One of my favorite songs is also the theme for Q1 of this year…
Today was sunny for the first time in some time. We haven’t had the masses of snow that the East Coast US has, but it’s been an unusually rainy year. Coupled with the short days, it’s been gloomy and hard. But today the winter sun was shining brightly in a blue sky. On my walk with the dogs, I saw the spears of paperwhites poking through the wet soil and heard a riot of birds in the trees. For the past few nights, we’ve heard a few brave frogs start to sing. These are the early signs that spring is actually coming and I am longing for it.
But sunshine and birdsong notwithstanding, it’s still a lonely and brokenhearted time for many of us. We probably all know by now that Venus is retrograde through the end of the month. But in February, just after She turns direct in Capricorn, Venus joins Mars on a promenade together through all of the month and the sign. Venus is going slow, recovering from her backward turn, and revisiting the ground that’s she’s already traveled twice. So instead of racing past Mars as usual, they link arms and move together.
This is not a relaxing time for Venus, but what it means will depend on your own chart and relationships. It might be really contentious and cause arguments and disagreements. It might also manifest as passion. Or, it could be the energy you need to protect and arm your heart against the people and energies that would hurt it. And my friend Salomeya (who makes me my lovely anti-cancer mushroom blend), said that in traditional astrology texts, this configuration was sometimes associated with LGBTQ sexuality (wink, wink).
The thing to keep in mind is that Venus will not be content and joyful. She will be cranky and feel held back. She’ll be trading conjunctions with Mars through the month, moving almost in lock step, and conjoining Pluto within hours of one another. That doesn’t make for Prima Vera springtime kind of vibes.
At the very beginning of March, Venus and Mars enter Aquarius together and She finally starts to move ahead and away from Mars energy. But the trouble isn’t over. Until she pulls ahead of Saturn at the end of March, that hemmed in and stuck heart feeling will persist.
How this manifests for you is going to depend on a few things.
First, where are Capricorn and Aquarius in your natal chart and what planets are in those signs? For this, I recommend using whole sign houses, unless you have particular skill with another system. Whole sign is both easier to parse and usually less sensitive to exact birth time (thought the closer you can get the better). I’m looking at this all happening in my 6th house (where my big initiations always happen on top of my North Node) and my 7th. I think I mentioned that I’ve been dealing with heartache recently, but the way it’s manifesting is in doing really hard heart-labor to get myself and everyone through it (6th house!).
Second, Capricorn and Aquarius are both ruled by Saturn. Where is Saturn in your birth chart? Mine is in Gemini in my 11th, which tracks, since I’m being called to be a really good friend to people who are experiencing heart troubles.
Third, where are your Venus and Mars in your birth chart? My Venus is in Cancer in the 12th (so in the opposing sign to Capricorn) and my Mars is in Leo in my first house. Looks like contention between what I show and what I hide, what I reveal and what I keep close.
Finally, what’s the status of your close love relationships in your life? Some of this action is happening in my 7th house, but my marriage is always rock solid, even through difficult times — in fact ESPECIALLY through difficult times. This is down to a whole lot of practice, but also just the marriage I have. That said, I have other relationships with people I love (like my parents) that are much harder to deal with. I can imagine that my husband and I may feel a lot of Venus+Mars passion, but other relationships may have more contention and stress.
So, what do you do about all this? Well, one thing you can do is mitigatory magic. When the space weather is bad and hitting your chart — and in this case your heart — you don’t just have to bow to fate. You can do magic to mitigate the difficulties. For example, I’m doing magic to heal hearts and strengthen relationships in my life right now. There are some good days for that in February. For members, the February planner package is about to go live and we’ll be touching on some of this in the week in magic posts through the month — and for non-members, what can I say? Become a member already!
The other thing is to lean into the energy that’s out there. Maybe it’s not a good time to start a new romance, but it is a good time to nourish and nurture your own heart. To embrace the protective and defensive aspects of Mars rather than the aggressive ones. How can you hold your heart close during this time, not out of fear, but to help it grow stronger? How can you have a courageous heart that can cope with loneliness? What do you need to do to come through Q1 with your heart intact and ready for what’s next?
