by Robert Wilkinson
On January 27, around noon PST, Venus entered its “shadow zone,” or the zone where it will be retrograde in March and the first half of April. What does this mean?
Like Mercury when it’s in its shadow zone, it means we’re getting the first pass of Venus over the span it will traverse 3 times in the next 3 ½ months. It also means Venus is now beginning to slow down more and more rapidly over the next few weeks before it goes retrograde on March 1 at 11 Aries. Use the next few weeks to get your Venusian ruled areas ready for reviews, reversals, and new looks back and/or valuable returns coming during the retrograde.
I’ll write more about the actual Venus retrograde period and what it promises in a couple of weeks when it’s closer to its retrograde station. Until then, remember that Venus approaches the very important “dream time” degree at 30 Pisces between 4:30 pm PST Feb 2 and 11:57 pm PST Feb 3, when it too enters Aries.
From now through mid-May, Venus will move back and forth across this all important zone between 25 Pisces and 11 Aries. As this sector deals with endings and beginnings, be willing to say goodbye or hello, letting go or welcoming the future as needed. Just remember that because of the retrograde quality, hold back from “final determinations” and open to reconsidering Venusian expressions and interpretations from the past with an eye to dumping psychic baggage you no longer need.
This Venus retrograde period parallels the one we had in March and April 2017, when Venus went retrograde at 14 Aries and went stationary direct at 27 Pisces. While the themes are slightly different this time, we also have the added parallels of Mercury going retrograde at 10 Aries in mid-March and retrograding back to 27 Pisces, going direct on that point. Look for similarities between the Spring of 2017 and the Spring of 2025.
With Venus at the end of the end of its exaltation sign of Pisces, open to the expansive and compassionate vast feeling field you’ve moving through at present. Mercury will enter its shadow zone at 27 Pisces on February 28, bringing Mercurial insights into this “end of the end” zone of experience at the end of the month.
While Venus is back in the last degrees of Pisces by March 27, Mercury retrogrades back into Pisces on March 29, just hours after the Solar eclipse at 9 Aries. So we have a significant Aries retrograde presence in March, a retrograde Pisces predominant for the first part of April, and then Mercury and Venus moving again out of Pisces and into Aries. Both planets will move through the last 4 degrees of Pisces and the first 10 degrees of Aries three times in the coming weeks, so please read the article explaining the importance of 30 Pisces in the archives. It will also post on Feb 1 when Venus is about to enter 30 Pisces.
After the Inferior conjunction between Venus and the Sun on March 22 at 3 Aries, we have the Inferior conjunction of Mercury with the Sun on March 24 at 5 Aries. Both of these points will have an influence on the Spring and into the future, as Neptune goes SRX at 3 Aries in early July promising the appearance of avatars and new leaders in our world beginning this Summer.
So we have Venus slowing in February and going retrograde in March and the first half of April. We have Mercury slowing in early March and going retrograde in mid-March through early April, when it goes direct and speeds up even as Venus goes direct.
Venus has begun to slow and will be very slow when Mercury begins to slow in early March. Then they’ll both be maximum slow through the Equinox, after which they’ll both begin to speed up with Mercury much faster at it than Venus. Definitely a swirl of activity, a dance of dervishes that will leave many wondering if the future will look anything like the past. (The short answer is NO. I’ll explain more in future articles.)
During this period of Mercury and Venus moving between late Pisces and early Aries, they make a lot of VERY important conjunctions! Venus conjuncts Neptune on Feb 1 at 28 Pisces; Mercury conjuncts Saturn on Feb 25 at 21 Pisces; Venus RX conjuncts Neptune March 27 at 30 Pisces; and Mercury RX conjuncts Neptune on March 29 at 30 Pisces.
Moving forward, on April 16 Mercury direct conjuncts Neptune at 1 Aries, followed by Venus conjunct Saturn on April 24 at 28 Pisces and then Venus conjunct Neptune on May 2 at 2 Aries, the degree where Saturn will go SRX in July. As you can see there will be many hot spots of the past triggered, and future hot spots primed for action!
So we’ll be immersed in Pisces, then Aries, then Pisces, then Aries from now through early May! Pisces reminds us to forgive much as we experience and move within the universal feeling field. Allow whatever needs to flow down the timestream to go with your blessings, since we will not need ghosts and psychic baggage once Neptune and then Saturn move into Aries.
Because both Venus and Mercury will have three passes over the “dream degree” at 30 Pisces, if you have to review, revise, or augment the dream, it’s a great time to do so! We’ll definitely be getting signs and signals from the past about all sorts of things which take us out of our memories and throw us into direct action this Summer.
Then we’ll get one last look back via Saturn and Neptune back in Pisces at the end of the year. So this coming Venus and Mercury retrograde experience will condition what our patience and persistence bring us at the end of 2025.
Venus’ RX station promises us a new worldly “law to live by.” Mercury’s RX station promises us a new understanding of old images. Venus’ direct station will finish our purification process, and Mercury’s direct station will show us why we had to learn to use our creative imagination to compel the manifestation of something or master some circumstance.
As Venus is about to enter the dream zone, stay alert for the chance to dream a better dream of what you want to see made manifest in the future. We now have zodiacal sectors active showing the end of the end and the beginning of the beginning, with Venus softening the endings and Mercury giving us a new take on the beginnings! We have been and continue to shape our future according to the vision we have and our willingness to sound the “Creative Word” that will take shape over the next months and years.
© Copyright 2025 Robert Wilkinson
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