The Week Above is a weekly astrological "weather report" detailing the major planetary configurations for the week ahead. All times given are in Eastern Time. There will be references to your birth chart and your Sun, Moon, and Rising signs throughout. If you aren't sure of what that means, check out Astrodienst for free online chart drawings, and Cups & Crowns for the basics of how to understand a drawn chart.

If you enjoy my writing and find it valuable, consider supporting me on Patreon. Future Weeks Above will feature horoscopes for your sign if certain goals are met. Later this week I will be posting horoscopes for patrons offering sign-specific guidance on the upcoming Venus Retrograde.

Pluto stations Direct - September 30th

I wrote about Pluto’s direct station last week, but its effects color this week as well. To reiterate with minor adjustment:

The retrogrades of the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto [and depending on your definition Jupiter and Saturn]) don't display nearly the difference from direct motion you see with retrogrades of the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, and Mars). What's worth paying attention to with the outers is when they station direct or retrograde.
A planetary station is when that planet appears to stop moving one way and start moving the other way relative to our view on Earth. But first it slows way down. You can think of a station, particularly of an outer planet, as that planet digging a groove into a specific part of the zodiac. Like a vehicle putting on the brakes on a dirt road, it tends to leave a mark, and it tends to shake things up inside the vehicle.
Therefore for the next [week], expect shakings of the earth both literal and symbolic (mostly symbolic); sudden emergings of things deeply buried in the psyche, the culture, the Capitol; dramatic intensity in the realms of sex, soul healing, psychotherapy, and other healing modalities; and revelations of truths both difficult and necessary.
It is a good time to try out new fetishes, investigate secrets that must be brought to light, and confess things to your therapist you've never admitted to them before.
Check your chart using the tools I mentioned up top—this transit will affect you most if you have planets or points at 13-23 degrees of any sign, but especially 15-21 degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra, or Capricorn; or if your life involves dealing with that which is kept hidden in the dark—therapists, healers, investigators, exterminators, or plumbers.

Venus stations Retrograde - October 5th

Venus’s retrograde cycle is worthy of its own post, as it will color the next month and a half. Fortunately, I wrote one for you.

Sun conjoined Ceres in Libra quincunx Neptune - October 7th

While the influences here are subtle, there is a confluence of them at once; therefore, it deserves speaking to.

Ceres is one of the Big Four asteroid goddesses. Her purview is food, shelter, and other necessities of physical well-being; the way we nurture ourselves and others; and on a bad day, the urge to burn it all down. Next Sunday, she dives into the heart of the Sun, and her life and love is crowned with passion.

But she does so in a strange dynamic with Neptune, Lord of the Seas, planet of that which cannot be grasped or nailed down. That strange dynamic is a quincunx—a 150° aspect which is considered by many to be minor but I find resonates with intense power. Two planets in quincunx have a charged relationship, each trying desperately to focus on the other, but missing the mark over and over again. It is a relationship that is desired by both sides but they struggle to make work, because their respective places give them so little in common.

Considering the news, October 7th (and likely October 6th) are liable to be days of impassioned, righteous rage at the injustice of the world (for Libra is the sign of Justice) and a deep need to find shelter, safety, and peace—but bent askew by nebulous and confusing circumstances, the lack of clear boundaries, false impressions, and fog obscuring the truth. These challenges may be intentionally created, but they are there, and color Ceres’s journey into the Heart of the Sun.

The Sun’s quincunx to Neptune alone is cause to watch how hard you party next weekend, as it is much easier than usual to accidentally drink more than you intended to (or consume more than you intended of some other substance).

If you’d like to work with this transit in a more positive way, attending a ceremony involving humility and dissolution of ego with others would be a way to do it, particularly if you are breaking bread with them. A solid structure to the ceremony matters here—don’t just pop a shroom or randomly evoke a deity and hope for the best.

All that being said, I would repeat that this influence is subtle, and the greatest effects felt this week are more likely to involve the stations of Pluto and Venus.