What happens when nobody is willing to budge? In this episode, astrologer Christopher Renstrom breaks down the powerful fixed T-square between Venus retrograde in Scorpio, Mars in Leo, and Pluto in Aquarius – and what this cosmic standoff could mean for each of the 12 zodiac signs. With competing desires, loyalties, relationships, and priorities coming into focus, Christopher helps you understand what’s really at stake, where you may need to stand your ground, and where a different approach could help break the stalemate.
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🎬 IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR:
00:00 – What Is a T-Square in Astrology?
05:37 – Venus Retrograde in Scorpio: Love, Values & What We Don’t Like
12:26 – Mars in Leo: Fighting for What You Want
16:01 – Pluto in Aquarius: Power, Change & the Collective
25:49 – The Fixed T-Square: What’s Really at Stake?
29:02 – Aries: Fighting for What You Deserve
39:52 – Taurus: Helping vs. Rescuing Someone You Love
51:02 – Gemini: Trust Your Instincts & Stand Your Ground
01:03:23 – Cancer: When Someone You Love Is Struggling
01:11:47 – Leo: When Your Desires Meet Resistance
01:24:56 – Virgo: Navigating Competing Priorities
01:39:49 – Libra: Relationships, Loyalty & What You Really Want
01:50:29 – Scorpio: Venus Retrograde & What You’re Fighting For
02:03:59 – Sagittarius: Knowing Which Battles Are Yours
02:16:27 – Capricorn: When Circumstances Force a Change
02:30:15 – Aquarius: Collaboration With an Unlikely Ally
02:40:28 – Pisces: Supporting Someone Through a Difficult Time
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“The fact of the matter is, love will prevail.” – Christopher Renstrom
Transcript
Christopher: Hello. My name is Christopher Renstrom, and I'm your weekly horoscope columnist here on Astrology Hub. And this time I wanted to talk to you about the fixed T-square taking place involving retrograde Venus in Scorpio, Mars in Leo, and Pluto in Aquarius.
Now, although this fixed T-square will be taking place from October 2nd to October 3rd, its effects are going to last much longer. So let's review who's involved in this fixed T-square. We have Mars at three degrees Leo and Pluto at three degrees Aquarius. The third part is retrograde Venus at eight degrees Scorpio.
Now, one might question Venus as being part of this T-square. She's way past Mars and Pluto, and she's a faster-moving planet. And usually this would be a fair observation, except that Venus will be turning retrograde in Scorpio on October 2nd, which means that Venus will be moving backwards in the sky so that she squares Mars on October 10th, and then she squares Pluto on October 20th.
Plus, another thing we have to keep in mind is Venus is in the zodiac sign of Scorpio, which means that she is ruled by Mars and Pluto. Yes, Mars and Pluto are the two rulers of the zodiac sign of Scorpio. Mars is the traditional ruler, and Pluto—Pluto is the modern planet ruler, and his rulership was added to Scorpio in 1930.
What is a T-Square?
So what is a T-square? Well, basically a T-square is two squares joined to each other by an opposition. Now, a square is basically an aspect between two planets on the zodiacal circle that is a 90 degrees aspect. That's the mathematical explanation. It's essentially a quarter of a 360-degree circle. So a square is basically when two planets are in the same mode, and what I mean by mode is that the two planets are either in cardinal signs, fixed signs, or mutable signs.
The square that's taking place is called a fixed T-square because the planets that are squaring one another are in fixed signs. So here we will have, for instance, Venus retrograde in Scorpio squaring Mars in Leo and Venus retrograde in Scorpio squaring Pluto in Aquarius. These are three fixed signs. Now, what is an opposition?
An opposition is regarded as being a 180-degree aspect between two planets on the 360-degree zodiacal circle. Again, that's the mathematical explanation. Basically, an opposition is when two planets are as far away from one another on a circle that they could possibly be. An opposition means a polarization.
The two planets want nothing to do with one another at all. At least in a square, they're combating one another. They're trying to get one-upmanship over the other one. They're trying to be the louder voice. There's a struggle, so there's some kind of conflict. But with an opposition, with an opposition, these two planets don't have to have anything to do with one another whatsoever.
My favorite example to illustrate an opposition are the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress. These two parties aren't fighting with one another. These two parties simply don't want anything to do with each other. They're absolutely polarized.
There's no reaching across the aisle. There's no discussion. They're in their separate corners, and they're not going to budge. So that's essentially what an opposition is. So when you have Mars opposite Pluto, for example, there's not a conflict really between the two of them. It's just that each one of them is in their separate corner, and they're not going to take the other planet's position into mind.
They're not interested in the other planet's perspective or the other planet's point of view. They just want what they want, and that is it. So when Venus in Scorpio squares Mars in Leo and Pluto in Aquarius, while Mars and Pluto oppose each other, they form the letter T in the sky.
And this is why it's called a T-square. It's two squares which form a T, which is then solidified by the opposition. And that's basically what you have to keep in mind as we go and talk about how this is going to impact you.
So now that we know that the T-square is two squares that are connected to one another by an opposition, let's go ahead and break it down and try to make some sense of it. The first question that we ask when we look at any kind of T-square—and the T-square could be in cardinal signs, fixed signs, or mutable signs—the first question that we want to ask is, what kind of a T-square is it?
The Meaning of a Fixed T-Square
And that answer, as you already know, is fixed. It is a fixed T-square. So what does that mean? What it means is that the three planets involved aren't budging. Nobody's budging whenever we're talking about fixed signs. So let's begin with Venus.
Venus Retrograde in Scorpio
Venus is in the zodiac sign of Scorpio. What does that mean?
So we know that Scorpio is a water sign, and it's a fixed water sign, meaning that Scorpio has very strong feelings, and those feelings never, ever change. So when we have Venus traveling through the zodiac sign of Scorpio, we know by planetary dignity that Venus is in her detriment.
“Oi,” you might say to yourself. “There you go again, Christopher, another astrological label. Venus is in detriment. What does that mean?” Basically, it refers to a planetary dignity. All planets want to be ruling their own signs. They want to be in their own signs in your horoscope. For instance, Venus rules the zodiac signs of Taurus and Libra.
She's said to be in domicile in Taurus and Libra. And if she were to be given her preference where she would show up in your horoscope, she'd want to show up in the zodiac signs of Taurus and Libra. Now, that's not the zodiac sign that Venus is in. Venus is in Scorpio.
Scorpio is the zodiac sign that is opposite Taurus. Remember that I said that Venus is in domicile in Taurus and Libra? Well, the sign that is opposite Taurus is Scorpio, and the sign that is opposite Libra is Aries. These are Mars-ruled signs. Venus, named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, who we also know as the goddess of peace, doesn't want to be in a Mars-ruled sign.
Mars is named after the Roman god of war. Mars brings conflict. Mars brings fighting. Mars brings messing up all the things that are fine and beautiful and lovely. Mars can be cacophonous. Venus does not want to be in a Mars-ruled sign. But when Venus is in a Mars-ruled sign—and those signs are Scorpio and Aries—we say that Venus is in detriment.
That means she's not as comfortable as she would be if she were in Taurus and Libra. In Taurus and Libra, Venus gets to stretch out on a chaise lounge and enjoy herself. When she's in Scorpio, for instance, imagine stretching out on a chaise lounge and trying to enjoy yourself with a heavy metal band playing right next to you.
Okay, that sort of gives you the idea of how much Venus might be struggling to deal with things in a Mars-ruled sign. But it goes a little bit more deeply than that. Venus is the planet of attraction in astrology. So wherever Venus falls in your chart, whatever sign that Venus is in, that basically describes the kind of person or the kind of energies that Venus attracts.
So when Venus is in Scorpio, she's going to attract more Scorpionic energies, energies that might be described by the planets Mars and Pluto. So for instance, if Venus is attracting a Mars energy, she's going to be attracting more combative types, more domineering types, people who want to get their way and that's it.
All right? And so Venus might be wondering, you know, “How did I pull this card out of the deck?” When we combine that with Pluto, we can get very powerful types or very domineering types, but then who also have a Plutonian tone to them. Pluto is named after the Roman god of the underworld, so it might be an attraction of types of personalities who have hidden agendas, mysterious motivations, who aren't exactly upfront about who they really are, because a lot of who they are lies under the surface, which would be in keeping for a zodiac sign that is partially ruled by Pluto, the lord of the underworld.
So when you have Venus in Scorpio, there might be a tendency to attract domineering types, maybe even obsessive types, people who are very much drawn to you, but also have a very fixed idea of the ways you should act, the way that you should behave, and that if you don't act that way, then you're doing something maybe to deceive them or lie to them or somehow act in some other suspicious or questionable way.
These are some of the issues that can be at play when you have Venus in Scorpio. But Venus is in Scorpio; however, she is also retrograde, meaning that she's moving backwards in the sky. Now, retrograde usually will mean that we're going to see the other face of a planet. When a planet is direct, which planets are for most of the year, that means they're acting in the way that we come to understand them.
For instance, Venus is associated with love and beauty and peace. And so Venus, when she's moving direct, is going to be loving and beautiful and peaceful and charming. You know, she's… there's going to be a lovely energy to her that makes us want to relax around her, and we feel much smarter and much prettier, you know, and more positive about life when we're around a Venusian energy.
But when Venus is retrograde, she goes against all of that. That means that she doesn't attract what's beautiful. She attracts what's not beautiful. She doesn't bring peace. She brings cacophony. She doesn't really appear loving. She can be kind of hard-edged or difficult, okay? And that might be Venus in her temperament, but that is probably describing more of the energies that you might be attracting into your life during this period of time.
Again, Venus retrograde… Well, basically, if Venus is talking about what I like, okay, she's the planet of what I like, Venus retrograde is what I don't like. And what might be going on right now is that you're attracting a lot of energy into your life that you don't like, and you're wondering what you're supposed to do with it.
Mars in Leo
Speaker: Hi, friends. Here at Astrology Hub, we are all about giving you grounded and practical advice for the astrology ahead. So if you want to know what this Venus retrograde period means for your sign, we created a handy guide that goes over what Venus retrograde is, how to work with it, and horoscopes for all 12 signs. You can get yours totally free by going to astrologyhub.com/venus. Now, back to the episode.
Christopher: The next planet involved in this fixed T-square is Mars in the zodiac sign of Leo.
Mars is the planet of what I want in astrology. Yes, it's true that he's named after the Roman god of war, and Mars thrives on combat and conflict, but basically Mars' job, his mission in your own astrological chart, is to get you what you want. If you say, “Mm, I like that. I want that,” Mars is like, “On it.” Okay?
So Mars is like, “Let's go and do it. Let's go and get what it is that you want.” And sometimes you can just go up and ask for what you want, and someone will be like, “Okay, here it is.” Or, or sometimes you ask for what you want, and maybe it's a little pricey, you know. And so when it strikes you that maybe that's a little pricey, maybe you wanna negotiate. “See what I can do to get a better deal.” That's Mars. Mars isn't accepting an agreement—that's the price and that's the price you pay. Mars is going to be like, “Okay, let's see what we can do to get a better deal. Let's fight for it.”
And so there are different ways that we can fight for things. We can fight for something physically, but we can fight for something using our brains, and we can fight for something with emotions. We can fight from a position of power, or we could fight from a position of not having a lot of power. There are different ways of fighting, and Mars embraces all of that. But if you're going to fight, maybe, you know, clobber someone over the head and they clobber you over the head, well, that's not the only form of fighting either.
You can have competition. Competition is a fight. Or you can have a contest. A contest is a fight. These are all areas that belong to Mars. These are all expressions of Mars. So what's Mars in Leo going to be like? Well, Mars in Leo is going to be, you know, “what I want,” and it's going to look at something that it wants and it's going to say, “I want that.”
All right? But then we have the Leo component, and the Leo component is going to add to what I want the idea of, “That's what I want because I deserve it.” This is the lovely thing about Mars in Leo. Mars in Leo often doesn't have to really fight for what it wants. There's a sense of deserving it.
And because of the charisma of Leo, oftentimes many people will give it to someone who has Mars in Leo. They'll simply say, “Well, yes, you do deserve this,” or, “You should have the bigger slice of pie,” or, “You should get a raise,” or, you know, “I was looking at this shirt for me, but it looks so much better on you. You should wear it. It looks so much better on you.”
So this is a sort of Mars in Leo placement. It doesn't really expect to fight for what it wants because it expects people to give it to them because they deserve it. So this is another idea that is playing into this fixed T-square.
Pluto in Aquarius
The final player of this fixed T-square is Pluto in the zodiac sign of Aquarius.
Now, that's a little bit more of a complex one, so we have to kind of break that down a little bit. What is Aquarius energy? Okay. It's an air sign. Aquarius is an air sign. So that means that people matter a lot to people born under Aquarius. What people think, the way that they behave, how they get along—these things all matter a lot.
Now, is Aquarius going to change its behavior according to what people think about it, or what they like about it? Probably not, which is why Aquarius is a fixed sign. Aquarius is going to be, “Well, you know, this is me.” Okay. But it's gonna go a little bit more than, “This is me.” Aquarius has some very strong ideas about the way that people should be.
Now, that doesn't mean that people have to act a certain way. What it means is this: Aquarius is the zodiac sign of utopia. That's the way that Aquarius sees society. The three air signs will represent different ways of relating. Gemini is the most intimate, okay, because Gemini, the zodiac sign of the twins, really is about sibling relationships.
So if you're born under Gemini or you have Gemini rising, your sibling is going to be very important to you. And if you didn't have a sibling, then it was a playmate or a relative, someone that you could understand on an equal level, like a peer, someone who is the same age as you, whether you were three, seven, or fifteen.
So Geminis have this kind of twinning thing that takes place between them and another person. Libra is the zodiac sign of marriage or partnership. And in marriage, for instance, in ancient civilizations and actually until recently, you know, you came from one family and you were married to someone in another family, usually by an arranged marriage, and so you united two families.
