August was one of (if not THE) heaviest months of the year. September is, in a way, lighter, but we still have a lot going on in September. In the beginning of the month we have the Sun building to a square with Jupiter and an opposition with Saturn, mirroring, in some ways, the mutable t-square we saw in mid-August with Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. This can be energizing, but it can also be equally exhausting. That said, we also have Venus in her home sign of Libra for much of the month and building up to a trine with Jupiter in Gemini, which brings some optimism. We see our first eclipse in Pisces and are in eclipse season for much of the month, which will challenge us to step out of our comfort zones and into our growth points. Let's dive into each of these pieces individually!
PS - if you want to see how each of these transits fit into your chart specifically I highly suggest purchasing a Guide to September where I do this for you! In addition, I’m hosting an Astro Chat tomorrow with mini readings for each attendee on the month ahead! I hope to see you there!
September 1 - Uranus stations retrograde at 27º Taurus and Pluto retrogrades back into Capricorn
September 2 - Virgo New Moon
September 3 - Venus / South Node conjunction in Libra at 6º
September 4 - Mars enters Cancer
September 8 - Sun / Saturn opposition at 15ºSeptember 9 - Mercury re-enters Virgo
September 12 - Mercury clears it’s post retrograde shadow at 4º Virgo
September 20 - Venus / Jupiter trine
September 17 - Pisces Full Moon / Lunar Eclipse
September 22 - Sun enters Libra, Venus enters Scorpio
September 26 - Mercury enters Libra
Virgo New Moon
We begin our month with a Virgo New Moon on September 2nd at 11º Virgo 4', and it is exact at 9:55pm that day. This new moon is forming an opposition with Saturn, which can manifest as a sense of discipline and responsibility. New Moons are for planting seeds and manifesting, and Saturn here gives your manifestations something to ground into. This will aid in your ability to put pen to paper and actually see your vision through. This is energy where you shouldn’t be afraid to put yourself out there and get your feet wet. Use this opportunity to manifest with real intent and plan on how you see yourself getting from point A to point B. More on this and the practical ways the rising signs can use this energy in the Virgo New Moon post for subscribers only! Make sure you’re subscribed to access it <3
Venus / South Node Conjunction
Venus and the South Node connect early on in the month. The South Node can feel like a drain at times as it represents the areas of our life that tend to hold us back and keep us small. I write about some of these themes later on in the forecast when we get to eclipses, and this conjunction might have some of these same themes as the South Node and the eclipses tend to ask us to purge what is no longer serving us. Venus is the planet associated with our values and the company we keep. This conjunction is a good time for you to consider — are your relationships reflecting your values? Do your relationships consistently meet your needs and expectations? There may be people in your life who are keeping your world small, or it’s possible that your own struggle to value yourself is the reason that it’s kept small, but either way, this conjunction is asking you to reflect on the ways in which you can live more in line with these values. This energy may feel like a precursor to the eclipses as it starts to open up doors we may have wanted to keep shut. The nodes tend to bring up harder conversations and challenges within our lives, but it’s important to remember that these challenges are meant as an opportunity to grow rather than to stay small and comfortable.
Mars in Cancer
On September 4th, Mars enters Cancer. Mars in Cancer brings energy into our emotions, our space for empathy, and into a more intuitive place. Mars isn’t necessarily happy in Cancer, and if you’re someone who has heavy Martian energy (especially planets in Aries), this might feel more uncomfortable to you. Mars in Cancer reminds us that protecting the ones we love is important. This is mama bear energy, and we all know what happens when you mess with a mama bears’ baby cubs. You may notice yourself embodying this undying commitment to others this month and notice yourself stepping into a higher level of compassion and empathy for those around you. This is a period of time where you can lean into your emotions and emotional expression, find ways to be more vulnerable, and let yourself honor and hold space for your emotions. We find Mars in Cancer for awhile, much longer than a usual Mars transit, as it is building up to a retrograde later this year. Mars will slowly move through Cancer for the next two months, until November 4th when it enters Leo, but will retrograde back into Cancer on January 6th and be there until April 17th. This means we’re beginning a five and a half month transit of Mars through Cancer (in total, there is a two-month break where Mars is in Leo, but still!). So, if you aren’t already feeling comfortable with Cancer energies, I suggest you make some moves to do so because it’s here to stay whether we like it or not. For September, though, we won’t see much of the impacts of the retrograde yet, so more on that later. This month is a great opportunity to familiarize yourself with the house that is activated by this Mars, the house with Cancer on the cusp, as it is getting a lot of energy over the next eight months. Mars is an energizer and will bring excitement, passion, heat, and intensity to this area of your life while it’s still direct.
