There are some reasons for optimism this week, and I’m going to do my best to cling tight to those. You see, this week’s biggest and most important aspect isn’t until Sunday… but it casts a potentially dire shadow over the entire week.
On Wednesday, the Sun enters Scorpio. Dust off your trampy Halloween costumes! I’m sorry, that’s a terrible cliche. Dust off your sexy Halloween costumes! Halloween is approaching and that means costume parties — events in which people sometimes lose their usual inhibitions. Aiding and abetting with that phenomenon this weekend: Venus sextile Pluto is exact on Friday. That combination of thirst for romance and insistence can make for particularly intense personal encounters.
Sunday gives us all a chance to reboot, with a New Moon in Scorpio. This New Moon is closely opposite Uranus in Taurus, so if there is something you want to disrupt or shake up in your life in the following month, Sunday is the day to begin taking action.
And now, as much as I wanted to put it off, we must discuss the biggest aspect of the week… and it’s not a comfortable one. On Sunday, Mars square Saturn is exact. Unfortunately, Mars is slow enough that this aspect is an influence on the entire week (and next week as well).
Here’s the short-form version of why Mars square Saturn is so hard to cope with. Mars in Libra is a problematic placement to begin with. The action-oriented mode Mars is most comfortable operating in is thwarted by Libra’s inherent urge to find or make peace. Saturn is there to put the brakes on things before they get out of hand. Joining a debilitated Mars with a square aspect to Saturn (which is strongly placed in Capricorn, the sign it rules) is a recipe for frustration and tension.
Beyond that, there are reasons to suspect this particular Mars square Saturn will be a source of particular trouble. No transit happens in complete isolation. Take a minute to think back to the second half of January and the first half of February this year. That was when we had a similar Mars-Saturn configuration, with Mars in Aries. Whatever strains or tensions were happening for you back then could be coming for a return visit, or similar problems arose. Like then, the next two weeks will be a particular source of difficulty. That’s because (as was the case in January and February) Mars is making the square to Saturn and then moving on to a square with Pluto. Hold tight, everyone!