So that doesn't mean that you knew this person. It doesn't mean that you grew up with this person. It means that the person that you were partnering with may be someone who's totally unfamiliar to you and whom you didn't know. And so Libra is that bridge builder. It's building the bridge between one person and another and bringing them together in some kind of partnership.
That can be spousal, or that can be business, or that can be a creative partnership. With Aquarius, we've gone from sibling, to partner. With Aquarius, we're dealing with society. Okay, so we're dealing with the way that people get along in a group or the way that people get along in a society. So when you think about that, Aquarians are naturally political by nature.
And I don't mean political like whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. I mean political as in the polis, which meant the city-state. It's the way that people behaved and interacted in a society. And so for Aquarius, the vision of society is utopian in nature. It's the best society that it could possibly be.
So this is why Aquarians will basically give up things that they want in order to work with the group of people involved. Aquarians believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And the other thing that Aquarians believe is that a society is only as good as the people in it. So this idea of collective, of anonymity, is not really Aquarian.
Aquarians, although they will stress society or how you act or get along in a group of people, Aquarius also knows that the good of that group, the good of that community, the good of that society is only as good as the people in it, which means that all the people need to be heard, not just the ones with the loudest voices or the most money.
Everyone in that society needs to be heard because everyone in that society is working together to make a good life, to make a good society. So what does Pluto do in this particular astrological sign? It's very complex. Pluto, as I already said, was named after the Roman god of the underworld. And so the god of the underworld ruled over the dead.
You know, dead, departed souls went and existed in the underworld. Also ruled over seeds, things that were planted in the earth so that they might grow one day. And it also ruled over wealth, like gold and silver and precious metals and jewels and even oil, things that are extracted from under the surface of the Earth.
Indeed, in English, our word plutocracy, meaning the wealthy class or the moneyed class, comes from the word Pluto, which means wealth. Now, does Pluto in Aquarius mean that everyone's gonna be wealthy? You know, that we're all gonna be making lots of money and having a really comfortable life? Not really.
What Pluto in Aquarius is about is really, who is that society? Pluto will always be the things that are underneath the surface that emerge during Pluto's stay or tenure in a zodiac sign. A lot of times we can begin with an ideal or an idea of what would be a perfect life, of what would be a perfect society.
Like, for instance, let's say you believe that enlightenment is a good thing, that everyone should have education and everyone should be equal and everyone should get along. And if everyone makes the same amount of money and they're equal and they have the basic necessities of life, that they'll be happy.
Okay, that can be an ideal, an idea, and that can be very Aquarian. But Pluto's going to bring out the fact that there are a number of people who don't want to be equal, that there are a number of people who might want to dominate other people in that society. Or there might be people who have a very strong idea of how everyone should act, and so they're going to enforce their will.
They're going to make sure that everyone acts like that. Or there might be people who have a very strong idea of how this society should behave, and that they should be in charge of it, and that we should get rid of people who don't belong in this society. If we got rid of the people who don't belong in the society or who bring it down, then we'll have a perfect society.
So Pluto can bring out the dark side, the underside of these ideas, but it's not doing it just to sort of prove it wrong. It's doing it to show the humanity, the human lesson, the human paradox, the human ordeal. You know, our civilization has always dealt with struggle and power battles and fight, you know, with plus and with famine, with good times and with horrible times.
And so when we look at the history of our many civilizations on this planet, it's a history that at once can be read in a very dark way. You know, look at all the wars and the battles and the oppression that's taken place. But it's also a history that can be read in a more optimistic way, which is look at civilization, look at what we've learned, look at the way that we've been able to fight diseases.
Look at our art, our culture, our music. Look at what it means to be a human now in the twenty-first century versus what it was like to be a human in the nineteenth. A lot of things have changed, and a lot of things have gotten better. So that conversation, or rather that struggle, those dilemmas and predicaments which Pluto can play a very strong hand in, are the crucible that we experience our personal evolution in our lives.
People don't grow because they get the things they want, and life isn't about problems and solving them. A lot of our lives are spent in moral dilemmas, in predicaments, in trying to figure out a paradox, things that don't naturally go with one another, something that Aquarius very much understands.
But it's these dilemmas, it's these paradoxes, it's these predicaments that don't have easy answers that get us to think more deeply, to feel more profoundly, to expand our belief system more benevolently, you know, and to also realize, because each of us relies on someone else and someone else relies on us, that to be separate is not a good thing, and that to work in unison, to work together, to coordinate efforts is a good thing.
To share the wealth, to share the resources—this is a good thing. And so these are things, issues, struggles, and questions we will be facing during the time that Pluto is in Aquarius.
The Fixed T-Square
Now that we've pretty much gone ahead and broken down the characters at work in that fixed T-square, let's go ahead and talk about the dynamic of the T-square itself. A lot of times when I'm looking at a T-square, I'm sort of reminded of a term that they used to use in old Hollywood Westerns, and that term that they used to use was “Mexican standoff.”
Now, you might ask yourself, “What's a Mexican standoff?” All right. And a Mexican standoff, if you can follow me on this, is like when one cowboy pulls a gun on another cowboy, and he's like, “Raise your hands, mister,” you know? And so the other cowboy who the first gunman is pointing his pistol at, instead of raising his hands, actually reaches for his gun, and he points it back to the first cowboy.
So the two of them are there, and that's kind of like a duel, like who's gonna shoot first? But then there's a third cowboy who comes on in, and he pulls his gun on both cowboys, you know, and he's like, “I could shoot you or I could shoot you.” And so all of a sudden it's gone from two cowboys facing off with one another to three cowboys who are sort of looking to see who's gonna shoot who first, okay?
And that's a standoff, and this was called, in old Westerns, a Mexican standoff. And so what happens with all these cowboys, like these three cowboys not knowing who's gonna shoot who, but they could wait for someone to shoot someone, and then they could shoot someone. Okay, this creates an armed stalemate where no one can escape from it or no one can win the day easily.
In other words, in a standoff like this, a Mexican standoff, which is the way I describe a T-square, one planet can't shoot the other planet without risk of being shot in turn, okay? So in other words, these three planets have three very different ideas about what they want and how this is going to play out, but they all sort of have a gun pointed at one another.
Okay, they're not going to get what they want, and so they have to sort of figure out how they're going to work like this. It's a stalemate, it's a stalemate, but it's a stalemate that cannot go ad infinitum. These planets are going to have to sort of figure out what they want from one another and find a different way to negotiate.
Now, what I would like to do is go ahead and talk about how this fixed T-square is going to affect each one of the 12 zodiac signs. And as you can imagine, it's going to impact each of the 12 signs differently. So in order to really sort of discover what's at stake for you in this fixed T-square, I want you to ask yourself one question and one question only as I go ahead and talk about each of the zodiac signs.
And that question is, do I have a dog in this fight?
Aries
If you're born under Aries or you have Aries rising, you're going to want to ask yourself the question, “Do I have a dog in this fight?” And the answer would be yes. Yes, you do have a dog in this fight, and that dog is Mars. Mars, named after the Roman god of war, rules over the zodiac sign of Aries. So Mars is essentially your ruling planet.
That's the planet that's standing in for you in this fixed T-square. So when we go ahead and look at your solar horoscope, we see that Mars is in the solar fifth house, and it's also in the zodiac sign of Leo. So what I talked about before, about Mars being the planet of what I want, okay.
We remember that Mars in Leo is, “That's what I want, and that's what I want because I deserve it.” Okay, so there's going to be a sense or a feeling of perhaps privilege, but it may be ownership, or you may be actually going and collecting a prize that you dutifully won, or you may be going and collecting something that's owed you.
You know, something that was yours to begin with, and you want it back. So this idea of, “That's what I want because I deserve it,” is very much going to be on your mind during October 2nd and October 3rd. But what's going on here is that there is an opposition taking place at that very same time.
Your Mars in Leo is opposite Pluto in the zodiac sign of Aquarius. So if Mars is in Leo, and Leo, like all fire signs, is basically about me and what I want—and that's not because it's egotistical or self-involved. What it is, is that the fire signs, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, represent individuality. Okay, they talk about individuality.
They place a very high value on each person being a unique person, and each person being able to pursue their own life, to pursue their own liberty, and to pursue their own happiness. That each of us is not only free to do that, but each of us should be encouraged and supported to do that. So the idea of being true to who I am is very much a fiery idea.
It's the element of fire. And with that idea of being true to who I am comes the idea of you being true to who you are, that each person should be true to who they are. Okay, this is a fire precept. This is something that fire signs hold in high esteem. So individuality and making a personal difference, you know, and being the person who makes things happen are all ideas that are going to be wrapped up with Mars in Leo.
All right? When we see that it is in an opposition to Pluto in Aquarius, and that they oppose on October 3rd, Pluto in Aquarius is going to represent the group. It's going to represent the many. So here we have Mars in Leo, which is me, and Pluto in Aquarius, which is the many. And here we have an opposition.
The two are not on the same page. Again, that could be like “I wanna do this because I have the freedom to do it,” and you might be surrounded by people saying, “No, you don't have the freedom to do it. You have to check in with me first,” or, “You have to check in with her first,” or, “You have to see if it's okay with, you know, the board of directors.”
Okay, there's other people. There's a group of people that are opposed to you getting what you want, okay? Maybe what you want is, “I wanna be heard.” Well, there might be a group of people who are out-shouting you. Um, or maybe what you want is, “I want independence,” and there might be a group of people that are telling you what to do, and that you need to obey what it is that they want.
That's also the way that an opposition can work. Now, because it's an opposition and not a square, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be conflict. It could be, “I want this,” and a whole bunch of people telling you, “No.” Or it could even be you saying, “I don't want this,” and a bunch of people saying, “You have to do this. You have to want this. It would be a good idea for you to want this. You know, if you know what's good for you, or for good health, or to get along with people,” or, “You know, we're trying to help you out here, but you seem to be working against it.” Okay, so there's this seesaw thing that's going on in an opposition.
So you may feel very much like there's something you want and there are people who are not in your corner with that. They may or may not be obstructing your efforts to get what you want. Maybe following your heart is causing a problem. Maybe a romantic involvement is causing a problem. Maybe your artistic expression is meeting with a bunch of people going, “Huh? What is it?” You know, “Is that a painting?” Or, “Ugh, that's a song?” You know, it's just not winning them over the way that you had initially expected. And so there might be a kind of standoff, a kind of like, “Mm, you know, that's life, and I'll just accept this and go after what I want anyway,” or, “I'll go back to my corner with my tail tucked between my legs.”
But that's not all that's going on because we're talking about a T-square and not an opposition. On October 10th, retrograde Venus in Scorpio will form a square to your Mars in the eighth house. And this is very interesting because this Venus is ruled by the planet that it's squaring, okay? Venus is in a Mars-ruled sign, which is Scorpio, and so she, by retrograde, is coming and squaring your Mars in Leo.
She's essentially weighing in on what you have to do or why you're not going to get what it is that you want. What I find fascinating when I look at these solar houses is that we're dealing with two houses that are other-oriented, okay? The 11th house is basically other people in a group setting, in a corporate setting, a company setting, a community setting. It's other people outside of you who have a say in your life.
When we look at Venus retrograding through the solar eighth house in this particular chart, we're seeing other people in regards to other people's money or other people's things. So we're basically having this standoff that's taking place with Mars in Leo representing you and what you want. It's very “me” and “this is what I want. This is what I deserve. I earned this. I won this. Um, you know, I've given this company 35 years of my life, okay, and I want something back for it.” Okay. And then we've got this other—this other people's money, other people's resources. So we have other people who are not on the same page as you, and then we have other people's resources.
Who's going to pay out to you? Who's going to give you the prize? Who's going to recognize this? And Venus is retrograde in Scorpio, and that's very interesting because there's something that's very complex or very complicated about something that should be very straightforward about what it is you want.
If it's love, maybe you're in love with someone who's from a different economic caste than yours, or who's from a different culture or a different part of the neighborhood, and this is causing difficulty. This is causing alarm. What it could be if it's dealing with finances or resources—maybe you're overdrawn at the bank. You know, maybe you owe people things that they need to be paid back for. Or maybe it's other people who owe you, and they need to pay you back, and you need to figure out a way for them to do that. So there's a struggle of working with other people who aren't on the same page as you. All right?
And this is something you're gonna stand for your part of it, but then how do you deal with that Pluto, and how do you deal with that Venus? My suspicion, because Venus is ruled by Mars, is that in her retrograde she's going to come to a point where she helps to make things known to you.
In other words, there may be a person that you're in conflict with, but at the same time may have information, knowledge, resources, may know people, may have another way of helping you out. And so it's almost like because of the Venus retrograde—and it goes into Libra, which will ultimately sextile your Mars, and that's too much astrology for anyone to wrap their head around, but that's what's taking place in the bigger picture of this retrograde.
What it means is that perhaps by about mid-October, or maybe even around the 20th of October, there may be information, resources, something that comes to light that helps you win the day. It helps you to get what it is that you want. And so that's something that could appear or materialize around that period of time.
But, you know, going into that idea, what you want to keep in mind with this T-square that's taking place is, how badly do you want this, you know, and what are you willing to do to get it? And you might be looking at a situation where the approach that you've taken isn't being very effective, and you might want to try something different.
And trying something different might be trying to see things from another person's point of view. What an opposition will do, because it's this non-moving other, at some point you have to go and see what the other person's point of view is. You don't feel like doing that right now, but it would certainly help.
And being able to sort of understand what the other person's point of view is gives you the ability to talk to them, to negotiate with them, and to find a way for everyone to lower their guns and not shoot each other on the spot.
Taurus
If you're born under Taurus or you have Taurus rising, you need to ask yourself, “Do I have a dog in this fight?” And the answer would be yes, you do have a dog in the fight. And the dog that you have in this fight is Venus, your ruling planet in the zodiac sign of Scorpio, and the fact that she has also just turned retrograde.
