What were you doing on the last Venus retrograde from Aries to Pisces back in the spring of 2017?

I remember the last Venus retrograde in Aries as a really magical and special time. It was 2017 and the weather was getting warm. I have this weird memory of my roommate at the time coming home dressed too heavily in a blue coat and complaining about the warm weather. I have another memory of my friend, who was going through a breakup at the time, cramming bags of stuff in my closet because they didn’t have storage. I met almost all of the close friends I have today that spring.

Trump had just been elected and people were busy. There were all of these community events. BUFU (By Us For Us) was doing this whole community education program about Black and Asian solidarities and futures. Yellow Jackets Collective was holding space for queer Asians in a way that made you feel never alone. Everyone looked hot. People were friendly. If we were scared about the future, we were also trying to make our futures possible together because we were scared together.

What about you? What were you doing on the last Venus retrograde from Aries to Pisces back in the spring of 2017? What are you returning to now that Venus will make the same retrograde in the spring of 2025?

Venus is the planet of simple togetherness. In Aries, it tries to make choices alone. Only when it slows down in Aries, which it doesn’t do very often, will it retreat back to Pisces where it cruises the waves of humanity and life without trying to find an anchor. Venus returning back to Pisces knows that the most important questions in life, the questions that are about right and wrong, are best made by listening rather than dictating. Control only goes so far.

Late February, Mars went direct in Cancer. Jupiter will enter when summer comes. Worry becomes faith. In March, Venus retrogrades in Aries. Saturn will enter later in summer. Desire becomes maturity.

This March, we also get a Mercury retrograde in Aries just like we did last April. Mercury continues to retrograde in the fire signs in 2025 just like it did in 2024. For fire signs, you’re asking questions about who you are and what you believe. For earth signs, you’re rethinking your responsibilities. For air signs, you’re trying to understand your social context and where you fit in. For water signs, you’re looking for motivation.

Not only are there two retrogrades in Aries in March, we also get our last solar eclipse in Aries for the next eight years. The eclipses, which have been in Aries and Libra for the last year or two, will begin to occur in Virgo and Pisces now.

During the eclipses in Aries and Libra, we’ve been witnessing a lot of violence while the people in power try to define peace on their terms only. What’s that John Trudell song? “Rich man's war. Central America bleeding. Wounds same as Palestine and Harlem. Three Mile Island and El Salvador. Pine Ridge and Belfast.” He said rich man’s war but he could have said rich man’s peace. Seems like there’s not that much difference, not when the politicians keep calling their acts of war “keeping the peace.”

I think that the eclipses in Aries and Libra have shown us the limits of what one person can do. That feeling that you get when you think about all of the things that you alone should have done or would have done—that feeling is called hubris. I think that the eclipses have also shown us the violence that a group of people is capable of when we define our togetherness by difference.

March is the last solar eclipse in Aries. We also get a lunar eclipse in Virgo. I think that the eclipses in Pisces and Virgo will be less about agency and mass action and more about repair. Pisces is compassion and Virgo is helpful action. You have to use your discernment to do something useful using your compassion and to bring the compassion to useful action.

Pisces

March is about knowing the values that feed you. The values that feed you aren’t obligations. They’re not even really responsibilities though they could be. The values that feed you don’t make you go out and do things—feeding means giving you energy. That’s food. Food gives you energy. The values that feed you, which may be different from the values that push you into action or challenge you, are the ones that give you some kind of spiritual, creative, or caloric energy.

Where do you get energy in life? One obvious place is food and sleep. Do you get energy from routine? From breaking a routine? From people or from solitude? Does learning give you energy and does teaching?

One value that I have is that I think people should give to help other people when we can afford it. That’s a value that I have but it’s not the nutritional kind. It doesn’t always feed me and it doesn’t need to because I have other values that do. Habit feeds me and so does my value of not making promises that I can’t keep. You might have a lot of values that all do different things. Not all of them feed you. Some of them do.

Find the values that feed you. Try to remember 2017 and the values that you developed that year. Try to see if the food that you need right now is the same as the food that you needed back then.

Questions for Pisces for March 2025:
What values give you energy?
What values gave you energy back in 2017?
Are you eating the same now as you ate in 2017?

Aries

You’re the kind of person who will take on some level of risk even when you’re really, really scared. Sometimes, that’s the courage in you that’s talking. Sometimes, it’s that streak of propriety that really wants you to save the world or at least the people around you for some reason. You’re the opposite of irresponsible. You’re the type that wants to stand up for everyone.

