The notion that the heart has its own wisdom is an ancient one, as that quote from Plato illustrates. Modern variations on the ancient art of astrology take this idea to a further level by charting the heart’s timeline as an unfolding lifelong process.
Generic planetary returns occur for everyone around the same age and the heart’s timekeepers are the “relationship planets”: Venus, planet of love, followed by warrior Mars, the energiser, and Moon, our most direct channel to body, feelings, instincts. Jupiter and Saturn occasionally hook into these cycles, making them more profound and forceful.
All of these planets feature in the heart-keeper timeline provided and you will see there are special age brackets that cluster a few returns together, extending their impact.
Fate or free will?
Contemporary astrology does not suggest that we are determined by “fate”. Rather, modern Western astrology explores the interconnections between fate and free will. Our date of birth determines age and the planetary patterns under which we are born. There are many parameters that we don’t choose — for example, birth moment, genetics, social and racial inheritance — yet within these, as conscious beings, we can make choices.
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Astrology supports that process with self-understanding and timing. You can use your own timeline to look back and remember the themes that unfolded, perhaps the lessons learned, then consider the way those lessons can be applied so you can experience a more informed version when the same theme repeats. Repeating themes enrich each life story. Astrology charts the how and the when of what novelist and astrologer Milan Kundera called life: “a theme with variations”.
Venus & Mars returns: setting the theme
The Venus and Mars returns on your timeline offer powerful, life-enhancing insights. These returns are not the frequent orbital returns of Venus and Mars to the part of the zodiac they occupied at your birth; instead, we track the special times when Venus and Mars return to the same angular relationship with the Sun.
Returns of the Sun-Venus relationship occur every eight years of your life and the Sun-Mars repeats occur in pairs every 15 years. After age 15, the Mars returns occur at 30 and 32, 47 and 49, 64 and 66, and so on.
Most important times are the triple returns of Sun, Venus and Mars on the 32nd and 64th birthdays. These ages play important roles in our emotional and spiritual development. By adding to this the emotional unfolding of the “progressed Moon” returns, which occur every 27 to 28 years, plus a few rare overlaps of the Jupiter and Saturn cycles, some of those inexplicable repeating themes in your relationships start to tell you their story.
Most exciting of all, these events show you the power of timing and help inform your choices with greater knowledge of your life themes. Questions like “Why are relationships so hard?” or “Why do I attract the same kind of person?” can be turned on their head and seen from a whole new perspective. Instead of the “why”, the “how” now comes into view.
A Venus love story: heart healing
When Venus returns to her solar relationship every eight years, on or near your birthday, the heart has a special chance to heal. It would be nice if Venus was all love and tenderness but Venus returns also reveal the wounds and disappointments — often the first stage of healing. As part of your Venus theme, these are far more helpful when claimed and known than when hidden. Healing potential comes with recognising the stories you have inherited and internalised about love.
Considering the events of your past Venus returns can be an informative guide. Particularly helpful here is to realise that Venus is Eros in the larger sense of the word: life energy, creative flow, not just personal love themes. Love of life is intensely creative and, by entering the creative matrix of Venus, you can claim the right to co-create your life story. You can’t rewrite the past but you can certainly reconsider and revalue it. This can provide the fertile ground for honouring life themes while reframing the story of how they now unfold.
If, for instance, there is a strong “mutable” theme to your birth chart with the signs Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces prominent, your love story can easily include partners who cheat or suddenly leave — or you may be the one who runs away. If you have a strong “fixed” theme, with focus on Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius, then feeling controlled, held back, dependent, or depended upon could be your story. A “cardinal” theme is the go-getter, grab-life-and-run-with-it story that hooks into the signs Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn when prominent. These love relationships can rapidly be eclipsed by too many responsibilities, plans, ambitions, roles.
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With just a little shift of emphasis, all of these stories can readily flip into contentment and happiness themes. Creative diversity and regular alone time soothe the mutable heart while appreciation and clear boundaries make fixed feel just fine. Cardinal hearts compose themselves when ambitions and plans include a commitment to less stress, less rush, being present.
Of course, many of us blend these different energies and that complementary pair, Venus and Mars, can be located in signs that don’t complement each other at all. It’s hardly surprising that the journey of the heart is a complex one!
Returning to the analogy of writing your own love story, remember that good stories, like good relationships, have surprises and complexity as well as satisfying points of resolution.
Returns unpacked: your personal ladder to happiness
“And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.” ~ TS Eliot
The search for happiness is one of those perennial human quests that hold more questions than answers. While our notion of happiness transforms and shape-shifts over time, there are also deep tastes, quests and life themes that are hardwired to personal happiness.
This is where your timeline comes in. If you are younger than 24, you have teenage and childhood themes to consider to unearth those deeper quests. Obviously, the older you are, the more life stories you can uncover but age is no guarantee of sudden wisdom. Social and emotional conditioning can simply mean we have longer to repeat destructive patterns. Yet difficult times can be exactly what leads to success. Happily, human consciousness means that once a light illuminates those patterns, we start to get a choice and many more thereafter. In astrological terms, the planetary cycles and returns offer repeat opportunities to perceive life’s intelligent pattern.
To step into your Timeline potential, take particular notice of your last return cycle and of your next one because that is where you stand, poised for choice.