What does this mean? What this means is that Venus being retrograde in Scorpio basically is going to infer that there may be someone that you're in a relationship with, in a professional partnership with, or even a creative collaboration with, or is just someone who's very close to you who's going through a difficult time. This person might be going through a difficult time in terms of life is just handing them one obstacle after another, or this person is going through a period of time where they've lost things.
Maybe it's tangible things like money or property, or they've lost something like dignity or their status, or they've lost someone very close to them, you know. And now they're feeling grief or tremendous sadness. So this person is going through a very rough and difficult time. And being born under Taurus or having Taurus rising, you wanna be there for this person.
You want to help this person out in some way. But what you might be discovering here is that what this person is going through might be a bit more complex or a bit more complicated than you initially assumed. You know, you might have said, “Okay, this is someone who's going through a rough time and I'm going to help them out.” Okay. But there's a difference between helping someone out for a day or three, or helping someone out for a week or a month or years or a decade. Okay. Someone could be going through a rough time, but what kind of rough time are they going through exactly? You know, is it something where you can sort of roll out the cot and let them sleep in your living room?
Or is it something in which you have to help this person figure out what they're going to do now that they no longer own a home or rent an apartment and they have no prospects and they could become someone who is completely dependent on you? All right. So that changes the situation.
In one idea, it could be helping to house someone or feed someone, or helping someone out with a job tip or a good word or something along those lines. On another level, it could be, are we talking about rehabilitation? Are we talking about something that is going to involve you putting in a serious amount of time and energy into helping turn this person around?
Or maybe the work that this person has to do is far more fundamental than you initially thought. Now, being a Taurus or a Taurus rising, you're going to want to stand by this person. You know, you wanna stand by this person. This person means a lot to you. And being a Taurus or a Taurus rising, you're probably going about and trying to figure out how it is that you could help this person, you know, what needs to be done. And so that would be the first expression or maybe the first idea of what's going on in this fixed T-square.
Now, we also know that Venus turns retrograde on October 3rd. The T-square itself takes place on October 2nd to the 3rd. Venus turns retrograde on October 3rd, and when Venus turns retrograde, that automatically makes things more complicated. Typically, when Venus is moving direct, she's going to be cooperative, she's going to be amiable, she's going to be really receptive to ideas and saying, “Oh, that's really wonderful. Let's try that.” You know, Venus, when she's moving direct, will try on ideas like trying on different hats or caps in the dressing room, okay?
But when Venus is retrograde, she's turned against herself. So you may be dealing with someone that you want to help, but they're not doing anything to make it any better or make it any easier on themselves. In fact, they may be doing the opposite. They may be struggling with you. They may be resisting you, and part of you might even be like, “You know, well then be left to your own devices,” you know, “I've had enough of this,” or something along those lines. But it's still going to pull at your heart. It's still going to pull at your emotions, your feelings, your fealty, and your loyalty.
So when Venus forms a square to Mars on October 10th—and Mars in your solar chart is right down here at the bottom of the chart—this may be something that brings up conflict with you in the area of home or your home life. You know, maybe members of your family are asking, “How long is Larry gonna sleep on that pull-out cot in the living room?” You know, “I wanna watch my TV show,” or, “How long is Larry going to be here? It's been three weeks already. Is Larry just planning on moving in?” You know, so this might be conflict that it's stirring up, that your loyalty to someone is coming up against the loyalty that you feel towards your family or the people that you live with or the people who are in your corner.
You're dealing with someone that you feel for, but is not in their own corner, and so this is conflicting with people who feel for you and who are in your own corner and who may be asking questions like, “Is this a good idea?” or, “Are you sure that you can afford to do this time-wise?” or, “Maybe Larry needs to go to rehab,” or something like that, or, “Maybe there's a lot more going on with Larry than you can handle, and maybe we need to help him out with other services,” or something along those lines.
And so this may be something that really comes to the fore around October 10th, and that might result in fights or stormy silences or something along those lines. This Venus retrograde is causing you problems with other people who feel like you belong to them and whom you belong to. You know, there's a bonding that is going on there, and so this is creating a conflict with it.
Finally, on October 20th, retrograde Venus will form a square to Pluto in Aquarius, which will be at the top of your solar horoscope. And so this person that you're fighting for, this person that you're championing, this person that you care about, is now perhaps creating conflict with your job, with your career, with your ability to think and to focus.
You know, maybe the person has stayed way too long at this point, and maybe you're shelling out money for this person, and you don't really have it, or it's causing a lot of strain, and it's causing a lot of stress. And so this is also another square that would be taking place at this time.
So what are the stars asking from you in this fixed T-square? I think what the stars are asking you is to basically do an assessment of what you're capable of doing and what the person you care about is capable of doing for themselves. Not all relationships are about swooping in at the last moment and pulling the person out of the burning building, okay?
It's not all about saving the day. A lot of times, relationships are going to be based on, how can I work with this person? Being a Taurus or a Taurus rising, you wanna be there for a person, okay? You see yourself as reliable. You're someone that people can come to in a time of trouble. But that isn't really working with the person, okay? That's you opening the door and providing sanctuary or a safe space, and the person coming in and being thankful and grateful for that. But that doesn't mean you're working with the person.
And I think what this T-square is asking you to do is to work with the person. You know, to say to the person, “This isn't a forever ‘I take care of you' thing.” Or, “What are you capable of doing?” Or, “What can we break down that you need to get back up on your own two feet again?”
Or if the ultimate realization is that you can't be with this person anymore, that this is straining a relationship, that there's going to be a split, then it's acknowledging the split and coming to a place of… What was that called by Gwyneth Paltrow? People made fun of it, but it's actually a really great term. Um, conscious uncoupling. Um, it sounds silly and a little L.A., but what I like about that term is that if you separate or if you go your own way, you split company with someone, okay, that you're in a relationship with or an association with, the natural reaction to that is to be angry. You know? There's hurt, and then there's to be angry. And the anger is kind of necessary because if you're breaking up with someone, you need that extra boost of energy. It's like a rocket that's leaving the Earth's orbit. You need that extra boost of rocket power, you know, to break up the thing.
And so that's usually where the anger comes in. But with the reflective nature of a retrograde planet—and that's what Venus can be— there can also be this way of like, “This isn't working, and let me… let's bring this to a close. But let's do this civilly. Let's do this nicely. Let's do this in the same heart and spirit that we had when we first got together. There's no reason why it has to be nasty.”
And so that might be something that becomes clearer to you or more available to you as an approach in mid to later October. So I think part of this is about acknowledging and accepting your limitations, and that the idea isn't for you to rescue someone—it's to work with someone, for them to work with them to help them over whatever hurdle they're facing.
And if there's a split or a parting of the ways, then it's to bring it about peacefully, in good humor and goodwill towards the other person. And so that may also be the way of dealing with this particular fixed T-square in these zodiac signs.
Gemini
If you're born under Gemini or you have Gemini rising, the question, “Do I have a dog in this fight?” is, I have to confess, a trick question. Okay, on the surface it would be like, “No, I don't have a dog in this fight. You know, I have nothing to do with Venus. It's not my ruling planet, and Mars isn't my ruling planet, and Pluto isn't my ruling planet. I'm dog-fight free.”
Well, as I said, it's a bit of a trick question because traveling through that same part of the sky that Venus is traveling through, and in closer degrees to the Mars and the Pluto, is indeed your ruling planet, Mercury. Yes, that was the one that wasn't really mentioned at the top of this broadcast.
But on those days that Mars is going to be opposite Pluto, Mercury in Scorpio, your ruling planet, happens to be squaring both Mars and Pluto. So yeah, you definitely do have a dog in this fight.
So let's go ahead and talk about what having a dog in this fight, what your ruling planet Mercury being part of this T-square is all about. First of all, let's talk about Mercury in the zodiac sign of Scorpio. Mercury is a planet that's much more comfortable in mutable signs, okay, meaning changeable signs. It's a planet that likes to be in a mutable sign because it likes options, it likes alternatives. It embraces questions. It likes to experiment with different ways of thinking and with different ways of doing something.
And it also embraces things like spontaneity and invention and ingenuity. Okay, so that's Mercury if it were in its own signs, like for instance Gemini and Virgo. Okay. When Mercury is in Scorpio, what happens is a couple of things. First of all, Scorpio is a fixed sign, so the thinking becomes more rigid. It becomes more stubborn. It becomes more obstinate. Okay, it's not going to be open to conversation. It's not gonna be really interested in alternatives or options. It's going to have some very set ideas about what should be happening and how to go about accomplishing them, and that's the nature of Mercury in a fixed sign.
It's also gonna be a bit resistant, and it's also gonna be a little bit on the defensive side. And that's how fixed signs typically respond to most situations. But what also happens with Mercury being in the zodiac sign of Scorpio is that you're going to have a real focus on the things that aren't being said, okay, on the things that haven't really been presented.
Scorpios can have a bit of a suspicious nature, and with good reason, because Scorpios have often been lied to or betrayed or someone has pulled a quick one on them. And so Scorpios have learned pretty much earlier in life not to trust easily, not to take anything at face value.
That also comes from Pluto being one of the planetary rulers of Scorpio, Pluto being named after the Roman god of the dead. So there's always more that lies beneath the surface as far as a Scorpio is concerned. And so for you, that's going to be coloring your attitude. You're not going to be feeling particularly trusting. You're not gonna take things at face value. You're going to become very maybe on edge or anxious that people aren't telling you the whole truth, that maybe they're even telling you what you want to hear. And so you may be questioning a lot of the information that you're getting during this period of time.
So that's kind of the headspace that you might be in with Mercury in Scorpio playing the third part of this fixed T-square. Now, remember that Mercury is traveling through Scorpio, right? But Scorpio is ruled by two planets. The two planets that rule Scorpio are Mars and Pluto.
These are going to be the two planets that Mercury is going to be forming a square to. So Mercury in Scorpio has all those qualities that I just described to you. But when Mercury squares Mars on that October second part of the fixed T-square, it can be a bit combative. It can be testy. It's more than testy. It can be combative, and it can be provocative.
There can be a feeling that someone has overstepped their boundaries with you, okay, that they're coming on into the situation. Maybe you're involved in a dispute or struggle of some sort. You're saying things turned out one way, and other people are saying, “Well, they turned out differently than that,” so there's a contradiction.
So you're being challenged, and you're being contested in some way. And maybe one of the people who's involved in this dispute or disagreement has this feeling of just like, “Well, you know, I deserve it. You know, this is what I want from you, and I deserve it, and you should just give it to me.”
And with you being the Mercury in Scorpio part of the equation, you're gonna be like, “What?” Like, “I should just give this to you? I don't think so,” you know. And so the person with the Mars in Leo might be more insistent. You know, it might be a colleague or a neighbor or someone that you used to be on good terms with.
And they might be like, “No, we had an understanding,” or, “You said I could have it,” or, “You promised me this,” or, “You have what I want and I want it.” You know, and so you're naturally going to be like, “No, you can't have it. This is mine.” All right?
And then this is gonna be followed very quickly with the square to Pluto in Aquarius. The Pluto in Aquarius is going to be like, “Give it to them. This person should have what it is that you have.”
Now, because Mercury is appearing in that part of your solar horoscope that deals with work, my suspicion is that this might be a professional matter, or this might be a given situation where you feel like an underdog, that you don't feel like you're in a place of power, and that the two people who are sort of colluding against you or making challenges are making them because you don't have as much power or as much say as they do.
And of course, what's going to be making this even more complicated is that you're being told by someone to give what you have back to someone or to someone who's just decided that that's what they want. But you also know that that, let's call them the Pluto in Aquarius person, is doing it because it serves them. It's convenient for them. They don't want to deal with them being challenged by that Mars person, and that it's much easier to get you to fess up your job or your position or your assignment. Or maybe the Pluto in Aquarius is even like, “I'll give you another assignment” or something like that.
But the Pluto in Aquarius is kind of selling you short, okay? Because that would take care of the inconvenience that the Mars in Leo, by its opposition to the Pluto, represents. And so particularly because you're being represented by Mercury in Scorpio, it's like, “No. That's… No. I'm not gonna do this to make it easier for you. I'm not gonna make a sacrifice or give something away that is mine just because doing that would make it easier for these two other people. No, I'm not gonna do that.”
You never expect a fixed sign to do that. But the fixed sign you really don't expect to do that is a Scorpio. Okay? If a Scorpio says, “By rights, this is mine—why should I give this up? And you're asking me to give this up as a matter of convenience.”
Well, remember, Scorpios adhere to that wonderful line from Milton's Paradise Lost, okay, which is a retelling of Genesis, the Book of Genesis. And this follows the battle in heaven, you know, where God, who has always loved Lucifer— Lucifer has been the angel that he took the most pride in—feels betrayed, hurt, and aggrieved that Lucifer has taken a band of rebellious angels and fought against God in heaven. He's like, “How could you do this?” And there's a point in John Milton's poem, Paradise Lost, where God asks Lucifer, “Why did you rise up against me? You knew how much I loved you. You knew how much I valued you. You knew that you could have anything that you wanted from me, as long as you served me. I mean, why would you rebel against me like this and forsake and lose so much?”
And Lucifer says to God in that moment, “It's better to reign in hell than it is to serve in heaven.”
And that's kind of this intrepid streak that people born under Scorpio or who have Scorpio rising possess. It is better to reign in hell. It is better to rule over the circumstances that I have, even though they might be poorer, more of a disadvantage, more difficult than the cushy situation I would've had before. It's better to rule over that. It's better to rule over my destiny and who I am than it is to serve this higher power that is claiming a higher power simply because it created everything, and that doesn't give anyone carte blanche.
