Venus, the planet of Love is going to turn retrograde within the next hours. During her retrograde course Venus will move backwards through Aries and will gradually retreat into the sign of Pisces on April the 3^rd, where she will continue her retrogration until April the 16^th.

Andy Warhol, in his painting “Details of Renaissance Paintings, Botticelli, Birth of Venus”, is re-visiting Botticelli’s Venus and re-paints her with a pop aesthetics in order to comment on the commercialisation of the ideal of Love, the superficiality of being vain and to make the viewer stop and ponder on the notions of “relating” and “beauty”.

That is exactly what Venus is callings us to do while she will be retrograde. A re-evaluation of our own self-worth, our own internal beauty. We are called to re-assess the expectations we have from others and at the same time to see how it is that we ourselves relate.

During the retrograde movement we turn inwards and we wonder:

• What is that we want from a relationship and from our partner?
• Which are the motivations and our deepest desires?
• Do we want to be in a relationship just only for the sake of not being alone?
• Is our relationship superficial, pop and "appearances-only", lacking meaningful sharing?
• Are we appreciated as much as we deserve? Do we return appreciation and value our partner?

The very nature of these questions, whether we are in a relationship or not, concerns first and most to ourselves and while it mainly relates to love relations it also touches, one to one partnerships, business relations and our socialising in general.

The retrograde movement brings Venus backwards and this may mean that a person from the past re-appears. If this is the case, it only happens for a reason. We must “remember” the relationship we have had with this person in the past, what it meant then and what it means now, for our present and for any existing relations or commitments. We are called to redefine this relation with the past person in a clear and karmic – free way.

From April the 3^rd when Venus exalted in Pisces will be attired with romanticism, self -sacrifice and utmost idealism, our need to belong will be great and will feel like nostalgia to return to the very ideal of love that has been lost.

All this is a necessary part in a process of introspection that will clear out situations, will make us feel better with ourselves and will prepare us to be more sociable and will revitalise our relationships when Venus will turn direct again.