how to make (and defend) art during venus retrograde
Astrology for Writers is an exclusively reader-supported publication. If you enjoy today’s work, please share it by forwarding this email, sharing on social media, or sharing it on Substack.
Monthly subscriptions are $7, yearly subscriptions are $70, and both include membership to a super-active Discord with like-hearted writers.
If you don’t want to spring for a subscription, you can still make a one-time donation / buy me a coffee at my PayPal tip jar as a way of saying “thank you!”
ICYMI
🎨 Book a mini-reading with me! “Unsticking Your Creative Practice: A Mini Reading to Jumpstart Your 2025” is open and folks are loving it. How to book + testimonials here.
🗓️: We’ve Been Here Before: A Historical Retrospective on the Astrology of 2025 is now available for download! Particularly pertinent since Neptune moves into Aries at the end of March.
🎧: Calling all spiritual girlies! The March 2025 forecast (“Hurry Up and Slow Down”) from Call Your Coven now is out on all major streaming platforms (and YouTube). We’re still new and getting the word out — share it with your witchy besties!
It’s Venus Retrograde, that time every 18 months or so where we are invited to go to couples counseling to check in with our relationship with Creativity. Venus Rx also has to do with love and relationships, of course, but Venus is also that pleasure-loving planet that is in charge of art and culture and all things erotic — erotic in the Audre Lorde sense of the term, as that which generates and sustains life force:
The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.
— Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic”
In fiery, bold, take-no-prisoners Aries, Venus Retrograde asks us to reclaim that erotic which has been misunderstood and maligned. To stand up for reproductive rights. To stand up for all women. To defend that which is considered (or damned as) “feminine.” To redefine what femininity is, period. In Aries, Venus is doing her job — making love, making art — with warrior Mars’ tools. This is a time to fight for who you love, for who you want to fuck, for your right to pleasure. To defend the arts and the humanities and all that would be censored and designated “obscene” by conservative courts.