VENUS IN ARIES

I've talked a lot about the fact that the beginning of this year is slow. 2025 starts slowly, which is wild because it's such a huge, impactful year of new beginnings and thresholds and fresh fiery energy.

The beginning of 2025 haD this pulling back, this deep inward contraction. We felt a lot of that in the first few months of 2025, and we'll feel it again at the end of 2025 as we move into the retrograde season. Both Saturn and Neptune will shift back into Pisces, and Uranus will move back into Taurus before they officially anchor and root into their new signs early next year, 2026.

I've talked a lot about the fact that May is the month where we really begin to feel the energy build. We started to feel it a little bit in March with the eclipses. April just completely flew by. I have no idea where it went. It's bizarre to me.

This week we enter into the energy of May, and this is the energy of 2025. It's this push and pull. It's moving, jumping, leaping even forward, and then getting pulled back into the contraction to integrate what's left so that we enter and leap again with firmer ground beneath us. We're feeling that we can really step and root and anchor our truth and our authenticity and our highest expression as we move forward.

But it finally begins to move.

Breaking Out of the Shell

This week Venus enters Aries on April 30th, and then she meets with Neptune on May 2nd in Aries. As I've mentioned before, anytime we have a planet moving into Aries, it's going to meet with Neptune because Neptune's sitting at that threshold of Aries.

Aries is the first sign of the Zodiac. cardinal fire, initiation, movement, force, change, mobilization. This is really the energy of May. We start to break out of some of this calcification, some of this hardened material that has held us in this cocoon, in this space of introspection and recollection, visiting the past, going inward.

I just keep seeing like a bird emerging from its egg, cracking through that outer layer, that fragile shell that keeps it internal, that keeps it inside. And that's really what's happening with us this month.

We're moving out of our shells. We're beginning to emerge and enter into the fire, feeling the stable ground beneath us. As I said last week, we're getting our land legs back. What does it feel like to move on the earth? What does it feel like to embody this new self?

A New Self is Emerging

There is a new self emerging with this new moon. A new version of you is entering into this next chapter. It's pushing out, using all of your strong muscles to push out against that shell, to crack open and to move from a truth that you haven't had access to before.

This new version of you is so deeply authentic. It's so real and so true and so courageous and clear. You needed each and every moment of that cocoon phase to cook, to bake, to materialize, to crystallize what's true for you within you, to clear the old, to let go, to release, to decompose, to dissolve.

But now what's emerging is new material, new flesh. It's fresh and strong and embodied. This new version of you is stronger. It's more clear, it's more discerning.

Feel that in your body, as I say it. Even take a look down at your hands. Notice how they're different, maybe rubbing your arms, feeling the strength of all of your muscles. Notice this new version of you. You might not fully recognize it until you start moving through the world, but it's there and it's available to make different choices, to create new patterns, to carve new pathways.

And sometimes we don't notice what's changed within us until we are fully emerged.

The Sneaky Nature of Healing

There's a quote that I love by Ursula K. Le Guin that says,

"Gradually the healing took place, seeming as it always does, that it wasn't taking place."

I think about this quote so often because healing can be sneaky. It can sneak up on us. It can emerge through the cracks and crevices and take us by surprise.

We can be doing this work and focusing on the inward healing and our connections and our relationships and moving through life until one day the healing just drops in. It becomes available and noticeable. We can feel it and embody it in a new way.

And this is how I feel the energy is on the other side of this Mars and Pluto opposition and this New moon in Taurus. We've been in this deep reckoning point and now as we enter into this week, we get to integrate. We get to see what's changed within us. We get to emerge.

Venus in Aries: Fire and Flame

As Venus, which really rules how we experience life, our values, how we give and receive love, enters Aries on April 30th, there's this fire in flame. There's this push, this need for actions, need for passion, this excitement, this assertiveness, reactivity, response.

