The Sun enters Scorpio at 6:36 am EDT on 23 October 2022, bringing the golden titan and ruler of our solar system into the decan that Austin Coppock named The Jawbone. Ruled, governed, and administered by Mars as the lord of sign, term, and decan, the red warrior planet is nonetheless at a place of inconjunciton — in Gemini III, he’s out of alignment to see his own sign. As a result, a good deal of power passes to the other planets that work as the Water triplicity rulers — Venus and the Moon. The Moon is also inconjunct, though! As a result, Venus is considerably stronger here than being in her detriment might otherwise indicate — and her current cazimi, or conjunction with the Sun (within both the 1° and 17′ frameworks of that term’s definition), makes her stronger still.

I’ve often described Venus in Scorpio as “the woman in the red dress and high heels in the men’s locker room.” Women who hear me describe it this way usually nod in rueful recognition when I say that such a woman usually has to cop an attitude — “don’t get worked up, I’ll be out of here in a minute!” or “Honey, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before!” or… in a particularly bold maneuver, “I saw you come in here, and I couldn’t help but see for myself.”

The next ten days have far more of that third energy — “I’m here to see if you live up to the hype,” as Venus puts on her warrior energy. The ancient Babylonians saw Inanna as the goddess of love and war, and this Venus has far more of that warlike attitude, with the Sun as her immediate ally. Under normal circumstances, the Sun would be far more dominant over Venus, if only a few degrees separated them. Here, he’s the “golden retriever” lapdog boyfriend eagerly following where she leads, and obeying her every command: are they about have loud sex in the handicapped stall? Or is she going to ask him to bust your head over the $50 you owe her? Venus’s very words are a weapon here, and there’s no telling if you’re going to get a big, long-lasting hug — or a big knuckle sandwich and a black eye.

We’re also in the set-up for a Solar Eclipse on October 25, and this conjunction of Venus and the Sun is in a sense the trigger pulled on that particular catapult. The partial solar eclipse is largely visible over India, the Middle East, and Europe (including both Russia and Ukraine) all the way to eastern Greenland. The eclipse lasts 4 hours and 4 minutes, so the effects (although they’ll be triggered by specific events in the 2 weeks immediately following the eclipse) will reverberate for approximately 4 years and 24 days — or November 18, 2026. As it’s a partial eclipse in a fixed sign, it’s likely to be a specific event, and likely to involve water or channel systems; the recent flood in Pakistan comes to mind, as does the idea of a burst dam or a critical pipeline. Mars and the Moon’s inconjunction, however, may draw off some of the energy and a crisis may be averted.

The ancient Greco-Egypto-Romans of Alexandria marked these ten days with an acknowledgement of the Nymphai, the natural spirits of sacred places like wells, springs, grottoes and groves — holy locations that belonged to nature rather than to mortals, and were thus the home (or maybe the physical body of?) the nymphs, a particular kind of “spirit of place” or genia loci. WHat does a spirit of place look like, feel like, sound like? For the ancient Greeks, these spirits were often depicted as beautiful and vivacious women — and a magical colleague of mine often points out that, like any human person, a place can be traumatized: digging, trampling the ground, cutting down the trees, over-harvesting the wild plants that grow there. The groves and sacred springs of ancient Greece (and other parts of the Mediterranean) were said to be the daughters of rivers — and it should not escape our notice that both springs and sacred groves tended to be located in ecologically fragile places, where the removal of ground cover would make an area more susceptible to floods or avalanches, mudslides or changes in the course of a river during the spring rainy season. The season of the nymphs, coming immediately after the season of Nemesis, is a warning not to abuse either people or nature.

The dodecatemoria of Scorpio are the 2.5°-windows of the sky, recapitulating Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, and Aquarius: the secret flows of water and their hidden stories, bringing life to the ground even in winter, and providing the upwelling of service as we come to understand hidden ways of knowing that have nothing to do with knowledge in books or from other humans.

Planetary Placements

We’re looking at a Night Chart, which elevates the Moon and Mars, and downgrades Mercury slightly and Venus more thoroughly (even though Venus is currently in a separating conjunction with the Sun). Both Saturn and Jupiter are somewhat upgraded by being in diurnal signs and on the diurnal side of the sky.

The Cardinal signs are also the Angular houses, making this a great chart for starting new work, making personal changes, improving the home, or starting a new relationship. The Moon is in her own decan in Libra, bringing themes of justice to the fore; in the fifteenth Mansion, she centers our desires and wishes, and activates hidden treasures in ourselves, brought forth through communication. Mercury is also in Libra, taking their joy in the eastern angle and bringing expertise and knowhow to bear on how we look, sound, and present ourselves to others. The Libra-Aries axis is naturally a weak realm for the herald-planet, but here they deliver messages of work-life balance, and holding strong to the things you genuinely like about yourself even when it annoys your partners in business or romance. Jupiter retrogrades in Aries, slipping back into Pisces later this week —shifting from a place of mere management to genuine leadership on a day-to-day basis: expect to go from carrying out orders to giving them. Pluto in Capricorn amplifies anxieties and concerns about house, home and family — it will be easy to get dogmatic, “my roof, my rules” in the coming days, and assert the privileges of elderdom even to the point of irritation or ferocity. Examine your preconceptions and be prepared to justify family expectations with an “our roof, our safety protocols” for how you live together these days.

