Venus withdraws to contemplate, revise and thus reinvigorate all that tickles and tugs at our hearts this us about far more than avoiding the ex files or changing your lewk. Venus rules those areas of our life that bring us pleasure - or her counterbalance, pain - and which reflect our values, desires, taste and attractions. Her retrograde is part of a far larger revolutionary agenda marked by two lifeshifting eclipses, another retrograde as Merc shifts perception, and the move of our blue planet to this same fire sign.

Today Venus passes through the sun in Aries, her cazimi a total eclipse of the heart. This is an initiation into a new relationship with your generative centrepoint and too an ignition point designed to set your heart aflame. Beyond who we love and why, Venus has much to do with what we love and how.

Venus cazimi dances behind the sun and out of sight until she rises again as the evening star in May. Her superior conjunction announces her departure and disappearing act from our skies into the dark beyond. Welcome repose in the heart's sacred underworld that holds all of our stories holy. Venus' seven week journey back into our night sight can initiate us into the next season of our lives.

Despite a crowded cosmic choreography, this week bows down to our lady Venus in iconic mode. Her passage through Aries has been greatly obscured by the smoke and mirrors of the Mercing through Neptunia. The next few days we will feel the ripples as she stamps her authority and reminds us of the power of our heart to rule.

In the spirit of Mercury retrograde, we're going to do a quick revision on his masterful magic so that when he squares Saturn and Mars today we don't all drop our bundles (again) or get booted hard in the nostalgias.

Certainly harsh words will be going cheap as Mercury breaks the watery stranglehold and charges into Aries in a few short hours time. A boon for bombastic manchildren in large white buildings everywhere *snore* Mercury's move into Aries is the early warning bell for his impending retrograde.