As this fire builds within us, and we move from a stellium in Pisces to a stellium in Aries this month, we leave behind the questioning, the muddiness, the confusion, the illusion, the romanticism to what's real, what's true, what's available here and now, what we can work with, what's tactile, what's right in front of us.

Aries is no bullshit, for lack of better words. It's direct and clear. It's responsive, sometimes overly responsive, but it's going to give us the heat, the agency, the clarity we need to move, to create, to change, to make decisions, to take action.

Working with Fire

This is the energy we're going to have to work with over the next few years as Saturn and Neptune are in Aries. How do we work with this fire within us?

If left suppressed or ignored, it leads to resentment, to excess heat, to illness, to frustration and anger. But if we just release it without it remaining unchecked, it can be reactive, reckless, hurtful, even harmful, destructive.

And this is where we simmer. This is where we sit with how we can be with our heat, our desire, our anger, our frustration. Can we be with it a little longer to let it change us, alchemize what's working through us? Can we move it through us in a way that's creative and inspired rather than destructive? Can we befriend our anger? Can we befriend our life force, our creative energy? Can we let it move through us in a way that's artful, like a dance rather than a battle?

This is maturation. This is Saturn in Aries. This is becoming the conscious warrior.

I always think of martial arts when I think of the highest expression of Aries, and it's the ability to move your life force through you in a way that is artful, that is clear, that is discerning, that is mature.

Taurus: The Grounding Element

Taurus is giving us this ground to work with. It's giving us this space to root and anchor, to return to our presence, our breath, to return to the body so we can let this heat, this life force, this creative energy move through us.

So Venus moving into Aries will bring our passion and desires front and center. She then meets with Neptune on May 2nd, which is the same day that Mars officially moves out of its shadow.

You might feel a build up of energy that wants to be moved through you. Mars has been quite suppressed in its retrograde phase. Mars has been tucked in. It's been sleepy, retrograding through watery Cancer, retrograding through Leo, moving back out of its shadow, and now it's officially leaving its shadow on May 2nd.

So there might be this surge of life force that comes in. There might be some material that wants to be felt and seen. As you start to feel yourself again, as you emerge as this new being, this new version of self, you might have a physical response that wants to move through you.

It might show up as anxiety, because anxiety is really just trapped life force. It might show up as anger. Can you meet it and be with it in a new way now? Can you see it as simply energy that wants to be expressed, that wants to be shared with the world, that wants to be moved through you, rather than something that should be shamed or boxed or suppressed?

A Window of Opportunity

This is a powerful week to set intentions. All planets are direct right now. Pluto stations retrograde on May 4th. So we have this little pocket, this window—last week and this week where all planets have been direct really since April 13th. This is the last week of that energy before Pluto stations retrograde on May 4th.

Even with Pluto stationing retrograde, it's definitely going to create this collective shift and this shift in the outer themes, the larger themes of life. But it's not an inner planet, so we might not feel it in daily life as much.

So how can we seize this power, this life force, this energy of initiation and action? How can we be with it in a new way, utilizing our lessons and learnings over the last six months as Mars has been retrograde, to see and to discern when it's time to act and respond and when it's time to process?

We're becoming evolved, conscious warriors. We are learning the art of being human, being a mature, discerning human in this chaotic, wild time in human existence. We're learning how to choose the higher pathway rather than the old wounded pathway.

Creating Conditions for Your Higher Self

What conditions need to be present in order for you to respond from your higher self rather than your shadow self? What choices need to be made to create those conditions? What wants to be consumed? Food, information? What is your body asking for? Who do you want to be around? Who makes you feel secure and strong and good? What makes you feel clear and authentic and real?

This is the tone of this week. The choices we make shape and form our reality. Our thoughts are our reality.

This week might feel like a smoother transition into the heightened energy of May. Might feel like we get to slow down and integrate to really feel, which is the intention of Taurus season.

What's wild is that our subconscious responds more to emotion than thought. So when we create conditions to feel how we want to feel, rather than thinking what we need to think, we begin to rewire more effectively.

