Be the change you wish to see
“The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.”
- Plotinus
*This blog is a little more jargony in the beginning but hopefully tied together at the end
When reading a natal chart, I often say that charts are like symphonies, a theme, and a variation on a theme. For the past several weeks, I have been contemplating the particular rhythm of the first half of 2025, exploring how it all breathes together.
With Mars Retrograde in Cancer, the year starts out slowly, no matter how revved up, we are determined to bring the changes we desire into being. Mars is a planet that is action-oriented. Its energy drives things, and us, forward, and when it is retrograde, it slows things down. This can be hard because we tend to value speed. Very often, as Carrie Fisher said, “Instant gratification isn’t fast enough.”
But, thankfully, energetically there is a value to a graduate easing into 2025. If any of you have read about the greater astrology of 2025, the one constant from any astrologer is that it and 2026 are years of larger change, individually and collectively. Saturn and Neptune will be conjunct (come together) in Aries later this spring before retrograding back into Pisces in the fall. The last time Saturn and Neptune were conjunct was in 1989, in Capricorn, and The Berlin Wall fell. There were the protests in Tiananmen Square. Both of these events reverberated throughout the globe.
We are moving forward.
Aries, the sign that both of them are moving into, is ruled by Mars. Aries is a sign of action. It can very easily rush in where angels fear to tread. This Mars retrograde is operating like a beacon, shining a light in the direction of things to come, yet giving us time to ask what actions really nourish us before it changes direction on February 24, speeding us forward into uncharted territory as Neptune moves into Aries on March 31, followed by his cohort for the next year and a half Saturn on May 26.
The two planets that retrograde the least are Mars and Venus. Each of them changes directions every other year versus the annual retrogrades of the other planets. Venus and Mars are personal planets, and their timing doesn’t always coincide. This year, however, Venus retrogrades, moving from Aries back into Pisces (mirroring the dance of Neptune and Saturn) a mere six days after Mars turns direct. In modern astrology, Neptune, which rules the sign of Pisces, is considered the higher octave of Venus.
One of the clear themes of any Venus retrograde is a reclamation of value: what and who is worth our time and attention? Venus’s job is to connect us with the joys and the pleasures and the rewards of life and cause us to appreciate our material existence. Venus, is, ultimately, about our value system. The Goddess of Love asks us: what it is we cherish and how do we care for it? To negotiate this world successfully, we must maintain a grounding in the world, and understand what our value is, and where we belong. We all know that it’s impossible to attract someone, or some thing, if you don’t feel you deserve it, deep down.
As the higher octave of Venus, you might say that Neptune is the path of the heart. The goal of Neptune is to find a balance between our spiritual life and our material one. Ultimately, we need to understand that there is no boundary between the spiritual and the material worlds; they are one and the same. When our heart is speaking to us, it is urging us to listen to the voice of our soul.
From my perspective, it is no accident that less than a week after Mars goes direct Venus retrogrades leading us into the shift of Neptune and Saturn. These two eternal lovers are guiding us to walk our talk. The universe is showing us a large blinking sign that says take a moment and catch your breath. Listen to your heart. Heed what it is saying, no matter how impossible it might feel. We will always have that monkey-mind chattering like Eyeore in the beloved Winnie the Pooh stories looking for rain.
Venus and Mars, two personal planets, begin the year pointing within. They lead the way. They are the overture. These two back-to-back retrogrades are giving us time. Time to remember what is important, what is truly valuable, prior to Neptune and Saturn moving into the action-oriented sign of Aries. These two, Neptune and Saturn, are a reminder that our actions matter, so choose wisely. But how can we choose sagely if we haven’t taken the time to weigh what is the most important?
Our actions, even the tiny ones moment to moment, determine our future. Individually and collectively. The beginning of 2025 serves as both a call to action and a reminder: Be the change you wish to see in the world.
