For the first leg of this Mars in Libra transit, Mars and Venus are essentially doing an apartment swap. Neither of them know where all the kitchen supplies are kept, and they can’t easily text each other to ask questions. Still, they’re making do.
On Mars’ side of things, it’s not easy being a god of war house-sitting for a bougie artist slash lawyer friend. In Libra, Mars does its best to not break the delicate vases or ruin the picturesque table arrangements. Instead, Mars attempts to mask its anger with some approximation of grace. Forced to play along at a polite cocktail reception, Mars must temper some of its natural instincts in order to outmaneuver people playing politics on the battlefield of diplomacy and cooperation.
On one hand, Mars in Libra teaches us that passive aggression is the war cry of those who are not adequately privileged or resourced to express their anger directly. On the other hand, Mars might manage to be surprisingly effective in this terrain once it gets into a groove. We might get more done attracting flies with honey, and working within the bounds of social contracts can help us reach our goals even faster.
This is especially the case this year with Mars forming cooperative trines with Saturn and Jupiter on September 25th and October 18th respectively. A rare triple conjunction of Mercury, Mars, and the Sun on October 8th and 9th helps us visualize the entire chain of cause and effect in a flash, allowing us to recalibrate our approach.
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The following horoscopes were written by Stephanie Warner.
Aries & Aries Rising
It’s not always going to be crystal clear whether you’re on offense or defense, but these next few weeks will present you with opportunities to practice good sportsmanship and occupy the middle of both extremes.
If other people test your patience, know that you have more of it to draw on than you think. If there’s a disagreement in the midst of a tricky negotiation, know that a certain degree of compromise can push you through the bottleneck of what could have been an impasse. Conflict takes you deeper into the heart of any relationship. This year especially, engaging one on one gives you vital practice for community organizing.
On October 8th and 9th, something about your approach or the essential nature of the conflict is clarified, and an extra stratagem is dropped into your diplomatic toolkit. It might feel like equivocating to you, but going back and forth with someone can build trust and close the gap between you.
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Taurus & Taurus Rising
The anger you normally conceal from others, and especially the anger you normally conceal from yourself, is asking for your diligence. What is normally folded into the hidden reaches of your awareness is now sitting on your desk for you to troubleshoot, work out, and grapple with beneath the fluorescent lighting of your most mundane affairs.
Even the things we work on in therapy must eventually be tested on the battlefield of everyday life. For you, this prolonged lesson in conflict remediation might be about a relationship in need of work. It might also find you deftly navigating a minefield of office politics or feeling burned out from trying to do too much. Trying to be all things to all people is a fast track to feeling depleted. Still, cooperation is as much a tactic as it is a genuine human need.
Whether we’re talking about work and life or people and people, perfect balance can be elusive. A helpful blueprint reveals itself to you on October 8th and 9th, showing you exactly what’s tilting the scales too far in one direction.
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Gemini & Gemini Rising
Your lust for life is cranking into a higher gear, but you might not feel particularly empowered to be direct about what you want. You’re so used to having to draw out football play diagrams with the whole team in mind that the thought of moving unilaterally in your pursuit of good times might jar you at first. Let it.
Your diplomatic instincts aren’t wrong. They might actually be the right thing to draw on when you’re asking for what you really want from a lover, or weighing how your next creative production might provoke feelings in onlookers you can’t fully anticipate. The only mistake would be to let your deep consideration lead you into a sort of indecision paralysis where you never make a move.
Around October 8th and 9th, all of your options and their consequences become brightly apparent. In a funny way, this might lower the stakes for you in choosing an approach.
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Cancer & Cancer Rising
Nothing brings out the passive-aggressive behavior in people like having to cohabitate. Instead of getting stuck on how annoying it is to be on the giving or receiving end of a group text reminder about the dishes, this could be an instructive opportunity to gain insight into the ways you feel empowered or disempowered to express your anger around your family.
Take notes from the version of you that so easily calls the shots in your work life. Appreciate that so much of what you’re unpacking right now ties directly into what you’re building this year around trust, sharing, grief, and inheritance.
Some degree of playing politics is necessary, even among kin. Learning when it makes sense to be direct (and when it doesn’t) is a fine art, and you’re in an MFA program right now.
Pay attention to what comes to a head around October 8th and 9th, as this can be a decisive moment in what feels like a crisis of indecision that arises when you try to make everyone happy. You’ll be able to peer into the delicate mechanics of all the subtle balancing acts that have been occurring in the name of keeping you on stable footing. Don’t be afraid to temporarily stumble in order to correct something that feels a little off.
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Leo & Leo Rising
Translating your most provocative ideas into well-considered prose isn’t so much about diluting your message as it is about taking your time. There’s a delicate art to introducing a potentially threatening concept to people in a way that patiently honors their knee-jerk defenses. You’re not here to equivocate, but you’re not here to yell at a brick wall, either.
Engaging in intellectual jiu-jitsu over these next few weeks can teach you a great deal about relating to others in general. Disagreeing with others within the bounds of social etiquette isn’t necessarily “playing politics” if you’re not trying to get something from the other person. Perhaps a willingness to hear you with an open heart is enough.
The source code to this equation reveals itself to you with stark clarity on October 8th and 9th. Conversations might flow a little more smoothly once it clicks for you about how someone needs to be engaged with.
