Venus retrograde 2025: dancing in the dark
forecast & horoscopes; March 1st–April 12th
Like all retrogrades, Venus retrograde occurs when Venus is the closest to the Earth that it can be. It doesn’t make sense to talk about retrograde planets as ‘weak’ planets. They aren’t really weak. If anything, they feel overwhelming, like the bottle of perfume has spilled and the scent of Venus is all over us. Looking at her this close-up exposes all of her pores both clear and clogged, but we can only hold something so close to our eyes before they start to appear blurry – we’re no longer the fly on the wall able to see it all from afar. If Venus is a lush, fertile forest, during Venus retrograde we’re deep within the forest, fully immersed in her primordial seafoam and bedsheets.
Relationships of all kinds, artistic endeavors, sensory experiences, and things associated with the signs that Venus is retrograde in (in this case, Aries and Pisces things) are on our minds a lot more. We’re rethinking, reevaluating, and altering these things and shifting directions. We rejuvenate stale creative juices. Relationships change. Old lovers and others we’ve connected with may resurface, or we feel compelled to reach out to them. And while this may not be an ideal time to start a new relationship, connections sometimes deepen significantly during this time, particularly if things are positive in a relationship. We may find ourselves feeling more open to creative, sexual or social experimentation, and these are great ways to “encourage” a Venus retrograde to show up in positive ways. It’s also helpful to return to old creative projects, listen to music we haven’t heard in a while, and alter & repair rifts in our connections.
Venus retrograde is not the ideal time to begin Venus-related things (particularly things like relationships, creative projects, or business endeavors) or make major or permanent aesthetic changes. But this isn’t always possible, and to be honest, I think a lot of the fears around retrograde activities are overblown. If you have to start one of these things during this time, or if it just makes sense to, it’ll probably be fine. Just know that it may go in a different direction than you had originally anticipated, it may not follow the linear path that you’d envisioned, or you may feel differently about it later on. Maybe you meet someone and expect it to be a fling and you end up falling in love (or vice versa), or maybe the business you started ends up going in a totally different direction from what you had planned, for example. It can be positive, negative, or neutral.
Venus retrograde 2025
Think back to what was going in your life in March and April 2017. That was the last time that Venus was retrograde in Aries and Pisces (this is normal; Venus retrogrades in the same general area of the zodiac every eight years), and it even took place around the same degrees too. In 2017, Venus stationed retrograde at 13º Aries on March 4th and retrograded back to 26º Pisces, where it stationed direct on April 15th. This year, Venus stations retrograde on March 1st at 10º Aries, retrogrades back into Pisces, and stations direct at 24º Pisces on April 12th. There are definite parallels between the two years that go beyond just the signs & degrees too.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll experience an exact replay of 2017, but very similar themes are likely to come up. If that Venus retrograde was pretty significant for you, this one is very likely to be too. If it sucked then it won’t necessarily suck now, though – it’s just that you’ll be looking at similar themes. For example, if health was a big theme for you at that time, you’re probably going to be thinking about it again not because you’re going through the same illness or have the same accident or whatever. You’re just thinking about that topic a lot – rethinking it, getting deeper into it, trying to do better in that area. Or if you went through a huge breakup or were cheated on the last time, it’s totally possible that that could happen again, but it’s probably more likely that you’re just thinking about where you’re at in your relationship, or where you want to be in a relationship, if you want a relationship, or maybe the topics of loyalty, trust and betrayal are big on your mind. Venus retrograde is a reflection time!
2025’s Venus retrograde is kind of a messy Venus retrograde, but there is a lot of potential for positive change through any Venus retrograde. This year, not only is Venus retrograde, but it’s also eclipse season, the north node is conjunct Neptune (and Venus will be crossing over them), Venus will conjoin Saturn, and Mercury will be retrograde in the same signs right around the same degrees from March 15th through April 7th. A lot of things are changing or uncertain, but I also appreciate the positive changes that Venus retrograde can make and the positive things it can bring us back to.
I’m titling this era “dancing in the dark” after the Bruce Springsteen song I once really disliked to the point that I don’t even know how I ended up giving it yet another chance six months ago. I don't reference this song for its romantic or sexual connotations but because it’s an impeccable description of wanting more excitement or meaning and getting tired of turning up nothing in a sea of tedium and mundanity. “I get up in the evening and I ain’t got nothing to say. I come home in the morning. I go to bed feeling the same way. I ain’t nothing but tired. I’m just tired and bored with myself. You can’t start a fire without a spark,” and a little spark would do. A little something out of the ordinary. A little joyous blood flow. Even if we’re just dancing in the dark.
Venus retrograde in Aries 2025, March 1st–March 27th:
“Everything’s in order in a black hole” but rust covers every little flameless world. Every flameless world was once magma and revelry under the midday sun. Every lover who yearns for skin and spit and howling laughter yearns for Mars on a good day but to get your blood flowing you have to risk exhaustion and migraines and panic attacks. “You can’t start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart.”
