Venus square Pluto

Venus, retrograde in Scorpio, is within a degree of a square to Pluto in Aquarius, and the gap is still closing. Venus governs affection, attraction and pleasure. Pluto governs power, compulsion and the deep change that clears out what has run its course. Squared, the two work against each other. Whatever is wanted in love or friendship runs into a pull to get to the bottom of it, to hold on harder, or to change it completely. Because Venus is moving backwards, the feelings that surface are often old ones: a person, an attachment or a hurt coming back to be looked at again. This makes it harder to keep things pleasant on the surface. It also gives enough force to change a relationship at its root, provided something definite is done with what comes up.

The square becomes part of a larger figure today. Venus also opposes Chiron in Aries, widely and drawing closer, and Pluto has been squaring Chiron in a contact that lasts for years. With Venus now on the far side of Chiron, a T-square forms, and Pluto stands at its apex. The opposition is a pull between closeness and an old wound around asserting oneself. Chiron, read as the wounded healer, sits here in Aries, the sign of acting for oneself. Oppositions are usually felt through other people, so it can seem that someone else is causing the friction when part of it is one's own. Both strains drain into Pluto in Aquarius, the point where the figure lets off pressure. In Aquarius that pressure tends to come out among friends, in groups, and over shared ideals and agreements, often as a wish to overturn a situation entirely. A figure like this has real force, and it works best when aimed at a specific end. Left to run, it produces events that feel out of anyone's control. Pushed down, it surfaces anyway.

The Sun in Libra is also moving towards an opposition with Chiron, so that wound is lit from two directions this week. Chiron's healing lies in accepting what is, and in turning a hurt one has lived through into help for others.

The hard side of today's square is easy to recognise once it is named. If wanting to be close starts to feel like needing to control, the square is running unchecked. The same holds if affection is held back to make a point, if being loved matters more than loving, or if a disagreement becomes a contest over who holds the power. The sky offers two steadier contacts against this. Mars in Leo is trining Saturn in Aries. The trine is easing but still in force, and it gives a controlled, sustained drive. The old tradition counts Saturn in its fall in Aries, where its slow patience sits uneasily with Aries' haste and tends to lose staying power. Retrograde, Saturn asks for review. Joined with Mars by trine, it lends a hand that keeps commitments and does not need to win. The Moon entered Aquarius today. On the way it passed over Pluto and squared Venus, so it has already set the figure off once. It is now within a degree of a trine to Uranus in Gemini and pulling away, and that brings enough distance to see a feeling clearly before acting on it. Taken too far, the same detachment turns cool.

The square calls for a definite act that builds something new. Pluto calls for deliberate expression in place of a blow-up, and for going with a change instead of clutching what is leaving. Venus retrograde favours reconsidering before breaking anything, and taking a slower, more careful look at what one hopes for in love.

Venus is caught in a second configuration. It passed an exact sextile to Black Moon Lilith in Capricorn yesterday and is now within a degree and easing. Lilith carries desire, lack and the wish left unmet, here shaped by Capricorn's control and ambition. Both Venus and Lilith form quincunxes to Uranus in Gemini, which makes a yod with Uranus at its apex. The quincunx is modern practice's aspect; the classical tradition does not count it. It links forces that do not fit, and it responds to small, careful adjustments rather than force. A yod pushes the sextiled pair's need through its apex. Until something becomes conscious, plans misfire and a restless dissatisfaction builds, sometimes to the point of getting in one's own way. Once it is seen, the same figure can be very inventive. Uranus in Gemini works through a fresh idea or a sudden change of view. If an unexplained edginess sets in, that is often where it comes from, and responding to small changes rather than resisting them helps. Venus also sits at the apex of a wider yod formed by the long Uranus–Neptune sextile, so much of the sky's tension passes through it.

The day falls in the First Quarter, a phase of pressure that asks for action: breaking with what came before and building new structures with force. The New Moon in Libra on 10 October opened this half of the cycle in one of Venus's own signs. Whatever began then now meets Pluto's pressure. Six of the ten planets stand in fixed signs and none in earth, so people tend to dig in, and stubbornness can block a change that has already become necessary. The bodies fall in separate, sharp groups, a splay that only just holds, pulling the day in several particular directions at once. The Full Moon in Taurus arrives on 26 October.