I mean, if that were the case, then we would be turning to all these Silicon Valley people and saying, “Oh, you created AI, that's great. Well, just live in your AI world,” you know, or something like that. We wouldn't be like, “You know what? AI might be a threat to society and jobs and things like that. We're gonna have issues, problems with that,” you know?
And that's rebelling. That's going against the set order which is supposed to bring this perfect utopia. And so if you're born under Gemini or you have Gemini rising with this Mercury in Scorpio, that's how we wanna put it—this might be a place of rebellion for you. And according to what I can see from this T-square in the fixed signs, I would probably simply say to you: stand your ground. You know, what you're fighting for is worth what you're fighting for.
There's much more of the story that's yet to come out, but certainly what you suspect, what you feel like is amiss, is true. So I would encourage you to follow your instincts on that, to stand your ground so you don't have to give up your ground. You're part of this T-square, so there's nothing saying that you have to relent or that you have to yield. In fact, I think the longer that you wait during this T-square, the more likely that you're going to receive more information about what's going on, and with more information—because you're Gemini or Gemini rising—comes more power and more ability to improve your stakes and your position in the matter.
Cancer
If you're born under Cancer or you have Cancer rising, the answer to your question, “Do I have a dog in this fight?” is actually no. No, you do not have a dog in this fight. Mars is not your ruling planet, Venus is not your ruling planet, nor is Pluto your ruling planet. You are fight-free when it comes to this particular dog park.
But let's go a little deeper with this. Let's step a little closer to what's going on with the planets in the sky. You may not have a dog in this fight, but what you will want to do is keep an eye on Venus, retrograde in the zodiac sign of Scorpio. The reason why you're going to want to keep an eye on Venus is because Venus is in the zodiac sign of Scorpio.
Scorpio is a water sign, just like Cancer is a water sign. So any planet traveling through a sign that shares the same element as you—in other words, any planet traveling through a water sign (the other two water signs are Scorpio and Pisces)—these are planets that you trine with. These are planets that you understand. You have great sympathy. You have a very powerful bond. You have a very powerful loyalty to this planet. All right?
So when Venus is traveling through a zodiac sign like Scorpio, what that's going to mean is that matters of the heart— this could mean someone who matters to you romantically, or it can also mean the people that you love most in your life, like hearth and home. They might be family members, or in a world where we also can choose our own family, they may be people who might not be related to you by blood, but who are family nonetheless.
Someone who falls into this description is going through a very difficult time right now, okay? The difficulty of the time is with Venus traveling through Scorpio, which can often bring up the darker emotions or the darker fears, the darker anxieties, and the fact that Venus is also retrograde during this period of time.
So you're seeing things come out that are not desirable. You're seeing things come out that are not appealing, things come out that are not things that you like or things that you want. And chances are the person that you care about is also experiencing not liking what's going on in their lives right now, or dealing with things that are not appealing, things that are not welcoming. All right?
So when you're born under Cancer or you have Cancer rising, when you bond with someone emotionally, you bond with them pretty much for life, okay? Unless something really difficult happens, you really share that bond. It's the way that a puppy bonds with a person, or the way that birds can hatch and they see their mother and they bond with mother, or birds can hatch and they see a person and they bond with the person.
You know, it's this immediate bonding. And so that's what I would draw your attention to. Although you do not personally have a dog in this fight, retrograde Venus in Scorpio is forming a square to Mars on October 10th. And so what that might mean is that this person might be going through difficult times financially, that this person might be becoming a drain on you, or they themselves might be experiencing some kind of financial drain, you know.
And this might bring up a lot of guilt or shame or feeling bad about bringing this about.
And most people would be like, “Maybe you should rethink this,” or, “Why are you standing by this person?” Or, “Maybe it's time to sort of say goodbye,” or something like that. But you're a Cancer or a Cancer rising, and you're not going to do that. You're not going to leave this person where they are.
Now, does that mean that every moment of your life is going to be like, “I'm not going to leave this person where they are?” No. There's gonna be a lot of doubts. There's gonna be a lot of anxieties. There are gonna be a lot of scenarios where you don't like what you're thinking. But the fact of the matter is, love will prevail.
You know, that love, that bond, that standing by the person is so very, very powerful, and you're probably better working with that energy than you are working against it. Now, on October 20th, retrograde Venus will form a square to Pluto in the zodiac sign of Aquarius, and this is where things might get more difficult, more weighty in regard.
Because of the 8th house placement in the solar horoscope, this might be something in which it really is becoming a drain financially or emotionally, and you're really being pressed to the edge of what you can sustain or what you can afford or what you can even put up with and tolerate. But again, you're going to be there, you know.
Again, you may have people saying, “You don't have to be,” or, “Why should you?” And you may yourself be having all sorts of questions and anxieties and things like that. But the simple fact of the matter is, there is a very strong bond. Even if this person isn't being particularly nice right now, there is still a very strong bond, and you're going to see it through.
I think this predicament, this dilemma that's demonstrated or exemplified, rather, by the fixed T-square, is really about going through hell and high water with someone. It's one thing to say, “I will go through hell or high water with you,” and it's another thing to actually experience the hell and the high water during this period of time.
And this might be the ultimate test, or this might even be the beginning of a series of tests. But when that pledge is made, when that bond is made between you and another person, and if it's truly sincere and strong, it will withstand all of those things. And it may cause you a lot of difficulty, and it may cause you a lot of trouble, and it may cause you a lot of stress, and it may even cost you a great deal.
But what you're gonna know is that you were there at a time that mattered. You were there when you being there counted, and that's something—that's something that's going to stay with you forever, and that's something that's going to stay as a testament, as a witness to that bond between you and this other person forever.
And that's something that is ultimately going to be the thing that prevails. So again, this is about the testing that's going on and the pressures that are being put on you, and it's about the very human lives that we live when we're sustaining those types of pressures. You know, we'd all like to believe that we're heroic and that only the best parts of ourselves come out, and oftentimes that's not the case.
But what's lovely about it is the humanness that you are meeting—the humanness of someone that you cherish. You know, that becomes the bond, that becomes the togetherness, and that's something that can never be erased. That's something that can never be taken away, and that's something that ultimately will prevail over this T-square taking place in the fixed zodiacal signs.
Leo
If you're born under Leo or you have Leo rising, when you ask yourself the question, “Do I have a dog in this fight?” the answer is clearly yes. Yes, you do have a dog in this fight, and the dog that you have in this fight is Mars. Now, at first you might be like, “Well, how is Mars my dog in this fight? I mean, I'm not born under Aries. I'm not born under Scorpio. Mars isn't my ruling planet. Why is Mars my dog in this fight?”
The reason why Mars is your dog in this fight is because Mars is currently traveling through your zodiac sign. It's like someone can come and stay in your house, and that's great, and they can go, and they can break furniture and be difficult and dreadful or whatever, and they can leave.
What I'm kind of thinking of here is in high school, having a bunch of friends over to the house, and they bring friends, and there's this high school party, and lots of things are broken and things like that. Well, when your parents come back from the weekend that they spent away, it's not the friends who came over who are responsible for the mayhem that took place. It's you, because the house was left in your care for that weekend.
That's kind of what's going on here. Mars is traveling through your zodiac sign of Leo, and even though Mars isn't really your ruling planet, Mars is in your house, okay? Mars is in your sign. So Mars is the dog that you have in this fight.
So what does Mars in Leo do? Pretty much as we said before, Mars is the planet of what I want, and when it's traveling through the zodiac sign of Leo, that basically brings the idea of: “And what I want is what I deserve to have,” which would be a Leonine trait.
Now, at first, that sounds very self-important or, “Look at him,” or, “Look at her, that they should want this and expect it to be delivered.” Like, how could you be so egotistical, you little Leo prince or princess, you? But it's not that. What it is, is that Mars is moving through your zodiac sign, and you're fully aware of your talents. You're fully aware of your abilities, and you're not just wanting something because you want it. You're wanting something because you do deserve it.
You know, if someone were to take a couple of steps away and say, “Well, are you the right person for the job?” they would see that you are the right person for the job. Or if someone took a couple of steps away and said, “Should you be the winner of this contest?” well, when the scores are tallied, they would see you are the winner of this contest.
You know, it's not arrogant, you wanting what you want because you deserve it. It's not arrogant. It's not narcissistic. It's not self-absorbed. You're wanting it because you do deserve it. You earned it. It is yours by right, and you're expecting everyone to behave accordingly. So, are people behaving accordingly?
No. No, they are not behaving accordingly. Why are people not behaving accordingly? Well, first of all, because Mars in the zodiac sign of Leo will be forming an opposition to Pluto in the zodiac sign of Aquarius on October 3rd. What this means is that you're in your corner, which is, “I want this because I deserve it,” and Pluto is in the opposite corner, and Pluto doesn't think you should deserve this, or that you deserve this.
Why does Pluto in Aquarius not think that you deserve this? Because maybe a number of people deserve this, or yes, you're special, but you're not the absolute answer or the absolute end or the absolute candidate that everyone should get on board with. You're one of many, which is the way that Pluto in Aquarius looks at things.
So Pluto in Aquarius is challenging you, not in a combative way, but it's a challenging stance in a more show-me-what-you-got way. Okay, remember that when planets are in opposition, they don't want to have anything to do with each other, and they don't see any reason why they should have anything to do with each other.
You know, my favorite examples, you probably already know, are the Democrats and the Republicans. These are two parties fighting for their way of doing things. You know, they're pointing to the other party and saying it's the other party's fault, but at the same time, where they should be working together, they're not working together. They've taken up their toys and they've left the sandbox and gone home. Both sides, you know.
And so this is leaving a big gap, a big emptiness to be filled between these two political parties. And that same thing exists in an opposition. Except in your case, you're not squaring Pluto—you're opposite Pluto, so you are completely convinced that your cause is right, and your cause probably is right, but it's not meeting the criteria of Pluto in Aquarius.
Okay, Pluto in Aquarius has other ideas. It has other candidates. It has other possibilities, and so it's not going to award you what you want right now. It's not going to give you what you want right now, and it's not going to bestow upon you what you want right now. Now, is that a hard no? Not really.
I mean, it could be in a sense that if you're like, “Okay, I entered into this contest or competition or this job interview in good faith, and you're not telling me what I wanna hear right now, so I'm going to leave.” Okay, well then that would be a no. But it's a no that you decided on because you're not getting what you want, which makes perfect sense. You're not getting what you want, and so why stay if you're not valued? Or why stay if you're not treasured in some regard?
Pluto in Aquarius isn't going to treasure you. It's simply not giving you what you want now, okay, as long as the opposition is going on. Oppositions can also signal breaks or parting of the ways, and the parting of the ways could simply be, “As I said, I entered into this in good faith. I'm not getting the result that I want, so I'm actually gonna move on to another job interview,” or, “I'm gonna move on to another situation.”
And that's completely within your rights, and that would be described by an opposition. All right? Okay, so what you want isn't what you're getting right now. So you can either leave, and that's fine, or you can stick it out until the timing is better. All right? And the timing being better would be perhaps Mars moving on to another sign that's more amicable, more amiable with Pluto.
Like for instance, Mars going through Libra would be more amiable with Pluto. Mars going through Sagittarius by sextile to Aquarius would be more amiable to Pluto. But when Mars is in Leo opposite Pluto in Aquarius, it's a now-or-never, it's like an ultimatum stance. Okay, so you could either leave, you know, 'cause you're not getting what you want right now, or you can wait for Mars to move to another sign. Okay, that's your other option.
Now, what's kind of stirring up what's going on here as well is Venus retrograde in the zodiac sign of Scorpio, and it will be squaring your Mars on October 10th. Now, the reason why I'm saying it's kind of stirring things up is there are two zodiac signs that are really, really sensitive to rejection, and they don't like to show it. Okay, so you probably wouldn't know that they feel rejected, you know, but they're really sensitive to rejection and feel ashamed by their sensitivity to the possibility of rejection.
And those two zodiac signs are Capricorn and Scorpio. Scorpio will often feel like it's going to be rejected, and so it can go ahead and work out the worst-case scenarios of what that looks like and things like that. So when you have this Venus, which is in Scorpio, who's already feeling at a detriment, okay—so Venus isn't being her loving, her cajoling, her persuasive self when she's in Scorpio. If anything, she's being very suspicious of people who would be persuasive or cajoling or charming. She would be thinking, “What are you pulling? What are you trying to pull with me?”
You know, she would be very suspicious, on edge, not trusting it. And so with her being retrograde, there's even more of a sense of not really trusting, not taking things on faith, not trusting, not taking things at face value. So when she squares Mars, and she's also ruled by Mars, a lot of your feelings about, “Am I being rejected? Am I being led on here? Am I being deceived? Am I being made a fool of?”—a lot of those feelings around October 10th are going to come up.
Okay, you're gonna feel very much… you're gonna feel very vulnerable. You're gonna feel very maybe like you're being taken for a fool. Um, you may even be angry, you know, that something that you truly deserve is being questioned or kept from you, you know. And you may act out during this period of time.
And again, that might be driving you. And if that's what you feel, and if that's your understanding of the situation, then by all means pull up stakes and move on to another situation where you feel more recognized or more appreciated. But if this is something in which you feel like old patterns of behavior or the way that you typically react to any sign of rejection is coming out and really coloring the situation, then this is a period of time where you really want to take a couple of steps back and study it more impartially.
You know, be like, “Is someone really dissing me, or is someone really insulting me, or am I reacting like that because that's what happened to me when I was seven or 14 or 21?” type of thing. So if you feel like that retrograde Venus is kind of stirring the pot and it's bringing up feelings of fear of rejection, and that you feel like lashing out or retaliating or going on a preemptive strike or anything along those lines, and if you have serious reason to question that—like that might not be the best way to handle this—then that's clearly the time you wanna be sitting down with a friend or someone you trust and just kind of sharing with them what's going on, A, and B, your feelings about what's going on.