Venus is retrograde in Aries from March 1st through March 27th, and it seeks a renaissance of excitement, enthusiasm, energy, passion, vitality, and honesty. It’s cool to have this opportunity to bring some positive Aries energy into our lives before Saturn enters Aries at the end of May, bringing more of a heaviness to the Aries sector of our charts and lives. If things are feeling dull and no longer exciting right now (in any area of life, but especially in relationships), this is a dang good time for shaking things up and regenerating the spark. Put on the fishnets. Hang upside down from the monkey bars. Go out instead of staying in. Talk louder. Talk dirtier. Listen to whatever makes you feel lit up and move like something with fur
Venus retrograde in Aries asks: What do I need in my relationships? Fuck what the other person needs for a minute. What do I need? Do I feel excited? Do I feel inspired by my relationship? Am I lit up by the people I surround myself with? What’s going on in my creative life? Do I feel creatively inspired? Do I have that sexual, creative energy flowing through me? How are these things feeling in your life?
Venus retrograde in Aries is so much about what the individuals in the relationship need. Do those things align? We don’t care during the Venus in Aries portion of this retrograde. The wisdom of Venus in Aries is the knowledge that a relationship cannot exist if each person involved is not being authentic. If you’re not able to actually share the person you are and feel affirmed in that, it’s not a relationship. It’s a play that you’re performing in.
One of the coolest parts of Venus in Aries is the way that they’re willing to acknowledge that we might be different from the people we love and are close to, and that doesn’t mean that we can’t have a strong relationship. Venus in Aries honors and even feels excited by differences. Venus in Aries appreciates the friction and the adventure of living life alongside someone who isn’t even close to a mirror-image of them.
During this portion of Venus retrograde, find your way back to your honeymoon with life. More liveliness, more gut feelings, more grit, more body hair, more real voices and loud music. Whatever a spark looks like to you, that’s what Venus retrograde in Aries wants to retrieve.
Venus retrograde in Pisces 2025, March 27th–April 12th
Venus retrogrades back into Pisces on March 27th, and then we enter a whole other phase of this retrograde. Pisces is a mutable sign and the mutable signs all come at the end of a season (in the northern hemisphere Pisces is at the end of winter, Gemini at the end of spring, and so on), so they are about something ending, moving on from something. Mutable signs are never really still. There’s always a feeling of change, alteration, variation, and turnover with mutable signs.
In a year so full of deviation, flux, and transition (some of which is especially prominent in the month of March for a number of reasons), Venus retrograde in Pisces seeks a renaissance of meaning, depth, and change. The Piscean ocean doesn’t always try to change things but it can’t help but never leave things as it found them. Venus retrograde in Pisces is a salty sea that heals wounds. The ocean wind shreds sails with loose threads but also feels so refreshing that you don’t even notice or care that you’re getting a sunburn. This portion of the retrograde is a season of change, alternate perspectives, changes of direction, deepenings, and endings
Despite the potential for pleasant parts, Venus retrograde in Pisces (or any other mutable sign) is a time when we are more likely to see the end of relationships, especially relationships in which you’ve been digging your heels in and you really don’t wanna let go of it, you just wanna hold onto it and make it work. Venus retrograde in a mutable sign sweeps those relationships out if they need to be swept out. It can’t help but facilitate change.
This may mean the end of a relationship, or the end of a relationship era, moving on from a shitty time period and into the next chapter with someone. It’s also a time when it’s easier to change relationship patterns – these may be patterns within yourself/across life or within your existing relationships. We may find ourselves questioning what connection means or how we navigate relationships, or how the world does. The ideas that we have as a culture about what a relationship is or how a relationship should go don’t necessarily work for everybody, and Venus in Pisces knows that; Venus in Pisces knows that relationships have to be fluid, not rigid and unmoving. They have to be able to evolve and change over time. These are things to consider right now.
The question of meaning has been big on our minds over the last two years while Saturn’s been in Pisces. Over and over and over we are asking ourselves WHY – why should I do this? What is the point of doing this? Why is the world like this? Why am I doing what I’m doing? Is there any actual reason? Is there MEANING in what I’m doing? Venus retrograde in Pisces can bring us back to the meaning. It returns a reason. It brings the hope of sweetness where there has been only brine; something else might be possible. You have to listen pretty carefully because it speaks with a soft voice and rarely in plain language, but there’s probably something talking right now. Music in the grocery store, birds on the windowsill, overheard conversations, tinkling crinkling synchronicities, something that got lost under the car seat. Or maybe it’s more obvious.
All in all, Venus retrograde in Pisces is a time to rejuvenate our sense of meaning, consider making changes, and stay open to seeing things differently.
What signs will feel this Venus retrograde the most?
☆ Mutable risings (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces)
☆ Anyone who has personal planets between 0º and 13º Aries, Cancer, Libra, or Capricorn
☆ Anyone who has personal planets between 21º and 29º Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, or Sagittarius
☆ Anyone in a Venus-ruled profection year
☆ Anyone in an Aries-ruled profection year
☆ Anyone in a Pisces-ruled profection year
Venus retrograde horoscopes for the signs
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