🌹 The Alchemy of Venus
A transformational journey of beauty, self-worth, magnetism, values & love.
Venus is the planet of love, the planet of “the feminine.” Women are from Venus, after all, are they not?
Venus represents our values, she represents beauty, balance, aesthetic, sensuality, luxury in many ways, she is all the things desire and enjoyment. She is the potential of creation. She rules Taurus and Libra - the senses and justice.
There is a very curious thing about Venus and the way we observe her moving across our sky from Earth.
The 2025-2026 Venus Calendar
January 28-February 28: Pre-Retrograde Shadow
March 1: Venus Stations Retrograde in Aries
March 1- March 28: Venus Retrogrades through Aries
March 23: Venus Cazimi/ New Venus - Beginning of the 19-month Synodic Cycle
NOW: March 28-April 12: Venus Retrogrades though Pisces
April 12: Venus Stations Direct in Pisces
April 30: Venus re-enters Aries
June 1: Greatest western elongation (morning star)
March 28-April 12 Venus Retrograde through Pisces
Themes: Emotional healing, compassion, and spiritual alignment in love and money.
Venus in ♓️ Pisces is a dreamy, devotional, dissolve-into-bliss placement. She’s exalted here, swimming in unconditional love, spiritual artistry, and the longing for divine union. Here are some luscious journaling prompts to float you into those waters.
Planetary retrogrades invite us to reflect and review, so that when they station direct once again we shed what no longer works in the areas and themes around that planet, the sign or signs it retrogrades in, and the house where all of the action is specifically happening for you.
✨ Venus in Pisces Journaling Prompts
1. Love as a Spiritual Practice
Where in my life can I turn love into devotion?
What does unconditional love feel like to me—and where am I ready to soften my conditions?
2. The Art of Surrender
What am I still trying to control in love, beauty, or connection that might be asking to dissolve?
What would it feel like to truly trust the flow?
3. Divine Beauty
What forms of beauty make my soul ache (in the best way)?
How can I bring more of that beauty into my daily rituals?
4. Boundaries & Bliss
Where do I confuse love with merging or martyrdom?
How can I honor my empathy without losing myself in someone else’s ocean?
5. Soulmate Energy
What does “soul connection” mean to me?
Have I experienced a love or friendship that felt cosmic or fated? What did it awaken in me?
6. Sacred Creativity
If my art, words, or presence were a love letter to the universe, what would I say?
What creative practice helps me access transcendence?
7. Love for the Inner Beloved
How can I become the kind of lover, muse, or sanctuary I long to find in others?
In what ways am I already enough, already divine?
8. Mystical Union
Where in my life am I being invited to merge with something greater than myself—spirit, source, nature, love?
How can I deepen that connection through everyday acts?
If you know which house Venus is transiting right now as she goes through Pisces, here are some more detailed prompts relevant to you right now.
✨ Venus in Pisces in the Houses
1st House:
Venus in Pisces asks you to embody softness and attract through presence, compassion, and mystique.
🖋 How can I become a living expression of love, grace, and magic—just by being me?
2nd House:
Venus in Pisces invites you to infuse your values and possessions with spiritual meaning and beauty.
🖋 What does soulful abundance look like for me—and where am I ready to trust in divine provision?
3rd House:
Venus in Pisces brings poetic beauty to your words, thoughts, and daily connections.
🖋 How can I speak with more empathy, listen with more love, and let my voice become a healing balm?
4th House:
Venus in Pisces craves emotional sanctuary and unconditional love in the home and inner world.
🖋 What makes me feel safe enough to dissolve my walls—and how can I become that sanctuary for myself?
5th House:
Venus in Pisces longs to create and love from a place of soul-deep inspiration and divine play.
🖋 What kind of art, love, or joy do I create when I let my imagination lead the way?
6th House:
Venus in Pisces wants you to find beauty and meaning in the sacred ordinary—work, wellness, and service.
🖋 How can I romanticize my routines and bring reverence to the small acts that sustain me and others?