Mercury back in Virgo & clearing its shadow
Mercury enters Virgo on September 9th and officially clears its shadow on the 12th. You may remember that Mercury ended its retrograde on August 28th, but that doesn’t necessarily put an end to the themes that were present through the retrograde. I wrote about this in the post on Mercury Rx, but the shadow period is the set of degrees that any planet finds itself retrograde in before and after the actual retrograde itself. That might sound confusing, but the planet has to walk forward first before it can turn around, and then once the retrograde ends it will walk that same set of degrees forward again for a third time. This means that from 22º Leo until 4º Virgo are considered the 'shadow’ of this particular retrograde, and Mercury traveling through these degrees for a third time will be just as illuminating. The retrograde itself was likely the most chaotic period of time, but the couple weeks following it are where we see the dust settling and the real manifestations set in. This is a time period where you’re processing what came up during the retrograde and making necessary changes based on this. This could be ending relationships or other commitments. Details that were once hazy begin to clear up, and there is a clear vision of what your next step is. Once we’re out of the woods on September 12th, we can finally enjoy Mercury in Virgo! Mercury is at home here and finds itself sitting comfy. This is a good time for writing, planning, or anything involving details or numbers. You can use this Mercury to help with your communication and communicating clearly what you want and need from others. We’re able to enjoy this Mercury a bit more than when Mercury had its short stint in Virgo before its retrograde in August.
Sun / Saturn opposition square Jupiter
Thinking back to last month for a moment, around August 17th ish we saw Mars and Jupiter connect in Gemini and, at the same time, square both Venus in Virgo and Saturn in Pisces. This created a lot of energy, and paired with the Aquarius full moon, we likely felt a lot of this energy present within our bodies and environments. We have a similar signature this month, but now we see the Sun in Virgo first applying to an opposition with Saturn, exact on September 8th, and then squaring Jupiter, exact on September 12. When the Sun connects with Saturn in hard aspects, we tend to see challenges and hiccups that come our way. The Sun and Saturn together can bring about fatigue, fears, shame, and restrictions that we either put on ourselves or find placed on us by those around us. Sometimes these challenges can be personal and limiting beliefs that are present within ourselves, but other times they manifest externally. This, of course, will depend on how this transit is manifesting within your chart, which you can find more information about in the personalized September Forecast. That said, these challenges tend to stand as an opportunity to look within, relinquish a bit of control, and observe the opportunity within this barrier for yourself. It’s possible that you’ve found yourself running full steam ahead without thinking too much about the consequences of your actions or how these decisions may impact you in the future. Let yourself be honest with yourself during this transit and acknowledge your blind spots and growth spots — there is value in this opportunity to pause. Just a few days after this square, we see the Sun move into it’s square with Jupiter, which brings a very different energy. Jupiter is expansive and does just about everything in excess. If over the last several days/week you’ve been able to acknowledge some of these Saturn problems and invest yourself into doing the hard work, there may just be a reward with the Sun’s square to Jupiter. These two together can bring confidence, a boost of energy and desire to put yourself out there. Both of these transits serve as an opportunity — first, the opportunity to slow down, be intentional, and honor your emotions; second, the ability to put yourself out there and acknowledge your strengths. BOTH are important. We can’t always be going, going, going, but we also can’t always be sitting stagnant either.
Venus / Jupiter trine
This is a very sweet and buttery transit and can be a fun energy to focus on, especially amidst the chaos of the month. Venus and Jupiter are both of the benefic planets, meaning they are the doers of good. They represent the areas of life that we tend to feel more positive or hopeful about: love, abundance, fun, pleasure, good food and good company, excitement, etc. These two are connected in air signs, and Venus finds herself in her home sign of Libra. This airy energy brings about good opportunities for learning, writing, socializing with friends and loved ones, enjoying each other's company, and splurging on the finer things in life. This trine is exact on September 15th, in the middle of the mutable t-square and two days before our first eclipse of eclipse season, so it might not feel like the most fruitful time. That said, this energy stands as a good reminder to not take life so seriously, to let yourself enjoy life, and to indulge every once in awhile.
Pisces Lunar Eclipse
As we’re entering Eclipse season again for the first time in six months, I felt like it would be great to have a little refresher on what eclipses are and how it’s best to work with them. I pulled this little excerpt from my blog post on Eclipses & Eclipse Season I wrote in March:
“Eclipses, put simply, take place when a new or full moon occurs within 16º of the lunar nodes. The lunar nodes are not planets but rather points in the sky that are represented by the crossing of the sun's path and the moon's path in the sky. The nodes are always opposite one another and move backwards through the zodiac. There are many interpretations of the nodes, and these interpretations vary based on the type of astrology one studies, but to keep things simple: the south node tends to suggest areas of your life that are comforting, possibly a little too comforting and can contribute to a sense of ‘baggage’, and the north node is a point that challenges you to grow out of those comfort zones within this lifetime.