Because this person may steer you straight, or this person may actually confirm it. This person may say like, “You know what? You're better than this and you should move on to another situation.” So that's the way that I would counsel dealing with that retrograde Venus in Scorpio, particularly around October 10th.
It's always hard to figure out how much is our own reaction to a situation and how much is actually a situation on its own, looked at impartially, and that's why I'm saying it's a good time to meet with a friend or someone you trust, 'cause I think you're gonna get a more solid understanding of what's happening here. But certainly be prepared for a lot of feelings that you're not really proud of to come out during this period of time. It could be warning you or it could be coloring the situation, which is why you need enough time following October 10th to really absorb what's going on, to get confirmation that you're looking at the situation accurately, and then making your own decision.
Probably around October 20th or after October 20th would be the best time to go about and do that.
Virgo
If you're born under Virgo or you have Virgo rising and you ask yourself, “Do I have a dog in this fight?” you might be relieved to know that the answer's no, you don't have a dog in this fight. You're not ruled by Venus, which is in Scorpio. You're not ruled by Mars, which is in Leo, nor are you ruled by Pluto, which is in the zodiac sign of Aquarius.
But unfortunately, that was a trick question. You actually do have a dog in this fight. The dog that you have in this fight is your own ruling planet, Mercury. Mercury happens to be part of this fixed T-square taking place from October 2nd to October 3rd. It's during that period of time that your ruling planet, Mercury, will be traveling through the zodiac sign of Scorpio, and it will be forming a square to the Mars in Leo and the Pluto in Aquarius.
So, what are you to do with this situation? Well, let me go ahead and talk a little bit about your ruling planet, Mercury. I regard Mercury as your ruling planet because the ruling planet to me is the planet that rules over your zodiac sign. A ruling planet is like your patron saint, your den mother, your corporate sponsor, and your life coach all wrapped up into one.
And when Mercury is your ruling planet, that means you're very nimble with your thinking. You think very quickly because Mercury rules the mind. It is the planet of the mind. And with Virgo, not only does it rule the mind, but it also rules the fingers, the hands. It does that with Gemini as well. So eye-to-hand coordination is very strong for people born under the zodiac signs of Gemini and Virgo.
The difference for you is that you know how to apply it right away because you are an earth sign. Indeed, a lot of musicians are born under the zodiac sign of Virgo or have Virgo rising because it's the working with the hands, working with the instrument to produce the sound, to produce the music.
That's something that you need to feel, as opposed to perhaps a Gemini, which might be more of the lyricist. You know, more the person who's coming up with the words that are to be sung or is singing them or performing them. But Virgo tends to be more of the musician type of signature. So what is Mercury like when it's moving through the zodiac sign of Scorpio?
Well, Scorpio is a fixed sign, and Mercury is happiest in the mutable signs, okay? Mercury does much better when it's in Gemini or if it's in Virgo, 'cause it's at home in those two zodiac signs. And so mutability, which means changeable, introduces things like options and alternatives and, if you're a musician, variations.
You can have a theme and variations. You like to play variations on an idea. You like to fiddle with an idea. You like to experiment. You like to play around with it, see what works, see what doesn't work, what kind of combination might produce what kind of a different result. These are things that Mercury ruling Virgo would be very intrigued by. It likes to explore all the different possibilities and hit upon the possibility that is the most useful or perhaps even the most profitable.
When Mercury is passing through a fixed zodiac sign like Scorpio, then it's not as open to alternatives. It's not as open to options. It really wants to find the result. It wants to find the answer, and that's what it's going to be. All right? It's, “I'm looking for a result. I'm looking for an answer.” Okay, that's what it is. We're gonna go with that. All right.
So there can be a sort of absolute quality with Mercury in a fixed sign. It's not as playful. It's not as experimental. It's more fixed. It's more resolute. But at the same time, with it passing through the zodiac sign of Scorpio, it's really digging into something. You know, kind of imagine working on a research project. You know, when you find the things that you want to find, you wanna make sure, if you're maybe producing a scientific report or something like that, that you can back up the evidence, that you have the facts, that there's evidence that backs it up, and that you've got the footnotes to show for it, right? That everything is footnoted.
Okay, so when Mercury is passing through Scorpio, you don't accept anything at face value. You want to know what's going on under the surface. You wanna know about what was withheld from you. You know, did you really hear all the facts, or did you hear some of them, or were they dressed up in some way?
So there's a suspicion that's kind of woven into the character of Scorpio, and for good reason. Scorpios have often been lied to or betrayed or deceived in some way, and so they're not as trusting as they once were. That doesn't mean that they're always mistrusting. They wanna trust, but whatever caused that mistrust was so painful that it really sort of hangs in the air around people born under Scorpio and Scorpio rising.
And so with your analytic mind, with Virgo, you're not going to accept anything at face value. You're not gonna accept the easy answer. You're always gonna be digging, digging, digging for something that's deeper, okay?
So what's happening here is that there are things taking place that aren't really visible or recognizable, okay? Indeed, in this fixed T-square, your Mercury in Scorpio, or Mercury in the zodiac sign of Scorpio, appears in the third house, which is pretty much a house that's above board. It's actually—the best way to think of a third house in this context would be a game board that the different tokens are moving across, okay?
So you're sitting at a game. You're playing a game. You roll the dice. You move your token, and so this is kind of the situation that's going on. You might find yourself in a game or in a contest or in a negotiation. You may be bartering or being diplomatic or involved in some sort of transaction right now, and your feeling might be like, “You know, this is a transaction, and it should be above board.”
But there may be a part of you that's saying, “Mm, I'm not sure if everyone involved in this transaction or everyone involved in this enterprise is being above board.” And you would be right. The reason for this or the support for this idea, looking at your solar horoscope, is that Mars in Leo is in the 12th house, which is a hidden house, and Pluto in Aquarius is in the sixth house, which is also a cadent house.
So these are houses that are striving to gain light, or they are experiencing a loss of light, okay, is basically what's going on here. And so these are also houses in which not everything is very apparent or seen. Now, of the two, it's the 12th house that would really kind of concern me the most, okay, because the 12th house is Mars in Leo, and its square to Mercury may be that someone is actually withholding information, or they might have been manipulated by someone else who had more information and isn't particularly sharing it.
Okay, so there's—I don't know, there's something a little bit fishy that's going on with that 12th house during this square. You yourself might be getting set up by someone to go and get something for them which they feel like they cannot go and get themselves. You know, there's kind of a Maltese Falcon-y feeling to all of this.
And so, where you think that you're involved in something which is very straightforward, mmm, there might be, you know, other agendas, shall we say, that are being served during this period of time. So this is something where I think that Mercury in Scorpio is going to serve you. It sextiles your own zodiac sign, so your senses are speaking accurately to you.
The way that you're analyzing the situation is accurate to you. So I would trust your hunches, I would trust your take on a situation, and I would also trust your line of questioning, which I would advise be more solicitous than adversarial. You don't wanna be adversarial when you're trying to figure out someone else's hidden agenda.
You know, what you wanna do is be a little bit more Agatha Christie, you know, which is put together the clues and figure out what's going on. And so that would be a good impulse to follow during this fixed T-square.
The other thing that's going on is Pluto in Aquarius, which is squaring your Scorpio. And Pluto in Aquarius, where it's situated right now, this may have to do with work, or this might have to do with potentially a health matter, but in which things are set and they shouldn't be set. They should be questioned. Okay, so there might be a work situation in which the impulse is that for the people who hired you or the people who want to see this assignment fulfilled, that you follow it step by step and you do exactly what you're told.
And you may be feeling like this is misguided. I mean, that you can understand what the protocol is and you can understand what the expectations are, but as a Virgo, you tend to take things on a case-by-case basis, and you may see that what typically mattered or what typically worked—I think is a better way of putting it—isn't gonna work in this situation. It doesn't fit the situation. It's not simpatico. And so you may be questioning or resisting it.
If it's a health matter, you may be involved in a situation in which there's this course of action that you're supposed to take, this regimen you're supposed to follow, and you don't feel like it's right. You know, like that might work for other people or other situations, but you don't feel like it's going to work for you, or you don't feel like it's going to work for the person that you're advocating for or the person that you're representing. You just don't feel like it's going to work, and so there's a resistance and even a challenge that's going on.
So how do you deal with this situation that you're confronted with? Well, it's not a problem to be solved, or a mystery to be solved. It's more like a predicament or dilemma that you face where you're asking these questions and they're not being answered to your satisfaction, and the questions are actually leading to more questions that are kind of challenging some presumptions or assumptions here.
And I think that that's the space that you wanna stay in. This Mercury in Scorpio, because it sextiles your sign, is being very true to you. Your hunches are right. Your conclusions are right. Your analysis is right. You may not have all the words for it. You may not know absolutely what's going on. I think you're still in a process of discovery, but you're on the right track.
And I think in the same way, you have to handle the situation gingerly. There can be a tendency, because Mercury's in Scorpio, and it's ruled by Mars, to be adversarial, and you don't want to be adversarial. You want to ask questions that are going to give you answers. And there's a tendency with Mercury squaring Pluto to be absolute, you know.
You've got adversarial with Mars and then absolute with Pluto, like it's got to be this. And again, you don't wanna be absolute, you know, because you want some maneuvering room. You want room to ask questions, to digest information, to absorb information during this period of time. So what I would say, because of the position of your Mercury in this T-square, is you're not in a hurry to come up with these answers.
You can hang out here. You can actually continue with your own pursuit of knowledge, with your own tangent of investigation. Not only can you do this, I think you should do this. I think what you want to do is wait for this T-square to come to an end, which should be probably around mid-October to later October, where the influence won't be as powerful, and you may feel like you're getting more answers.
I could also see, to some degree, you getting more questions around mid-October. I think that's when Mercury turns retrograde. So that might tag on another two weeks, so I might be really talking about early November for you. But what it comes down to is you don't have to have these answers or information right now.
You're on the right track. You're going to get this, and you're also going to emerge with prize in hand. You're gonna emerge with what you want out of this whole situation. But be true to your Virgo sun sign. Be true to your Virgo ascendant sign. Take your time with this. Mull over things. Study what's there in front of you, and if you give it the real estate in your mind to do it, and if you follow your hunches, I think you're gonna be finding your way out of this predicament.
And instead of following somebody else's answers, you're gonna be discovering answers of your own, answers that work for you.
Libra
If you're born under Libra or you have Libra rising, you're gonna want to ask yourself the question, “Do I have a dog in this fight?” And the answer is yes. Yes, you do. You do have a dog in this fight, and the dog that you have in this fight is the planet Venus. Venus is your ruling planet. It rules the zodiac sign of Libra, and therefore Venus represents you in the T-square.
And so the way that Venus is representing you is a bit complicated and a little bit more complex. First of all, Venus is in the zodiac sign of Scorpio, which means that Venus is in the zodiac sign of her detriment. That means that Venus can't do the persuading, the coaxing, the cajoling that she could do if she were in Libra.
Okay, if she were in Libra, you would ask leading questions, and people would answer them, and you would make people feel like they're smarter than they really are or funnier than they really are, and they would be like putty in your hands. Okay. Or in a different way of reading that, you may be seriously or sincerely interested in what the person has to say, and so you wanna hear so much of what they have to say, and there's this marvelous rapport that you have with someone else.
These are the things that would come to you naturally if Venus were in your own zodiac sign. But right now, Venus is in the zodiac sign of Scorpio, so you're feeling very dominated by someone else. You know, if it's not someone who wants to get their way with you, it's someone who has a very strong idea of how you should be acting and what you should be doing.
And as a Libra, you would stand against this, but because it's your ruling planet in Scorpio, you're feeling very dominated. Like you can't really talk back, that you can't really fight back, or you're not aware of what the tools are that you should be using in this type of a situation. You may feel in some way that you're very much tied up with this person.
Venus, at the time of this forecast, is moving through the second house of your solar horoscope, and so that's the house of money. So you may feel financially tied to someone else. Your money may be tied up with someone because you're married and you share finances. Even if you have separate bank accounts, you still share a space where you live or a family that you're raising or maybe jointly held property or something along those lines.
And you may be feeling very much like your partner is dominating the situation, either because they have a very strong idea of what should be going on, or maybe they've been having financial struggles, and they're dominating the situation because of the financial struggles that they're experiencing right now.
So there's this feeling that you can't really act independently, that you're almost handcuffed to someone else right now. It could be financially, and so you have to work with this person, even though this person may not seem particularly workable at this time.
The reason why I question whether this person is workable at this time or rather receptive to your ideas or being reasonable is because Venus is retrograde. Not only is she in her zodiac sign of detriment, where she can't be that at-ease Venus that she wants to be, that she feels very put upon, or that maybe even everything you say is wrong, all right? Venus is also retrograde, so she's eliciting responses from people that aren't particularly cooperative or responses that you were seeking—that people are very cantankerous or very snarky or maybe even blaming you in some sort of regard with what is going on.
They might be saying it's all your fault, you know, the financial issues or situations that you're facing. Or even if they're saying it's my fault, they might be guilt-tripping you in a way of saying, “Well, now you're gonna leave me,” and, “Now you're gonna take what you have and leave,” or, “You're gonna try to screw me over,” or something along those lines.
So for some reason, I would imagine money and emotions are very much entangled right now, and not in a particularly flattering light, not really in a nice light. But nevertheless, you have something at stake in this situation, and you need to safeguard your interests.
And that's what brings us to the retrograde Venus square to Mars on October 10th, which will be taking place in your solar 11th house. In other words, you may be in a situation right now in which you're putting a good face on things, you know, that people are asking, “Hey, are you okay?” You're like, “I'm fine. Why do you ask?” type of thing. You're just smiling through the conversations. You're breezing through any sort of disagreement, you know.
You may feel like you don't really have anyone that you can talk to about this. You're putting on a front. And so with this Venus square to Mars on October 10th, there's gonna be a crack in that front, okay? It might be a penetrating question or an observation that's a little bit too close. Maybe it's even on target about the situation that you now face.
