Click here for ASTROBARRY'S 2012: YEAR-AHEAD FORECAST AND HOROSCOPES...
Venus Retrograde in Gemini: Rethinking What We Want
5.10.12
Her retrograde is not like the other ones we come to dread.
She will not make your computer crash or delay your travel. She won't thwart your progress or sap your get-up-and-go. Some might even say they delight in the types of 'reversals' her apparent backwards motion delivers.
But to believe that benefic goddess-queen Venus doesn't cause her own set of problems during her periodic retrograde phases—the latest one beginning on Tue May 15 and spanning six weeks—is to misunderstand her bounteousness.
Stubbornness Has Its Merits
5.5.12
Stubbornness has its merits.
There are definitely appropriate times and places for fixedly clenching our teeth down on some value, virtue or viewpoint… and adamantly refusing to release. Claiming it as ours, with total self-assuredness, is an act we can take pride in.
To lead a successful interpersonal existence, of course, means we also learn when to give (an inch or a mile)… to let up on the tight grip and compromise, out of respect for the other person and because they might show us something we otherwise would never have seen.
Coming Up Next... !
5.1.12
As April hands the baton over to May, the astrological dynamism picks up heat… moving us into an intensely active couple of months, carrying us further, and more abruptly, away from the past.
The big astro-news of the year so far has revolved around the retrograde of Mars in Virgo, which spanned from the last part of January straight through to mid-April. Now, we reset the headlines, to announce something different.
Though we remain in its shadow until midway through June, Mars's retrograde has passed… and along with it, the compressed-and-contracted quality with which our corrective or cleansing efforts were colored.
Called to Ask for Clarity
4.22.12
Because I value my relationship with the cosmos, and with myself as an indivisible part of the greater whole, I listen when the voice tells me to do something.
'Light this candle for clarity,' it instructs me, 'and eliminate all escapist impediments to your fuller consciousness until it burns out. You will discover what your evasive efforts have been covering over.'
I want to please the deities, whoever they are, whether they dwell atop Olympus or a dusty thatched-roof village, in the candle's flame or in my head…
Mars-Retrograde Wrap-Up
4.10.12
I write to you from the final stretch of Mars's retrograde (which wraps up on Fri Apr 13), and I'm already excitedly embodying the experience of transition back to so-called 'normal' physical rhythms.
I made it back to the gym yesterday, after about a month away, and have once again began to prepare the home-cooked meals that are both healthier and more enjoyable than the crap I've been eating.
Furthermore, I have wrapped up the administrative tax-season accounting work that has monopolized my workday initiative for the past many weeks… and can start to once again return my attentions to more creative, soul-satisfying labors.
The Many Loves of Venus-in-Gemini
3.30.12
And just when you thought you'd had enough of certain planets overstaying their welcome in certain signs (ahem, I'm talking to you, Mars in Virgo)…
… here arrives Venus into Gemini (on Tue Apr 3), where she will stay for four full months (though her average sign-visit is 3-to-4 weeks). Why such a lengthy stay? By now, you should know the answer must involve an impending retrograde.
Yes, before Mars has even had the chance to finish his retrograde, Venus will enter the shadow of hers.
