March 2025 Dates to Note

1^st: VENUS STATIONS RETROGRADE AT 10 ARIES (7:36 pm ET)

2^nd: Mercury in Pisces conjunct Neptune (11:22 am ET), Sun in Pisces square Jupiter in Gemini (1:19 pm ET)

3rd: MERCURY ENTERS ARIES (4 :04 AM ET)

5th: Mercury in Aries sextile Pluto in Aquarius (8:13 am ET)

8^th: Sun in Pisces trine Mars in Cancer (12:13 am ET)

11^th: Mercury in Aries conjunct Venus (6:55 am ET)

12^th: Sun in Pisces conjunct Saturn (6:29 am ET)

13/14^th: LUNAR ECLIPSE/FULL MOON AT 23 VIRGO (2:55 am ET on the 14^th/11:55 pm PT on the 13^th), Sun in Pisces sextiles Uranus in Taurus (5:16 am ET),

14^th/15^th: MERCURY STATIONS RETROGRADE AT 9 ARIES, (2:46 am ET on the 15^th/11:46 pm PT on the 14^th)

17^th: ST PATRICK’S DAY

19^th: Sun in Pisces conjunct Neptune (7:25 pm ET)

20^th: SUN ENTERS ARIES/SPRING EQUINOX/OSTARA (5:01 am ET)

21^st: Venus in Aries sextile Pluto in Aquarius (5:32 pm ET)

22^nd: Sun in Aries conjunct Venus/VENUS CAZIMI (9:07 pm ET)

23rd: Sun in Aries sextile Pluto in Aquarius (3:32 pm ET)

24th: Sun in Aries conjunct Mercury/MERCURY CAZIMI (3:48 pm ET)

25^th: Mercury in Aries sextile Pluto in Aquarius (6:02 pm ET)

26^th: Mars in Cancer square Chiron in Aries (4:13 pm ET)

27^th: VENUS RE-ENTERS PISCES (4:41 am ET), BLACK MOON LILITH ENTERS SCORPIO

29th: SOLAR ECLIPSE/NEW MOON AT 9 ARIES (6:58 am ET), MERCURY RE-ENTERS PISCES (10:18 pm ET), Mercury conjunct Neptune (10:47 pm ET)

30th: NEPTUNE ENTERS ARIES (8:00 am ET)

March is here, and if you live in the United States of America, you woke up in what is fast becoming a techno-fascist kakistocracy/autocracy (working its way toward a Christian theocracy). If you read my 2025 forecast, you know this is one of the year’s most critical, pivotal months.

With two personal planets stationing retrograde, eclipse season, and a transpersonal planet changing signs for the first time in 14 years, the energy is frenzied, fraught, and frenetic. Since January 20th, horrible things have come at us head-spinningly fast, but even though we are at one of the great turnings of history, we don’t have to sit back and take it. In fact, this astrology says that lining up to tell the fascists to fuck all the way off is the only path forward.

Because March is a month like no other, I will approach the forecast a bit differently than I’ve done in the past. If you want the TLDR version: things appear to get very dark this month, but it can also be when the revolution against fascism begins in earnest, led by women and femmes, but inviting all to participate.

Two fascist gifter man-boys installed by mentally unwell tech billionaires tried to cosplay leadership with a scripted reality TV-style attack on an actual war hero in the Oval Office last week, and SNL responded in their cold open. If you missed it, you should watch it. It’s a masterclass in how we can repeatedly humiliate men who’ve made hurting others into their entire personalities. (And Elon is Big Mad about it.) I especially love Liz Plank’s theory about why humiliating fascists is doing your part to protect democracy.

To misquote Sylvia Plath:

Every woman adores humiliating [sic] a Fascist
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

As the month begins we’re just a week out from the direct station of Mars, and the passion planet will hover at 17 degrees of Cancer through March 8th. He’s still moving achingly slow, and this discomfort can lodge in our bodies. We finally understand that we can escape from the crushing stuckness that’s held us back for months, but we might not be quite limber enough to make a move. And if we do it before our muscles are warmed up, we can hurt ourselves (and others) so it’s best to wait, or at least to go slow. We’re going to need our strength.

