Before We Dive In Recording this on August 26th, and I want to say clearly at the start: I am feeling a bit low. The eclipse energy has been personally challenging in a number of ways, and also — Dolly Parton and Tim Curry have both passed, within days of each other. Both around 80 years old. I loved them both, for very different reasons, and I find their passing sitting in me in that particular way that celebrity deaths sometimes do, when someone has been part of the landscape of your whole life. I’m telling you this because it’s also very much the energy of this week. This is the come-down after eclipse season. If you’re feeling deflated, that’s appropriate. That’s the astrology. The cards are honest about it — but they end in a place of genuine hope. If you’re looking for that hopeful note right now, go and watch the September 10th Virgo New Moon video I just put up. That one has more light in it. This week: do your inner work. Go into the woods. Slow your roll. Subscribe free on Substack for all posts in your inbox. Spiral Weave / Spiral Codex membership — $10/month or $90/year. Venus Retrograde: Heroine’s Journey — I’ll decide on the final pricing when I’m back from Chicago. For now, it’s still open and I’ll let you know. Two tiers: the basic Venus Retrograde course, and Dragon Rider (adds a year of Spiral Codex membership, a 30-minute one-on-one with me, and a personal gift). louiseedington.com/VenusRetrograde2026 One more small thing: if you enjoy astrology AND music, Chris Brennan did an extraordinary interview with Roland Orzabal from Tears for Fears about his astrology memoir. It’s worth your time. I’ve listened twice and bought the hard copy. The Energy of This Week We come off the lunar eclipse on August 28th and begin to wane. The week opens with the Moon in Aries and ends with it in Cancer, waning all the while, heading toward the September 10th new moon. We are in the shedding phase. What makes this week distinctive — and why the message keeps being the same — is the sheer number of retrograde planets in Aries: Neptune, Manwë, Saturn, Pallas Athena, Eris, and Vesta, all moving backwards. When the Aries Moon moves through them, each conjunction or activation is saying: slow down. Go in. Revisit. Review. Do not charge forward. Aries likes action and speed; the retrogrades are applying the brakes. The overall prescription for this week: radical, extraordinary self-care. More than you normally would. The whole week is a churn of inner processing. Let it do its work. Three more things to note: Pluto is out of bounds until December 5th — as it will be for a few months around this time of year until 2035. Going out of bounds to the south, which Rosie Finn’s book Persephone’s Revolution associates with people rising up and more peaceful collective energy. We are in that window. Sedna stations retrograde this week (Thursday) — her 11,406-year orbit is so slow that her stations are gentler than most, but she’s still asking: dig deeper into your perceptions and adaptations. She was last in Gemini at the end of the Great Ice Ages. Venus is entering the shadow of her retrograde — she hits 21°50’ Libra at the start of the week, which is the point she’ll return to when she stations direct on November 13th. Start paying attention now to what comes up around your values, your relationships, your sense of justice and beauty, your desires. Everything that surfaces in the next few weeks will have something to say when Venus goes retrograde in October. Only Venus, Mercury, and the Sun have passed the South Node and Regulus so far. Everyone else is still coming. Gradually, one by one. The Cards — A First Glance From the Red Seeds Tarot and the Witch Oracle: Two of Bees, Eight of Seeds reversed, Ten of Bees, and The Witch. Tension. Disengagement. Then: revelation. And then the Witch herself — the one in total control of herself — to close. More at the end. Day by Day Sunday, August 30 — Moon in Aries. Slow Your Horses. Venus Enters Her Shadow. The Moon is freshly in Aries — and immediately hits all those retrograde planets. A sextile to Sedna (about to station), a sextile to Pluto activating the basket at 4°, then the Moon conjuncts Neptune — stop and smell the coffee. Tune in to your intuition. There is nothing to rush into right now. The Moon then sextiles Uranus — the aha question of this whole period: who am I in this new world we’re building? That’s worth sitting with. The Moon squares Ceres in Cancer — do your self-care. Take care of yourself first, and then you are able to care for and protect your loved ones. And squares Pholus — the lid is still coming off things. The Moon is being slowed at every turn. Neptune is particularly potent here: the retrograde Aries cluster, every one of them applying the brakes to the Aries Moon’s natural preference for speed. Slow your horses. We are not at full speed ahead yet. The Moon