The Fixed signs are the Succedent houses in this chart, which simultaneously grants us initiative but puts the squeeze on us — while the Nodal Axis strongly activates on the line between our responsibilities and duties, and the money and gear we have to use to fulfill them. Our greatest freedom (indicated by the Lot of Fortune) is in how we use our money and resources; our greatest trouble is in how much we have to do with that little: regardless of how much you have, expect your finances to be tested in the ten days ahead by the surprise responsibilities (Uranus) that we must meet. Venus and the Sun‘s conjunction indicates some rough and difficult conversations over money and possessions in the days ahead. Saturn invites us to speculate on what would bring us the greatest happiness… and what small, practical steps can be genuinely taken toward that ideal: not too far, not too fast, says the hermit-planet.

The Mutable signs form the Cadent houses in this chart indicates that change may be somewhat difficult in coming days — Neptune in Pisces promises ongoing confusion and difficulty in knowing what actions to take for health management or how to best direct your subordinates. Mars continues to stir up trouble and strife in transportation networks and institutions of learning.

Overall, the message is that professional opportunities abound, but that getting properly compensated for them is quite difficult.

Horoscopes by Rising Sign

Decan I of any sign (usually covering the 21s of the month to the first of the following month) is free to all visitors; Decan II is only available to Patreon and Ko-Fi.com subscribers; and Decan III is available to Patreon, Ko-Fi, and MailChimp subscribers.

Libra: Reconcile your customary secrecy around money and possessions with your sense of self these next ten days, to understand why your autonomy and personal power is so often limited. Find the most important chair in the house and commandeer it for a while, to grasp the power that you think you ought to have; but relinquish it before too long to avoid becoming a dictator or a fiend. Your need for routines injures your relations with a spouse or partner a week from now; better communication beforehand would improve the odds of a sustained, rather than strained, relationship.

Scorpio: Sometimes you may have to make do with less — rather than go out and buy the spare parts you need, or the new materials for a project, see if you can get by on what you already have; turn your trash into treasure. To aid this process, talk to yourself often, and hold pieces up in front of yourself to determine spatial relationships. Home won’t be a lot of fun for a few days, but you can dream a better reality than what you have — cleaning up, and making use of old stuff for new purposes, will help.

Sagittarius: Familial relationships and household management need a little restructuring. You’ve let things get a little loose, and permitted too much outside-the-box thinking when it comes to house and home; now comes the time to reorganize and re-scaffold certain daily patterns. A fair bit of assertiveness, even aggression, may be appearing in a spouse or business partner over issues of your ongoing self-improvement and vision-establishment. You may be experiencing loneliness and limitation in your chosen career path, but this is temporary. Still, a solo review of your financial picture and and inventory of your worldly goods may help your peace of mind.

Capricorn: Sometimes taking charge involves delegation. Have you passed on enough of the responsibility for making your mutual lives work to your partner(s), children, housemates? Or are you trying to do it all? You should make more of an effort to connect with your friends and allies even knowing that it may cause some trouble down the road; they’ll be glad to see you, and you’ll make an impression. You may find, late next week, that you need to provide your own structural and managerial competence to a family situation of uncertain scope and boundaries. The situation is unlikely to resolve before December at the earliest — communicate your intention to keep projects spinning at work, but be cautious about committing to new initiatives.

Aquarius: Make a list of the activities that you think are fun for you, and then cross off the ones which are not currently practical. However many you crossed off, add on that many new things that you’re willing to try. The risk right now is that you’re mourning what you can’t do rather than opening yourself up to new experiences. You may find that you can only realize what you desire once you consciously block off what you believe you cannot have. Professional matters require you to talk someone’s ear off until they relent about your economic needs; recognize that you have family obligations that need more resources than you have, and you have to ask for them — or learn to do with less.

Pisces: If you have an argument with someone about what’s true and what’s factual early next week (25-27 October), then by Halloween I want you to rock yourself back on your heels and ask yourself what’s really true. You might even write a 4×4 chart of sixteen things that you believe, and then do research to see if those sixteen things are true. More than any other time this year or next, this coming ten-day period is the last best chance to adopt some healthy skepticism about your ideas, and fix what’s wrong (if it is). Just be aware that your inquiry should be against a healthy sparring partner — if you’re a liberal, engage with that uncle who’s been watching Fox News for years; if you’re conservative, it’s a good time to gently and kindly engage with that niece that used to be a nephew. Be open to new ways of seeing things, and your openness may be well rewarded.