Or you might face a situation where financially you always said yes, but this time you have to say no, and that's got people wondering why. Or it's got you maybe even feeling a little sensitive and defensive about that. So that will be taking place on October 10th.
And that might even bring a defensive reaction out of you, which is like, “Well, why is it a big deal that I can't join the gala this year? I just can't join it, okay? And my reasons are my own.” And so that might have close friends like, “Well, what's up?” or, “Why are you acting like this?” or, “You always join the gala,” you know, or something along those lines. And so people might be trying to ask what's going on with you.
And then we have the Venus square to Pluto on October 20th, and this is something… this might be along the lines of your situation becoming impossible to continue. There might be another crack in the facade. There might be another observation that's made that you react very heatedly to. And this might bring a couple of other people forward asking, “Is… are you okay? Is everything all right?”
You know, and you may find after this October 20th that you can't say everything's all right anymore, because it's not, okay? And you need the moral support, the emotional support of people who know you, you know, who may be saying to you after that October 20th, “I had no idea that that was going on. You have to do something about it.”
And you may be feeling like, “I can't because I'm entangled in this situation,” or, “It would be a heartless thing for me to do,” or something along those lines, because we can have those reactions to situations like this. And so these might be friends or acquaintances or colleagues who are saying, “Listen, I understand your feelings, but you can't let that color what's going on right now. You have to safeguard your own interests. You have to look after your own concerns.”
And so on one hand, that might feel like a betrayal, you know, but then on the other hand, that might also be a necessity, you know. What's happening that's fascinating with this square to Mars in Leo and the square to Pluto in Aquarius, if we take a couple of steps back, we'll see that in your chart, Libra sextiles Leo, okay, and Libra trines Pluto. So at first glance, when you're watching that fixed T-square, it's like, okay, this should be a situation in which you feel cornered, okay?
But following that initial feeling of being cornered or trapped into something comes the sextile to Mars and the trine to Pluto. So what it's saying is that it's time to drop the facade that everything's all right. It's time to turn to people that you trust with your reservations about what's going on financially, or the emotional-financial imbroglio that you're involved in right now, and to get some good advice. To get some support to begin with, and also some advice. And if a friend doesn't have it, then maybe there's an agency or a firm or a company that they can talk to on your behalf, or someone else can intervene.
But it's time to really step out of this fixed T-square by the time we get into latter October, and to really turn to people who you feel are able to support you, who are able to help you, and who are able to give you information.
It's hard as a Libra or Libra rising to hold things in the balance when you feel so imbalanced in a situation, and that's what Venus going through the house of finances in retrograde in Scorpio to me is talking about: you're too close to it, or it's too imbalanced, or you're not able to examine it impartially, which is what a Libra needs to do.
And I think once we get into latter October, you're gonna be in a place where you can see this more fairly, where you can safeguard your concerns, and perhaps even find a way to safeguard the concerns of that other person who is tied to you in such a very delicate and powerful way.
Scorpio
If you're born under Scorpio or you have Scorpio rising and you ask yourself the question, “Do I have a dog in this fight?” the answer would be yes, you do have a dog in this fight. In fact, you have the entire dog park in this fight. And the reason for answering it that way, that you have the entire dog park in this fight, is because of the planets that are involved.
First of all, Mars and Pluto, which form an opposition to one another on October 2nd and 3rd. Mars and Pluto are the twin rulers of your own zodiac sign. Now, a ruler is a ruling planet, and to me, the ruling planet is the planet that rules your zodiac sign. It rules over your birthday. Most people have one ruling planet, but you're one of the few signs that has two.
You have the traditional ruler, Mars, and the modern ruler, Pluto, and they share joint custody of your own zodiac sign. So both Mars and Pluto represent you in a zodiac chart. All right? And so when they're opposite one another, like they are in this October 2nd to October 3rd bracket, you are against yourself.
You are split right down the middle as to what it is that you should do. Okay, there's Mars in Leo, which is at the top of your solar horoscope, so that's going to be very much following your career, maintaining your status, fighting for the things that make you you. You know, right now, you should be at the top of the heap of what it is that you do in your career, and if you're not at the top of the heap, you're struggling to get there.
You're certainly outstanding in your field or very remarkable in what it is that you do, and you should be highly valued. You should be highly seen, and you should be highly recognized. This is what Mars at the top of your solar horoscope is going to bring. So maybe you're the one who hit the home run that everyone's celebrating, or maybe you're the one who brought the project in under budget that everyone's celebrating, or you're the one who found the problem with something that everyone's like, “I didn't know there was a problem there.”
And they're celebrating you. Okay, so you're being celebrated for an action. Okay, and that's what's going on right during this period of time. And so you want to be there. You want to be pushing for more. You want to be pushing to climb higher. This is something that feels really, really good. You're really connected to getting ahead in your job or your career or your field of expertise.
And this is forming an opposition to your other ruling planet, Pluto, which is at the base of your chart. And Pluto at the base of your chart in opposition is basically polarizing itself. It's on the opposite pole from that Mars. An easy way to think of it is Mars is the North Pole and Pluto is the South Pole.
All right? They both have ice, but you're not gonna see penguins at the North Pole any more than you're gonna see polar bears in the South Pole. Okay? They're two very different places. They're two very different realms in the astrological chart. And they're actually quite well-placed at this point. You know, Pluto down at the bottom of the chart is good because Pluto is about the underworld. It's about roots. It's about foundation and holding the place where you are. And so Mars is about fighting for what you want and enjoying the triumph and the glory, and there it is at the top of your chart, so it's doing its job. And Pluto is down at the foundation of the chart, and it's providing you with nutrition, with nourishment.
You know, roots of trees not only hold the tree in place, but the roots of trees also gather the food, the nourishment, the replenishment. Okay, so that's very powerful right there. But you have these two different realms. There's the career, and then literally there's the home, okay, your foundation.
And so the career and the home may be at opposite ends of the pole, you know. And I've talked about oppositions as being two planets that are as far away as they can be on a zodiacal circle, and they really want nothing to do with one another. They're polar opposites, okay? But in an opposition like this, there can also be a feeling of keeping these two parts of your life different, you know.
That your public life is public. You know, your career life is very public. It's very much seen. And then your private life, your home life, is very private. It's your own business, and it's really none of anyone else's business. And so that's where an opposition can actually be good, you know. I mean, you don't want the roots of the tree up where the leaves are, and you don't want the leaves of the tree down where the roots are, okay? They each have their assigned places, and that might actually be what you're enjoying right now in your life.
What's happening is that you have Venus moving through your own zodiac sign. Now, Venus is not your ruling planet, okay? And so Venus isn't technically the dog that you have in this fight. The dog that you have in this fight is career and following career, and home and sustaining home, protecting home, nurturing home. And maybe the two do pull at one another, but that's an opposition that you understand.
With Venus being in your own zodiac sign, it sort of… and being ruled by Mars and being ruled by Pluto, you have some not-so-appealing things taking place in your career, and you have some not-so-appealing things taking place at home. Now, in your career, you might be seeing sides of people that you kind of suspected would be there, but now they're there on full display, and they're really unattractive, and they're really unappealing.
Or in your home, you may be dealing with a loved one or someone who lives with you or is a member of your family whose unappealing sides are coming out, or they're going through a difficult situation in their lives, and they really need you, but you may not feel like you're available or on call.
So what Venus is going to do as she forms the square to Mars on the 10th is she's going to call into question your career. In other words, personal elements seep over into your career, okay? And that could be your personal reactions to people who are showing unappealing sides, okay, and that's coming out.
Or maybe people at work are bringing up personal issues with you, issues about maybe your job performance or just who you are as a human being or the way you wear your hair, you know. And so this is becoming something, and this might be something that's really causing you a great deal of anxiety and anger, two emotions that Scorpio and Scorpio risings are very familiar with.
When Venus forms this square to Pluto on October 20th, it could be really sort of stirring the waters of the home base, you know, that there might be a loved one who's doing more than just showing an unappealing side, but a loved one who's going through something that's very difficult, that was kind of a private matter that might have been manageable, but now it's maybe moved to another degree of intensity or another degree of difficulty, and that has to be dealt with.
Another way that we could read this is that at work, you may be dealing with people's personal lives or personal issues flooding the banks that they're coming into the workplace where things had always been handled professionally and things might have run like clockwork. You know, right now there are personal issues that maybe a client or a colleague or a supervisor is bringing to the place of work, and you now have to deal with that, and that's really not appealing to you as a Scorpio.
You're a Mars-ruled sign. You want things to be uniform and hierarchical, and “this is the way that it's done.” And you may be dealing with someone's personal issues that don't have a place at work. But being a Scorpio, you're sympathetic. You're always sympathetic to the way that one manages their inner demons.
You know what it's like to live with inner demons and doubts and anxieties and parts of yourself sort of flooding the banks. You're always very good at managing that. So when someone else loses their management or their grip on that, that's not something that you're going to point your finger and say, “J'accuse,” you know, or like, “That's so unprofessional,” or, “Fired,” you know, or anything along those lines.
That's something that you're gonna be sympathetic to, you're gonna be drawn to, and you're going to want to help that person. So the personal might be becoming the professional or the professional's becoming the personal. Personal matters might be showing up in the professional space, or you might have to address personal matters at home in a more professional way.
Let's say there's a financial issue that's going on. It might be time to bring in someone who deals with debt management. You know, I'm just pulling a… this isn't a forecast. This is me sharing with you an example, you know, that money can be a very personal matter, but let's say it's out of control and you need to bring in someone who helps to manage debt or debt relief, you know, and it's their job to do so. That's where a professional is coming into your home environment. You know, they're bringing in a professional acumen or ability to help you out with maybe an intensely personal situation.
So these are the things that Venus is going to be stirring up as she goes through this fixed T-square, and your first reaction as a Scorpio or Scorpio rising is, “I've got it under control. I'm fine.” You know, but by the time we get to latter October, you might be realizing that you're not so fine and that you could use some help, and that's an important thing. If you could use some help, if you need some help, you need to ask.
Scorpios have a very strong stoic side to them. You guys can take a lot of punishment, and not only can you take a lot of punishment, but you see it as being on your shoulders to solve a situation. But sometimes you might not have those tools, or you might not have those abilities, or you might not even have those resources or knowledge or information, and that's when you need to turn to someone outside the situation. So that might be something that is very much on your mind in the latter part of October and leading up to your birthday.
Certainly, when you're involved in a fixed T-square, you don't have to take the answers that are there on the table in front of you. And sometimes that fixity, where it can be resistant or stubborn, can also in some ways be good because if you don't accept what you're hearing, and maybe there's a reason why you shouldn't be accepting what you're hearing, it holds out. It holds out to get… as long as it's in service to holding out to get more information, or as long as it's in service to holding out to get more resources, or to build a case.
You don't wanna resist just to resist. That would not be a good thing to do with this fixed T-square. But you may also be on a path where you're asking questions, where you're uncovering information, where you're trying to figure out how to solve this situation—this professional situation that's become personal, or a personal situation where you may need professional assistance.
If you're still following that path, which is to find those things, then the fixed T-square will have done its job. It would've actually kind of spurred you into action, an action that at first you might have refused, but as we get to the end of October, early November, you recognize this as an action that needs to be taken.
And the best way to take an action is from a place of wanting to help, and also from a place of being informed and educated. And that's where I see you being in the late October or early November period of time.
Sagittarius
If you're born under Sagittarius or you have Sagittarius rising, you may be asking yourself during this period of time of the fixed T-square, “Do I have a dog in this fight?” And the answer is no, you don't. In fact, you're one of the few people who doesn't have a dog in this fight, and that, believe me, is good news.
With everything that's going on in the sky and with everything you've had to deal with recently, being exempt from the current fixed T-square is a blessing, and you shouldn't have—what's it called? FOMO or whatever, fear of missing out, okay? ‘Cause you're not missing out on much of anything.
Nevertheless, during this period of time of the fixed T-square, you wanna keep your eye on Mars in the zodiac sign of Leo. And the reason why you want to keep your eye on Mars in the zodiac sign of Leo is because Leo is a fire sign, just like Sagittarius is a fire sign. Indeed, the three fire signs are Sagittarius, Leo, and Aries. So you want to pay attention to any planet that's traveling through those three fire signs, particularly Leo and Aries, because these are the fire signs that trine you.
And trine is a good thing. It gives you unconditional support, all right? It provides opportunity, and it also provides protection. So with Mars traveling through Leo and that part of your solar horoscope that's associated with the ninth house, you are really pursuing the highest in you, all right? That's what's going on right now. You are dedicated, you're committed to expressing the highest in yourself.
Now, that might be the highest in yourself in terms of a moral capacity. In other words, you might be wanting to be the goodest person you can be. You know, when we talk about being the best person that you can be? This is about being a good person, so it's the goodest or the best in the sense of good person that you can be.
If you're Sagittarius rising or if you're born under Sagittarius, things that really are important to you are your moral values. Now, I don't mean moral values in the sort of like 1980s sense of the Moral Majority, where it was very parochial and very adversarial. I mean moral values in terms of what is good and bringing out the good, and what is bad and not spending too much time with the bad. In other words, kind of distancing yourself from the bad, or learning from the bad, but transmuting it into something that's good.
A lot of times when people see the world in terms of good or bad, they see it in an adversarial position—that good must triumph over evil. Um, but a lot of times there's good reason for why bad is bad. Um, and sometimes the reason why bad is bad is that it's shown up what's bad about what's supposed to be good. And so this presents things like moral quandaries and moral predicaments.
And these might be things that you're contemplating right now. You're facing right now, but you're also contemplating right now. Because you don't have a dog in the fight of this fixed T-square, it's not immediate. It's not in your face. You may even be observing situations of people you care about, or friends or associates, or you might be observing situations that are taking place halfway around the world, you know.
