Mars and Venus bookend this week with their alternating moves, with Mars completing its nearly 12 weeks of retrograde on Sunday the 23rd and Venus beginning its six weeks retrograde on Saturday, March 1st. And in between, the Moon comes New, and cozies up with Mercury and Saturn just after they come conjunct on Friday night. This will be a dramatic sight, if you can catch it.
Mars and Venus have been dramatic in the evening sky, but all that’s about to change. Mars is moving further away from us, which means the red planet will get dimmer, while Venus, once the retrograde starts, will appear to dive sunward and will be lost to our views, but not before making a lovely gesture at Equinox, when, with effort, it may be possible to see the goddess of love and beauty at both sunrise and sunset. And even if we can’t see it, what an amazing image: love and beauty embracing the Sun as it comes to its point of balance.
The result of this Venus retrograde is that Venus changes from evening star to morning star for the remainder of the year.
When Mercury and Saturn are together, it will be possible to see all five naked eye planets above the horizon at once. Astrologically, Saturn is associated with time, duty, and memory, while Mercury is god of commerce, and is a trickster god. When they’re together and coupled with the Moon, we can anticipate a weightier consequence in all communications. There is a growing need for discipline as the Moon waxes toward Full Phase on March 14th, when it will be totally eclipsed for all of North America.
This week the line up is Mercury, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, and Mars, with Moon joining the parade on Friday. It begs the question: What’s lining up in our own lives? Perhaps Rumi can lend insight:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
May your stargazing be fruitful!
Mary
Hear this episode of The Storyteller’s Night Sky on podcast wherever you listen. The Moon is New on Thursday, February 27, and then meets Mercury and Saturn as a thin crescent on Friday as shown here in this image from Sky&Telescope.