Maximizing Personal Planet Retrogrades (for Mercury, Venus, and Mars Retrogrades)

by Annie Botticelli

I always liken the energy of a personal planet being retrograde as the time when the ‘tide rolls in’.  If you are trying to push your boat out to sea when the tide is coming in, the odds of your desired outcome are limited as there are forces of nature working against you.  However, there are things that are even more favored during a retrograde that you can focus on to best use the energy and make the transit more smooth, enjoyable, and productive.

Here are some examples of what I love this time for:

Venus Retrograde Do’s & Don’ts:

Venus goes retrograde about every 18 months. It will stay retrograde about 43 days or about 6 or 7 weeks. There is a shadow period of about a month beforehand, and there is a shadow period of about a month afterwards. Essentially there is about a 4-month period about every 1 ½ years that is just covered in the energy of the Venus retrograde. 

What follows is a comprehensive guide to Venus retrograde, a “global” view, and its implications and focus, so that you can understand the aspect better and apply this information to every time Venus is retrograde regardless of what sign or house in your personal chart.

Venus rules:

• Love
• Beauty (including artistic endeavors)
• Money

During this retrograde period anything having to do with Love, Beauty/Art or Money is going to going through a major “re-evaluation”!

A lot of questions are going to be asked. Whether coming from the outside or being instigated from the inside. But on the topics of Love, Beauty and Money you’re going to have your hands full with things coming up, for better and worse.

There are plenty of things that are really good to do during this time, but there are a whole slew of things that best to apply more discernment when deciding about.

LONG-TERM THEME - all about RELATIONSHIPS/PARTNERSHIPS. This relationship/partnership theme has been present and will continue to be present as a long term theme for Pisces because of the presence of Jupiter and North Node in this area of the chart, and is further accentuated at this time in the current time from the presence of Venus and Mars. 

This is a great time to:

• Make friends with your enemies
• Make new friends
• Expand to deeper levels of current relationships of all kinds
• Increase client base
• Leverage current relationships to boost you towards your goals
• Cooperate with others
• Foster goodwill in your relationships
• Collaborate/Merge your resources with others
• Evaluate and heal current relationships
• Start new relationships 

LONG-TERM THEME - all about RELATIONSHIPS/PARTNERSHIPS. This relationship/partnership theme has been present and will continue to be present as a long term theme for Pisces because of the presence of Jupiter and North Node in this area of the chart, and is further accentuated at this time in the current time from the presence of Venus and Mars.

This is a great time to:

• Make friends with your enemies
• Make new friends
• Expand to deeper levels of current relationships of all kinds
• Increase client base
• Leverage current relationships to boost you towards your goals
• Cooperate with others
• Foster goodwill in your relationships
• Collaborate/Merge your resources with others
• Evaluate and heal current relationships
• Start new relationships