Venus retrograde in Aries and Pisces
With fixed stars, obviously, and some visual aids
On March 2nd, 2025, Venus stations retrograde in tropical Aries, and will station direct in Pisces on April 13rd (or April 12th, depending on where you are—in France where I live, it’ll be the 13rd already!).
Regardless of your knowledge level when it comes to Venus retrograde, I highly highly recommend picking up Pallas K. Augustine’s workbook, When the Water Comes. Pallas’ love for planetary cycles and for people shines through in their writing so beautifully and their workbooks are always trusty companions for Venus retrogrades. And I know they’ve compiled resources and recommendations for practitioners who have special Venus rx offerings! So that’s really cool as well.
Now, you know me, whatever happens, of course I’m going to look at fixed stars. The backdrop of everything, the dark tapestry of night1, the constellations are always crucial to my practice and I never get bored or sated from studying them (and relating to them more generally). I wondered: since Venus is going to hang out in the same part of the sky for longer than usual, who’s around—which fixed stars? I’m not the only one to ponder this (obviously, and thankfully!), and I loved how Maeg Keane put it in a recent post. The first half of Aries is marked by stars of Cetus, Cepheus, Pegasus and Andromeda; how do they change her?
Let’s dive into it.
Venus retrograde themes
Venus is a planet connected to harmony, union, love, balance, artistry, adornments, joy, pleasure, desire. As governor of Taurus and the Scales, Venus is associated with what we value. Luxury goods, but also social conventions that condition their prestige. Venus has an eye for symmetry and regularity.
Retrogrades periods are considered an affliction for Venus: its significations can be corrupted in some ways, deviating from the expected, the conventional. While this can show up in sinister ways, it isn’t always. A lot of factors influence how impactful a Venus retrograde period is, both on a collective level and on a more personal one2. On that topic, I vigorously recommend Diana Rose Harper’s how personal is this retrograde? article.
Mars and Saturn are both heavily involved in this retrograde: Venus stations in Mars’ domicile of Aries, and travels back to meet Saturn in Pisces. Neptune and the North Node, both heavily associated with confusion and delusion, are also part of the picture. This is not an easy combo, and it made me think of cruelty, repression, isolation and disappointment first and foremost. When this happens (that I struggle to think of less dire stuff), I like to look the planetary combinations in Renn Butler’s The Archetypal Universe3.