Venus in Scorpio is about to descend into the underworld once more. This coming Saturday, October 3, she stations retrograde in the same corner of the sky where she turned around on October 5, 2018, which closes an eight-year circle. Before she goes, I invite you to cast yourself back to October and November of 2018 and open the photos on your phone. Let the faces, rooms, and small moments of that season rise up around you, and notice who you were with, what you were saying yes to, and how you carried yourself when you thought no one was looking. Sit with these questions today:
When Venus in Scorpio turned retrograde in October 2018, who was I, and how does that person compare with who I am today?
What changes began during that Venus retrograde, and which of them took root?
What did that season teach me about what I value, and how has that shaped my choices since?
I want to carry us into the weekend we just came through. The Full Moon in Aries on Saturday rose right on top of Neptune Rx in Aries, which set the divine warrior, blade drawn against whatever is false, beside the dreamy, visionary, spirit-soaked waters of Neptune in Aries. Many of us likely felt moments of real magic alongside that clean, bright cutting. The whole scene was cradled inside a rare grand sextile, a glowing web of support that lends the higher will and the higher mind to the moment. That support gave us an unusually clear view of the places where we have let ourselves be lulled into believing something that was never true.
All of that clarity is a doorway into what comes next. Venus in Scorpio turns retrograde on Saturday and completes the cycle that began in 2018. Mercury in Scorpio slips into its pre-retrograde shadow this Sunday, October 4, and stations retrograde on October 24, which makes the weeks ahead an open invitation to shadow work. Venus in Scorpio and Mercury in Scorpio both lead us beneath the surface, into the dark and fertile places where our deepest truths about love, worth, and power have been waiting. Here are some questions to carry with us through the season ahead:
Where is Venus in Scorpio inviting me to look with fresh honesty at my desires, my relationships, and my sense of worth?
Which patterns from 2018 remain unfinished, and what would it take to live them through or release them?
What would it look like to honor my worth in my daily choices over the coming weeks?
What part of me has been waiting in the dark for this retrograde, and what does she want me to know?
Take your time with all of this, keep a pen close, and write down whatever rises. Then bring what you find back to our circle, because remembering has always been work we do best together, gathered around the fire.
THIS WEEK'S TRANSITS
September 28 (Monday)
The Sun in Libra trines Uranus Rx in Gemini \ Mercury in Libra trines the North Node in Aquarius \ Mercury in Libra sextiles the South Node in Leo
The Sun in Libra trining Uranus Rx in Gemini is one of the connections in the grand sextile that formed around the Full Moon in Aries conjunct Neptune Rx in Aries, so today carries the afterglow of that lunation, when what the Full Moon in Aries and Neptune Rx in Aries revealed about your ideals and your dreams can be tried on in daily life. It opens an easy channel between identity and authenticity, where a slightly unconventional idea about who one is can be tested without much resistance, which makes this a good day for loosening a belief that has started to feel more like habit than truth. Mercury in Libra trines the North Node in Aquarius and sextiles the South Node in Leo, which brings the mind into the same grand sextile and puts it in conversation with both the direction of growth and the familiar talents that have carried you this far, so that a thought or a conversation today can show you how to bring the best of the old pattern forward into what is next.
September 29 (Tuesday)
Mercury in Libra opposes Chiron in Aries
Mercury in Libra opposes Chiron in Aries in the last degrees of both signs, a karmic degree that can feel powerful. Words and ideas today touch an old wound around self-assertion and fairness, and the sensitivity that comes up is pointing at something ready to be spoken honestly and tended, since the final degrees of a sign tend to ask for completion.
September 30 (Wednesday)
Mercury enters Scorpio
Mercury's shift into Scorpio deepens the mind's appetite, trading small talk for the kind of thinking that wants to get underneath the surface of things. Over these coming weeks, the mental work is less about broadcasting and more about excavation.
October 2 (Friday)
Mercury in Scorpio squares Mars in Leo \ Mercury in Scorpio squares Pluto Rx in Aquarius \ Mars in Leo trines Neptune Rx in Aries \ Mercury in Scorpio, Mars in Leo, and Pluto Rx in Aquarius form a fixed T-square
Mercury in Scorpio squares both Mars in Leo and Pluto Rx in Aquarius in close succession, stirring up sharp words and old power struggles that want to be named rather than swallowed. Together with the Mars and Pluto opposition that perfects tomorrow, these form a fixed T-square with Mercury in Scorpio at the apex, and its release point falls in Taurus, which points toward grounding, the body, and steady values as the place to let the pressure move through. This is an intense day, and it brings up material from the shadow. Mars in Leo trining Neptune Rx in Aries offers a gentler outlet running alongside that friction, a reminder that inspired, soulful action can defuse a fight better than winning it can, and that channeling the charge into a spiritual warrior energy can help.
October 3 (Saturday)
Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio \ Mars in Leo opposes Pluto Rx in Aquarius
Venus stationing retrograde in Scorpio opens a forty-day underworld journey through love, desire, and worth, asking what in those areas has been avoided rather than resolved. This retrograde returns to the same area of the sky as the one that began on October 5, 2018, which closes an eight-year cycle, so themes that first surfaced then are circling back for another look. Mars in Leo opposing Pluto Rx in Aquarius adds combustible timing to the same day and completes the T-square with Mercury in Scorpio, a test of whether personal will can hold steady against a collective power struggle without needing to dominate it. Saturday is as intense as Friday.
October 4 (Sunday)
Mercury enters its pre-retrograde shadow in Scorpio \ The Sun in Libra opposes Saturn Rx in Aries
Mercury enters its pre-retrograde shadow in Scorpio on Sunday morning, ahead of its station retrograde on October 24, and the themes that will dominate the review begin to surface now, so conversations and questions that come up over the next three weeks are worth noting. The Sun in Libra opposing Saturn Rx in Aries can feel like identity itself is being weighed and found wanting. The deeper lesson is that self-worth doesn't actually require anyone else's approval, even when Saturn insists on making its case.