7th House:
Venus in Pisces dreams of a soulmate connection that mirrors your highest spiritual ideals.
🖋 How can I bring more grace, forgiveness, and divine love into my closest partnerships—starting with myself?
8th House:
Venus in Pisces seeks union through vulnerability, soul-merging, and sacred transformation.
🖋 What parts of me am I willing to dissolve in order to experience true intimacy, depth, and healing?
9th House:
Venus in Pisces expands love into philosophy, spirituality, and the search for transcendent truth.
🖋 Where is my heart leading me to explore—and how can I fall more deeply in love with the mystery itself?
10th House:
Venus in Pisces inspires you to lead with beauty, compassion, and vision in your public life and legacy.
🖋 What does it mean for me to build a reputation around grace—and how do I want to be remembered?
11th House:
Venus in Pisces dreams of soul-aligned community and friendships that feel like shared purpose.
🖋 How can I be a vessel of love and compassion within my circles—and who truly sees the real me?
12th House:
Venus in Pisces dissolves boundaries in the realm of dreams, solitude, and spiritual surrender.
🖋 What is love asking me to release, forgive, or offer up to the divine in this quiet space within?
Here is a handy cheat-sheet, if you know your rising sign:
Important dates in this cycle:
April 1 - Veneralia - feast of Venus
April 12 - Venus stops as she stations direct. An important day for review and setting intentions for the remainder of the cycle. At this point Venus moves in forward motion through Pisces (all the above themes still apply) until she enters Aries once again on April 30th)
March 1 -28: Venus Retrograde in Aries
Venus Retrograde in Aries: A Cosmic Reset for Love, Values, and Self-Discovery
Have you ever felt the universe urging you to slow down and reassess your path? When Venus stations retrograde in Aries, we are called to do just that. This astrological event is a powerful time for self-reflection, relationship healing, and personal transformation. But what does it mean for you, and how can you work with its energy for growth and alignment?
What Happens During Venus Retrograde in Aries?
Venus, the planet of love, beauty, money, and values, typically promotes harmony and attraction. However, when Venus goes retrograde in Aries, its energy turns inward, inviting us to reevaluate our relationships, self-worth, and creative passions.
Balancing Venus and Aries Energy
Venus (Divine Feminine Energy): Encourages us to slow down, embrace beauty, and cultivate self-love.
Aries (Mars-Ruled Action): Pushes us toward bold action, independence, and assertiveness.
This retrograde asks us to reconcile these opposing forces, finding balance between self-care and ambition, love and independence, patience and impulsivity.
Key Themes to Explore During Venus Retrograde
1. Self-Reflection and Personal Growth
Venus retrograde in Aries is an invitation to reassess your values and inner world. How have you been navigating your relationships, self-expression, and decision-making? Have you been honoring your needs or rushing ahead without reflection?
Journaling Prompts: What values truly guide my life? Where have I compromised my authenticity?
Shadow Work: Where have I been overly reactive or self-critical?
Healing & Transformation: Use this time for inner work and embracing personal evolution.
2. Creativity and Authentic Self-Expression
If you’ve been feeling creatively blocked, this retrograde is a perfect reset. Venus rules art, beauty, and pleasure—now is the time to reconnect with your creative spark.
Artist Dates: Explore activities that reignite your creativity—painting, music, dance, writing.
Sensory Indulgence: Venus loves pleasure! Enjoy beauty through food, fashion, nature, or decor.
Reevaluating Passion Projects: Revisit unfinished projects with fresh perspective.
3. Love, Relationships, and Boundaries
Venus retrograde brings relationship patterns to light. Old flames may reappear, or unresolved emotional wounds could surface. Rather than rushing into or out of relationships, use this time to reflect on what truly matters.
Relationship Check-In: Are your connections based on mutual respect and shared values?
Past Love Lessons: What past relationships still influence your present choices?
Healthy Boundaries: Where do you need to assert your independence or cultivate deeper intimacy?