And to you, these may be lessons in moral enlightenment. They may be asking you questions which aren't so easy to answer. Why are these people going to war with one another? Why are certain people not giving other people solace or sanctuary or comfort? Why are people acting horribly? Or why are they so angry? Or why are they sort of rending or tearing apart the things that they created?
Because you don't have a dog in the fight, you're kind of allowed—it's more than allowed, you're being given a sort of philosophical perspective, an ability to sort of rise above and to observe it at a distance. And those moments that we have in our lives when we aren't immediately involved in something, and we can observe it at a distance, are really precious moments. Because those are the moments where we can draw on other faculties. We can draw on our moral faculties. We can draw on our spiritual faculties. We can reflect. We can ask ourselves questions. All right?
And this is something which is always appealing to people born under Sagittarius or who have Sagittarius rising, but again, you want to be able to apply it to your life, to the way that you live your life. So this Mars in Leo is really going to appeal to you as being the best person that you can be in the moral sense, but also in the way that you are and who you are in your day-to-day activity, and this is something that you're called to.
Now, what may happen, because Mars in Leo forms an opposition to Pluto between October 2nd to October 3rd, is that maybe perhaps someone that you revered, someone that you respected, suddenly shows feet of clay. You know, that maybe they're caught on something, maybe they're found with their hand in the kitty or having a secret affair or something else that tarnishes their pure reputation.
So this might be something in which you feel an ideological call to come to this person's defense, and you may feel like this person is above all of that, and what this person has to give is so much more than what you're blaming this person for. And that could involve you in a melee. That could involve you in a fight with colleagues or friends or community members or maybe other people who follow this person's teachings or their workshops or a spiritual path or something like that.
And you might be on the side that's defending, and there may be people saying, “You're trying to let this person off the hook,” or, “You're sugarcoating things,” or, “How can you do this?” And this could be causing a rip or a tear or a division. So it may not be you personally who brought this about, but maybe it's your defense of someone you admire that brings this about, that causes political conflict or argument or a debate or happens in your day-to-day world or your business life or something along those lines.
So this would be something to keep an eye out for during that opposition. And what it ultimately would lend itself to is for you to really maybe question this person that you were defending. You know, not to go with the first reaction, which is to defend, and maybe question it. But it might also serve to bring you into a position where you can maybe mediate, where the people who are calling for this person being thrown out or whatever, where you can maybe bring your good humor and your wisdom to cool down those fiery tempers.
The other thing that will be taking place is the Mars square to Venus, which will be taking place on October 10th in the solar horoscope. And this may involve a deep suspicion or a deep sense of betrayal or a deep sense of anger that's coming out, not necessarily in you, not necessarily involved in the situation that I described, but it might be where all of a sudden you're seeing really unappealing sides of people.
And maybe it is the situation described with the opposition. Why not? Maybe it's the way that the people who have decided that they're going to be more holier-than-thou than the person who was brought down are themselves becoming… this holier-than-thou is taking on a sort of hostility or a kind of real, like, maybe even a bloodlust or something along those lines, which you might also find very, you know, just, “Ugh, repulsive, repugnant.”
You know, sometimes you can have the fall of someone who was held in high esteem, but the people who are chuckling and laughing and celebrating or saying, “You know, we got rid of the gatekeeper, and now we're going to storm whatever,” they can be just as… they can be vicious. I mean, there could be a real thrill in the malice and the enjoyment of causing harm or seeing the destruction of someone else.
So this may also be things that are coming out, again, under the auspices of, like, “Well, they deserve it because, you know, that person turned his back on his followers,” or, “That person wasn't this pure example.” Or, “We're gonna be as vigorous in our tearing down of someone as we were in the support of someone.”
And these may give you moments for pause. These may really be things in which you're realizing there's a lot more going on here, and what does this say about me? What does this say about the people that I know? What does this say about someone I believe in? And maybe even, what does this say about the world, about the world that we live in? Does it take more delight in destruction than it does in construction? Does it take more delight in tearing things down than it does in building something?
What's nice about this fixed T-square for you is that Mars in Leo, as I said before, trines your Sun, and Pluto in Aquarius forms a sextile to your Sun. What I mean is your Sun sign. So Mars in Leo trining Sagittarius, that's your Sun sign. And Pluto in Aquarius forms a sextile to Sagittarius, which is your Sun sign or your rising sign, right?
So these are really supposed to serve as moral examples. You know, this T-square, this fixed T-square is supposed to serve to really sort of pose that question, right? Or that reflection that, “There but for the grace of God go I.” You know, in other words, you better be the first… if you're gonna throw that stone, you better be without sin. You know, because if you've got sin, you might wanna put the stone right back down on the ground again. Or, “There but for the grace of God go I. There but for the grace of God go any of us,” you know.
And if this is the way that we react, if this is the way that we respond, you know, what does that say about us? And maybe we better take a look at that. So even though you don't have a dog in this fight, there's something about this fight that's going to be very enlightening for you, and it's going to get you to look at things differently. But not in a negative way, because you are born under probably the most humanitarian sign of the zodiac. You're gonna be looking at it in a food-for-thought way. It's gonna be something that really adds to your reflections and the way that you see things and the way that you ponder things.
And again, the more good that you can bring to the world, you know, that good can come from being enlightened by this experience, by being educated by this experience, by finding ways to draw lessons from this experience that don't divide people into good or bad or right or wrong. And that's something that all of us, all of us can benefit from.
Capricorn
If you're born under Capricorn or you have Capricorn rising, the question you're going to want to ask with this fixed T-square involving Venus retrograde in Scorpio, Mars in Leo, and Pluto in Aquarius is, do you have a dog in this fight? And the answer is no, you don't have a dog in this fight. And the reason why you don't have a dog in this fight is because you're the dog that's in this fight.
And what you're wondering is whether you have the backing of someone who said that they were going to be there for you or not. Let me go ahead and break this down for you.
When I look at this fixed T-square, I begin with the Mars-Pluto opposition that's taking place. And the Mars-Pluto opposition that's taking place happens to be taking place in your money houses in your solar chart. The money houses are the second house, which is money that belongs to me, and the eighth house, which is money that belongs to someone else.
So when I see this opposition, what the first thing is that comes to my mind is that you may be being offered some kind of offer or opportunity. You may have the inside lead on maybe a mortgage or a piece of property. Or there may be this possibility for your business to grow in some way, or for a loan, if it were made to you, would be able to put you in a position where you could pursue something that you very much want. All right? So this is something that's definitely worth thinking about. This is something that you want.
But being a Capricorn or a Capricorn rising, the next question would be, “Mm, can I afford it?” you know? “Can I afford to go back to school? Can I afford to take on a mortgage? Can I afford to pursue this opportunity? Can I afford it money-wise? Can I afford it time-wise? Can I afford it personally?”
All right. So even though you're looking at this possibility, it's still very, very far away from you. It's out of reach. And being a Capricorn or a Capricorn rising, your inclination may be to sort of say, “Mm, it's out of reach. If it's meant to be, the universe will provide. If it's meant to be, I'll find some way of making this happen at a later time. Or maybe it's not meant to be right now. Maybe it's something I should take a look at later on.”
And so that might be what you have come to a decision about—something in which it's kind of like, “Mm, I don't really have to have this. It would be great if I did, but I don't know if I can make that reach right now. I don't know if I can afford that right now, so I might just stick with where I am and go on with my life.”
And that probably would've been the way that you dealt with that opposition if not for Venus being retrograde in the zodiac sign of Scorpio. Okay, now why is Venus retrograde in the zodiac sign of Scorpio a key factor here? Basically, Venus traveling through that part of your solar chart that deals with benefactors or mentors or basically people who could help you to get what it is that you want. Well, essentially, you may know someone who could actually help you get what you want. You may know someone who could lend you the money. There might be someone who's offered to lend you the money. There might be someone who you know is connected to the person making you an offer. There may be someone whom you know in banking or some sort of financial agency who could figure out a way for you to afford such a thing.
And so this person is someone that you would then come to rely on. If they were able to do this, then this could happen, and that means relying on someone, asking someone. Now, Capricorns aren't really good on relying on someone else. Part of that is because you're an earth sign. The earth signs are Virgo, Taurus, and Capricorn. These are the most reliable signs, pretty much, of the zodiac.
And what it is, is that people rely on you. You don't rely on other people, and that's because you know that you'll come through. You know that you'll do a great job. You know that you will deliver. You have the responsibility, and you have the discipline. When we add to the fact that Saturn is the ruling planet of Capricorn, you really do take it onto your own shoulders. You do prefer taking care of something yourself. You don't wanna owe anyone. You don't wanna be beholden to anyone. That's something that makes you feel quite a bit uncomfortable.
But what can happen with a Capricorn or Capricorn rising, once they get their mind moving with, “Well, it would be nice to have this. It would be nice to pursue this opportunity. It would be nice to go back to school. It would be nice to expand my business in some way,” once that sort of starts on in, and once you sort of connect a face or a person to that, then we're dealing with making the ask, okay? We're dealing with going ahead and making the ask, which is something else that makes Capricorns very uncomfortable. You would rather be the person that other people are coming to to ask than the person who's making the ask.
And what's gonna be a little bit more complicated in all of this is Venus in Scorpio, which is retrograde. Now, Venus in Scorpio—this person you're thinking of asking is on your side. And the reason they're on your side is because Scorpio's a water sign, Capricorn is an earth sign, and they form a natural sextile in the sky. So this is bound to be someone who would say yes.
But Venus is retrograde. She's moving backwards through the sky. So there's a problem. There's a dilemma. There's a predicament that you have to face in making this ask. And that could show up in one of two ways. This could be someone who would be the last person that you would ever ask to help you out. Maybe there's bad blood. Maybe there was an argument. Maybe things got off track between the two of you. Maybe you even swore never to talk to this person again.
And the stars being the stars, and Venus retrograde in Scorpio being Venus retrograde in Scorpio, it's precisely that person that you swore you'd never talk to or ever ask anything of again whom you would need if you want to go ahead and pursue this opportunity, this endeavor, this investment. This is the person who could help you.
The other way that this could play out is that there is someone who's more than happy to help you. There is someone who's volunteered to help you and sworn that they will do whatever it is that they can in their power to help you. But this person happens to be going through a really bad time right now, or at least a very difficult one. They may be absorbed in certain business matters. They may be absorbed in their own building up of a business or their own enterprise or endeavor. Then again, there may be some personal issues that have crept into their business life or business issues that have crept into their personal life, and they're struggling with that.
Nevertheless, they're on your side, and they want to help out. So that leaves you in a bit of a quandary, and that quandary will peak when Venus forms a square to Mars on October 10th. This is when you're going to be really like, “You know, I just can't talk to this person that I swore that I would never talk to. I just can't ask this person to help me out. They're gonna reject me. It's gonna be humiliating, and I don't need this aggravation,” okay? Like, that might be where the self-argument is going on October 10th.
Or you might be on October 10th with, “I'm waiting on this person, and I know this person means well, and they wanna be there for me, but you know, I have to wait for this person to clear this up. I have to wait for this person to go through these things, you know, and isn't it just better to pull the plug? Isn't it just better to say, ‘This isn't the right time. I'm just gonna take a pass on this one.'”
You know, and so there's this kind of Hamlet soliloquy of to be or not to be, which is to pursue or not to pursue, to ask or not to ask, to wait or not to wait. This is going on, and it's going to hit a real place on October 10th. And you're really going to try to convince yourself to pull the plug, to not make the ask, to say to the person who means well by you, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
But my feeling is, following this square, you're not going to be very successful at it. You're still gonna find yourself wanting it, and that can be what's difficult about this kind of a Venus-Mars square. You know, we talk about a struggle or a fight between the two planets, but the struggle can be with what you desire, what you want, you know, and then you putting the brakes on it and saying, “I don't want that,” but then finding on the other end of the struggle, “Actually, I really do want that.”
And that's where Mars is pushing you to push yourself. Mars is pushing you to ask the person that you said you'd never ask, or pushing you to stick with the person who means well but isn't able to help you out right now. Mars is saying, “Go for it. You know, this is something you want, and go for it.”
And remember that Mars rules the square to Venus in Scorpio. So when we get to the Venus-Pluto square on October 20th, that's a more, to me, soul-searchy square. You're looking at your finances. You're figuring out how to do this. Um, again, you're trying to talk yourself out of it. You know, how does something that I was sort of split about suddenly become something that I feel like I can't live without?
And this is more the Plutonian side of this square, because Pluto is basically picking up on the Mars energy which pushed you, and Pluto is now saying, you know, “Can you really live without this? If you said no or if you passed on this, wouldn't you regret it? Wouldn't you miss it? Isn't it something that you really do want?” Okay.
And this is how Pluto and Mars really know one another. You know, Mars is the push to get, and Pluto is kind of obsession—it's fixated with something. And it basically brings to any sort of question or issue life-or-death stakes. You know, in or out. Can you live with this and can you afford to live without it, type of thing.
And this is what's going to be very much going on on October 20th. Which is why I feel like somewhere after October 20th, you make the ask. You're gonna ask the person that you said you'd never talk to and there's bad blood. You're gonna make the ask. And you may find that the person says yes, but not without some added consequences to it. This person may say yes, but they have their own things that they want to see from you. And so you may be like, “Did it just get worse? Would it have been easier if the person had said no?” sort of thing.
Or what could happen around October 20th is that you're waiting on the person, and the person is there, but the person isn't there with the full amount that you need or with the full backing or something like that, and they're working out a plan and you're just kind of like… you're gonna be asking yourself, why… how did a yes or no question become so complicated?
But that's what happens with these fixed T-squares, and part of it is because you really do want this. You might have started talking yourself out of it, but I think you're gonna end up with really wanting this. And with Venus being in Scorpio for such a long period of time, my feeling is about mid-November or later November, it is going to work out for you.
