On the Erotic Ecliptic for August 2024

On chaos, creativity, and sharing our work as the world implodes

stefanieirisweiss

A post shared by @stefanieirisweiss

August 2024 Dates To Note

4^th: New Moon in Leo at 12 degrees (7:13 am ET), VENUS ENTERS VIRGO (10:23 pm ET)

5^th: MERCURY STATIONS RETROGRADE IN VIRGO (12:56 am ET)

7th: Mercury in Virgo conjunct Venus (11:12 pm ET)

14^th: Mars in Gemini conjunct Jupiter (11:22 am ET), MERCURY RE-ENTERS LEO (8:16 pm ET)

16^th: Mars in Gemini square Saturn in Pisces (1:30 am ET)

18th: Mercury in Leo square Uranus in Taurus (5:47 am ET),

19^th: Venus in Virgo square Jupiter in Gemini (1:53 am ET), Venus in Virgo opposite Saturn in Pisces (4:30 am ET), Sun in Leo square Uranus Taurus (12:45 pm ET), FULL MOON IN AQUARIUS at 27 degrees (2:26 pm ET), Jupiter in Gemini square Saturn in Pisces (5:46 pm ET)

22^nd: SUN ENTERS VIRGO (10:55 am ET), Venus in Virgo square Mars in Gemini (11:20 pm ET)

27th: Venus in Virgo trine Uranus in Taurus (3:24 am ET)

28^th: MERCURY STATIONS DIRECT AT 21 LEO (5:14 pm ET)

29^th: VENUS ENTERS LIBRA (9:23 am ET)

This summer’s veritable firehose of news that never ends is part of an era marked by what I’m calling intense astrology. I know it’s overused, but there is no word more apt than “INTENSE” to describe what’s happening in the skies and on our beloved planet at this pivotal moment in history. I began to unpack this in my 2024 forecast, and during the last few months, we’ve seen some of those predictions come to life.

First, some personal news, as we used to say on Twitter: my book baby was delivered into the world on July 30th at midnight! SEX AND YOUR STARS: A SEXOLOGIST’S GUIDE TO THE EROTIC ENERGY OF THE ZODIAC is officially on sale! If you preordered the book and entered the drawing for a free reading — I’m casting that magic this weekend, so stay tuned, as you may be getting a personal email from me!

Up above is a reel that includes a few of the incredibly lovely blurbs I’ve gotten from my colleagues in the astrology and sexology fields, set to Love to Love you Baby by Donna Summer, because Leo season always puts me in the mood for disco. (Ok, I’m lying: I’m ALWAYS in the mood for disco, this is just an excuse.)

Since I started my Pleasure Centers newsletter two years ago, I’ve written a lot about grief: the grief of fascism, climate grief, the unacknowledged grief of the pandemic, the grief of the relentless, ongoing genocide in Gaza, and all the other concurrent, braided threads of grief we’re enduring all at once. This is why the promise of my work here, and of what I call “pleasure as praxis” feels increasingly urgent to me. Grief, like love, is chaotic and uncontrollable.

Even though I don’t often write about my personal life, I will take a moment to do so now, because I have been hit with immensely deep grief in recent weeks. The kind of grief that has had me staggering, on my knees, paralyzed and sobbing uncontrollably — just in time for my book to come out.

In June my darling, beloved cat Dumpling, only 13-years-old — a gorgeous golden tabby, became very sick and my vet could not tell me why. After a quick illness that I desperately tried to cure, spending hours each day hand-feeding her homemade chicken with broth, trying various medicines, I watched her fade away and lost her on July 10th. I made my way home from Chelsea carrying her empty carrier, tears pouring down my face as commuters streamed around me.

Astrologically, it was textbook: Saturn had stationed on the exact degree of my Venus in Pisces in the 6th in late June, a few months after the Libra/Aries eclipses exactly hit my ascendant and Sun. She died just days before Mars and Uranus were conjunct in my 8th, not far from my natal Saturn. As an astrologer, I was wary of this set of transits for years, but I don’t usually let myself get flummoxed, because usually, it’s not this literal.

But it was and it is, and here I am three weeks later navigating this deep ocean of grief with support from friends and loved ones and the understanding that we are living through so many losses during what feels like these end times — the end of eras, the breakdown of systems that never really sustained us fully falling apart, the center not holding — but still we hold each other, and that is enough. Also: I am a catless cat lady during our time to shine. The videos I would have been making with her! (PS: I believe in the cat distribution system, so if you live in NYC and know of a kitten in need of fostering or adopting, please reach out).

My golden girl

Let’s start our deep dive into August with the delicious, delightful, flirtatious, flamboyant New Moon in Leo which is exact at 7:13 am ET on Sunday the 4th. It’s most alive on the previous Saturday night, so slip into something sequinned and enjoy it (also because the rest of the month is madness).

This lunation is sextile to Mars and Jupiter and co-present with Venus. Embrace it and lean into its sweet sexiness because things quickly begin to devolve, as Mercury stations retrograde at 12:56 am the next morning. In some ways, these separate astro-events are part of the same strange chaos — the ups and downs, highs and lows and extreme swings from joy to terror and back again that might mark the rest of the month.