Aries: Your spouse or partner is likely to be fired up about a new idea, and it’s up to you to respond with a mix of rationality, logic and common sense. However, in the interests of harmony and graciousness, it might be a good idea to lean that rationality into their objectives rather than away from them: help them find a workable solution, rather than denying them the whole goal. A work supervisor may want “butts in seats” in the office, but you’d be better served keeping to a work-station at home or under a tree on the campus outside your corporate building. Consult with an older work colleague about how to get your needs met without riling up the overseer.

Taurus: Surprise! You have responsibilities! You keep hoping for down time and alone time with lovers and with significant peers in your life, but they’re trying to meet their obligations to their world, and to yours, and yet you find ways to demand more of their possessions than they can give right now. It’s obvious why you want things, too: your stuff keeps breaking! Talk to those peers about what’s you want to do, rather than what you want to have, for a while. Later in the week, you can thinking about restructuring your own time to better get what you want — you spend a great deal of effort on personal pursuits, but much of that is imaginal rather than actual: it’s time to sort out what you want to have and disentangle it from what you want to do.

Gemini: You keep bringing down the axe (or the pen, metaphorically) to chop things off your to-do list — you’ve fought through some personal learning and expressed public gratitude for the career and possessions you’ve felt worthy of. But your employment situation feels fluid and unsteady, and you’re trying to ingratiate yourself with the folks who can make a difference to your bottom line. Let me warn you: it may not work. A new set of eyes may exert a steadying hand in the workplace (or send you packing!) before New Year’s Eve rolls around. Look lively: are you on a sinking ship (that you should leave anyway), or a ship-shape steamer going in the right direction?

Cancer: Your cup runneth over, yeah? Especially at work, where the powers that be keep delivering one project after another. Home life is likely to be either crazy, or the only place where you can get any peace. Once you’ve communicated the recent heartbreak, you should find that it’s easier to relax; just try to focus on what you do have that you love, rather the things that you can’t have but only like. A spouse or partner is getting a chance to work their dream assignment, but you should be alert to the moment that the dream fades and they realize it’s just like any other job: something that requires learning and ongoing effort, and a lot of time away from people you love. Step in then with reconnection and purpose, and it’ll make all the difference in the world.

Leo: Thinking about partners and spouses, either current or past, may have you down in the dumps this next season — thinking about what could have been, what actually was, and how one never lived up to the other. A serious conversation with an old friend or relative may help clear the confusion, if any, about whether that person was really good for you… and in what way. Third parties can often be helpful like that. If it’s a current lover, though, it’s not too late to mend fences, but you have some awkward conversations that are going to be stormy and hot before they get better. All the best stuff, though, is on the other side of the conversation you may currently be afraid to have. Job responsibilities may be having a shakeup but your real reputation is safeguarded in things you do outside of the workplace these ten days.

Virgo: You’re at risk of tripping over your own feet and your own thought-patterns in the next ten days, but you have the sense of balance and poise, and a clear sense of what you owe and what you own, to get you through. Professional results require cutting through some required red-tape quickly; deal with the bureaucratic mess precisely and move on to other things quickly. A partner’s ups-and-downs may be making you feel sea-sick, but a somewhat safer harbor is just out of sight beyond the next wave or two. Help get this ship to shore, and then thank the nymphs for leading you to higher ground. A conversation with a family member or an intimate friend about your challenges would be worthwhile.

Colophon

Colophon

I have a Patreon account for those who want to support this column as it continues its third year. Those funds support artists, artisans and thinkers that I regard as contributing to the well-being of the world. You can also buy me a Ko-fi in $3 increments; any column I write after receiving a Ko-Fi donation will be open to the public).  You can also schedule an appointment with me using Accuity Scheduling, for a natal or solar return consultation.

If you want to read some of my astrologically-oriented poetry, the largest collection is called A Full Volume of Splendor and Starlight, available through my Etsy shop, and containing poems and hymns to the planets, constellations, decan deities, and Moon Mansion angels. While not astrological, Festae contains hymns to some of the older Roman gods and spirits from the calendar created by Numa Pompilius, the second ancient King of Rome.

I use iPhemeris for my charting software, and screenshot it to make charts. I want to thank the team that develops iPhemeris for the addition of Terms and Decans to their charts. I also use Hugh Tran‘s Physis typeface to craft logos for this blog, as well.

I use Christopher Warnock‘s The Mansions of the Moon as the basis of my Moon placement delineations, and Austin Coppock‘s 36 Faces for much of my planetary delineations. Neither gentleman endorses me.