taking nearly 30 years to orbit the Sun. It acts as a force that slows us down and forces us to learn lessons through direct experience, something that is not always pleasant since it usually pertains to an area of our lives which we don’t necessarily want to change/experience.  As this happens at a point when our  collective and personal pandemic experiences are just beginning, it will come as no surprise that you may be facing some difficult and challenging facts of life right now.

 Life has been transformed (as Saturn and Pluto turned the ground beneath our feet over the last few years) and now we are thrown into a new way of living and understanding life. As we’ve faced the challenges so far, we have learned that we are stronger than we thought we might be, and more capable than we maybe ever imagined. We’ve learned, through the grave reality we’re facing together, that the old saying, “things could be worse” has a new somber ring to it. So far, we’ve managed to adapt to the changes, though the uncertainty of what is ahead makes this more challenging than usual for most if not all of us.

The Sun in early Taurus is  also semi-square Neptune, making it more difficult to visualize or focus on our goals. What was important, is now becoming less so, and we are beginning to see or feel that our goals and dreams and plans may be less clear than ever. Because the degree of uncertainty that we face as human beings, and the uncertainty we individually are recognizing more and more are at such an unknown level, we need to do whatever we can to focus on what we can do right where we are now. The practice of mindfulness, of paying attention to what is right before our eyes and under our feet, is crucial. Channeling our energy, time, and attention into artistic, pragmatic, and concrete ways is the highest form of using our creative energy to help ground us in the ‘facts of life’ as they now exist.

Examples of this are all around us. We’re working in our gardens, painting our houses, inside and out, cooking up a storm, and making art as ways to keep focused and productive. Many of us are working harder than ever, but in new ways. And since many of us are working from home, we’re learning more about our life-work balance, often by overdoing or getting stuck in some new patterns of behavior that we probably need to adjust if we’re going to make the best of this stay at home mode of living. For example, we know we cannot stay in front of the screen 24/7 even though that’s been a kind of lifeline for many of us. We also know we cannot eat, drink, or obsess over household chores (DYI, decluttering) to the exclusion of more balanced ways of living. And for those of us who are going out and working through this difficult time, the levels of stress and anxiety must be dealt with as well. For those whose work requires that they put themselves in jeopardy, this can be a time that is  unparalleled in stress and uncertainty. Whatever our situation and the conditions we are living in, this New Moon in Taurus comes at a time when we need to be making the best choices we can in order for us to stay healthy and maintain our well being.

The Sun-Saturn square is exact today, Tuesday, and indicates we may be feeling where we are blocked or limited in some way. The Moon is in Aries all day, and gives us the feeling that we ‘have to get it done now’. This is an emotional reaction brought on by the Moon (guardian of our emotional temperment) being in the final degrees of Aries, the sign of the Ram who wants to charge headlong into the fray. Now is not the time to do so, and therefore we may feel more anxious and upset than usual. The fixed stars in the horns of the constellation of Aries, are called the Butters (those who butt like a ram). They are Hamal in the head of the ram, Sheraton (in the right horn)  and Mesarthim (in the left)  in the horns. This New Moon is aligned with Sheraton and Mesarthim, and they represent the energy of Mars and Saturn (action and slow, methodical movement). There’s a push me-pull me quality to the energy right now. We may feel compelled to get things done/started/completed, while at the same time feeling stuck or blocked in some way.

How do we cope with such contradictory energy? Again, we need to use the growing earth energy of Taurus Sun and tomorrow the Moon in Taurus as they push us to ground in the pragmatic and immediacy of what is right in front of us. What is it we can control or do right now? It may be simply taking care of ourselves, beautifying ourselves and our surroundings, or creating something beautiful through art, music, language, or some other form of creativity. What woke me up yesterday was moving beyond my dread of having to go out for the first time in two weeks, to do some necessary shopping. When the cat is almost out of food, I know I have to push myself beyond my own qualms and fears, and so out I went early in the day. In the two weeks since I’d last driven into town, the beauty of Spring had blossomed in unimaginable ways.

The bursts of color from flowers, blossoming trees was spectacular. The sky and beauty of the rivers and the ocean were striking and nourishing. And seeing people I hadn’t seen for a while, was life affirming. And there was nothing to be afraid of as I was being cautious and respectful of the restrictions we’d all agreed to follow, in order to protect one another. While this is far from feeling normal, it is a time when we have the opportunity to wake up to the gifts we possess within ourselves and the beauty that surrounds us, when we’re willing to open our minds, our eyes, and our lives to appreciating what is, instead of spending all our time worrying about what might be or what might not be. Practicing active mindfulness in taking care of ourselves, one another, and the world we have connection with, is key. The Taurus energy of the New Moon combined with that of the Sun, gives us a big push onto the path of finding harmony through grounding.

Taurus time is one of my favorite times of the year, for it is a time when we are drenched in the changing seasons, focused on the growing energy of Light/Lifting Up in the North and Darkness/Depth in the South. It is a time of sensuality. The great poet, John Milton, coined the word, sensuous so as to have a synonym of the word sensual that was not sexual in nature. The stimulation of the senses is key to waking up our connections with our body, mind, spirit, and emotions. Staying active and keeping our tactile senses awake and active, helps to keep us aware of our own gifts, talents, skills, and feelings as well as the tactile and concrete connection with the world around us. The integration of inner and outer minds and consciousness is crucial at this New Moon time.

And therefore, this New Moon in Taurus on April 22, 2020, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, is the perfect time to  appreciate what blessings we have. The 50th anniversary is traditionally the time we pause to celebrate and appreciate what has grown in our lives. What have we accomplished? What have we created? What is growing in our selves, our minds, our relationships, our gardens, our friendships, our families, and in our communities? Where are we being called to grow and expand our thinking given the changes that have served to throw us into a great transformation and the subsequent transitions?  This New Moon in Taurus provides the perfect time to daydream, stop and smell the roses, and indeed to take stock of what is growing within us and where we are. It’s time to create some new dreams, draw up a new plan, and acknowledge what has already been accomplished as we wait on the threshold of a changing world.

We are each at a crossroads where we have the opportunity to make some new choices. When we are able to take stock, feel appreciative and open to new growth, then we are also capable of moving forward with a greaters sense of purpose. What do we do when we’re lost? We try to determine our direction. We take stock of who we are and where we are, and then we determine what goals, plans, and directions are pointing us in a new direction. As the New Moon in Taurus aligns with the North Node (Cancer) adjusting our perspective and direction for the future, and as the New Moon in Taurus for whatever path is ahead. With the Moon’s square to Saturn, we may feel blocked, but if we look more closely, it might be that we’re just beginning to understand what we’ve left undone or what we may have neglected, that needs attention in order to free us to move into a new direction.

 Blocks may be that what keeps us is a belief about who/what we’re supposed to be. It may be that we’ve neglected some aspect of our life that now needs tending to. Perhaps hygiene or physical exercise. Check in with yourself, and find ways to create more beauty in your life. Look at the things you may be butting your head/horns into, and see how you might let go of the struggle just long enough to see that maybe now is not the right time for something you’ve been struggling with. Slow down, smell the roses, dig your hands into the dirt, walk under the trees in blossom, and sit outside and drink in the beauty that is yours today. Be glad and rejoice, for we have a life yet unlived, and we just may find the best is yet to come.

The Sabian Symbol for this degree of Taurus provides a vivid description of the energy of this New Moon in Taurus:   “A woman of curly hair, having a single child who is dressed in clothes like unto fire, and she herself dressed in similar clothes.  And this is a face of plowing and working the earth, of sciences, geometry, of sowing seed, and making things.” ~ Picatrix