I wrote about this 3rd Mercury Retrograde of 2024 in detail last weekend. Here’s the most salient part of what I said:

When the messenger planet appears to travel backward in the signs it rules (Virgo and Gemini) it tends to bring even more of the classic array of human error that leads to technical breakdowns, communication failures, and annoying af (and sometimes dangerous) travel delays.

In Virgo, Mercury Retrograde often comes with an uncomfortable amount of physical anxiety, so remember to breathe, stretch, and employ pleasure as a healing tool (everything from deep tissue massage to acupuncture to orgasms can help).

By the time Mercury stations direct on August 27th, it will have traveled all the way back to 21 degrees of Leo. During this 3-week phase, you’ll have the chance to revisit and re-tool parts of your life, work, or relationships that went awry starting in mid-July — especially in the Virgo and Leo areas of your chart.

Mercury’s Retrograde is only one part of the story of August — think of it like the power grid of a city that workers are struggling to repair, in which some neighborhoods are experiencing a total blackout while others’ lights are flickering on and off. The common denominator is there is no certainty. The city (our lives) is undergirded by chaos for now.

There is a moment of relative softness on the 7th when The Sun sextiles Jupiter and Mercury and Venus conjoin. As above, do what you can to sip on this sweetness because there’s not so much of it in the days and weeks ahead.

Earlier this year I wrote about how 2023 was year of Venus, and 2024 was about to be the year of Mars. Mars is now having its moment — and he will be loud and aggressive for many months ahead.

By the 9th, the Mars-Jupiter at conjunction is in orb, although it perfects at 16 Gemini on the 14th. We’ve been talking a lot about boxing because disgusting right-wing bigots are going after Imane Khelif with their insane wildly projected obsessions with other people’s genitals. I bring this up because Mars (violence) meeting up with Jupiter (expansion) in Gemini (information) amplifies explosive rage on the Internet and beyond.

I have grave concerns about what is going to go on in the streets of Chicago in the lead-up to the Democratic National Convention for this and other reasons — namely, that as I write this, I have no idea how Iran is going to respond to Israel’s recent spate of assassinations, and how that might inflame America’s antiwar movement.

The other really interesting thing about this is that Donald Trump’s Uranus is at 17 Gemini (also close to his Sun and North node). Remember, he almost got shot when Mars conjoined Uranus on his midheaven last month. Kamala is a Gemini rising, although her ascendant is far enough from this degree that I don’t think this transit is about her. Although of course — she is the rising star of the week ahead.

In our natal charts, Mars-Jupiter conjunctions can feel like winning — like throwing the knockout punch that ends the bout. Or it can feel like getting knocked out by a powerful opponent. In short, it’s best not to provoke anyone now, but you might be fired up and ready to go, depending on where this is in your chart.

Two days later, Mars squares Saturn in Pisces. This is much heavier, and in my opinion — harder. These are two malefics in a fight, where Mars cozied up to a benefic a few days earlier. Mars in Gemini moves at breakneck speed — in an air sign it’s as if Mars himself is a current racing through wires to light something up. But when he meets Saturn in a harsh square, the current has no place to go — and this is when the transformer explodes, causing a fire, damage, and more outages during the pre-existing intermittent outages. Gird your loins.

Then on the 19th - the day that the DNC officially begins (although folks will be on the ground for many days ahead of this) we have the most combustible Full Moon in Aquarius in a loonnngg while, because there is so much contentious astrology rippling along with it. That day, Venus is opposite Saturn (hard on our relationships), the Sun is square Uranus, the modern ruler of Aquarius, and Jupiter in Gemini squares Saturn.

We can consider all of these aspects glommed together between the 16th and the 19th — really just one weekend — to be one main event. And I’m certain that whatever it is, we’ll be watching it on the news or in our feeds, making us forget the already insane amount of news we’ve already consumed this summer. It’s going to come at us fast, frenetically, like a million synapses firing at once.

During the week leading up to this final culmination of some of the most challenging astrology of the year, we may feel like we can’t breathe — remember that Gemini rules the lungs, and we’ve got lots of harshness in and around this sign this month. So I offer you a reminder to breathe deep, and leave yourself little love notes and other reminders to take deep, full, breaths that expand your diaphragm and reach your pelvic floor, and to take slow, luxurious exhales. When Mars is active, we must also remember to stay hydrated.

After this, even though Mercury remains retrograde until the 28th, things begin to slowly shift. On the 22nd, the day the Sun enters Virgo, Venus is square Mars — this can be hot, if we’re up for that after the previous stretch of probable stress we’ve endured. This is one of those moments to test my “pleasure as praxis” theory — see if you can use sensuality as medicine now.

Venus enters lovely Libra, one of the signs she rules over, on the 29th, closing out the month with much-needed sweetness before… eclipse season begins in September.

Note: I will be doing Kamala DEEP DIVE and looking at whomever she chooses as VEEP in the ongoing Rose Ceremony she is conducting, so stay tuned for that. I wanted Gretch but since that seems unlikely, I’m all in for Aries Tim Walz! A Libra-Aries POTUS-VEEP match-up would be SO GOOD for us!

I once again extend my endless gratitude for your patience during my time of excruciating grief and book baby delivery. The labor is over, but she needs constant feeding, so I’m still behind! Sign-by-sign forecasts for my paid subscribers will be added during the next few days!