Daily Planetary Transits · Saturday, October 24

Sun conjunction Venus ℞ in Scorpio · Sun approaching Pluto in Aquarius

The headline today is Venus combust the Sun in Scorpio, with both planets within a hair of each other and Venus retrograde and in detriment. This is Venus burned at the altar of a sign she doesn't like being in to begin with, and then walking backwards through it. The conjunction is already separating, so whatever intimate collision this represents has, strictly speaking, happened. But Venus combust retrograde is a slow burn, not a flash. People will be noticing today what they stopped being able to ignore yesterday. Sun square Pluto is applying and tightening over the next three days, and Venus has already made her square to Pluto on the way out. So the whole Scorpio stellium is in a hard conversation with Pluto in Aquarius about what is actually being revealed and to whom. I'd want to be careful about ultimatums delivered under this, especially ones concerning money or affection. The Venus trine the North Node softens the picture somewhat, suggests that whatever is being disclosed does belong to the forward direction of things, but I don't want to lean on that too hard. A combust retrograde Venus doesn't become well-conditioned because of a trine to a node. The mutual reception between the Sun in Scorpio and Mars in Leo is doing quiet structural work underneath all this. Each is operating as if at home, which gives the Scorpio material a kind of coherence it would otherwise lack, and lends Mars (conjunct Jupiter, moving fast) more weight than his sign alone suggests. I said a moment ago that Venus's trine to the Node wasn't much. With the reception factored in, I'll amend that: the Scorpio side of the sky is more organized than its dignities suggest. Moon in Aries conjoined Saturn in fall for the morning hours, in the Wall mansion. A good day for closing a book, or finishing a letter you've been avoiding. Saturn in fall doesn't enforce well, but the Wall will hold.