This March, I want you to lean in the opposite direction for a hot second. Think about what you need to feel protected by other people. What kinds of things do you need before you might start to trust someone else’s protection? Is competency important or is simple confidence enough? What tells you that someone else has properly considered you or planned for you as a person who is in their life? How much do you need to see your protectors doubt themselves before you start to doubt them?

It’s not easy to allow someone else to try and protect you. Everyone needs some protection. Needing protection doesn’t mean that you no longer have control over your life or your choices. Taking on more risk doesn’t always earn you more control either.

In fact, people have been protecting you for your whole life. You’re not alone and you’ve never lived alone. Think about every single person who took on some level of risk for your sake. That’s kept you going and you’re pretty good at accepting protection.

Questions for Aries for March 2025:
Who is one person who has taken on risk for your sake?
What is one memory that you have from the last seven days where you felt protected?
What do you need to trust someone else’s protection?

Taurus

This month of March is for bringing the banished back into community through conflict. One response that people tend to have to exclusion is anger. People get mad. We get mad when we get left behind or when the people we count on don’t factor us into things that we planned to be a part of. That’s normal.

That’s why conflict is so important. Conflict provides a way for people who have been excluded to come back without needing to participate in a way that is overly positive. Conflict is a form of participation. When you’re disagreeing with someone, you are absolutely engaged with that person. You’re trying. People who fight are trying to make themselves heard because there is something so important about the moment that they feel the need to push their voices forward.

We have a lot to fight about. I always think that fighting is far more preferable to sticking with a status quo that might cause someone bodily harm.

I actually think that most of us learn how to be in conflict from our peers more than older people. It’s really hard to fight with someone who is of a different age from you because they’re just in a whole other context. They’re either too old to be fighting with you or too young to understand. We learn how to fight when we’re with our siblings or cousins. That’s where it happens.

If someone disagrees with you, first check to see if they are a peer. If they are not, then they might be drawing upon completely different circumstances than you are. Try to see what they are trying to connect to through disagreement. The answer might surprise you.

Questions for Taurus for March 2025:
What happens when you disagree with someone who is much older than you?
What happens when you disagree with someone who is much younger than you?
What happens when you disagree with someone who is your same age?

Gemini

The question that I want to give you for March is: how much are you up for sharing to adequately and helpfully challenge your sense of control? I’m talking about sharing time and money, food also. I’m also talking about sharing your opinions. Because Jupiter rules your sister sign, you’re one of those signs that is generous with what you have and what is on your mind. You like to share.

What rate of sharing adequately and helpfully challenges your sense of control? What style of sharing? What systems of sharing? Are there any that reinforces your sense of control while also teaching you something new about how you control?

I think that there’s something about the astrology of right now that could help you think about a good long term plan for sharing the parts of your life that you would like to share. Sometimes, you don’t need to think about these things. You just share your home or your time or whatever is on your mind without needing to think. But, right now, time is asking for some self guidance. Make a plan about how open you would like to be and around whom.

Spontaneity helps us answer the question of where we are currently feeling very open. Making a plan can help us engage with the question of where we would like to feel more open in the future. A plan also helps suss out where we would like to close.

Questions for Gemini for March 2025:
Where are you currently feeling very open?
Where would you like to feel more open in the future?
What would you currently feel open to sharing but might close up around in the future?

Cancer

You are allowed to let go of a grand vision or a big plan simply because you don’t feel like it anymore. You know yourself better than your mind thinks that you do because your mind is in charge of figuring things out and you’re not a puzzle. Because you know yourself, you also know quite a bit about what you will do and what you won’t do.

You can make all of the plans that you want but the final question that makes or breaks a solid plan is the question of whether you will carry it out. The question is whether you want to do something that is in your plan and whether doing it is right for you and your body is pretty big when it comes to the question of whether you will actually do the things you envision. You are a pretty important part of your own plans—your body, your personality, and your needs.

It’s okay to let go of a big plan because, at the end of the day, you can always make another one. Your plans can include the things that you want to do. You can plan around the things that you don’t want to do. You can plan to learn the things that you don’t know how to do yet. Sometimes, you make a whole plan around something that you think you won’t do but then you find out that it’s actually not that dire.

