Blog — Venus Retrograde

In this issue of the Forrest Astrology newsletter, Tony shares an open discussion about Uranus and Venus retrograde in the charts of Madonna and Miley Cyrus on the night of the taping of Miley's MTV Unplugged special. But first, a couple of updates...

Today, as we enter the shadow period following Venus retrograde, we find ourselves in yet another shadow – the one just before Mercury retrograde, which kicks off officially with its station retrograde on February 6th or 7th (depending on your time zone). Completing the trio of personal planets, Mars joins this planetary backwards-day party on March 2, marking the first half of 2014 as a season of retrogrades.

We tend to complain about retrogrades no matter when they occur. But having them at the start of the year goes against the natural logic of forward momentum that any new year carries with it. Instead of marching valiantly forward with our New Year goals, we’re encouraged to take a step back.

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by Steven Forrest

Venus turned retrograde on December 21st, right on the Winter Solstice. Those two pregnant moments coinciding is a rare event and it tells me that we should pay a lot of attention to the strong Venusian signature on the coming year.

On January 11, that retrograde Venus conjuncts the Sun at 21°12' of Capricorn. It remains retrograde for the usual forty-day period, finally turning direct on the last day of January at 13°33' Capricorn.

The Sun-Venus alignment on the 11th is called an “inferior conjunction.” Despite the term, there’s nothing wrong with it! “Inferior” here only means that Venus is directly between the Earth and the Sun. On the other side of its orbit, Venus again aligns with the Sun, but this time with the Sun between us and Venus. 

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Hello everyone. Steven is winding things down at UAC (the United Astrology Conference) as we speak and preparing for upcoming trips to North Carolina, Maine, and New York. Needless to say, his hands are full so I'm your MC for this month's newsletter. I've written a bit about the current Venus retrograde cycle, as well as some of the other interesting configurations in June.

If any of you made it to UAC and have good stories to share, feel free to drop me a line. I missed my own book release party there! Speaking of which, in some exciting news, I've just been published in an anthology by Flare entitled Astrology: The New Generation. In the book, which is meant to herald the "current astrological revival," I join 13 other astrologers who each contribute a chapter on diverse topics.

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Venus turns retrograde on May 15. It makes a station on June 27 and after that  will be in direct motion until the end of 2013.  None of this is earth-shaking. Venus moves fast and unless you are in diapers and weigh about the same as a Thanksgiving turkey, you’ve been through this kind of Venus event before. Venus’s synodic cycle runs about 584 days and it spends about forty of them in retrograde condition. In other words, Venus is retrograde for a little over a month out of every year and a half or so. An interesting subject, but no big deal.

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