Monday, March 10, 2025
Waxing Moon
Venus Retrograde
Hello, and welcome to the beginning of yet another week.
I don’t know about you, but when we “spring forward” it takes me a couple of weeks to adjust, and I’m shambling around, disoriented. When we “fall back” I have extra energy for weeks.
We have a lot going on this week, astrologically. Venus is still retrograde. We have a full moon AND a lunar eclipse on Friday the 14th, and then Mercury goes retrograde on the 15th until April 7. Back up all your tech, plan extra time around any and all travel, take five extra beats to think before you speak instead of one or two, and try not to sign any contracts or purchase big ticket items. Slow down and be thorough with everything you do. Having the Venus and Mercury retrogrades together can be challenging. It can also help you figure out what you really want and need, although wait to make the actual move until both go direct. Mercury goes direct on April 7, and Venus goes direct on April 12.
For the month of March, we are using the Midnight City Tarot Mini Deck, written and illustrated by Jackie Franco, and her full-sized City of Dreams Oracle deck. They work really well together. Both decks are New York-centric. As someone who spent many years living and working in theatre in New York, this deck speaks strongly to me. The quality of these decks is wonderful. They feel good as one handles them. You can learn more about the decks and buy them here.
If you’re new to the weekly readings, this is a spread of mine. It’s read from left to right, 5 cards. Any card that needs more interpretation can be built into further, above and below, with either more tarot cards, another tarot deck, or an oracle deck.
These interpretations are mine, based on my experience, intuition and responses to the artwork. You may have a different experience. This is an overview of the week as it stands now; every decision we make from the moment of the reading can change the outcome. If there’s something in the reading that worries you, you have the information ahead of time so that you can plan, make better choices, or handle it differently than predicted for a better outcome. Tarot sets out possibilities, which you change through your choices and actions.
Left to right, the positions are as follows:
1. The Collective Energy of the Week
2. The Week’s Challenge
3. The Week’s Opportunity
4. The Week’s Stretch
5. The Week’s Comfort
The Collective Energy of the Week – 8 of Wands
This is about rapid movement. There’s a tendency, right before Mercury goes retrograde, to try and get as much settled as possible. But with the Venus retrograde, remember to still look at the details. While in some decks, it can have a somewhat negative connotation, this deck shows clear skies and focused attention. When this card comes up for me in this deck, I tend to breathe a sigh of relief, because it means I feel less stuck. This card tends to be about motion, rather than achievement. We’re not at the end of the cycle yet, but we’re making progress.
The Week’s Challenge – 10 of Coins
10 of Coins is about abundance and sharing. Here in the US, our government is currently trying to force us into deeper grooves of poverty through stripping away basic social safety nets. It’s difficult not to shut down and try to hoard, but this card suggests sharing is a stronger way forward, even if it feels counter intuitive. Together, we can accomplish a lot on the material plane. We can look back through time to see how other generations did so, and take heart from that. The artwork shows a potluck among neighbors. Even if that energy feels challenging at times this week, taking that out into the world will ultimately help the focused forward movement of the 8 of Wands. Last week, we had the 9 of Coins in this position, so we’ve built on last week’s challenge to this week’s.
The Week’s Opportunity – King of Swords
The King of Swords leads with intellect. He also knows when to cut away what is no longer necessary, ending a cycle in order to move on. This week, we have the opportunity to seek expert advice or to be the expert, depending on our individual situations. Weigh the different facets carefully, and make the choice using your head.
The Week’s Stretch – Death
This card was in the same position last week. And it was in the same position the week before, in the reading with the Cozy Witch Tarot. That means we are still in a space of needing to end a cycle so that we can start fresh. Three weeks in a row of the same card turning up in the same slot in two different decks is significant. It doesn’t have to be scary; remember, we are in retrograde/eclipse season. But it means we have to roll up our sleeves and do the work.
Last week, we had a card in the Foundation slot below this card (Letting Go). This week, there’s the card in the Growth slot above it, so we can see where letting go and clearing out for this change can lead. The card is The In-Between, which is a card of patience and waiting. We’ve started this major process of change, but it takes time. This signifies why it’s the Death card that showed up in the previous slot, rather than the Tower. Had the Tower shown up, the change would have been rapid. Death suggests more of a transition than a shock. The In-Between (showing a subway whizzing between the boroughs) suggests that since it’s such a major shift, it can’t be rushed. But keep showing up to do the work. The train suggests there is motion, even if we haven’t yet arrived.
The Week’s Comfort – 7 of Cups
The 7 of Cups suggests that whatever this major transition is we are going through, we will find comfort in that transition opening many options. Maybe we’re not seeing things clearly, and having so many options can be confusing. The 7 of Cups often gets a bad rap, but my personal experience of the card is often this: the 7 of Cups shows up when I have many options open to me, but the people around me are trying to push me into a decision that suits THEIR agendas, not mine. Therefore, when the card shows up, it’s telling me not to rush in making a decision (which ties into the Death, In-Between, and King of Swords cards), and to look at things clearly and objectively (King of Swords again), in spite of the forward motion (8 of Wands). . Eventually, you have to make a decision, but not right now.
This is reinforced by the oracle card below it, in the Foundation slot, Protection. Remember to protect your energy from those who want to siphon it off for their own purposes. You can protect your energy while still embodying the 10 of Coins community sharing card, even though it’s sometimes difficult to balance protecting yourself while being generous.
Even though the collective energy encourages us to be in community and move forward with clear focus, we also need to slow down to think clearly since we are still in the midst of the major transition that the Death card in the Stretch slot for three consecutive weeks indicates. This focused motion, clear thinking, and major transition opens lots of options, so we need to protect our energy and not be pushed into making choices to fit agendas other than our own.
What do you get from this reading? Does anything resonate, or do you get something completely different? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.