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Virgo & Virgo Rising
It would probably make things easier if you could ask someone, point blank, to pay you or return that book they borrowed from you and “forgot” to give back. However, expressing your needs or your irritation directly might not feel like an option that’s available to you right now.
Artifice is a frequent workaround for those who don’t have the privilege to move in the open. Then again, this might simply be about using your social intelligence as an asset.
As you’ve been learning a lot this year, you can only structure your life the way you want to when you’re adequately resourced in the areas that matter. Defending your time, defending your bandwidth, and defending what’s yours can work better in some cases when there isn’t a blunt instrument involved.
On October 8th and 9th, the extent of the imbalance concerning your own balance sheets is revealed. Fortunately, it might also clarify your approach as you move forward.
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Libra & Libra Rising
Asserting yourself can feel like an awkward dance when you’re still trying to get the choreography right. Sometimes, what really helps is not false bravado, but a subtle posture correction to bring you back into alignment with yourself.
Another person’s idea of bravery doesn’t have to be your own. Besides — the sort of mad-dogging that often passes for strength doesn’t suit your nuanced, deliberating ways.
You might legitimately have more steam to blow off at the moment, but if keeping your composure is important to you, you have some creative license to shift things around inside the frame of how you’re composed. Equilibrium is steady, but never static.
Any simmering frustration might reach a boiling point around October 8th and 9th, but within that pitch, a searing clarity emerges. You might suddenly see yourself and every available course of action available to you in a new light. Keep that flash of lightning pinned to the forefront of your mind’s eye as you continue on your way.
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Scorpio & Scorpio Rising
You’re tired, and that is enough on its own. But beyond prioritizing rest during these next few weeks — real rest, not the kind where you feel bad about not getting more done — you might also be entering a period of strategic retreat that gives you time to carefully work out your game plan.
That’s not to say you won’t feel frustrated, at times, by the hushed imperative to move covertly. Or by the strain of anger or irritation that is trying to conceal itself for the sake of politeness. But if you can muster the patience to conserve your energy and keep things under wraps just for now, you might very well leave this period with a clarified sense of how to move.
A good deal of that clarity breaks through the clouds on October 8th and 9th. The realizations you have on these days help you pinpoint what’s disturbing your balance, untangle a self-defeating prophecy, and perceive who is undermining you, whether they themselves are even aware of it or not.
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Sagittarius & Sagittarius Rising
There’s tension in the group chat — perhaps some discord in the particular corner of Twitter you happen to inhabit. That on its own is not particularly eventful, but you are getting some pretty valuable lessons in how to deftly navigate organizational politics, or how to manage conflict in social settings where a direct confrontation wouldn’t be appropriate.
This is not so much about sending passive-aggressive emails as it is about polling the room to arrive in the middle ground between what everyone wants.
A certain amount of quid pro quo can unstick you from a stalemate that doesn’t appear to have anywhere else to go. People will reciprocate both what you do and what you don’t do. Learning to anticipate a focus group’s reaction helps you move with a more deliberately calibrated gait.
The fundamental nature of the conflict becomes abundantly clear on October 8th, and you might continue receiving insights on the 9th. Try not to take any of it too personally, but rather, as data you can use to inform your next steps.
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Capricorn & Capricorn Rising
You wouldn’t be entirely wrong if it’s starting to feel like it often falls on you to set a good example. As you assume that particular mantle once more, committing to a balanced expression of tact and restraint may prove challenging, especially if there are things you’re tempted to express in a less equivocating manner.
Think of it this way: you might be the only person in the room who can be a composed spokesperson for the collective grievances of the people who are looking to you as a leader. Your social intelligence is one of your great gifts to the world. Part of wielding social intelligence is knowing how to be occasionally disagreeable in a way people can still receive.
If there’s a decisive moment for any of this, you’ll be called to the stage on October 8th and 9th. Either that, or this is likely when you’ll get some clarity around how to best massage your message.
To read about where every planet currently is in the sky and how that’s impacting you, download the CHANI app for iPhone.
Aquarius & Aquarius Rising
Defending your principles is a different ballgame than getting defensive about your beliefs. If you’re feeling some sort of strange social pressure to lay out an elaborate defense like a lawyer working a trial, it’s never a bad idea to make sure you’re doing all that labor for a reason.
The impulse to over-explain can sometimes point to deeper wounds around belonging and abandonment. Even if it’s your job to lay out a well-developed thesis in response to an argument, it might serve you better right now to identify what values actually feel meaningful for you, rather than simply try to be right.
The crux of your philosophical dilemma comes into clear focus on October 8th and 9th, when incisive thoughts or conversations help you reach the heart of what justice or fairness would really look like in this instance.
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Pisces & Pisces Rising
Sharing can be a form of caring for you. Far from being merely transactional, the movements of give and take in your life strive to stay in balance. Right now, though, some of that equilibrium might be threatened by unexpressed frustration or resentment that you may not even feel entitled to.
Yes, it’s true, feelings are not facts. But disowning your anger isn’t necessarily doing yourself, or anyone else, a kindness. On October 8th and 9th, the “why” and “how” of having a necessary talk makes itself clear.
Rather than getting caught in a web of abstractions and principles that do nothing to help you process what you’re feeling, can you parse out what feels appropriate to communicate and what’s best left to digest on your own? Even if you don’t explain every single reason why, can you draw the necessary lines in the sand before you feel even more overextended?
To read about where every planet currently is in the sky and how that’s impacting you, download the CHANI app for iPhone.
