Fierce Desire, Balanced Calm
I’ll admit that, as a Leo woman, I can be a bit…dramatic. Every reaction, every emotion, every desire, is BIG! And while this has its charms, it can sometimes be a bit much for others to deal with.
Luckily, I married a Libra who is almost never thrown by my outbursts. When I rage against, say, a misbehaving piece of technology, occasionally throwing the offending item across the room, his first reaction is a chuckle. Then, he calmly retrieves the projectile and fixes the problem.
How our relationship benefits me seems pretty clear. But I’ve occasionally wondered what he gets out of the situation? I’ve asked him before, and he said something like, “I don’t know… I just like you. You’re never boring.” Heaven knows, to an air sign like Libra, “boring” is the most damning trait possible.
When Venus in heartfelt, passionate Leo makes a sextile this week with Mars in cool-headed Libra (Sep. 15, 2025, 8:04 pm PDT), fierce desire is tempered by capable calm. Whatever Venus in Leo desires, Mars in Libra is willing to help us get – even if we’ve broken it and it needs to be fixed before we can use it.
The Scourge of Crushing Sameness
It’s been many years since I held a day job, but boy, I have no trouble remembering what I disliked about it. As a secretary for a large government agency, every day had a crushing sameness about it.
This week, Mercury in Virgo opposes Saturn in Pisces (Sep. 17, 2025, 10:47 am PDT0. With Mercury in Virgo, we can easily find ourselves mired in details and lost in that sameness that plagued me in my former occupation. And when that same Mercury aspects Saturn, you might also realize that you have a tendency to support others at the expense of pursuing your own ambitions.
There is nothing demeaning about being the person who organizes information, sets up systems, and makes things run smoothly behind the scenes. But you’re more likely to find any work satisfying if you feel that it supports something you care about deeply, something that you feel can really make a difference in the world.
Lovely and Delightful
This week, Mercury shifts from Virgo, sign of never-quite-satisfied perfectionism, and toward Libra. It’s no longer enough to consider what we are, have, think, want, create, or serve; now, we encounter and must negotiate with The Other and all their needs.
Mercury in Libra (Sep. 18, 2025, 3:06 am PDT, until October 5) asks us to articulate what we think, and ask for what we want, in a way that’s designed to make all parties happy. This path is immediately challenged by Mercury’s aspects this week to Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto, and by our own interactions with people who have strong opinions. But even so, Mercury in Libra can help us enjoy what’s lovely and delightful in sharing our thoughts and affections with lovely and delightful others.
Mercury’s Busy Day
After entering Libra, Mercury forms a flurry of planetary aspects on Sep. 18. As Mercury opposes Neptune (3:01 pm PDT), intuition is strong. And particularly with Mercury in Libra, this is a beautiful transit for artwork, for love, and for time spent in a spiritual frame of mind, such as in meditation.
Admittedly, it’s not the best aspect for logic and analysis; but save that kind of work for Mercury’s trine to Uranus (9:52 pm PDT). That one often brings exciting insights and awakenings, even if you might also tend to blurt things out that might be better kept to yourself, and overindulge in playing Devil’s advocate.
And Mercury’s trine to Pluto (11:27 pm PDT) can dredge up some hard truths that have been hidden for a while, and this time, escapism won’t work. If there’s something difficult that you’ve been needing to confront with someone in your life, this is the right time to take care of that.
Piece by Piece
It’s the day after a big, loud, memorable party, and your house is a shambles. You can be forgiven for just flopping down on the sofa to recover. But eventually, surveying the damage makes your head hurt and your nerves jangly. You decide you can manage the mess on the coffee table, so you slowly clear away glasses and crumpled cocktail napkins. On the way to the garbage bin, you pick up a few bottles, cans, and paper plates. The kitchen counter looks overwhelming, but you start by scraping serving platters and bowls and shifting them to the dishwasher. Soon, you’re moving methodically from room to room, humming a contented little tune as you restore order.
