The season of love undoing

"Venus and the Moon" – Sappho

The moon is set,

And the Pleiades gone,

Midnight slips through my fingers,

And I lay here,

Alone with longing.

Venus, bright on the horizon,

Do you see me as I see you?

Lend me your fire,

For love is a flame,

And I am a moth in its glow.

As I am writing this letter, I am pondering the ending of a very long Mars in Cancer season. Almost 3 months of returning to oneself with lower energy and less proactive vibes (especially for my fellow Cancers and Cancer Ascendant out there) are today ending.

This year we’re ending so many cycles and beginning new (unique ones). The first 4 months of 2025 are indeed slower and quieter, full of introspective guidance. The calm before the storm and renewal.

But as always with astrology and therefore life, another cycle is about to begin: Venus Retrograde season.

Venus does an apparent backward motion every 18 months or so. Seems that this is the actual timespan we need to rethink our own relationship with love and with others. With Venus retrograde happening from March 1 to April 12, it will shift the focus on how individualised we are in the realms of love and the way we project our leadership in relationships and abundance. The retrograde season will see Venus navigate 2 extremely different signs: the independent, fiery Aries and the ethereal, spiritual Pisces. The fire that ignites within us now is just the basis of a soul purification with which we will step further into 2025 less fearful.

The things we once chased, the desires that once burned bright, seem to flicker. Lovers return, old wounds resurface, and the illusions we have so tenderly held about love and beauty dissolve into the truth of what is. This is not punishment; this is purification. Venus does not take us back to the past to torment us but to liberate us.

When Venus retrogrades, she turns our relationships into mirrors, showing us not just the beauty, but also the distortions, the places where we have projected, where we have settled, where we have sought validation instead of true connection.

A lover from the past may reappear, not because they are meant to stay, but because they hold a missing piece of our understanding. They bring back a lesson we have not fully absorbed, an emotion we have not fully processed, a truth we have been too afraid to acknowledge.

---

Venus is one of the four terrestrial planets in the Solar System, meaning that it is a rocky body like Earth. It is similar to Earth in size and mass and is often described as Earth's "sister" or "twin". When Venus advances far ahead from her course in our orbit, the Sun pulls her back in line in space so it won't veer off track within the line-up of the other planets. Venus undergoes this backward spin forming a 5-petaled rose when seen from a geocentric perspective during this orbital dance.

---

There is a force within you that knows how to love. It knows how to receive, how to savour, how to create beauty simply by existing. This force is Venus. The energy of attraction, the longing for connection and desire, the ability to see the beauty in a chaotic environment.

We only have 2 ladies in astrology (the rest of the main planets are of masculine origin, while Pluto is still up for debate among astrologers).

Lady Venus is one of them. And she is more than a planet. She is the great teacher of love, not the fleeting, surface-level kind, but the deep, unwavering kind that starts within.

Venus is showing you what you desire, but more importantly, why you desire it.

---

Venus, known in Greek mythology as Aphrodite, was not born like other deities. She did not come from the union of gods, nor was she the daughter of the heavens. She emerged from the sea, fully formed, arising from the ocean’s depths upon a shell, carried to shore by the winds. She was born not from structure or lineage, but from an act of cosmic chaos. In one moment, there was discord, destruction, severance. And in the next, there was beauty.

This is the essence of Venus: love, not as something predictable, but as something primal. Beauty, not as something manufactured, but as something that emerges from truth. Pleasure, not as something indulgent, but as something sacred.

Venus was both adored and feared. She was the muse and the temptation, the lover and the destroyer. The beloved Lucifer and the feared Demon. She showed that love, in its truest form, is not just soft and gentle, it is also a force that can undo, that can transform, that can call us to meet ourselves more deeply than we ever intended.

This is what Venus brings into your life. The moment you feel pulled toward something: a person, a passion, a vision of beauty, you are responding to her call. But what do you do with that longing? That is the journey Venus asks you to take.

In astrology, Venus is the part of your chart that speaks of love, but most of all, of self-value and worth. She shows what you are drawn to, but also how you define your own worth. She governs the relationships you attract, but more importantly, the way you relate to yourself.

To understand your Venus is to understand how you receive love. Do you chase it, fearing it will slip away? Do you withhold it, afraid of being seen too deeply? Do you give endlessly, hoping to be chosen?

