Tomorrow (Monday) Mercury finally leaves Scorpio, where it’s been since Oct. 3 thanks to last month’s retrograde. It enters Sagittarius at 4:41 am EST (9:41:26 UTC). Mercury being the planet of the mind, this activates awareness of what else is happening in Sagittarius, and other activity that relates to it.

Composite image of shooting stars taken near Munich, Germany, during the 2018 Perseid meteor shower, with the Milky Way. Photo by Luis Calçada (flickr / CC BY-ND 2.0).

Notably, the Sun is currently traversing the second half of this sign: the zone between the Great Attractor at 14+ Sagittarius (a deep-space phenomenon toward which our region of the universe is moving) and the Galactic Core at 27+ Sadge (the center of our Milky Way galaxy).

These are both very large features of space, far enough away that we cannot see them directly. It’s no wonder the natal placement of Mercury in Sagittarius tends to describe focusing on what is far-off and/or broad in scope, sometimes to the detriment of the details.

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Jupiter wraps up the past year in its home sign Sagittarius tomorrow, Dec. 2, entering Capricorn at 1:20 pm EST (10:20 am PST / 18:20:03 UTC). Capricorn is the home sign of Saturn (and Saturn is there, moving into its big conjunction with Pluto, in January). Jupiter moving through Capricorn merges a planet and a sign with quite opposite tendencies.

Composite image of Jupiter’s South Pole, as captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft in 2017. Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles.

Think of this as a little like mixing oil and water. Jupiter and Sagittarius relate to such things as expansion, vision, spiritual concepts, wisdom and optimism. Saturn and Capricorn relate to themes like structure, containment, discipline, practical application and conservatism (even pessimism).

Yet like emulsifying a salad dressing, there are ways to find some balance and interplay between the two rather than just having one sit on top of the other. You can use the qualities of one to enhance, focus or flesh out the other.

Such is a rather more modern take on the dynamics of this situation. Jupiter is said to be “in Fall” in Capricorn — the term for when a planet occupies the sign opposite that of its “Exaltation” (which is different from the sign a planet rules).

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On Thursday, I wrote about what is happening in Sagittarius, including the Sun’s ingress and the Jupiter-Venus-Ixion alignment with the Galactic Core. If you’re interested in that aspect, please refer back to my previous article.

Her Gravitational Causes by Lanvi Nguyen.

The Sagittarius New Moon is at 10:05 am EST on Tuesday. The New Moon is trine Chiron, and opens a vent from the personal transformation and identity crisis of Chiron in Aries, into the more spacious ideas of Sagittarius.

A theme of this New Moon is, it’s not all about you. Your life and what you witness are about something much larger. Included in the Sagittarius New Moon chart is some activity in Capricorn, which is interesting, and about to become a lot more so.

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Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers aplenty in the bye and bye
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills

Dear Friend and Reader:

Wednesday, Mercury stations direct in Scorpio. Through the week, we will be in that moment of turbulence and revelation associated with Mercury changing directions. In Scorpio, this is connected to the deepest elements of the human condition and the mystery of existence. Anyone paying attention can learn something unusual.

Photo by Lanvi Nguyen.

So ends the retrograde that astrologers will associate with the impeachment of Donald Trump, and takes us into the next stage of history.

Events in Washington, D.C. are not merely matters of national politics in the United States. We are in one of those “fate of the Earth” kinds of scenarios. Keep your eyes wide; the chance won’t come again. What we are witnessing has never happened, at least in modern history.

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Tuesday’s Full Moon in Taurus takes place a small fraction of a degree from the asteroid (4) Vesta. This is a remarkable conjunction, and a peak moment of Vesta’s extended stay in Taurus (which extends from June 10, 2019 through March 21, 2020 — notably, the same day Saturn enters Aquarius).

Asteroid (4) Vesta in natural color, from NASA’s Dawn mission.

Vesta is the fourth-discovered and second most massive asteroid, taking up 9% of the total mass of the main belt. (Ceres is the most massive, taking up about 30% of the total mass.)

The Full Moon’s aspect pattern includes Mors-Somnus in a close conjunction, which asks the question, “Is it sleeping, or is it dead?” There is Achilles (false lack of confidence in women), Lachesis (the allotter, who determined the length of life), and Praamzius (named for a Lithuanian god of the sky, peace and friendship). Mercury retrograde is conjunct the Sun, just past the interior alignment.

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As the Sun approaches the midpoint of Scorpio this week, that sign’s two ruling planets come into contact. Mars (traditional ruler of Scorpio) is in Libra, making a square to Pluto (the modern ruler), which is in Capricorn. These are two powerful planets making an action-oriented aspect — which should immediately put you on notice to pay attention.

Red dahlia, blue vase, salt lamp; photo by Amanda Painter.

Astrologer Isabel Hickey describes Mars in Libra as “Alternately as meek as a lamb and as angry as a hornet.” That gives you some insight into the extremes of expression it can take.

All planetary placements have their ‘shadow’ manifestations and their more constructive expressions. Yet there’s something about this depiction of Mars in Libra that succinctly illustrates the potential for vacillation that sign is famous for, and takes it up a notch.

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Just when you thought you’d seen everything, the Scorpio New Moon arrives (Sunday at 11:38:20 pm in New York, 8:38:20 pm in California, Monday at 3:38:20 am in London, 2:38:20 pm in Sydney), in an exact opposition to Uranus, who also manifests as Prometheus. (In his book Prometheus the Awakener, Richard Tarnas makes a compelling case that Uranus was misnamed and should have been called Prometheus.) Get ready for a surprise a minute.

Hubble Space Telescope image of Uranus from 1998, using infrared filters to show various layers in its atmosphere, formed by a mixture of gases. Photo by NASA/JPL/STScI.

The Moon-Sun conjunction directly faces the great green planet Uranus: the first planet discovered by astronomers — in 1781, at the dawn of the Industrial Age, the electrical age and the supremacy of science as a frame of reference and belief.

Uranus is the planet of revolutions, uprisings, inventions and unexpected radical transformastions. The Moon-Sun conjunction in Scorpio (that is, the Scorpio New Moon) taps directly into this energetic quality, which we’re already seeing.

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The Sun enters the fixed sign Scorpio at 1:19:41 pm EDT on Wednesday, Oct. 23. If you’re into the dark and alluring aspects of life, Scorpio time can stir up deep feelings. Earlier nightfall, Halloween, Days of the Dead, the season of the final harvest all evoke a sense of transition and the passage of time made palpable.

‘The Lost Sea‘, the largest underground lake in the U.S. Originally discovered by a 13-year-old boy, it’s in Sweetwater, TN.

As for its astrological properties: what is a fixed water sign? Water flows; it takes the shape of its container. It can soak through anything. There’s no such thing as “waterproof.”

How can it be a fixed factor? For examples of fixed water, ice comes to mind; so too does fossilized seawater, such as exists in great amounts beneath Michigan. Then there are the Rift Lakes in Africa, which are contained, inland lakes with the pH of seawater. Can you think of any other examples?

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