On the Erotic Ecliptic: The Intense Last Days of August
This astrology is rather extraordinary
Potent Remaining Dates for August
22nd: Venus in Leo square Jupiter in Taurus (8:16 am ET), Mars in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces (4:34 pm ET)
23d: Sun enters Virgo (5:01 am ET), MERCURY STATIONS RETROGRADE at 21 degrees of Virgo (3:59 pm ET)
24th: Mars in Virgo trine Pluto in Capricorn (8:23 pm ET)
27th: Sun in Virgo opposite Saturn in Pisces (4:28 am ET), MARS ENTERS LIBRA (9:20 am ET)
28th: URANUS STATIONS RETROGRADE in Taurus (10:39 pm ET)
30th Full Moon in Pisces at 25 degrees (9:36 pm ET)
Paid subscribers: scroll down to jump to your individual horoscopes if you want to skip the red velvet rope.
Once again, my enormous thanks for your patience as I finished my book and had to take an extra few weeks to get your August ‘scopes to you. HERE THEY ARE! YAY! Hopefully, you’re at the point of the month when a bit more star-whispery insight will hit the spot.
Reminder: I am offering this rare discount on astrology or clinical sexology sessions just for my readers through the start of Mercury Retrograde on the 23rd (will be taking the link down at midnight). There are still a few more spots left, so grab your appointment on my calendar, or just email me and I will work to find you space if nothing is convenient for you schedule.
Forgive me if I think, talk, emote, and write about climate grief a bit more than you asked for, but boy oh boy is it coming up right now through the planets. If you missed my last post a few days ago, I went there about our untapped rage. And if you’ve been reading my work for a while you may know that I published a book about a decade ago that aimed to ward off our inevitable grief with a dive into ecosexuality, which is another way of being with the Earth in pleasure even as she is dying. I thought this work would stave off the quickening of the climate emergency, or even stop it, at once time. I was desperately naive. (The book was called Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable.)
It feels, right now, like my comrades in the ecosexuality movement are becoming death doulas of Gaia as she transmutes into a place that we no longer recognize. For me, as an astrologer, this always deeply resonated with Pluto’s journey through Capricorn, starting in 2008 and peaking with America’s Pluto Return building for a long while into a peak last year, and coming into its very last moments in the next few months, at least for another 250 or so years.
I led a panel of performance artists at Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephen’s amazing Ecosex Symposium earlier this summer. Early in the movement, ten years ago, it mostly felt fun and light, even though it always felt important. Now as we tend to these wounds, it’s harder to find the levity and joy, so I mostly remind people that finding pleasure in their body, and in their body’s connection to the Earth, is still possible - and it’s essential. We did find this during the weekend of the symposium —these fleeting reminders of joy in loving nature. I offer that to you now as we figure out what comes next, and as Pluto arches through these last few degrees before stationing direct in October.
In this last summer of Pluto in Capricorn, a summer of endless and yet sudden storms, days-long floods, flash floods, deadly wildfires, smoke blanketing half the country, relentless, dangerous, never-before-experienced heat, the hottest summer on record for the ENTIRE Earth since the beginning of time, we must find space to grieve even as we escape the next crisis. There was a line in the first few pages of that book that said something like, “If we don’t deal with this now, we’ll be too busy dodging hurricanes and wildfires to find time for fucking.” I hate that that time seems to have come.
As we wait for a hurricane to bear down on SOUTHERN MOTHERFUCKING CALIFORNIA, I need to address the apocalyptic elephant in the room. We need to deal with our many, many sources of grief and loss from the last few years or else we’ll be too paralyzed to do anything about any individual, unique problem. As we said in Occupy: all of our greivances are connected. And so it is for our grief.
I’m looking ahead at the October eclipses, because gosh - they’re pretty close now, with the next lunation cycle coming up after the end of this month — and I’m frankly feeling a bit worried about what’s going on with Covid right now. I know about 90 percent of us have fully let down our guards as governments and media have essentially told us OK BARBIE LET’S GO PARTY but truly, the new variant looks concerning, and I’m not just talking about the alarmingly named ERIS variant, but rather the new one, BA.2.86, with 30-plus mutations. It’s not clear that the next booster available in September will work for this one, but I’m going to throw out some Jupiteran hope and cross my fingers that this doesn’t blow up. (I’m getting the booster no matter what, and you should too.)
