Venus square Uranus in Gemini · Mars approaching Saturn in Aries

Two fast aspects are doing the real work today, and they're pulling in opposite directions. Venus square Uranus is separating — the jolt has already landed, and Venus, in fall in Virgo, doesn't have the resources to argue back gracefully. If something in the affections or the finances lurched loose over the last day or two, today is the aftermath, not the event. Don't try to relitigate it while Venus is this weak.

Mars sextile Saturn is the more interesting one, and I'd rather spend the paragraph here. Mars in Gemini is quick, Saturn in Aries is in fall, and ordinarily I'd expect the sextile to feel thin — but Saturn is received by Mars in Mars's own domicile, which is exactly the kind of reception that carries a fallen planet through work it otherwise couldn't do. Saturn borrows Mars's house, so to speak. Fast, disciplined work that finishes something. This is the aspect I'd build the day around.

The New Moon is still tight — 1.8% illuminated — so the lunar cycle is barely underway, and the Sun and Moon are in mutual reception by domicile, which gives the whole luminary situation an unusual internal coherence even at this dark phase. Mercury retrograde and combust in Cancer means whatever gets said today gets said twice, or gets said and then swallowed. Don't send the important letter.

Moon in Leo in the Willow mansion — an odd pairing, Leo's warmth against the mansion's sorrow and slow melancholy. The Moon's opposition to Pluto is separating and will be gone by afternoon.

Regulus sits on the South Node within four hundredths of a degree, which is the sort of exactness I don't like to see and won't pretend to fully read. Royal star, node of release: something being let go of that used to command a room. The Jupiter-Pluto opposition tightening in the background is the same story at longer wavelength.