After the long Venus in Leo party that began on August 25, when the emphasis was on fun, bright colors, and generally overdoing things, Venus enters Virgo (Sep. 19, 2025, 5:39 am PDT until Oct. 13) to play cleanup. Just remember that whether it’s cleaning your house, balancing your checkbook, or organizing your office, it doesn’t have to be done all at once. Pick away at it, piece by piece. You’ll soon find yourself sitting in a clean, quiet space, with a mindset to match.
Are You Beautiful?
Are you beautiful? Worthy? Lovable? And who gets to decide that, exactly? Venus in square aspect to Uranus (Sep. 20, 2025, 8:41 am PDT, at 1º22’ Virgo and Gemini) offers an opportunity to break away from other people’s opinions about your worthiness and instead, to celebrate your true, unique beauty – of face, body, mind, talent, and spirit.
But don’t be surprised if you attract a little negative feedback or flat-out rejection in the process, which will force you to ask yourself the right question: Can you approve of yourself even when others don’t?
Venus is also a financial planet, and money is another way of evaluating what things – and what we ourselves – are worth. When Venus skirmishes with Uranus, we might encounter sudden gains or reversals. That’s noteworthy from a practical standpoint, but also because our relationship with money reveals scads about our confidence, security, and values. Sample questions: Are you giving more than you’re getting? And is money making you more or less free?
The Invisible Wall
My neighbor’s delightful cat, Jasper, spends most of his days outdoors. From our house, I can see him pace out a very specific route through the neighborhood. Sometimes, as my neighbor and I are embarking on a walk, he materializes to escort us. But about halfway down the block, he stops in his tracks as though he’s run into a glass wall. He stands there and meows plaintively as we disappear from sight, but he won’t breach that invisible wall.
Like Jasper, most of us tend to have a sense of our limits. We know how far we can wander before we’ve left our territory and things begin to feel unsafe.
When the Sun opposes Saturn (Sep. 20, 2025, 10:46 pm PDT, 28º30’ Virgo and Pisces), we want to strut proudly through our territory, but Saturn’s invisible barrier holds us in check. We may experience Saturn’s boundaries in the person of a tough boss, a strict parent, or other authority figure. But often, what’s holding us back is simply our own internal glass wall. And usually, that boundary is intended to keep us safe.
The World as It Is
This New Moon Solar Eclipse (Sep. 21, 2025, 12:54 pm PDT, 29º05’ Virgo), opposes Saturn, and signals an opportunity to release Virgo’s more negative expression in our lives. It’s time to release the tendency toward busywork that distracts us from the real work at hand; the urge to criticize the efforts of others; the denial of life’s poetry and magic, in favor of a rigid, rational approach.
The Solar Eclipse point lies close to the Moon’s South Node, drawing a line that connects us to a long pattern of trying to overcome such negativity. In the previous years when Solar eclipses fell near this point (most recently, Sep. 22, 2006 and Sep. 23, 1987), were you too quick to criticize, too slow to notice the beauty around you, and too busy sweating the small stuff to keep your eye on the big picture?
One of my favorite Virgo parables is the movie “Groundhog Day”, which follows Phil Connors as he’s forced to live the same day over and over again. And not a particularly exciting day, either, but a day full of minor annoyances and petty frustrations, neither better nor worse than a thousand other days of his life.
Phil, portrayed by Virgo Bill Murray, attacks the problem with resistance, cynicism, complaint, and nihilism–until finally, after repeatedly trying and failing to destroy himself, he surrenders. He spends each day in devotion to good works and self-improvement, even though he knows that he’ll have to do it all over again the very next day. By the movie’s end, nothing much has changed in the town–except for Phil, who has become compassionate, accomplished, and beloved.
It’s not easy to reclaim our spirits from cynicism and our everyday routines from the tyranny of file folders and post-it notes. Saturn moving through late Pisces insists that we temper even our finest Virgo impulses toward self-improvement with a commitment to the world as it is. As Phil Connors found, before we can hope to improve the world, we first have to commit to being part of it.
Writing and images © 2012-2025 by April Elliott Kent