Speaking of collective, unprocessed grief and the ways we have aggressively refused to face it, my dear friend
wrote a gorgeous, evocative piece about her recent experience with Covid and what New York City, my beloved home, went through at the start. At this precipice of a potential new surge, I deeply value her warning to us to process that not-so-long ago trauma. I talked about this so much in 2021 and 2022, but at some point, I gave up begging people to look at their pain. I’m back at it now. Please stop holding your sadness in your body. Process it in whatever form works for you. For me, it’s dance.Ok, now that that’s out of the way, let’s fucking TALK ABOUT BARBIE. I finally went to see it Friday night, after experiencing intense FOMO over the last month as y’all went, took selfies and commented and I remained bound to my manuscript with no social outings.
We’ve been in a series of Mars/Venus-ruled eclipses since 2021 and it will continue for another 18 months or so, but in different signs. The nodes have been in Taurus and Scorpio for about 18 months, and now they’re handing off the baton to Aries and Libra, keeping the karma of love and passion front of mind for us and LOUD in our personal lives and in our culture as well. I love that everyone seems to be obsessed with Venus right now—and that’s how we have found ourself in the summer of Barbie.
But Barbie, the movie, kind of bummed me out. It was a wild and decadent visual feast, quite delicious — that was the best part. It made me think “I want to go to there” but it fully lacked any real intersectional feminist perspective. Greta Gerwig kind of vaguely gestures to queerness in her peripheral casting, but the movie’s overall messaging was kind of conservative, white, and traditional. For me, it didn’t live up the transgressive promise in all the ads. But I will give Gerwig credit for taking a big plastic blowtorch to toxic masculinity. Letting the Barbies distract the Kens by allowing them to mainsplain everything from Pavement to savings accounts — that worked for me and it was hilarious.
Now that I’ve shared the review you were not even asking for, where are we headed next? This weekend we’re already feeling a very Barbieland vibe thanks to retrograde Venus in Leo moving toward a square Jupiter in Taurus, a decidedly decadent aspect that builds through the 22nd, making us crave pleasure, pleasure, and more pleasure with a side of more pleasure. Even for a pleasure activist like me, this could be a bit over the top, so watch your appetites (she whispered to the pint of Van Leeuwen Honeycomb ice cream in her freezer.)
Also on the 22nd, Mars in Virgo opposes Neptune in Pisces, an aspect that can make us feel like we’re running through molasses in a dream. Don’t try too hard to get anywhere or even to work out, because it’s pretty exhausting (especially if you spent the whole weekend binge drinking or eating straight sugar from the box because of Venus-Jupiter.) Nappping is an art, and you can practice it this week.
Next we run straight into Mercury’s retrograde station this Thursday, the very day of the first Republican presidential primary debate. It would have been a laughable shit-show no matter what, but it’s REALLY going to be a SHITSHOW, and I will bring popcorn.
This is an MR in Virgo, and as always when the communication planet appears to move backward in either of the signs it rules, it can feel trickier on the communication and technology front, and our nervous systems are likely to be on high alert. This is especially the case if you have planets or potent points, like your ascendant, in Virgo.
The next day Mars, still in Virgo, trines Pluto in Capricorn, bringing that intensity promised in the title of this post. I don’t know what it’s going to be but I suspect it has something to do with Trump turning himself in at the courthouse in Atlanta.
Mars then enters Libra, its sign of detriment, where it will hang out for about six weeks, feeling weak and weird. In some ways this suggests we can connect passionately to our inner diplomat, but it also suggests we may be wet blankets and/or doormats in a passive-aggressive standoff with lovers, partners, or crushes, unless we make this energy conscious.
Finally, we get to the Full Blue Super Moon in Pisces on the 30th - which is conjunct Saturn. Pisces Moons are usually dreamy, lofty, fantastical, mystical and magical — excellent for psychic visioning and manifesting. But this one, I’m sorry to say, is forcing us to grapple with reality in some way. It’s like we get to chase a fantasy but then Big Daddy Saturn comes in, pulls out some chalk, and writes MIND YOUR BOUNDARIES, BITCHES on the blackboard in all caps. Usually this is one of my favorite lunations of the year, coming in late summer, blissed out and sweet. This one might make you feel like your chaos is a problem and help you identify tools to address it.
Finally, I’m looking for some great art for On the Erotic Ecliptic, instead of popping in the Substack-generated images for each sign, which are getting boring and meaningless. Are you an artist or do you know an artist that might want to be featured in these columns? I would be more than happy to promote your work, and although I can’t offer a commission right now, I’d love to collaborate with someone who loves astrology and wants to get their art in front of more people. Happy to feature the same images each month, or whatever works best for you. Message me!