Once every year and a half or so, Venus, our closest neighbor and conduit of feelings, enters a state of retrogression. During this time our emotional system might start to go “backwards”.

As it looks to us from Earth, Venus, or any planet for that matter, during its retrogression,  seems to travel more and more to the West every night, and this contradicts the “normal” course of the planets in the skies – which appear to be going travelling west on the zodiac, from sign to sign. (This has nothing to do with the fact that during the night the planets seem to travel from east to west due to the Earth’s own rotation. What is described here is the shift they make from day to day as the planets themselves circle the Sun).

Venus is very easy to spot these days in the evening’s skies. And if you have followed her movement you would have seen that Venus seems to rise more and more to the east every night, making the duration of her appearance longer and longer till she sets in the west, about two hours after the Sun these days.

But from now on, if you will follow Venus you will find her appearing more and more to the west from day to day. She will seem to be even bigger and brighter from day to day, till she will be so close to where the Sun is, that we will stop to see her in the evening’s skies.

In actuality, during the time we stop seeing Venus she will be directly between Earth and the Sun. This is also the reason for her seeming so big to us. It is the closest the earth it can be. 

In a few weeks’ time Venus will re-appear, but this time not as the magnificent evening star she seems to be these days, but rather as the morning star – preceding the Sun’s rising. For Venus is actually both – the evening star and the morning star – depending on where she is located according to the Sun.

What we see as Venus “going backwards”, getting closer to the Sun and then re-appearing on the Sun’s other side, is actually us viewing Venus’ cycle around the Sun. 

Nevertheless, in the celestial orchestra the fact that a planet goes “in reverse” has much affect upon us, and Venus certainly has much affect upon our feelings and our emotional lives.

The current retrogression period started on My 15th and will last till June 25th.

Each one of the astrological tribes is prone to react differently to this retrogression, but in general this is a time where our emotions “play tricks” on us. It is a time in which we are more prone to cling to lower emotions than higher ones, a time where our emotions might be exaggerated or might blur us. Traditionally this is not a good time for starting new relationships or making a new commitment relating to an existing relationship.

On the positive side, each retrograde is an option for personal development. During Venus’s retrograde we can review our emotional prints, get rid of unwanted emotional prints that no longer serve us. It is a time to re-vise our relationships and team work, all in the journey of making our lives cleaner, healthier and better.