Your Venus Retrograde Review

Love, lust, exes, art: get ready for a rewind

Photo by 8machine _ on Unsplash

There is a LOT going on this week in the cosmos, but Venus is stationing retrograde on Saturday, July 22nd, and this event tops the list. Note that because we have the New Moon in Cancer today, the nodes moving into Aries/Libra tonight/tomorrow, and Mars opposing Saturn on Wednesday, it may be a few days before you can dive deep down into the juicy, kinky, confusing, and relationally revelatory energy of Venus Retrograde. This guide should get you through it, and you can refer back to it between now and September 4th, when Venus stations direct.

Venus Retrograde arrives every 18 months and lasts between 40 and 43 days, spanning 5 different signs, with its aesthetically inspiring orbit creating the mystical Petals of Venus every 8 years upon its return to the previous sign. The last time the love planet reversed course in Leo was the summer of 2015. Consider digging through your journals, emails, texts and IG posts to see what was up for you that summer.

You can expand the aperture on this timeline by rewinding every 8 years – all the way back to the summer of 2007, 1999, and before if your love/sex life was active at that time.

Questions to consider:

• Do you have any planets in Leo? What house in your chart is ruled by Leo? That’s where the action is.

• What happened the last time Venus stationed retrograde, even though it wasn’t in Leo? (In late December 2021 to January 2022, Venus stationed retro in Capricorn). If something went pear-shaped at that time, you can course-correct or at least revisit it now, especially if it involved love, relationships, sex or money (matters ruled by Venus).

• Are you a Libra Sun or rising or a Taurus Sun or rising? (These are the signs ruled by Venus). You may feel this more than other average humans!

• What new, yet undiscovered desires lurk within your subconscious? Venus Retrograde offers a great opportunity to explore this openly, honestly, and without attendant shame and judgment.

Black Moon Lilith May Make this Venus in Leo Journey Hit Different

Reflecting on your 2015 Venus in Leo journey is necessary and helpful, but there is a special, hot-n- spicy twist on this summer’s version — Black Moon Lilith is also in Leo. In 2015, Jupiter was in Leo, bringing a sense of buoyancy and optimism to our amorous antics. But with BML along for the ride, it feels more like a wholly transformed Olivia Newton-John in the convertible at the end of Grease, looking back over the top edge of her sunglasses, smoking a cigarette, wearing black leather and a knowing smile.

I haven’t written much about Lilith’s journey through Leo since the dark goddess first arrived there last January, but now is most certainly the time to do so, as Venus Retrograde approaches. The biblical, mythical Lilith, in short, was Adam’s first wife, and she would not take any of his shit. She demanded to be on top, had a powerful sexual appetite, and is said to have been banished from the garden so the dude could go make himself a servant-wife from his own rib. I’m pretty sure she said, “Fuck off into the sea, you worthless asshole” and stormed off in a huff to go have hot sex with demons on the beach. My kinda girl.

Themes around theatrics, over-the-top femme fatale antics, revenge seduction, and campy fashion choices are likely to define our summer. Honestly? Expect to witness couples fighting in restaurants and bars, and someone throwing a martini in someone’s face (maybe this will be you.) We’re all likely to live out our own personal risque rom-com (or favorite softcore porn flick).

Venus is considered the more polite goddess, but when retrograde, she’s thought to be deep in exploration of the underworld and its dangers. If Venus is the good girl (when direct) her sister Lilith might be that bitch. The truth is that Lilith is just righteously angry that she’s supposed to hide how much she loves fucking, and she’s mighty pissed about all the other terrible things that have befallen women and femmes since biblical times.

I love the synchronicity here: Samantha is returning to the Sex and the City/And Just Like That franchise for a cameo this season, as a perfect symbolic/iconic cultural example of Lilith in Leo, and a subversive, feminist Barbie movie will be released on the day Venus stations retrograde. So as much as we’re looking back to the summer of 2015 for clues to the current moment, Lilith in Leo is bringing much additional spice and spunk. Not only that — but Venus and Lilith both leave Leo this fall on the exact same day — October 8th. The timing is uncanny. Yet not everything is coming up rainbows and unicorns.

SCOTUS is Retrograde in the Worst Way Possible

If you’re reading this, I assume you’re someone who celebrated as I did in the summer of 2015, when SCOTUS decided same-sex marriage was the law of the land in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges. On the day of that momentous decision, Venus was at 17 degrees of Leo and turned retrograde later that summer. That was the last time that Venus was retrograde in Leo. This summer’s Venus retrograde shadow has already returned us to that summer’s themes, as we begin to lose the rights we gained then.

With Venus at 20 degrees of Leo a few weeks ago, SCOTUS ruled that a bigoted Christian nationalist web designer in Colorado could discriminate against (imaginary) married or soon-to-marry queer people, simply because it violates her right to free (bigoted, hateful) speech. In this way, the Venus Retrograde shadow has been unquestionably worse for society at large, and queer people and their allies in particular. It felt and feels like a flashback that no one asked for. From “love is love” to “you may not freely celebrate your love” — we may be headed back to a separate-but-equal America for marginalized people.

Justice Sotomayor said it best: “Today the court relegates LGBT people to second-class status.” The conservative court wants to turn back time, but we cannot let white supremacist heteropatriarchy win. The way this court has overturned long-held precedent as Pluto spends its last few months in Capricorn, reversing the last 50 years of progressive change in the affirmative action decision and others should shake us to our cores and wake us up into action. Over the next six months, as America’s Pluto Return finishes up for real, we’ll begin to see what a better future might look like, but only if we organize. There is a huge shift this week as the nodes switch to the Aries/Libra axis, emphasizing the power of relationships during the next few eclipse cycles. But first, we must figure out how to keep our hearts open as Venus Retrograde makes them beat faster.

Venus stations retrograde a 28 degrees of Leo on the 22nd at 9:33 pm, on the same day that the Sun enters Leo. By now we may know exactly what we’re dealing with, which ex-lover or old crush or old job or source of income is coming back to knock on our door or slide into our DMs, flirting and tempting us. Between now and September 4th, Venus will appear to move back all the way to 12 degrees of Leo, where it was on June 19th. You may find yourself addressing, fixing, tweaking, affirming and rejecting issues that came up earlier in the summer — or all the way back in the summer of 2015.

When Mercury and retrograde Venus are conjunct on the 27th, it’s an excellent moment to articulate our desires, or at least spend time writing about them in a journal or talking to a friend. Ideally, we’ve spent the previous few weeks figuring this out, listening to our intuition, and working through our feelings so that when we reach the end of July, we’re ready to lovingly but firmly have an important conversation with a lover, past or present, knowing full well we may need to do it again in September, just to tie up loose ends.

And heyyyy….. ICYMI, my sexual astrology survey is still up for another week (I’m closing it the day Venus stations retrograde.) Please take it and share it if you haven’t already, because your valuable insights may end up in my book, SEX AND YOUR STARS, out from Sounds True in the summer of 2024.

Note for my beloved subscribers: my book is due on August 1st so I’m in CRUNCH TIME and I may be delayed with the August scopes. I promise to make it up to you! This Venus Retro roundup is an attempt to do so in advance.

xxx, Stefanie