Venus stations retrograde in Aries, the sign ruled by Mars, on March 1st. The dance between these planetary energies is both delicate and brutal. Venus retrograde cycles are gorgeously trackable because the planet of love and beauty creates a beautiful five-petaled rose (or pentagram if you’re reading the skies from a witch’s perspective) as it orbits over time. Every 8 years Venus retrogrades in the same sign. That’s why historical perspectives are so relevant to this discussion. So strap in.Subscribe

In the first few weeks after Donald Trump was inaugurated a second time, some people said tepidly, “This looks like a coup.” No, buttercup, it doesn’t merely look like a coup, IT IS A COUP. Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s happening to you in that frog/boiling water sense, but if you don’t already understand that our government was stolen from us from the inside, I have some Crypto to sell you.

Gary Kasparov wrote about the Putinization of America for the Atlantic. Looking back through these cycles, it’s clear to me this is exactly where we are, and we’ve been heading here for more than a decade. Putin, a violent despot in power for 25 years, one who routinely murders journalists and political opponents, a war criminal and a former KGB agent, plays the long game: he has been working to undermine our democracy for decades.

Putin’s plan to cultivate Trump probably began in earnest in 2013, when the small-fingered vulgarian visited Moscow for the Ms. Universe pageant, just a year before Putin attacked Ukraine for the first time when he invaded Crimea. But there is some evidence that the Soviets groomed Trump to be a Russian agent as early as the 1980s. The white nationalist who was elected for “cheap eggs” last year is nothing but a mafia don and a human mule for Russian oligarch’s dark money, money he laundered through Trump Tower and other garish properties owned by code-name Krasnov, starting back in the 90s.

Back to this century: Putin set up an elaborate troll farm called the Internet Research Agency in 2016, hacked the DNC (remember “Hey Russia, if you’re listening”), installed Donald Trump in office, then wiped all the evidence. I’m old enough to remember when dozens of FSB agents and diplomats mysteriously died and disappeared in the year after the 2016 election. Strangely, even though I know this to be true, I cannot find any easily accessible articles on the internet about these killings. Putin must’ve thought that he’d won it all in the summer of 2017, when he met Trump in Helsinki and Trump sided with him like a deer in headlights and then forced his translator to rip up the evidence of their meeting.

And we know that in the years since, even though it doesn’t appear Trump had anyone killed, he did effectively kill all the evidence of his crimes. By constantly lying and being supported by Russian state media, delaying lawsuits, saved from impeachment by frenemy Mitch McConnell, and then finally, in an act of constitution-burning malfeasance by Justices Thomas and Alito, freed from any consequences for his actions, he set out to complete Putin’s plan.

But we still had working institutions in the previous Trump administration. The actual free press, not Russian state TV, could do its job. Even though Fox News always acts as state TV during Republican administrations, we still had a couple of “normal” Republicans in the Senate and House who cared about preserving democracy (although a gross capitalist version of it). Now we have none left: they are all compliant. Some because they just love power, some because they might be outed (hey Lindsay G!), and some because their lives are likely being threatened. When Trump came to power last time, we had a robust fourth estate, with journalists standing up to Trump in press conferences, backed by their outlets, delivering the truth on a daily basis. Now we have Tass in the Oval while a “reporter” from an ultra-right-wing “news” organization asks questions about President Zelenskyy’s outfits, coordinated with the Trump administration beforehand.

One of the complications of Trump 2.0, the Project 2025/Elon version, is that billionaire-owed media is very strategically trying to kill the free press while Trump pressures “normal” outlets to fire some of their most fiery and talented journalists (all hail the amazing Sagittarius Joy Reid!) There are still brave champions of excellent journalism accessible to us (and yes, some of them are still on MSNBC delivering the truth), but one by one, they’re being muzzled, laid off, pushed out, or forced to choose between making a living and doing the job they trained for. And when Uranus enters Gemini in July, it may become even more difficult for the people who keep us informed to investigate and share these stories with us. If you think this is a frenzied pace, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

You might be wondering why I’m linking many stories from 2017. It’s because when Venus stations retrograde in Aries on March 1, it’ll be the first time we’ve experienced this astrological event since… early 2017. We first began to understand Trump’s myriad connections with Putin, Russia, and got a taste of his deep affection for autocratic rulers during those early months of his first administration. Back then, it felt new and strange and disorienting. Trump was already using Bannon’s “flood the zone” strategy, so even as we began to digest that our President was likely a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian state, he’d pull a cruel stunt, re-directing our attention at another horrific shiny object. The summer of 2017 was also the summer of Charlottesville and “fine people on both sides.”