Let yourself interrupt your own plans. Allow this from yourself. Sometimes, you don’t even know what you will do or will not do until you make up a plan and then let it go. And, sometimes, you surprise yourself. You think that you won’t do something but then you learn that you will.

Questions for Cancer for March 2025:
What do you assume about what you will do and won’t do?
What has surprised you about what you will do or won’t do?
What plans have you been glad to let go of?

Leo

It’s time to stop worrying about what other people are saying behind your back when you are trying to figure out what you believe. I think that this is something that everyone, whether you are religious or secular, goes through when dealing with the issue of faith.

Faith is about perception. Your beliefs are an estimation of your observations. When you believe something, you wonder whether other people perceive things the way you do and what they might make of you because you see things the way you do. That’s why experiences that throw off our sense of perception, like moving or education, tend to give us so much social anxiety. This is also why places like churches and political meetings have so much drama, because everyone is trying to figure out what they believe and feel a way when someone else doesn’t see things the same way.

Not everyone is trying to judge you. If they do, just let them. Judgment is a type of seeing. People who are trying to see you will sometimes judge you. You might judge them too without even meaning to.

Judgment is a constant weighing that we use to try and see people clearly. The work of judgment is never done. You might believe in your goodness one day but still doubt it tomorrow. Your morality isn’t black and white. It’s the scales themselves and the scales are always moving. Let it move. Ask other people to take their hearts off of your shifting scales so that you can put yours on.

Questions for Leo for March 2025:
What is your judgment trying to weigh?
What is your judgment trying to doubt?
What is your judgment trying to believe?

Virgo

The thing that is most important to you in life is probably your friendships. Friendships make the future possible. They’re the funny and big relationships that don’t seem to fit anywhere in life, the ones that you keep not because you’re supposed to but because you want to. You go out of your way to keep friendships.

That’s why you share your independence with your friends. You share your solitude. You share the parts of alone that make you feel invincible but you also share your loneliness and your fears. You know that, if you’re scared, then you’re never scared alone. If you’re lonely, then you’re not lonely alone. If you’re empowered, then you never hold power alone.

March is about helping out. It’s about letting other people help you out and about showing up to help someone else out. There’s a lot of people out in the world who might just hear a friend out when they’re having trouble. That’s valuable for sure but you’re not one of those people. You actually show up to help friends move, to take out their trash, and to give them food.

March is about helping out—you get to remind yourself of all of the many ways that you are competent. You are good at a lot of things and being good at what you’re good at means that you are helpful. Accept that you’re good at things. Notice when you do a good job and take the time to tell yourself, “great job with that one.”

Questions for Virgo for March 2025:
What are you skillful at?
When was the last time you gave yourself credit for this skill?
When was the last time a friend gave you credit for this skill?

Libra

This March, I want you to stop comparing your motivations with other people’s accomplishments. Your goals are your own. You get to decide what you choose to do when you are blessed with a choice. You draw all of your goals from the energy from just living your life, gathering momentum when you can and asking for encouragement and a little push when you need. Your choices come from your community, from your protectors, and from the liberties that your ingenuity has conjured using your own blood, sweat, and tears.

You have used a fantastic amount of energy and life to find the motivations that lead you towards the choices that are available in your life. So, you must make your own choices. You have to cherish the choices that you have by making them.

Other people have their own shit going on. You don’t really know what’s going on with them. You can’t compare yourself to people who have different choices than you do because you’re not going to be making the choices that they’re making and they’re certainly not going to make your choices for you.

Find your motivation, not just your reasons or whatever which may be impossible to describe using words and actions. Find the energy. If you have inspiration today, then use inspiration. If you have momentum, then use your habits to keep going. If you don’t have any inspiration or useful habits, then either take a rest or find something that is so frustrating that it gives you the energy of spite. Protect your energy by using it well.

Questions for Libra for March 2025:
Are you feeling inspired by anything lately?
If not, then are you feeling driven towards anything lately?
If not, then are you feeling frustrated by anything lately?

Scorpio

This March is the last page of a longer process that you’ve been in about mediating over the types of work that will contribute to your maturity. Maturity is about getting older and about figuring out different social dynamics as you get older. As you get older, how you work changes. Your relationships to coworkers or colleagues change. Your needs change because the way that you fit into society is changing.

The guiding star so to speak on the questions that you are encountering around work and aging is actually going to be any and all inner conflicts that you have around morality. In the past, morality might have been about wanting to be a good person. Now, you know enough about your own inner goodness. That’s the hard part. Getting to know your own goodness and being sure of it is very hard. Now, all you have to do is find the habits that get you to challenge the goodness that you were born with into action.