Age 24 is when the two brightest planets in the sky, beneficial Venus and Jupiter, return together with the Sun. This is a special time when falling in love and embracing a creative worldview come readily. This assists growth on many levels, including a burgeoning philosophical maturity. You easily identify, witness and love everything that represents life’s bounty — and love is its own reward.
That potent period from age 27 to 30 combines the progressed Moon return and a Mars return, further amplified by the big maturity transit, the Saturn return. In these years you map your future life, first with the embodiment of heart-driven needs and raw instinctual power with Moon’s return between 27 and 28. The serious reflection and maturation demanded by the Saturn return, between 28 and 30, topped off by the energy rush of a Mars-Sun return as you turn 30, often make these tumultuous years — but also fertile ones that are deeply formative and easily remembered years later.
Age 32 is the major turning point when you’re most likely to take on the bigger journey implicit within that map you shaped between 27 and 30. Now Venus, Mars and Sun return to their birth position together on the week of your birthday. Venus drives your heart-keeper journey so when she has such strong yang companions as Mars and Sun there is no holding back. The extra courage and passion endowed by Mars and Sun spark new direction and a sense of independent destiny, which will support happy relationships. Now there is a flowering of any creative enterprise, artistic direction and business or personal relationships that have been germinating. Aspects of your life that have lost full-heartedness drop away. This period will highlight the disharmony or harmony between your own Venus ideals and Mars passion. Stronger bridges between them demand to be built now.
Age 40 brings the fifth Venus return, carrying the special significance of 5 and 8, which are both Venusian numbers, her magical “quintessence”. The 40th birthday features Venus in her full expression of the number five: each of the eight yearly returns of Venus encloses five retrograde motion cycles. The visual outcome is that the course of Venus, when plotted over eight years, forms a five-pointed star, a pentagram — or, three-dimensionally, a lotus shape with five petals. At age 40 you experience the fifth Venus pentagram of your life, a quintessential time of flowering. Venus traditionally rules all flowers with a fivefold structure, most especially the rose and all the flowers of the edible fruit-bearing plants, symbolising her fruitfulness. Thus 40 is the fruitful age for natural magic, fostering receptivity and intuition, made more dynamic by occurring during the years of the “midlife” transits. Deeply explore your Venus now to find your right food for a happy heart. A new vantage point is available to assess where you have been and embrace the journey ahead with mature love energy.
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Ages 47 to 49 host multiple returns: a pair of Mars returns with a Jupiter and Venus return in between. This important transitional period witnesses re-evaluation and a shift of direction. When exhausted by the commonplaceness of life, suddenly passion and optimism revivify action. Mars returns at 47 and again at 49 so this period can start with anger, frustration or happy shocks. As a primal energy, Mars hooks into any way to wake us up. Jupiter, then Venus returns as 48 approaches and patience of spirit is more easily found. This gives birth to various transitions, spiritual, social and emotional. Gatherings of community and friends assist self-refection and provide social substance.
Between ages 54 and 56, the Progressed Moon returns again, followed by a Venus return. This has a potent wisdom quest theme when both “Feminine Lights”, the Moon and Venus, maximise your receptivity and emotional sensitivity. The way this intensely fertile energy enters your life is coloured by the “gates” of your Moon phase and Venus phase of birth.
Age 64 is another major turning point, with a triple Sun-Venus-Mars return. Age 32 was the last one, so look back and learn. Read the text for age 32. Again, you have an opportunity to consciously build bridges between the more passive Venusian desires and the more active Mars drives to achieve balance in your relationships and passion in your actions. Next Venus stop is age 72 …
As you work with your Timeline to discern the themes of your love story, so knowledge of your own Venus, Mars and Moon will grow. This is a heart-healing journey. Have fun with it.
The heart-keeper timeline
| Planet cycle | Age | Key theme |
| 1st major Venus return | 8 | Social identity emerges and gender awareness sparks intense friendships |
| Major Mars return | 15 | Sexual identity charges energy body |
| 2nd Venus return | 16 | Social and sensual awareness unite |
| 3rd Venus & 2nd Jupiter return together | 24 | Meaningful direction and enthusiasm light up your heart, expand passion and purpose |
| Progressed Moon return | 27–28 | Heart-driven emotions, instinctual needs generate actions and choices |
| Saturn return | 28–30 | Maturity and responsibility come calling |
| Minor Mars return | 30 | Energy charge, desires and identity coalesce |
| Triple return of Venus, Mars & Sun | 32 |
A turning point: feelings, desires and social needs converge |
| 5th Venus return | 40 | Love energy sweetens any project, creativity further coloured by “midlife” reappraisals |
| Major Mars return | 47 | Energy charge, intense desire, wisdom quest |
| 6th Venus return | 48 | Love and knowledge seek a synergy |
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Jupiter return
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47–48 | Self-knowledge, seeking to understand love |
| Minor Mars return | 49 | Energy charge, intense desire |
| Progressed Moon return | 54–55 | Heart-driven emotions and instinctual needs energise a wisdom quest |
| 7th Venus return | 56 | Love energy intensified, often spiritualised |
| Triple return of Venus, Mars & Sun | 64 |
A turning point: feelings, desires and social needs converge |
| 9th Venus return | 72 | Pleasure and love re-appraised and renewed |