Now that we’ve laid that groundwork, let’s talk a little about what eclipses can represent for us. The ancients believed that eclipses were ‘bad’ or ‘malefic’ in nature due to one of the luminaries (the Sun and Moon) being eclipsed. They associated these times with times of death, war, etc., and this is where we get the interpretation that eclipses are bad. But, as things have changed throughout history, some of that interpretation still applies and some of it doesn’t. It’s true that these periods tend to initiate major changes and transformations within our lives, but in my experience it isn’t always as obvious as some make it out to seem. There may have been very tangible shifts under eclipses like a job promotion, a marriage, a car accident, injury, etc. but there are also likely eclipses that don’t illicit a major change that same day, so why is this? I have noticed in my time observing these time periods that there are just some eclipses where the change happens in a domino effect kind of way. It isn’t obvious the day of, but when I look back months later, I remember that I ended up meeting someone that day who introduced me to someone else, which gave me a new opportunity to do xyz… Something changed that day or around that time that laid the groundwork for a shift in my life.
When we enter eclipse season, it’s important to look to the pair of houses the eclipses will take place in. Like I said earlier, the nodes are always opposite one another, which means they are transiting opposing houses in your chart. This might be the first and seventh houses or the fourth and tenth. This opposition already gives you vital information about the areas of your lives that are shifting over the 18-month period that the nodes stay in those houses. For example, if the nodes are in your first and seventh, you will see changes and transformation within who you are and how you present yourself to the world, and that will, in turn, bring transformation into how you show up in your relationships.
I know that some of this may feel overwhelming, especially to a beginner, so if you’re interested in understanding transits or aspects further, I suggest checking out my other blog posts on “Tracking Transits”, “Understanding Your Birth Chart,” , “House Meanings in Astrology” OR purchasing “The Guide To Understanding Your Chart,” as each of these will help you decipher how this eclipse fits into your own chart. That said, if that all feels like entirely too much for you, I am also offering written reports [for September ] in which I do all of this for you! “
Feel free to check out the original post if you want to read it in totality, but I wanted to include those few paragraphs to lay the groundwork a bit. This particular eclipse takes place at 25º Pisces 40’ and is exact on September 17th at 10:33pm EDT. This is our first eclipse within the Pisces/Virgo axis since February of 2017, so you may notice that some themes from around that time (and 2016) are brought back up under this specific eclipse and within the next year. That said, it’s important to note that the nodes have not yet moved into the signs Virgo and Pisces, and because this is the first eclipse we see within this axis, the themes and manifestations of this particular eclipse might not be super apparent or in your face. I notice that the themes that are invoked by the first or second eclipse in a sign don’t tend to be as obvious. This is because we are just starting to see these themes presently, whereas by the third or fourth eclipse within a certain set of signs, the lessons have made themselves VERY known in the prior eclipses in that sign. All of that said, this eclipse starts a new cycle and set of lessons within your life and chart. Like I mentioned above, it will be important to look at the houses that are activated by this eclipse. Find the set of houses that Virgo and Pisces sit on the cusp of. These two houses will begin to be of more focus for you, especially when we see the nodes move into Virgo and Pisces on January 12, 2025. You’ll start to see major changes and transformations taking place within these areas of life. It’s important to note that the nodes are currently in Aries and Libra, and have been since June 2023, so these changes I am speaking about will likely feel a lot more tangible if you look to those houses and house themes. The house where you find Aries has likely grown and expanded in a lot of ways — the NN here has likely brought success, optimism, and opportunity. The house where you find Libra has likely seen purging in some way shape or form — the SN has been sweeping the floor with anything/anyone in your life that isn’t meant for YOU. This means endings and major shifts within his house that likely don’t always feel helpful or fun but are supportive for your journey in the long run. Our second eclipse within this particular eclipse season will take place on October 2nd, and it will fall in the sign of Libra at 10º Libra. I’ll write more about this in the October forecast (or maybe a separate post about the eclipses altogether), but this eclipse will have more palpable themes as the South Node has been in Libra for over a year and we’ve grown very familiar with what this means for us in our own charts. This eclipse season is special in that we’re welcoming in lessons and themes that are new while also clearing out and processing themes that we have been working on for awhile now. But more on that later in the Pisces Full Moon Forecast on Substack! Make sure you're subscribed to have access <3
Happy September everyone! I hope the month is beautiful for you. You can connect further with me on my website astrologywithlauren.com and schedule your next reading with me there on the book online tab! My books are officially open for September.
Lauren
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