Lunarium News #49

February 2, 2017

I disappeared for quite a while as I was working very hard on an astrological app project for another company. Hopefully, I will be able to announce the result of my work in the next issue.
 

Retrograde Venus is Coming

I used to attract your attention to the periods of retrograde Mercury regularly, as they happen thrice a year, and they are quite important, so worth a reminder (the next one will start on the 10th of April, by the way).

This time, however, something different is coming. Venus becomes retrograde only about once in a year and a half, and it keeps moving backward for about a month and a half. This time, it will turn retrograde on the 4th of March, and then resume its normal direct motion on the 15th of April. Or, if you resonate well with the ideas of my retrograde planets article, Venus already crossed point 1 on the 30th of January, and will completely leave the zone of retrograde motion on the 18th of May.

Now, let’s focus on what retrograde Venus is about, as I don’t think I wrote about this enough in the past. At the core, there is the same idea as with each and every retrograde planet, the change of stereotype, you can read about this in my article. So what the stereotype of Venus is about? It is about beauty, value, love and relationships. Before the period of retrograde Venus, we have one set of ideas about what is beautiful and valuable, what we like and dislike, what’s our preferred way of forming relationships, what kind of people we find attractive, and after the retrograde period is over, we’ll have a different set of ideas about these things. How different? Well, it depends on many factors, one of them is how prominent is Venus in your astrological profile, but there will be some change for sure.

I believe that periodical changes in fashion can be associated with the periods of retrograde Venus: humanity in general changes its concept of what is beautiful and attractive.

Some years ago I was lecturing on astrology and told the audience about the retrograde Venus. I also gave them the dates of the most recent retrograde Venus period (in our case, it was from July 25th to September 6th 2015). One of the men in the audience exclaimed: oh, exactly! My son was wearing long hair before that, and now he cut it very short!

What we should be beware of while Venus is retrograde? First of all, this won’t be a good time for a marriage or any other decisive step in relationships. Because chances are, your idea of ideal relationships will change soon. On the same reason, retrograde Venus can be a critical time for those relationships that are unstable. The wisest attitude is to be flexible, to allow both your partner and yourself a space for a change.

Also, if an idea to re-decorate something, or to buy something fashionable or valuable will come to you for the first time when Venus is retrograde, it will be better to wait until Venus is direct again. Otherwise, you might find very soon that you don’t really like your new purchase, or the new design.

On the other hand, if you tried to find some design solution many times in the past but couldn’t, retrograde Venus might be able to help you to find the way out of the dead end. It will bring you all sorts of new ideas, likes and sympathies, even those that, you’d thought, would never attract your attention. Just give some time for the new stereotype to settle in before going ahead with a new idea. Wait until the 15th of April or, still better, until the 18th of May.
 

The Return of the Luck Chart

A few years ago I decided to create an app that would show the user the days that are lucky for him or her. There are many different approaches to finding out the lucky days, so for the first version of the app I decided to use something simple, and then, if the app will prove to be a success, gradually add more features and more approaches in the subsequent versions. I created a web page for the Luck Chart where I described in detail the algorithm I used and how the app works.

At that time, however, I found the sales of the app underwhelming and put the project on ice. The app is still available and works well though.

Recently, I received an email from a person asking how the app’s algorithm works. I sent him the link, explained the situation with the project, and got the following comment:

I am amazed that it did not take off… the problem is people might not realise how potent it is. That applies to Life Graph too. These two apps really connect with me. If folk understood astrology better we would be in a different world lol.

Life Graph is yet another of my apps which is currently only available for Android. The iOS version was killed by the recent updates to iOS, and I will have to re-create it from scratch.

Andrew explained that he is using Luck Chart and Life Graph for all sorts of important events and decisions, and his friends also used lucky days to arrange a marriage.

So I decided to resume my work on the Luck Chart project, and the new version, with additional factors taken into account, will be available for both iOS and Android. If you would like to have it for a Windows phone, please let me know by responding to this email.

But first, I need to restore those apps that were killed by iOS updates, and one of them is the Runic Oracle.
 

Runic Oracle: An Update

My Runic Oracle app was praised by many people, and it worked well for many years but stopped working on iOS 9. Since then, I was working on the new version of the app, and it is close to completion but I still need a new design solution for it, and some graphics. I tried to hire freelancers to produce those, as I am not good with graphics, but unsuccessfully. Now a relative who is a professional designer volunteered to help me, and hopefully the project will be completed soon. Perhaps retrograde Venus will help :)
 

See you in the next issue,

Alexander