How to Set Intentions for Venus Retrograde
Rather than making impulsive decisions or drastic changes, set clear intentions for self-awareness and healing.
Meditation & Grounding: Practices like breathwork, journaling, or tarot can provide insight.
Self-Observation: Notice patterns in your behaviors and emotional triggers.
Soul Commitments: Choose one or two personal themes to focus on during this cycle.
Embracing Venus Retrograde in Aries
This Venus retrograde cycle is not about fear or avoidance—it’s an opportunity for realignment and deeper self-connection. By embracing this cosmic reset, you can emerge with a clearer sense of self-worth, purpose, and authentic love.
✨ What are your biggest reflections during Venus retrograde? Let’s explore this journey together. Subscribe for more cosmic insights and astrological wisdom! ✨
January 28-February 28, 2025:🌿 Preparing for the Retrograde Shadow Period 🌙✨
Between now and March 1, take your time to gather the tools and set the stage for your journey. This can be as private or shared as you like—your transformation, your rules. Venus likes pomegranate, rose, vanilla, musk and all the delicious scents that open your senses.
🔥 1. Set the Mood with Candles
🕯️ Gather non-toxic candles—as many as you like! Choose pink, green, or rose-scented ones, or any sensual scents that call to you. Ritualize and consecrate your reflection and journaling by lighting a candle as you settle in to your inner world.
Set an altar, if the spirit moves you. I will post pictures when I set mine up.
📖 2. Journal Your Journey
✍️ Keep a journal or workbook to track your insights, musings, and shifts.
🖊️ Find a pen you love—I'm currently obsessed with the Kakuno fountain pen!
🎨 Colored pencils if you enjoy doodling or adding color to your notes.
🛁 3. Sensory Rituals for Deep Reflection
💆♀️ Bath salts & essential oils—indulge in a luxurious soak. No bathtub? Try shower bombs! I treated myself to these pomegranate bath salts from Sta. Maria Novella.
👗 4. Declutter Your Space & Wardrobe
🛍️ Closet cleanse: Remove anything that:
🚫 You hate
🚫 Doesn’t fit or flatter
🚫 You never wear
🚫 Doesn’t spark joy (yes, including bras, underwear, socks, and old exercise gear!)
🗑️ Declutter nightstands, jewelry, bath products, and makeup. Love it or let it go!
📦 Put it in a box for later or donate/discard now if you’re feeling bold.
📆 5. Add Everything to Your Calendar
📅 Set reminders for your check-ins.
📣 Let friends, family, or partners know—or keep this journey all to yourself.
📬 Want support? Message me on Substack to connect!
Why Now?
2025 is the year of the snake 🐍, in Chinese Astrology. The snake represents transformation. She sheds her skin. Embracing renewal and growth.
The journey of Venus can be a transformative one, if you let it. I need it, I’m primed and ready to dive in. I hope you will join me. And please know that it doesn’t matter at what point in the cycle you join, because after all, it is a cycle. It repeats until you are no longer breathing. So why not now? What will you lose by journaling about your issues with self worth, enoughness, material security, and balance? I say you nothing to lose and so much to gain. You can go as deep as you feel called to go. Even if it’s just noticing Venus in the morning, when you’re driving to work, or going on an early morning walk, or from your window during meditation. Just nod of intention is enough to be transformational. We are not always conscious of the changes we go through.
The Rose of Venus
Every eight years, Venus paints a cosmic rose in the sky—a five-petaled pentagram that emerges not from myth, but from math and motion. From our Earthbound view, as Venus dances through her orbit around the Sun, she traces a sacred geometry that’s both elegant and precise.
Here’s the gist:
The Pattern: While Earth completes 8 orbits, Venus completes 13. The result? A five-pointed star—like she’s signing love notes in the heavens every 584 days.
The Petals: Each petal forms during an 18-month Venus cycle. Five cycles = one full pentagram = a celestial mandala of meaning.
The Crossroads: These petals are marked by inferior conjunctions—the moments when Venus slips between us and the Sun. We (IYKYK) think of them as spiritual threshold moments, when the goddess disappears into the underworld and returns renewed and upgraded.