You are going to accept the conditions or the circumstances that are brought up. You're going to accept that, and I think you're gonna be like, “Okay, let's go ahead and do this.” But at the same time, you're still gonna be split. You're still gonna be torn about it. You're still going to be wondering whether you should have gotten into all of this or not.
But that's the nature of Pluto when it's triggered. It puts you in a place that is new or different, something that you would never have done on your own. Mars is there to push you into it. So against what might be called your better judgment or your caution, it does look to me like you're going to be moving forward with this.
And my feeling is, my feeling is you're gonna find that it really is worth it after all this Sturm und Drang. But being a Capricorn or a Capricorn rising, you never get what you want without going through hell and high water first.
Aquarius
If you're born under Aquarius or you have Aquarius rising, the question you may have with this T-square, this fixed T-square, is, do I have a dog in this fight? And the answer at first might be like, “No, you don't have a dog in this fight.” After all, your two ruling planets are Saturn and Uranus, and neither of these planets is involved in this particular fixed T-square.
However, Pluto is traveling through your zodiac sign. Pluto is traveling through the sign of Aquarius, and because Pluto plays a strong role in this fixed T-square, that's what makes you have a dog in this fight. All right.
Now, this is the interesting thing about a planet being in your sign. A planet being in your sign during that period of time belongs to you, and so that's why we would look at Pluto and say even if it's not one of your ruling planets, it's still in your sign, and so it belongs to you.
And so with Pluto in your sign, you're actually in the strongest position of this fixed T-square. You're going to be the most immovable. You're going to be the most resistant, and you're going to be saying to yourself, “I really don't have to participate in this if I don't want to participate in this.”
Pluto is that strong a planet, and that may very well be your position. And so with this Pluto-Mars opposition, which takes place over October second and October third, when you are challenged by someone who is opposite you, you can simply decide not to have anything to do with this challenge. You don't want anything to do with this person, and you can simply turn your back on it and go about your day.
And that's what would typically happen if it were just this opposition. Okay. Oppositions are as far away as two planets can be to one another, and they can be polar opposites. They can take up in their own corners and they don't wanna have anything to do with one another. Moreover, Pluto is regarded as being a more powerful planet than Mars.
Now, how can Pluto, which is so far away and such a small little dot in the sky that we can't even see it, how can Pluto exert so much strength? How can Pluto have so much influence? What makes Pluto a stronger planet than Mars, for instance, is that Pluto will spend more time in a zodiac sign than Mars will spend time in a sign.
Mars can spend anywhere from six weeks, if it's moving forward in a zodiac sign, to maybe even 12 weeks if it's retrograde. All right? And then after those weeks, Mars has moved on to another sign. Pluto is in your sign for the next 20-plus years. Pluto isn't moving on. Pluto isn't going anywhere other than hanging out in the zodiac sign of Aquarius.
And so with Pluto being triggered, Pluto sort of looks up, sees if the conflict is worth it or not, decides no, it's not, and it goes back to what it's doing. And so oppositions being splits, this may symbolize on October 2nd to 3rd that there is some sort of face-off. You decide to go your way, the other person decides to go their way, and that's it, and that would be the end of the story.
And that would have been the end of the story if not for Venus being retrograde in the zodiac sign of Scorpio. And it's this square that Venus forms to Mars on October 10th, followed by a square that Venus forms to Pluto on October 20th.
This square that Venus retrograde is making to both the planets that rule the sign she's in, which is Scorpio—and those planets are Mars and Pluto—this square is what's going to bring you and the other person back to the table even if you don't want to come back to the table. All right.
So this Venus square to Mars to begin with: Venus is at the top of your own solar horoscope, so this is going to have to do with your status. This is going to have to do with your career. This is going to have to do with what you do for a living or the way that you see your fate or your future. All right. Right now, you're at odds with someone else who may be a rival or may be an opponent, and you've decided you really don't want anything to do with this person, and they've decided the same thing about you, and that's fine.
But Venus represents a third character, a third force, a third player who's going to be turning to Mars on October 10th and saying, “If you don't work with the Pluto in Aquarius person, then you're not going to get what you want.” Okay. And so that opponent of yours, that person that you've decided to have nothing to do with, has been approached by a third party and told that they can't have what they want unless you are involved.
And so that makes them stop, that makes them turn around, and that makes them come back to the table. Do they wanna be at the table? No. Do they want anything to do with you? No. The only reason they're doing this is because Venus, retrograde in Scorpio, has said, “If you want what it is that you want, you have to deal with the other person.”
Now, is this the same conversation you're going to be having on October 20th? No, it's not. Because this is a situation that doesn't really affect you that powerfully at work or in your career or in your fate or in your destiny. You're doing your own thing, and you're fine with it, and you're making your own way. And the last person you need is this Mars in Leo person sitting opposite you on the seesaw.
But Venus in Scorpio is going to come and kind of prey upon, shall we say, your sense of responsibility. Venus in Scorpio is going to sort of prey upon your sense of duty. Yes, this has nothing to do with you technically on paper, but do you really trust that Mars in Leo to take care of this? Do you really trust that Mars in Leo to do what you would have been doing had you been in charge? Do you really trust this Mars in Leo to not mess up something that you have set up in your profession, something that you've set up in your career? Maybe it's even your reputation.
And so it's that moment of like, “Could I have worked as hard as I've worked, and could I have invested as hard as I've invested to get to where I am, and then have this Mars in Leo mess it up?” Okay. Well, that's gonna be the thing that brings you back to the table.
So the carrot that's being dangled in front of Mars, which is opposite you, is: you can't get to where you wanna get without having to work with Pluto in Aquarius. And you as a Pluto in Aquarius are being told: you can't go on and live the life that you wanna live and have peace of mind unless you bring that Mars in Leo person up to the level that you are at.
In other words, you have to work with the Mars in Leo person so that they don't mess up what it is that you've set up. They don't mess up the project that you began. They don't mess up a position that you used to hold. You need to work with that person. Even though you maybe cannot abide by this person, you need to work with that person. You need to reach across the aisle in order to serve your dream, your vision of the way that things should be.
So this is how Venus in Scorpio is going to be acting by squaring both Mars and Pluto. And yes, you might feel a bit manipulated at having to return to the table. And yes, part of you may be saying you shouldn't care about all of this as much as you do. You know, you did the best job you could, and you're praised for that, and you can move on to something else.
But there's a part of you which is thinking about legacy. There's a part of you that's thinking about responsibility to the greater company or the greater whole. There's a part of you that doesn't wanna see someone mess up all the hard work that you've done. And so this is precisely the thing that will bring you back to the table.
Now, squares are often—and we're talking about the Pluto square to Venus and the Mars square to Venus—squares are often about conflict and competition. But they can, in their own way, be collaborative. And so what happens here with this fixed T-square is that it transforms a relationship or a dynamic where two planets want nothing to do with one another into something in which they very much want something to do with one another because they're fighting for a mutual cause.
They're fighting for a mutual good. They may have two very different ideas about it, but their idea is to ultimately do good by what the main objective is. And so this is what Venus retrograde in Scorpio will be representing with you. You may feel like you're being handcuffed to a lesser light, but in the end, in the end, you're going to be glad for this situation to have materialized like it did, because you and someone that you really didn't think that much of are actually going to achieve and accomplish great things together.
Pisces
If you're born under Pisces or you have Pisces rising, the answer to the question, “Have I got a dog in this fight?” is no. No, you don't. You don't have a dog in this fight at all. Your ruling planet Jupiter isn't involved. Neptune isn't involved. So this great fight that's taking place in the heavens that is symbolized by the T-square involving Venus retrograde in Scorpio, Mars in Leo, and Pluto in Aquarius, you can walk away because you really don't have any vested interest in what's going on.
But Venus in Scorpio is in a water sign. Scorpio is a water sign, just like Pisces is a water sign. In fact, the three water signs are Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces. Any planet that's traveling through Cancer or any planet that's traveling through Scorpio is going to be of interest to you because that planet trines your sign.
That planet gives you great unconditional support. Any planet that trines yours is in your corner no matter what and is going to give you support no matter what. And so you're going to feel a natural affinity to that planet. You're going to feel a natural allegiance to that planet.
So what might be going on is someone that you feel an allegiance to, someone that you feel an affinity with, someone who may matter to you a great deal emotionally, is going through a difficult time. And because this person is going through a difficult time, that means you're going to weigh in. You're not going to be able to say no. You're not going to be able to retreat. You're not going to be able to say, “I don't care about how this happens.” You care about what happens because the person who's facing this critical time in their lives—well, this person has a lot at stake.
And so you, because of your love and your support, your friendship or your amour, you are going to do whatever you can to help this person out. Now, who is this person? Well, this is someone that probably would be recognizable to you because they're going through a great deal of emotional conflict right now. They're very troubled about something.
Another thing that might make this person more identifiable to you is that it might be someone from another culture or another land or another way of living, okay? It's someone you know, but is at a bit of a distance. Now, that could be a geographical distance, but it could be the distance that comes with a different economic caste. It could be a distance that comes from a different culture. It could be a distance that comes from a different spiritual belief. Nevertheless, this is someone that you care about a great deal.
So what are they struggling with? What are they having such a hard time about? Well, when we read this fixed T-square in regard to them, they're struggling with a lot. All right. The first thing that I see making some sort of significant statement about this struggle is Mars in Leo. Mars in Leo is going to talk about someone who might be very identified with the work that they do, who might be very selfless in the service that they provide. And the difficulty that they're having is that they're maybe losing themselves in this work. They're too much of a workaholic, or what they're doing for a living is eating away at them, or it's demanding too much of them, and they're starting to pay the price, maybe emotionally or psychically or physically.
Or maybe this is someone who just feels like they're a slave to their job and they want to be somewhere else. You know, that they're working as an accountant when at night they wanna be a pop star. You know, and this is something that's really driving them crazy. And that's something that, as a Pisces or a Pisces rising, you could very much relate to, you know. And so you may feel for this person and want to give advice.
The other thing that could be going on with this person is that this person might be facing some sort of health issue. There may be something that's up that's very difficult that they're facing, and they don't want to either face it or make the changes in lifestyle that this is talking about.
Now, that doesn't mean that they're like on death's door or anything like that. I don't think they are at all. But what it is, is that there may be something that they need to do physically to improve their health, and they may be turned around against it. They may be absolutely against it. Maybe it's a fear of an operation. Maybe it's like, “I'm not gonna cut meat out of my diet,” you know, or, “I'm not giving up vaping. No way. No way.” Okay, so it could be one of those things.
And you might find yourself in a situation where you have to bring that up with this person—that bad habits in their life are beginning to catch up with them. And that could be bad habits with spending. That could be bad habits with drinking. That could be bad habits with maybe recreational drugs. But the bad habits are catching up with them.
And they're so enmeshed in, “This is who I am, and this is what I'm all about, and I can't give this up,” that you feel for them, but you also might find yourself in the unenviable position of having to address this concern with this person.
So this could be someone who's very frustrated with what they're doing for a living, and every time you say, “Leave that behind and pursue your heart's desire,” you have to sit through a very long monologue of why they can't do it, even though you can tell with every word that all they wanna do is leave this job that they hate. Or you might be in conversation with someone who's not working in the best interests of their own health and who needs to sort of wake up and smell the coffee.
And this might be something that really becomes an embroiled situation around October 10th. Now, the other thing that this person may be dealing with, and subsequently you may be drawn into as well, is that the struggles that they're facing are deeply rooted. Now, what do I mean by deeply rooted? The struggles that they're facing may be deeply rooted in the culture that they come from. It may be deeply rooted in their religious background. It may be deeply rooted in their way of living, you know.
That they might come from a culture that has a very strong work ethic, and so you never question this and pursue something that you want. And so you may find that you're up against that, you know. Or it could be something in which their culture is known for denying that they're in pain, to powering through it, or having a stiff upper lip or something along those lines. And you could see that that's costing this person.
So the conversation is gonna be more profound than just the bad habit or a bad choice or “you could change this.” This person is going to feel like they can't change it because there's a sort of inevitability. “This is the way I was raised. These are things that my family has always believed throughout generations.”
You know, maybe it's a family ideology of like, you take things with a stiff upper lip. Or maybe it's a family difficulty like depression or alcohol addiction that has a long history in the person's family, like it goes back generations, and so that's what's coming out. Or maybe this person is first-generation where they're living, and they wanna split with what's gone before in the family, but they still feel a guilt or an obligation or something like that.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the roots of what you're trying to talk about with this person that you care about is more than just their current behavior. There's a history that's older than they are that is at work. And maybe it's a feeling like, “Our people have never been accepted,” and so that's what's coming out. Or maybe it's a feeling of, “I was raised in a spiritual belief that believed in self-sacrifice, and you provide for others, and you give up your own things in order to do right by the people you love,” and you might see how that's eating away at this person.
So during this period of time, as you try to talk to this person, as you try to reason with this person, you may discover that this is less of a problem that needs to be solved, and you may come to appreciate what's at play in this person's life, what the forces at play are in this person's life, how powerful they are, how strong they are, how they aren't gonna answer to abstinence or choosing your dream. You know, that there's more at work here.
And I think that what you may gain from this is a real appreciation of the world through somebody else's eyes, a real appreciation of a struggle that someone's going through that you yourself may never have gone through, you couldn't even imagine, but now you can see it through someone else's eyes.
So are you going to be of help to this person? Yes. I think the more that you are a companion to this person, I think the more that you listen to this person, I think the more that you learn about life through this person's eyes and through this person's background, this will deepen you. This will give you a fuller appreciation of what's going on.
In the end, the struggle will right itself. In the end, I don't even think it was about solving something. I think it was really more about the journey of this struggle, the rebonding that takes place between the two of you, and perhaps coming to see this person in a very different way than you saw them before.
And this person may be even turning to you and saying, after all of this, “Ah, now you get it.”