So how do you want to feel in this next chapter? How can you create that environment for that feeling to emerge? What choices need to be made to create those conditions?

That is the intention of this week, to create the conditions in the environment for joy, for pleasure, for abundance, for the way you truly desire to feel everyday.

Rooting and Rising

Feel first your root, your connection with the center of the earth, that beautiful sense of belonging that comes from that connection. And then feel that all the way up and through your body, through your crown and your connection to source, the sense of belonging that comes from that space, remembering that you are truly a channel for this unconditional love.

Let yourself rest in this space, in this knowing, this beautiful pause before the energy begins to pick up more and more as we move through May, June, July.

At the end of May, we have Saturn moving into Aries. So Saturn's beginning its ingress over the next few weeks. If you have your Saturn in Pisces, you are nearing the end of your Saturn return. It will return in the fall. But I always find that we're squeezed, especially when an outer planet is at the later degrees of a sign.

So there will still be these lessons and learnings that we have to integrate as we move into the new phase, the new chapter.

The Sacred Pause

But this week is a bit of a pause. So just let yourself feel the pause, the breath, what needs to be prepared as we move into this new phase, this next chapter. This time is ripe and pregnant with infinite possibilities and potentials.

Can you let that land within your physical body? Can you signal to your nervous system that it's safe to open? It's safe to receive?

We manifest from our center point. All the infinite possibilities and potentials uncoil from that space when we feel grounded, rooted, anchored and supported. And only we can create those internal conditions. Our external affects that internal state, but only we can choose it.

So this is a time to choose peace, to choose beauty, regulation, safety.

Beauty is the Harvest of Presence

One of my favorite quotes is by David Whyte, one of my favorite poets:

"Beauty is the harvest of presence."

We get to experience beauty when we are present.

And you might have felt that if you've ever felt true presence and safety in your body. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You don't know how good you can feel until you really, truly feel it. Not only when you see something beautiful, but when you feel it fully and completely.

This is a lot of the work that I do with my mentorship clients in our containers—creating the conditions internally that allow you to be fully present with life and with the beauty that's woven into all the layers of it.

I really didn't want to talk a lot this week. I just want you to feel, to give yourself space, if you can, to really feel, to be present, to move out of your head and into your body.

Last week was so packed with action. My invitation to you this week is to find pockets of peace and to sink as deeply as you can into those pockets for as long as you can, to let them imprint within you, remembering them always that they exist and are always available.

The Rainbow Card: Promise After the Storm

The card that I pulled today is the Rainbow card from the Untamed Elemental Deck, and I love it. I love it so much because it's very aligned with what we're talking about, as it usually is, and it's all about abundance and new opportunity.

"Rainbow is a promise kept, brought to life in the glorious aftermath of the storm. He is the spellbinding reflection of unseen particles dancing in the ethers, positioned for all of us to witness and absorb.

Wrapping you in his complexion of seven mystical colors, Rainbow's serene vibrancy illuminates inclusiveness and cohesion. Rainbow rewards you with a vast reminder of your own glowing horizon. He is a powerful indicator that suffering and scarcity are never the final destination, and that your birthright is a consciously replenished wellspring of abundance and new opportunity.

Now is the time to cross the bridge and unlock the false perceptions of your hindrances so you may surrender them right to light and receive the blessings that are ready to reveal themselves to you."

When it's balanced, you feel renewed optimism after a trial. When it's imbalanced, you feel stuck in the despair of the aftermath of destruction. To bring into balance, find your creative flow within each moment so that you become connected to your authentic expression without altering yourself to please others.

I just love that so much because we have been through a storm the beginning of this year. Although it's been slow and murky, it has been this deep, penetrating storm. It's brought us into some of our deepest survival layers. And so let yourself feel the potential that comes with this new beginning.

THIS BLOG IS A REVISED TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE 99 OF MY PODCAST “SOUL ARCHAEOLOGY’.

Tune into the latest episode of soul archaeology for a full energetic download. available on all platforms.