Venus also reveals how you experience beauty and pleasure. What makes your heart swell with appreciation? What fills your soul with harmony? What awakens the feeling of belonging in your body?

Venus is always teaching the same lesson: what you seek externally, you must first create internally. The love you chase, the beauty you desire, the validation you crave, all of it exists already within you.

Venus does not just bring love into your life; she asks you to become it.

So my loves, together we have 6 weeks to review these themes, to check where we stand strong in our feminine power and where we submitted maybe too much to others.

---

As per usual, here are some prompts for you to work with. They are generic and not applied to your personalised chart, but they are the main guidance for these weeks, so I trust you will trust me with it:

1. Where are you with self-worth now? How is it manifested in the love you give/receive, the health of your relationships and your abundance?

Venus asks you to look at the ways in which you undervalue yourself. Where do you settle? Where do you shrink? Where do you wait for love to be given, instead of recognising that you are already enough? Self-worth is the foundation of love. The moment you stop chasing external validation and begin valuing yourself, the entire nature of your relationships shifts. The people you attract change. The things you tolerate change. The way you move through the world changes. What holds you back in loving fully?

2. Redefine what pleasure is for you

Venus is the goddess of pleasure, but true pleasure is not excess, it is presence. It is the ability to experience joy in the simplest moments. A sip of coffee. The sound of music. The warmth of the sun on your skin. Many of us have learned to postpone pleasure, believing it is something to be earned. Venus reminds us that pleasure is the path, not the reward. That beauty is not a luxury, but a necessity for the soul.

Dolce far niente, remember?

3. Heal relational patterns and attachments

Look at the relationships you have attracted. What do they reflect about your self-worth? Do they mirror old wounds or new beginnings? Do they teach you growth, or do they repeat past lessons? Venus invites you to break cycles of unworthiness. To stop calling in love that wounds you and start calling in love that heals. To set boundaries where needed and to soften where it is safe.

4. Honour beauty in everything

As a woman, how do you cultivate beauty in your daily life? It is in the way you care for yourself, the way you express yourself, the way you create a world that feels like home. Venus reminds us that beauty is not vanity; it is a form of self-respect. When you surround yourself with beauty, whether through art, nature, or simply the way you adorn yourself, you are affirming your own worth.

5. Undo how you understand beauty

Venus is the muse of beauty, of sensuality, of pleasure. But when she turns retrograde, the way we define beauty shifts. The makeup we once relied on to feel beautiful might feel like a mask. The clothes we wore to impress might feel like a costume. The external becomes irrelevant when the internal is calling for attention. This is a season of shedding false aesthetics, not just the ones we wear, but the ones we cling to in our self-image. The way we have measured our worth through comparison. The way we have sought love outside of ourselves rather than within.

Venus is the softening of self-judgment. The courage to be vulnerable. The decision to choose yourself, again and again. To work with Venus is to make love a way of being.

And when you embody this truth, the world around you shifts. Because love, like Venus herself, does not come from outside of you.

It rises from within.

Take the Venus Retrograde medicine

If you listen closely, you will hear Venus speaking to you during this time. Her language is not loud or urgent, it is a soft, persistent whisper. It is in the song that reminds you of a past version of yourself. It is in the conversation that stirs something long-buried. She asks you to slow down. To trace the patterns of your heart with gentle hands. To rewrite the story where you were never enough. To forgive the version of yourself who did not know better. She asks you to let go. To release the relationships that have run their course. To surrender the expectations that have kept you small. To loosen your grip on what is not meant to stay. She asks you to return. To remember what love feels like when it is free. To touch the parts of yourself that you have abandoned. To walk towards pleasure not as a means of escape, but as an expression of gratitude for being alive.

A new way of loving. A new way of seeing yourself. A new way of receiving all that life is waiting to offer you. Isn’t it sweet? I guess so.

---

Revisit last week’s guidance on how to cultivate more meaning than action.

---

Here is my 2023 interview with Lavinia Badea (Astrolov) on femininity and attraction. Simple, clear guidance and methods on how to actually uncover or strengthen the feminine in you.

Until next week, I LOVE YOU! 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚

Videography: personal collection, by Edy Wiratama - Bali 2024