Individuation and the Myth of Persephone
Astrology of March 2025
You may be thinking… aren’t you a little bit late to be publishing something on the astrology of March 2025? It can be helpful to have a heads up about what is happening astrologically, but sometimes what you learn once the dust has settled and you have time to look back can be even more powerful. This is what I like to call integration, taking an experience and then synthesizing it until you understand all the way down to your bones what the heck just happened. And if there was ever a month that needed this time of looking backwards to understand where we are headed, it would be March 2025. For most of the world, it feels like we have reached a fever pitch of world events that have plucked our nervous systems into the highest state of fight or flight possible, all the while — as I am sure because life keeps moving for us personally no matter where the collective is at — we have all been dealing with our own brand of eclipse season paired with a double retrograde whammy! Phew… so here we are still in the portal of the eclipses, in the lair of the dragon as I like to call it. Almost through but not quite.
Lets look at the overview of the Astrology for the month to give the lay of the land.
March 1st we had Venus turn retrograde in Aries at 10 degrees.
March 13th we had a lunar eclipse at 23 degrees of Aries.
March 14th Mercury turns retrograde at 9 degrees of Aries.
March 22nd we have our retrograde Venus cazimi through the heart of the Sun.
March 24th Mercury follows suit and goes cazimi through the heart of the Sun.
March 19th we have a solar eclipse at 9 degrees of Aries.
March 30th Neptune enters Aries, for the first time in 165 years.
April 6th Mercury turns direct at 26 degrees of Pisces while conjunct the North Node.
April 12th Venus turns direct at 23 degrees of Pisces.
Now that might seem like a lot, but actually this is the broad strokes of what we are looking at for the Month of March (and a little of the first part of April). You may have noticed a lot of repetition of the same-ish degrees of Pisces and Aries. This is one of the amazing synchronicities of this time, as we have our Venus and Mercury Retrograde starting and ending at almost the same exact degrees of our two eclipses in March.
There is a fated quality to any eclipse season but this extra weaving of these two planets making their stations of retrograde and direct in accordance with these eclipse points feels like the universe if trying to tell us something important. It’s like when you thought you had learned a lesson, but then our great cosmic grandmother comes in and says “Are you sure??” and gives you another little (or big!) test. When a planet stations either retrograde or direct it is the wheel of fortune is turning. The classic myth that tells the tale of Venus and her retrograde cycle is the Myth of Persephone.
Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, was a beautiful maiden who spent her days frolicking in the meadows of the earth. One day, as she was picking flowers with her companions, the ground suddenly split open, and from the chasm emerged Hades, the god of the underworld. Seized by an irresistible desire, he swept Persephone into his chariot and carried her down to his dark kingdom beneath the earth.
Demeter, distraught over the disappearance of her beloved daughter, searched the world for her, neglecting her divine duties. The earth withered, crops failed, and famine spread across the land. In despair, Demeter appealed to Zeus, the king of the gods, to intervene. Zeus, moved by the suffering of mortals, sent Hermes, the messenger of the gods, to the underworld to negotiate Persephone’s release.
Hades, though reluctant, agreed to let Persephone go, but not before he tricked her into eating a few seeds of a pomegranate, the fruit of the underworld. By the laws of the Fates, anyone who consumed food in the underworld was bound to return. Thus, Persephone was fated to spend part of the year in the underworld as Hades' queen and the rest with her mother on the surface.
When Persephone returned to Demeter, the goddess rejoiced, and the earth flourished once more. But each year, when Persephone descended to the underworld, Demeter mourned, causing the earth to fall into barrenness — thus explaining the cycle of the seasons.
In this story we have both the Venusian symbolized by Persephone and the Mercurial symbolized by Hermes. The beauty of this Venus/Mercury retrograde cycle that we are in, is that they are occurring together. First Venus stations retrograde, starting her journey through the underworld as symbolized by the wheel of fortune turning as Persephone is taken by Hades. As she journeys through the underworld she meets Mercury and just a day or two later he turns retrograde himself following Venus into the underworld abyss. This is not altogether that common to have both planets retrograde at the same time in the same sign, turning retrograde so close in degree. This is the first time this has happened since 1991, but we will experience this pattern again in October 2026, May 2028, December 2029, and July 2031. This suggests to me that Mercury is teaming up with Venus to guide our way through the underworld. Not just once, but coming back every retrograde to do so for the next 6 years.
It is important to note that within any underworld myth (and many cultures have parallel myths of Venusian figures journeying through the underworld) there is a sense that something must be surrendered to gain your freedom. This Venus retrograde in Aries brings up an interesting and sometimes forgotten aspect of the Aries archetype. Aries can be unlocked with the phrase “I am”. But what does that really mean? At the root of Aries, we are looking at a process of individuation. Carl Jung, one of the fathers of Depth Psychology, speaks to the process of individuation as the process of becoming one’s true self and realizing one’s full potential. This is something that happens organically through one’s life, but can also be accelerated through integrating one’s shadow self and synthesizing what lies in opposition in our psyches such as the conscious and the unconscious, the personal and the collective, the psyche and the soma, the divine and the human, and life and death.
Some questions to leave you with in this fiery end to March are:
What process of individuation are we being asked to embark on? As Neptune rolls into Aries this weekend and Saturn joins it in May, this is just the beginning of our individuation process.
As Neptune dissolves and Saturn gives us no’s, what are we needing to let go of to become more wholly ourselves, and to integrate all the parts of us no matter how shadowy? In the underworld, individuation process, you have to let go first. You have to bring the shadow self to light before you can gain your truth.
One last note before I leave you to your journey. This type of process, the excavation of the soul and the underworld journey is not for the faint of heart. These are karmic times, the turning of the wheel of fortune in your life, I would be amiss to not recognize how hard this is for some of us. It is no easy task to let go, to individuate and to integrate what our souls are asking us to. Embracing the part of Aries that teaches us how to leap without looking, how to be brave in the face of the unknown, and how to be a trailblazer, that is the key I believe to navigating this process.
Blessed journey family!