Now, to the astrology of the moment: what’s different now, in this new iteration of Venus Retrograde in Aries? For one thing, now that we’re here, we know what we know, and as long as all the books aren’t yet burned, and all the information deleted, we can go back, review it, and use it to strategize and fight.

Venus Retrograde in Aries speaks to a fierce feminist uprising. Venus, the planet associated with the feminine principle, beauty, love, and the art of receiving, is in detriment here. But that doesn’t make her weak in practice: in Aries, Venus wants to say FUCK OFF to patriarchal traditions that insist she must be in supplication. Her will to flirt, to fuck, to say what she wants: it is strong. Of course, Venus in Aries is shamed for not being a trad wife and she needs to create a workaround, but she’s got enough fight in her to do so.

But when Venus is retrograde in the sign of the warrior, it can heat up the collective, turning on a frenzy of protest against the twisted, cruel rules of patriarchy. This happened in early 2017 with the first Women’s March, a sea of pink pussy hats, a month before that retrograde began, in the shadow phase. When it happened, it was genuinely subversive. In the years since, it’s become the butt of jokes and exposed as a feeble white feminist exercise in piss-poor allyship. But that doesn’t mean that the new version of feminist revolution born in this year’s Venus Retrograde has to be lame. We can make it intersectional, brave, and ready for whatever comes next, vowing to protect our trans siblings, demand reproductive justice as they attempt to Handmaid’s Tale our lives state by state, keeping our immigrant neighbors, our Black and brown and poor community members safe from the deranged Christian Nationalist assault on marginalized bodies. Nice girls need not apply.

Venus Retrograde starts on March 1st at 10 degrees of Aries, conjoins Mercury in Aries on the 11th, arrives at its Cazimi with the Sun in Aries on the 22nd, returns to Pisces on the 27th, and stations direct at 24 degrees of Pisces on April 12. Even though the retrograde is where we see the most action on the visibly feminist, insurgent front, this phase started at the very beginning of the year when Venus entered Pisces, and as the love planet reverses back over her recent path, we too retrace our steps. New national protest movements, from the Tesla Takedown, which started exactly on the day Venus stationed retrograde, to the Economic Blackout, which started the day before, are evidence that although slow to start, we’re getting ready to fight.

In our personal lives, Venus Retrograde is LOUD depending upon which house she’s in, any planets aspected, and what happened in our lives the last time Venus was retrograde in the same spot. Note that Venus-ruled folks (Libra and Taurus risings, especially) tend to feel out of sorts when Venus is retrograde.

In my book Sex and Your Stars: A Sexologist’s Guide to the Erotic Energy of the Zodiac, I liken Venus Retrogrades to a desire crucible. As Venus disappears from view, mythologically going underground like Innanna or Persephone, we can plunge into our own relationship with our desire. This takes place hidden from the patriarchal lens on beauty and desirability. It can evoke rage, especially when Venus is retrograde in Aries, but that rage can help to burn away layers of confusion about what we truly want. After Venus makes her inferior/interior conjunction with the Sun and emerges as a morning star post-Cazimi, we might get to our AHA moment of this retrograde phase.

For more on Venus Retrograde, its cycles, and what we might expect between March 1st and April 12th, read what I’ve written about VR here and here. I’ll write about it again later this month, probably when Venus returns to Pisces and conjuncts Neptune and the North Node.