conjuncts Pallas Athena (revisiting strategy and pattern recognition), then conjuncts Eris (tables turning, but within — going in to see what you need to overturn in your own life), then squares Juno (renegotiating contracts), sextiles Hekate (the torchbearer is saying: the path forward is through your inner truths), and finally conjuncts Vesta (inner flame — what are you devoted to, really?). Before the day closes, the Moon conjuncts Saturn — a hard stop. Reality check. Put the brakes on. Venus at 21°50’ Libra directly opposes Pallas Athena retrograde — the strategist, the pattern-recognizer, looking keenly back at Venus. Slow down. Think through your relationships, your values, your sense of justice. See the patterns before you charge on. Venus is covering ground she will cover again during the retrograde. Pay attention to what surfaces. Black Moon Lilith makes a fire trine to Eris and Vesta, and sextiles Hekate — that inner feminine rage at injustice, in flowing conversation with the table-turners and the inner flame, with the way-shower lighting the path. And Mercury in Virgo trines Pholus — more information coming to light. More things being seen. Monday, August 31 — Saturn Squares Asteroid Lilith. Black Moon Lilith Enters Capricorn. Earth Grand Trine. Saturn at 13° Aries squares Asteroid Lilith in Cancer. Thirteen — the number of the goddess, the witch. Saturn in Aries retrograde is revisiting the rules, the structures, the identities we’ve been building. Asteroid Lilith — the talk-to-the-hand, we-were-created-equal, original divine feminine — is in the Moon’s sign, looking around and asking: how are all our needs being met? How are outsiders’ needs being met? It’s a hard look, again, before we do anything more. Saturn can bring the “shoulds” — and this week: don’t. It will still be there later. Black Moon Lilith reaches the end of Sagittarius and enters Capricorn — the sign of our institutions, structures, and the man-made rules we live under. And the moment she crosses into Capricorn, she trines Regulus at 0° Virgo and Chiron at 0° Taurus — an Earth Grand Trine. The exiled feminine energy, in flowing conversation with the Royal Star that now speaks of future stewards, and with the medicine man shining his light on wounds and healing. The way forward is this world. This experience. Being on this Earth, which is our home. Jupiter at 13° Leo trines Saturn at 13° Aries. Thirteen — the goddess number, the witch number, also a number of creation (Fibonacci, phi). This is the opening trine of the cycle that began at the Great Conjunction in December 2020 — Jupiter and Saturn at 0° Aquarius, the beginning of the Age of Air. Now Jupiter has moved into Leo and this is the first flowering of that seed. We have to change these man-made rules that are not in alignment with the natural laws of the universe. That’s what this aspect is saying. In the number of the goddess, no less. The Moon in Aries moves through Pallas Athena (revisiting strategy), opposes Venus (emotions stirred around what Venus is covering in her pre-retrograde territory — feel it, don’t push it away), conjuncts Eris (more inner table-turning), squares Juno, sextiles Hekate, conjuncts Vesta. Tuesday, September 1 — Moon Into Taurus. Mars Squares Saturn. Mercury Meets Circe. The Brakes. The Moon finishes its Aries passage by aspecting the Nodes (still at 29° until October 9th — eclipse energy still reverberating) before moving into Taurus at 4:01am Eastern. Immediately, the Moon conjuncts Chiron — the shaman, the medicine man, hands-on healing. Earth. Body. Values. The wound and the medicine. Venus at 23° Libra makes a lovely unbroken flow aspect to Chariklo in Aquarius — the cosmic doula, Chiron’s consort, the grace-spinner, holding space for the new story we’re weaving. I am here with you. I am helping you weave it. Then the aspect that defines the day: Mars in Cancer squares Saturn in Aries. Mars in Cancer is already uncomfortable — fire in water, drive dampened by sensitivity. And Saturn in Aries is retrograde, in Mars’s own sign. One foot on the accelerator, one foot on the brake. Except this week: it is far more brake than accelerator. If you feel the shoulds pressing in — I should be doing this, I should be doing that — this week is not the time. What needs to be done will still be there after you’ve rested and gone in. The brakes are on for a reason. Mercury in Virgo meets Circe the Sorceress — Circe is also conjunct the upcoming Virgo New Moon, which feels intentional. Mercury saying: get into the details, go in and do some inner sorcery and magic. The craftsmanship here is interior. Mercury then sextiles Asteroid Lilith — she’s in there too, having a very good look at what she’s going to say no to. Not performing the no yet. Looking clearly. The Taurus Moon Earth-trines the Virgo Sun and Pholus at around 9-10° — a pull to earth, to the somatic, to th