By Amanda Painter

Today and tomorrow are busy days astrologically. The combination of events involved suggests that tracking your inner emotional and mental landscape (or monologue) is equally important as keeping tabs on what is going on around you personally and culturally — perhaps even more so; though the moments when external and internal intersect could also be key. Here are the main events:

No. 2 from Group IV of “the ten biggest ones”; tempera on paper over canvas by Hilma af Klint (1862-1944). Her “Paintings for the Temple” relate to inner processes as conveyed in meditation via spiritual entities.

Mars is leaving Aquarius after a long sojourn in that sign — about six months, thanks to its retrograde, not counting a few weeks in Capricorn this summer. It finally dives into Pisces at 5:21 pm EST (22:20:42 UTC) today. About eight hours before Mars makes its move, we get the first quarter Moon (Aquarius Moon to Scorpio Sun, late in their signs).

Tomorrow, Venus stations direct in Libra after its own month-and-a-half or so of retrograde motion, most of which was in Scorpio. Venus makes its apparent pivot at 5:51 am EST (10:50:58 UTC). About 15 hours later, Mercury stations retrograde in Sagittarius at 8:33 pm EST (1:33:06 UTC Saturday).

That’s a lot to have happening all at once with the so-called personal planets: the bodies that represent such attributes as our motivation, physical activity and sex drive (Mars); our emotions, receptivity and intimate relationships (Venus); and our thought processes, communication and communication technology (Mercury). And although the monthly cycles of the Moon (emotions and subconscious) are perhaps less striking, the sense of moving into gear that can accompany the first quarter is certainly coloring the background.

As a result of all this, it would seem that the first order of business for the next few days is simply to stay tuned in — to your experiences, to your responses to others, to any little insights or pieces of information that come your way, to any urges or tugs of intuition, to the sensation that you’re finally answering a question you’ve been grappling with a while, and to the arrival of new questions. Standard protocol for Mercury stationing is to notice when your attention to the task at hand has lapsed so you can refocus; but with all that’s going on, it could be just as enlightening to note what other thought your mind was occupied with at that moment.

What does it have to tell you? How do you feel about it? Is it something you want to move toward, something you’re trying to figure out, or more like a distraction or escape?

Since Eric described the overall environment these events represent in the Monday Morning horoscopes and essay and in the November monthly horoscopes, I’m going to touch on just a few other specific ideas related to the current astrology.

One is that Mars is making a square to Jupiter in Sagittarius, exact on Tuesday. Mars-Jupiter squares can be useful aspects for furthering new or future projects; in Pisces and Sagittarius, however — both signs traditionally ruled by Jupiter — it’s also worth knowing when ‘more’ might be ‘too much’. Mars in Pisces can get a little touchy and thin-skinned about criticism, so it’s helpful to be very clear with yourself about what’s really driving you forward or holding you back.

Mars in Pisces also looks like a conduit for linking physical activity to artistic expression. And while it’s in a trine to Ceres in Scorpio, there may be enhanced sympathetic response to a sexual partner in particularly (and mutually) nourishing ways. What feeds you sexually could feel very ‘spiritual’ or transformative now.

Venus stationing direct in Libra suggests to me the idea of ’emotional IQ’ — that you may find yours enhanced, or that it would be beneficial to stay in close awareness of it. With Venus changing apparent direction in a quincunx to Juno in Taurus and opposite Eris in Aries, I see an indication that answers, insights or a sense of understanding in relationships needs to come from within and then brought to those interactions — rather than trying to work from the outside in.

Mercury stations retrograde in an interesting conjunction to the Great Attractor (a deep-space phenomenon in mid-Sagittarius) and a square to Neptune in Pisces. This looks like a reminder to beware getting sucked into highly polarized thinking and debate, and also to check the clarity of your thinking and your honesty — especially when it comes to what you believe to be true without checking your facts.

If there seems to be a discrepancy between what you (or another person) is trying to say and what actually comes out of your mouth, what can you trace that to? Are you trying to avoid confrontation? Do you mean to be kind but trip up on your honesty (the inadvertently backhanded compliment)? Did you forget to check some details or the reality of a situation before you started speaking?

As always, the usual Mercury retrograde hygiene applies (try to avoid unnecessary spending, back up your computer, re-read your emails before you hit ‘send’, pick up the phone and call if digital communication heads off the rails, focus and be patient while driving, and so on). Mercury stations direct on Dec. 6, in late Scorpio.

Yet, no matter how funky daily life gets personally, and no matter how chaotic the political and social environment is, your inner emotional barometer is important to track. That and being able to connect the dots between how you get from one thought to another should aid your ability to steer through the coming days and weeks — along with whatever shakes out of the ethers and into your consciousness in the next couple days.

As we go deeper into this most unusual and challenging phase of history, intelligence is the thing we need the most. That is the theme of the 2019-2020 annual edition of Planet Waves, now available for pre-order. See more information here.