The Return: After 8 years, Venus returns to the same part of the sky, retrograding through nearly the same zodiac degree as before. It’s like a celestial deja vu, calling us back to revisit old themes with new eyes.
The Symbolism: It’s not just astronomy—it’s poetry. The numbers 5, 8, and 13 are pure Fibonacci magic. This rose pattern has been linked to everything from sacred femininity to the mysteries of the Golden Ratio.
Upcoming Petals: Want to track her next descent? Mark these dates:
March 23, 2025: Aries/Pisces (retrograde covers 2 signs - extra flavor!)
October 24, 2026: Scorpio/Libra (retrograde covers 2 signs)
June 1, 2028: Gemini
January 6, 2030: Capricorn
August 11, 2031: Leo
You can get all of the dates over on Astro-seek.com, where I printed the below image of the cycle. Technically we start counting a 19-month cycle on the day of New Venus (the dark circles in the center of the flower).
This Venus pentagram is more than a sky show—it’s a living rhythm, a cosmic heartbeat, a reminder that beauty moves in cycles, and that love, like stars, leaves patterns we can follow home.
The Shamanic Cycle of Venus
This myth is an analogy of the cycle of Venus in the sky from Morning Star to Evening Star and back again. Venus disappears from our view as it moves toward a conjunction with the Sun. Many civilizations viewed this movement of Venus (and tracked it, ritualized it) as a healing journey, an opportunity to evolve.
“The ancients always began observing the Venus/Inanna cycle after her conjunction with the Sun when she was first visible (10 degrees distant from the sun) in the eastern morning sky.
This is called the heliacal rising of Venus and corresponds to her interior conjunction with the sun when she is closest to the earth, brightest, and retrograde. She then spends approximately 260 days, or seven lunar cycles in the east before descending beneath the horizon for approximately 60 days where she forms an exterior conjunction with the sun.
This 60-day period when Venus is too close to the sun to be observed is likened to her being in the underworld.
She then rises in the west for another approximate 260 days or 7 lunar cycles before returning to the underworld for a short 0-20 days.
Shamanic Astrology tracks the zodiacal position of Venus at each of her heliacal risings creating an overtone for the entire cycle”
The Myth of Inanna (Venus in Disguise)
Inanna, goddess of love, beauty, fertility, and power, hears a pull from the depths—the call of her sister, Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld. She knows she must go. Not for conquest, but for initiation.
Before descending, she adorns herself with seven sacred symbols of her divine identity: crown, earrings, necklace, breastplate, belt, bangles, robe. Each one radiates her role in the heavens.
As she enters the Underworld, she must pass through seven gates. At each, a gatekeeper demands a sacrifice—one sacred item per gate. By the time she stands before Ereshkigal, she is naked, humbled, stripped of all power. She is judged, found wanting, and dies. Her body is hung on a hook. Three days. Three nights. Stilled.
But the gods intervene. Inanna is too vital for life to continue without her. Through a mystery beyond logic or vengeance, she is reborn—not as the same goddess, but as one who has seen everything and lived to tell it.
Her ascent from the underworld and back to her kingdom begins. Gate by gate, she reclaims her sacred items—each return a resurrection, and an evolution.
This rising mirrors Venus’s own path: the dark descent during retrograde, the hidden conjunction with the Sun, and then—slowly—her reappearance in the sky. First as Morning Star. Later, in full regalia, as the Evening Star (depending on the cycle).
Astrologer and author Melanie Reinhart writes:-
“Inanna’s descent represents the supreme wisdom of the feminine journey – she goes down to the place of grief, accepting the mourning that inevitably goes with the loss of our illusions about someone, or indeed about ourselves.”
Seems as good a time as any to tap into this energy to transform our relationship with Venusian topics such as beauty, money, values, self-worth, feminine, yin energy within and without.
Follow along the dates at the top of the page for prompts as we follow the journey of the sacred Rose.