On the Erotic Ecliptic for September 2023

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Poppy Pods by Jessica Hollander (see more about this artist at the end of this post)

Dates to Note:

3^rd: VENUS STATIONS DIRECT at 12 degrees of Leo (9:20 pm ET)

4^th: JUPITER STATIONS RETROGRADE at 15 degrees of Taurus (10:10 am ET) Labor Day in the US

6^th: MERCURY CAZIMI (Sun conjunct Mercury) (7:09 AM ET)

8^th: Sun trine Jupiter (7:13 am ET)

14^th: NEW MOON IN VIRGO at 21 degrees (9:40 pm ET)

15^th: MERCURY STATIONS DIRECT at 8 degrees of Virgo (4:21 pm ET) Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year

17/18^th: Venus in Leo square Jupiter in Taurus (2:10 am ET/11:55 pm PT on the 17^th)

19^th: Sun in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces (7:17 am ET)

20^th/21^st: Sun in Virgo trine Pluto in Capricorn (1:21 am ET/10:21 PT)

22^nd/23^rd: SUN ENTERS LIBRA/AUTUMNAL EQUINOX (2:50 am ET/11:50 pm PT on the 22nd), Venus in Leo trine Chiron in Aries (4:17 am ET)

24^th: Mars in Libra opposite Chiron in Aries (4:06 pm ET)

25^th: Mercury in Virgo trine Jupiter in Taurus (8:10 am ET)

29^th: FULL MOON IN ARIES at 6 degrees (5:58 am ET)

30^th: Venus in Leo square Uranus Taurus (1:45 am ET)

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It’s that transitional month, baybee. How I love Virgo Season, with its measured mutable magic. We meet this bridge between the summer and fall just days after the Super Blue Moon in Pisces, infused with a sprinkle of leftover mysticism. You may wake up groggy on the 1^st and brush the glitter off your shoulders, wondering if summer was all a dream. To be clear, summer officially lasts for another three weeks, but after Labor Day, no matter the temperature, it certainly feels like we’ve entered a portal to the season of sharpened pencils. I love that Virgo Season is Sexual Health Awareness Month – a perfect synergy of the body and mind.

Did you know there’s a secret way to get access to my readings/sessions through a founder’s level membership to Pleasure Centers? Yup. If you support me at that level, you not only get access to the sign-by-sign paywalled part of this forecast, but you get a whole plethora of perks, including a one-on-one reading at 20 percent off my regular rate.

I’m sitting here listening to some of my classic favorite summer tracks (Something for the Weekend by Ben Westbeech in case you’re wondering) as I write this forecast, dipping my toes into poolside nostalgia even as I fantasize about sweater weather. And that’s the vibe right now – one step forward, one back, and so on.

This is a month of hand-offs, as Venus stations direct on the 3^rd and Jupiter stations retrograde on the 4^th. It’s as if our two benefics are dancing together from their hard Leo to Taurus square and they come in for a deep dip, with Venus rising up as a morning star as Jupiter turns back to review where it’s been during the last few months. There’s both tension and sweetness to tap here. When you watch a beautiful tangle of bodies locked in a tango, it can be impossible to know who to look at. As Venus hands the retrograde baton off to Jupiter, you may not be quite sure where one kind of pleasure ends and another kind begins.

The shadow of Venus Retrograde opened around the Summer Solstice (approximately a million years ago) and the post-retrograde shadow ends on October 7^th.  A very long, possibly complex story is finally getting to its denouement in the unfolding of September. But the direct station may prove quite specifically illuminating for your own love/creative narrative around the 3^rd. Note any messages that come in, and more importantly – how you’re feeling about relationships, sex, and anything that relates to the house ruled by Leo in your chart. Whether you broke up with a partner or just a part of yourself, the last leg of this tour (imagining yourself as Beyonce or Taylor Swift) is your encore, where you take those final, well-deserved bows and exit the stage, knowing that you blew everyone’s mind.

The next major event of September is the Mercury Cazimi on the 6^th. This is a WOW moment, the mid-point of Mercury’s current retrograde through Virgo, where the Sun and the Trickster planet meet up at 7:09 am ET in an exquisite mind-meld. Yes, this can bring more of that frustrating, neurotic, anxious, shit-I-just-dropped-that-glass-on-the-floor-and-dunked-my-phone-in-the-toilet energy, but it’s also DAZZLING in the realm of ideas. Don’t neglect your morning pages routine leading up to the Cazimi and find a way to tap the outrageous outpouring of confetti-like genius likely exploding out of your brain now.

We get another cosmic hand-off in the Virgo arena of our charts as the New Moon alights on the 14^th, just a day before Mercury stations direct in the same space. Those perplexing questions that came up during the last week of August? Answers should begin to flash on the screen of your mind now. Give it a minute, because the Mercury Retro-shade lasts until the end of the month, but you’re definitely getting yellow lights now instead of red ones. Incidentally (not so incidentally for Heebs like me) it’s also the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, as we enter what we call the Days of Awe, a ten-day period that starts with a celebration of abundance and auspiciousness but ends with the holiest, most sacred day of mourning and repentance, Yom Kippur. Our objective during this portal period? To get written into the Book Of Life for the coming year. I wrote about what this means for me spiritually last year, and how I love to invite all my non-Jewish compatriots to participate in their own way.

On the 17^th/18^th, Venus, now direct but still in Leo, squares Jupiter, now retrograde in Taurus, for the final time, reflecting back to previous squares on June 11^th and August 22^nd. Is a tension that was tight and wound beginning to soften? Do you see your way through to more sustainable pleasure? Those are the questions you might ask yourself now.  

The Autumnal Equinox welcomes Libra Season late on the night of the 22^nd/early on the 23^rd, ushering us into cardinal diplomacy. This is when we can take concrete action steps to fulfill our desires, after months of not really knowing exactly how to proceed. And yet, as ever in Libra season, we may be willing to be diplomatic (if not docile) in our pursuit of passion. (That is until next month’s eclipse in Libra, which I’ll tell you more about in October.)

Venus trines Chiron in Aries the same day, directing us to our ego/relational axis and getting us to think about how tending to our traumas opens up more space in our heart centers. If you were romantically wounded in some way this past summer, this is when you can use those lessons to help heal someone else in your sphere of influence. Alas, Mars in Libra opposes Chiron a few days later, potentially reopening the wound – it’s essential to avoid passive-aggressiveness now.

And BOOM. After a potentially placid month with no massive cosmic bumps, we get to the Full Moon in Aries on the 29^th, followed by Venus square Uranus on the 30^th. These astro-events feel paired, exploding on the scene and interrupting the Libran moment we may have been having. Imagine a flash mob breaking out into a semi-naked rendition of Fuck the Pain Away by Peaches while you’re on a romantic museum date, forcing you to contend with your horniness in a very direct way, smashing you into your own desires with no side-stepping.

I’m over the moon-thrilled to announce my new artistic partnership with the truly talented Jessica Hollander, whose art graces the top of this post and will provide gorgeous images for the sign-by-sign section below. Her work is for sale! BUY IT.

Here’s more about her work: Jessica Hollander a visual artist with a deep reverence for nature and its nuanced beauty. India & Purry, her collection of home decor, art & stationery, and accessories, is derived from her oil and watercolor paintings, using small sections of larger canvases. She considers each of the paintings to be portraits that study and celebrate the unique intricacies of specific trees and flowers. She uses this dialogue to transmit the peaceful, healing energy of nature. The resulting designs bring much-needed art into everyday life.