The entire month of March, as I’ve explained, is a hot zone, but the hotter-than-hot zone comes on the approach to the weekend of the Ides of March. (Et tu, JD?) First, a Lunar Eclipse at 23 degrees of Virgo happens overnight between the 13th and 14th. This is, to put it mildly, deeply anxiety-provoking. Not only is this eclipse opposite Saturn, bringing a sense of heaviness and exhaustion, it’s in the sign ruled by Mercury. And 24 hours after the eclipse perfects, Mercury stations retrograde in Aries. You can look at these two events as a singular energetic explosion, in that they’re likely to interact with our nervous systems and bring a wrecking ball of swirling news stories to the collective.

By now we’re all watching event(s) unfurling on the world stage on our TVs and phones (this could happen even earlier in the week, and at the eclipse itself, we’re watching the aftermath). With Mercury retrograde in Aries, communication can also go awry. Yes, planes have been falling out of the sky and landing upside down on runways since the day Trump took office, but with Mercury Retrograde in Aries during eclipse season, my concern is with explosions and fires having to do with technology, travel and communication. As we approach the end of the month and the second eclipse, a Solar Eclipse at 9 degrees of Aries (the final one in a cycle that began in October of 2023) the gathering of planets in Pisces makes me think about events that involve water and explosions affecting the information architecture. Undersea cables cut? A submarine event? I have no idea, but I do not like it one bit.

Back to our personal lives: spring begins on the 20th at the Equinox, a day that despite whatever else is going on, invites our bodies to remember that renewal is always possible. The Venus Cazimi, her meeting with the heart of the Sun, comes on the 22nd. This is the midpoint of the retrograde, and the moment that Venus comes out from the underworld after experiencing ego death. The remainder of the retrograde offers an opportunity to integrate the body and relational wisdom we received during the first half of the retrograde, in the desire crucible phase.

The final weekend of March is rather unbelievable when I look at it on paper. The good: Black Moon Lilith enters Scorpio, after spending the last nine months in more polite Libra, where I had had naive hopes that the feminine might rise up and elect a woman to office. Now that another Mars-ruled sign has entered the cosmic chat and will stay active for nine months, that rage against patriarchy will take a new form. Scorpio is the most strategic sign, excellent at using its rage to undermine enemies, and I hope that our movements take this cue and run with it.

Venus reenters Pisces on the 27th, bringing us back to events from the first week of February. Venus is conjunct Neptune at the very end of Pisces that same day. Then early on Saturday morning, the 29th, we get the Solar Eclipse in Aries, then Mercury returns to Pisces and conjoins Neptune, which is the final aspect that Neptune makes before it enters Aries, leaving Pisces for the first time since 2011 on the last day of March. So much wow.

Collectively, we are exiting an era at this moment. Neptune is the modern ruler of Pisces, something that made the last 14 years into a kind of delulu Instagram filter over horrors. There have been ongoing genocides, the Russian takeover of the United States (see above), and a worldwide pandemic, just to name a few events. And yet we let the algorithm wash over us and binged prestige TV series as our escape mechanisms, while millions of MAGATs got red-pilled on Youtube and voted to end democracy.

What will Neptune in Aries bring? Fire sign Aries loves to go to battle for its ideals, and whatever it is that the collective decides to believe in, whether it’s real or not —that’s what the Neptune in Aries season of our lives is likely to evoke.

Paid subscribers and anyone considering becoming a subscriber, please note: I’m using Venus Retrograde to do some restructuring and rethinking about this newsletter, something deeply beloved to me for the last two years, but also something I’m increasingly finding I lack time for — specifically the sign-by-sign horoscopes. I like to make you deep and juicy long overviews, as you see here, but with my other freelance responsibilities, I’m finding it harder and harder to keep up your forecasts in a timely manner.

So I welcome your thoughts on what you’d most want from me in a paid subscription. Are you getting what you need from the sign-by-sign forecasts and you’d like those to continue, or is there some other area of my expertise that I can offer here that’s of value? I give you mostly astrology here, but I am also a certified sex coach and clinical sexologist, and that’s what makes my astrology different than the rest. Would a sex advice column with a Q & A appeal? Email me or share with me in the chat. Working on your sign-by-signs, but as with the last few months, I’ll post as I finish them. Thank you for your love and patience!