Week of February 17th, 2025

Our Covid nightmare lasted so much longer than we could have predicted. We couldn’t leave our homes. We could not connect with one another in-person. Many of us lived in fear of a silent and unknown killer that the world had never before seen. While on the surface life has long since gone back to normal, for many, things were never the same again.

A small percentage of the population is living in what I would call a Covid shadow: they still mask up everywhere they go. They rarely leave their homes. They either have not yet had Covid or they fear what would happen if they actually got the disease. Some have pre-existing conditions that make them afraid of what would happen if they did contract Covid, or perhaps they got a bad case of it and it scared them away from the world. For them it is still March of 2020. Their calendars seem forever frozen in a pandemic winter that will never end.

Most of us know at least a couple people who fit the above description. What is life like for those who are still living in fear of Covid And more to the point, have things really actually gone back to normal even for the rest of us?

There is a sense one gets that even though many of us are living “normal” lives that nothing really is the way it used to be before the pandemic. At least not on an interpersonal level.

On Reddit forums there are countless threads created by people who claim that since Covid they have “forgotten how to socialize.” When you walk past people on a hike, there is a tendency to give a wide berth, a habit formed during the oft-touted mantra “keep six feet of distance” during the height of the pandemic. Upon meeting someone new, the idea of shaking hands is practically a thing of the past. Wearing masks in public is barely noticed as anything unusual, not counting Asian countries where this was already normalized. During impromptu social events people tend to stick more to the people they are already friends with, or who they came with rather than venture out to meet new people.

I have not conjured up these observations in my imagination or out of thin air. I’ve seen countless posts about these phenomena on numerous forums, listened to these observations from friends and certainly experienced it firsthand. The bottom line cannot be ignored; something is very different about how humans have been socializing since 2020.

So, for your friends who are among the more agoraphobic, who are still living fully in the pandemic, sheltered from the world for almost five years, what incentive is there to rejoin humanity? I would even argue that perhaps these people are not missing much. They can’t go back to 2019.

At least at home they feel safe; they can live with the memories of a life with healthy and less-awkward social interactions, handshakes, the potential to connect easily with new people who have shared interests without much worry about disease and social division or ostracization. They can still connect with their families. They can still do many of their hobbies, and due to remote work, in many cases, their jobs.

What if those of us who have “gone back to normal” never really did? What if we are all just pretending?

What if it is the ones who are still sheltered in place, afraid to leave their homes who are actually living in alignment with the true energy of the world in 2025? Perhaps these people aren’t denying reality: everything has changed.

Instead, maybe it is actually the rest of us who are lost. Maybe we are just pretending things are back to normal. Indeed, what if we are actually the ones who are stuck in an eternal winter, never to know the meaning of unfettered social connection again?

**Cue Twilight Zone music**

This Week’s Transits

This week should feel a lot more forward-moving and progressive than anything we have experienced so far in 2025, especially toward the end of the week.

First, we have two of the Goddess asteroids changing signs within a few days of one another, which will make for a fairly dynamic week. Another major shift will be Mars finally stopping its retrograde motion this Sunday and begin to go direct. This is big become Mars has been retrograde since December.

These are all reasons to celebrate, at least astrologically.

While not all astrologers subscribe to the powerful nature of the goddess asteroids (Juno, Vesta, Ceres and Pallas Athena), their energies are always working in the background highlighting certain areas of life where we need to pay more attention. It is worth studying them if you are interested in a less-explored region of Astrology.

The change in signs of two of them this week will highlight an increased feeling of feminine energy being directed toward the mutable signs of Sagittarius and Pisces. This will allow women and the more feminine-odentifying among us to explore a more creative energy for the first time in awhile.

Mars going direct will make us unstuck, finally! If there have been projects or new things you’ve been excited to try and just haven’t been able to get them off the ground, just wait until next week. You are almost there. The energy hasn’t been right to start these projects yet, but all the preparation work you have been doing is finally about to pay off.

In general Pisces season is a time for more creativity, more theater and spirituality, and less hard edginess. Transmute your more introverted nature into creative energy this week and you’ll feel a lot better.

Words of wisdom: Are you more of a follow-your-head, or follow-you-heart type of person? Chances are, you are neither. You are a follow-your-intuition type of person who uses their head to plan how to make what your intuition desires actually happen, and who uses your heart to enjoy the ride.