One of the astrological signatures for 2023, is the upcoming Venus retrograde. Every eighteen months, Venus retrogrades for six weeks. While there are Venus retrogrades every year and a half, where they land in the zodiac occurs in eight-year cycles. In the lifetime of any human, Venus will retrograde in only half the signs of the Zodiac versus Mercury which retrogrades in all signs, multiple times over the course of a human lifetime
This Venus retrograde starts at 29 degrees and goes back to 12 degrees of Leo.
In the last 50 years, Venus retrogrades in Leo were in the summer/ fall of 2015, 2007, 1999, 1991, 1983, 1975 and 1967.
Take a moment and consider what came up for you during those times that spoke to creativity, love, romance, money, and beauty. What we value speaks to Venus. During any Venus retrograde we can experience challenges to our value system. There can be major movements on those matters and the sign of the Venus retrograde speaks to themes.
Leo is how we find joy and pleasure which can be up for appraisal. Being bold and taking strong actions is Leo. If we have been behind the scenes too long, now on the Venus retrograde in Leo, we may put ourselves out there. It is not that it all must happen during the six weeks, but we can realize during the retrograde that being in the shadows is no longer working. We may create bold plans to change our life in the shadows. We also can find our heart in the Venus in Leo retrograde. There can be tears but behind it we can tap the power as well. Like Scarlett O’Hara, (a symbolic Leo character by any measure) in the movie Gone With The Wind, who taps her tears and anger when she holds a small radish dug up from the field and states, “As God as my witness. I will never be hungry again.” Bold declaration speak to a fortitude found and tapped in Venus in Leo.
To get a feel for a difference that the signs bring to the Venus retrograde, the very last Venus retrograde was in 2021 and it was in the sign Capricorn. Capricorn is a way different energy than Leo. Look at the last 50 years for the Venus retrogrades in Capricorn which were in the winter of 2021/22, 2013, 2005, 1998, 1989/90, 1981, 1974,1966. In those cases we may have been adjusting our values around career. Or how we move around in the public. How we take responsibility especially in leadership. Capricorn is somber, we may have had setbacks that had us question if we were even valued. During Venus in Capricorn, we could have valued a more austere approach to any bumpy situation. We may have tapped our ‘coldness’. In Leo, a fire sign, and a enthusiastic sign, it is our pride and our self-esteem that inform us. Our generosity in spirit and actions can inform us and we take a moment and we value being ‘bigger.’ It is fun to look at the 8 year cycles of Venus retrogrades and play compare and contrast. In two years the next cycle will be Venus in Aries. We'll go over that cycle then. But now use this time during Venus in Leo retrograde to figure out your bold theme.
This year, Venus enters Leo June 5, but does not start to slow down until it crosses the shadow on June 19. On July 22 it stations retrograde for six weeks. On September 3, Venus stations direct and finally exits the shadow October 7. Venus will have our attention in some manner for three and half months, with of course the heat of the energy being the six weeks of retrograde.
During the shadows, Venus will form several aspects with other planets. Each aspect may drill down on themes that impact us personally. Of note, we get three rounds of Venus square Uranus and three rounds of Venus square Jupiter. Jupiter is ‘big’ ...on steroids. Uranus is weird as F. Whatever strange stuff comes up will be big. In the mundane astrology, there are usually scandals that pop up on Venus retrogrades. Given this one will be in theatrical, dramatic Leo our friends in the celebrity world may pop up with some kind of scandal. And given Jupiter and Uranus are in the mix, it will be big and odd. To that I say, “Sure, why not, it’s all weird now anyway.” Sigh.
For more personal insight, look at the degrees of the aspects and for those of you with planets at those degrees in Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius you may feel the intensity quite a bit.
June 5: Venus enter Leo
June 5 : Venus oppose Pluto 00 degrees 05
June 8 : Venus square nodes 3 degrees 05
June 11 : Venus square Jupiter 5 degrees 38
June 19: Venus enter shadow
July 2 : Venus square Uranus 21 degrees 46
July 22 6 :32pm PDT Venus retrograde 28 Leo 36
Aug 9 : Venus square Uranus 22 degrees 55
Aug 13: Sun Venus conjunction 20 degrees 28
Aug 22 : Venus square Jupiter 15 degrees 18
Sept 3 6 :20pm PDT Venus direct 12 degrees 12
Sept 16 : Venus square Jupiter 15 degrees 19
Sept 29 : Venus square Uranus 22 degrees 40
Oct 7 Venus exits shadow
Oct 8 : Venus enters Virgo
This Venus retrograde will not be shy or quiet. Between Leo, Uranus, and Jupiter the energy is noisy. It is also a fabulous time to go long on any creative project that has been sitting in a corner collecting dust. That thing you have felt total guilt about NOT doing because you tell yourself all kinds of nonsense, like not being good enough, talented enough, pretty enough, young or old enough, well this Venus retrograde will call you out. You are good enough to do it!
Let’s see where we all are by October 8 when Venus finally exits Leo and enters quieter Virgo.I am sure we will all welcome it! In the meantime, be bold!
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