Work isn’t about proving that we are good people. That would be wonderful because that would make moral choices so much easier. Moral choices are hard because we don’t always make choices for ourselves. We might work to make someone else’s goodness more evident. We might work because we want to be able to afford more choices that we have currently. We might work because we’re completing a duty that someone else gave to us.

Don’t try to put moral questions into numbers or statistics or pro/con lists. Instead, make a story. Morality works through story, not by math. You are a good person when your habits allow you to believe in your goodness. What habits give you maturity?

Questions for Scorpio for March 2025:
If you were to tell the story of your work, what would that story sound like?
If you were to tell the story of your morality, what would that story sound like?
What habits give you greater maturity?

Sagittarius

March has a way of pushing things that have been in the background of your life into the foreground. This March, you’re going to use your honesty to decide what you keep and what you can stand to get rid of. You never need to hang onto things that aren’t right for you anymore just because they used to be right in the past. What is one thing that you have gotten used to that you now feel is worth some reconsideration?

Most of us get used to things. We get used to facing one direction when we sleep and another when we eat. We get used to the things that the people we are used to seeing consistently tell us about ourselves. We get used to taking these really specific routes around the city where we live.

In March, you’re looking for something unexpected. Change the habits that you have come to expect, the ones that you weren’t expecting to change. What I want for you in March is for you to make sure that your life is fun at least sometimes. I want you to make your decisions playfully, even the really serious ones. That’s why I see you making choices that refresh your life this month.

Surprise yourself in March. Try to do it even though you’re around yourself 24/7 because, even though you get used to yourself, your psyche is still this really big mystery that you never know fully even when you spend a lifetime trying to decipher it. Let your mystery surprise you.

Questions for Sagittarius for March 2025:
What is one thing that you’ve gotten really used to?
When was the last time you surprised yourself?
What would taste really refreshing to you around this time of the year?

Capricorn

March is a great time for reflecting on the long term habits that anchor you to where you are right now. Life is full of change but not everything is changing all the time. Some things stay the same.

I’ll give you an example from my own life as an example. No matter how I feel or what I’m going through, I journal everyday. I’ve done this since starting from high school. Whether I’m in a relationship or if I’m overwhelmed by work or if I’m looking for work, I start my day with journaling. Everything else in my life can change but this one habit does not.

I bet you have something like that in your life. What is it? Is it journaling too or is it the group chat that you’ve kept with your two closest friends for a decade? Is it a particular breakfast food or the habit of taking a walk after dinner every night? Is it the cigarette that keeps you company right before you head off to bed?

The last few months have been challenging your relationships and the comfort that you seek from them. That’s a lot. This month, you’re showing yourself all of the comfort that is already in your life and has always been a part of you. Come back to yourself. Do it by knowing your own habits. Accept the habits that have always been a friend to you.

Questions for Capricorn for March 2025:
What long term habits anchor you?
When did you start this habit?
What do you know about what this habit does for you?

Aquarius

In March, I want you to stop letting other people put words in your mouth. People will do this thing where you say one thing but their ears rephrase what you’re saying using words of their own. That stuff is fine. That’s just how people listen. People will hear the words that your mouth has conjured using the memories and energy at your disposal and turn it into something that they can understand.

But there will also be people who go one step beyond all that. There will be people who try to tell you what to say because they want to hear it from you for some reason. There are people who have a fantasy of you being a person who will say the things that they hear you saying already.

You don’t need to speak in a way that other people already expect. Your voice is your own. You don’t need to like things just because someone else likes it. You don’t need to use words, which are just tools, the way other people use them. You don’t need to express your opinion using binaries or like or dislike because you have your own way of making language descriptive.

Your voice is part of your body. No one does it like you. I don’t know if people realize this but I talk like a midwesterner. I don’t share context upon context the way New Yorkers do and my way of speaking isn’t that socially engaged because I grew up so lonely. I have a bit of that very secular type of Chinese humor and I can read context because I have lived most of my life in cities but I can’t speak it. So I don’t.

What’s your voice like? This is something that is unique to you, that makes you remember who you are and what it means to speak as you. Find it and feel it. Play with it.

Questions for Aquarius for March 2025:
What do you like?
What do you not like?
How would you describe your voice if you were making up a description that only made sense to yourself?