And then there were four: Venus and Jupiter turn retrograde this week

Most of my readers already know this, but planets don’t actually travel backwards. Astrology observes the motion of the planets from our perspective on earth, and from our perspective they occasionally appear to be moving backwards: we call this retrograde.

Pluto, planet of darkness and transformation, turned retrograde at the end of April. Saturn, planet of tests and challenges, turned retrograde on May 11th, 2020. Venus turned retrograde May 13th and Jupiter May 14th, at which point four planets will be retrograde. (See this earlier post for more information.) Anything more than four planets retrograde is significant, and between now and mid-October we will have between four and seven planets retrograde. That’s a lot of looking backwards! The world is on pause thanks to the virus, and the heavy retrograde influence suggests that there will be quite a few steps backwards before taking one step forwards. This is a time of patience and reflection as we re-vision our lives which will look quite different when the pandemic is over.

Jupiter, representing abundance and expansion of all things, turns retrograde every year or so and when it does it encourages us to look back over our dreams and wishes for success and abundance in our lives and re-evaluate whether they are really in harmony with our soul’s purpose. As with any retrograde period, sometimes it feels as though we aren’t able to move forward as quickly as we would like. But these periods of looking back are a crucial part of our personal growth and help us to fine tune our goals and our vision for our future. Jupiter will be retrograde until September 2020, and for much of that time it will be traveling in tandem with Pluto (creative destuction) as well as Saturn (tests and challenges). This is one of those times when change and transformation come from difficult times, and the best that we can do is to stay flexible as we learn to adapt to the changing world around us.

The retrograde journey of Venus will last only a few weeks, until June 25th, but during her retrograde travel she’ll become intertwined with a lunar eclipse on June 5th which will intensify the retrograde effect. During this time we may find ourselves reaching out to people from our past and perhaps repairing broken relationships. We may also realize that relationships which we hoped were functional are actually broken. Venus is associated not only with love but also with beauty and aesthetics, as well as the things which we value. Under this retrograde cycle we may discover that some of the material things which we have cherished no longer have any meaning to us.

Making decisions under any retrograde cycle (not just Mercury retrograde) can be tricky because we don’t always have all of the information we need to be informed. But life can’t be put on hold indefinitely and eventually we have to make decisions and implement changes. With Saturn, Venus and Jupiter retrograde currently, decisions will need to take into account the cold hard facts on the ground (Saturn) as well as our values (Venus) and our position in the world (Jupiter). Once Mercury turns retrograde on June 18th there will be a whole new layer of concerns to consider, but we’ll talk more about that later! ❤️

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