THIS WEEK, the cosmos gets hungry — and slightly difficult about it.
Last week left the sky bruised around the edges. Mars faced Pluto. The Sun opposed Saturn. Venus turned retrograde in Scorpio, taking pleasure, desire, money and attachment somewhere considerably less superficial.
This week doesn't undo any of that. It gets more interesting.
Mercury is now moving through Scorpio alongside retrograde Venus, and on Wednesday the two meet. Conversations become intimate quickly. Something you thought you were over may turn out to have a little life left in it. A financial question you have been avoiding may finally acquire a sentence. Someone says something at dinner, and you realise, several bites later, that they have been telling you the truth.
Wednesday also brings Mars in Leo into a sextile with Uranus in Gemini — a considerably livelier piece of weather. Expect the unexpected. A change of plan that improves the plan. An idea that arrives sideways. A sudden appetite for doing things differently.
And then Saturday.
The New Moon arrives in Libra on October 10, opening a fresh cycle around relationships, agreements, balance and reciprocity. But Venus, still retrograde in Scorpio, squares Mars in Leo on the same day, creating a rather delicious tension between what we want privately and what we are willing to admit publicly.
In other words, you may know exactly what you want. The interesting part is whether you are prepared to say so.
The assignment this week: look closely at your appetites. Keep what nourishes you. Question what merely keeps you wanting more.
And, for heaven's sake, stop pretending you don't want dessert.
Now, the fates.
♈ ARIES
There is something slightly confrontational about your appetite this week.
You know what you want. The problem is that somebody else may have an opinion about it.
Venus retrograde in Scorpio is moving through the part of your chart concerned with shared resources, intimacy and the complicated business of deciding who owes whom what. The old Aries solution — announce the decision and move — will not quite work here.
Listen first.
A financial conversation may also need revisiting. A shared expense. A bill. A promise about money that was made rather casually and has become rather less casual with time.
In the kitchen: stop making every meal a solo production. Let someone else chop. Let someone else choose the wine. Let someone else pay occasionally. You do not lose power by allowing other people to contribute.
And if there's one dish you've been making entirely your way because you know better? Let someone suggest an alteration.
You may hate it.
You may also love it.
♉ TAURUS
Relationships are becoming considerably more interesting.
Venus, your ruling planet, is retrograde in Scorpio and therefore standing directly across from you. Old dynamics are returning for inspection. So are old people, in some cases. The question isn't necessarily whether something should come back.
The question is whether it deserves to.
You have a particularly good week for noticing the difference between familiarity and compatibility.
At the table, don't automatically choose the restaurant everyone else likes. Order what you want. Ask for the sauce. Take the last piece if you actually want it.
Taurus has spent enough time pretending that generosity means self-denial.
Saturday's Libra New Moon also brings attention to daily routines. Your relationship with food, work and rest could use a small reset. Nothing dramatic. One better habit is plenty.
Make breakfast properly.
Then see what else improves.
♊ GEMINI
Your mind is busy. Your body would like a word.
Mercury in Scorpio is asking you to pay attention to the practical things you've been mentally skipping over — routines, workload, health, the fact that coffee is not technically lunch.
Wednesday's Mercury-Venus meeting could bring a useful conversation about work or wellbeing. Someone may give you information that changes how you approach an ongoing problem.
Take the advice.
Mars and Uranus also make Wednesday unusually inventive. Try something different rather than simply doing the usual thing faster.
Your culinary assignment: one unfamiliar ingredient, one new technique, one meal eaten without your phone.
And if you find yourself standing in the kitchen at 10 pm eating directly from the fridge, consider this an astrological intervention.
♋ CANCER
The romantic and creative sectors of your chart are getting louder.
Venus retrograde in Scorpio has a habit of bringing pleasure back to the examination room. What do you actually enjoy? What have you convinced yourself you enjoy because someone else does? Which hobbies have quietly become obligations?
Cancer needs more pleasure without administration attached.
Cook something because it sounds delicious.
Not because it is efficient. Not because it is healthy. Not because you've been meaning to use the vegetables.
Just because you want it.
The New Moon on Saturday brings a fresh start around home and emotional foundations, while the Venus-Mars tension may make you surprisingly aware of where you've been giving more than you're receiving.
At dinner, watch the distribution of labour.
Who cooks?
Who clears?
Who gets the last piece?
There may be more information there than you'd expect.
♌ LEO
The kitchen is becoming a stage again — but this time, the interesting action is happening at home.
Mars and Jupiter are both in your sign, giving you considerable fire, confidence and appetite for life. Wednesday's Mars-Uranus connection could produce a sudden invitation or an unexpectedly brilliant idea.
Say yes to the interesting one.
But Venus retrograde in Scorpio is pulling your attention toward home, family and the private parts of life you don't usually put on display.
Cook for the people who know you without the performance.
A big pot of something. A table that gets progressively messier. Dessert eaten directly from the serving dish. The sort of evening where nobody photographs the food because everyone is too busy eating it.
Saturday's New Moon asks what you want your domestic life to feel like.
Make it delicious.
♍ VIRGO
Your words are carrying more emotional weight than usual.
Mercury in Scorpio is moving through your communication sector, and its meeting with Venus on Wednesday makes this a particularly potent week for saying the thing you've been editing internally for weeks.
Say it simply.
Don't prepare a twelve-point presentation.
A sibling, neighbour, friend or colleague may also reveal something unexpectedly personal. You don't need to fix it. Listening is enough.
Food-wise, this is an excellent week for recipes with layers — something that starts with a base, develops slowly and becomes more interesting as you add to it.
Virgo enjoys a system.
Scorpio enjoys a secret.
Find a dish that contains both.
And please stop buying fresh herbs with the confidence that you will definitely use them this time.
♎ LIBRA
Saturday's New Moon is yours, and it arrives with a particularly useful question:
What do you actually want?
Not what keeps the peace.
Not what looks balanced from the outside.
Not what everybody else would choose.
You.
Venus retrograde is complicating the answer slightly, especially around money, possessions and self-worth. The thing you've been wanting may not actually be the thing you need.
The good news: you are becoming better at telling the difference.
At the table, practise having preferences. Choose the restaurant. Order first. Decline the dish you don't like.
And then, if you genuinely want the dessert, order it too.
Balance is not deprivation.
It is knowing when you've had enough — and knowing when you haven't.
♏ SCORPIO
Well.
This one is yours.
Venus is retrograde in your sign. Mercury is in your sign. Wednesday brings them together. Your appetite — romantic, creative, financial, culinary, emotional — is under unusually bright lighting.
You may find yourself reconsidering something you thought you had already decided.
Good.
Scorpio's great strength is depth. Use it.
Don't settle for the first answer. Don't assume the first craving is the real one.
In the kitchen, cook something that requires patience. A sauce reduced properly. Bread that needs proving. Something marinated overnight. Let time participate.
There is also a warning against obsessive indulgence. You know the difference between pleasure and compulsion. This week, listen to that distinction.
And if someone asks what you want?
Try answering honestly.
The stars are watching.
♐ SAGITTARIUS
You are doing a great deal of internal housekeeping this week.
Venus retrograde is moving through the quietest part of your chart, which means some of the week's most important developments may happen when nobody else is looking.
Old feelings. Old patterns. Old appetites.
You don't have to turn every realisation into an announcement.
Let some things remain private while you work out what they mean.
Your kitchen becomes a particularly useful retreat. Cook slowly. Put music on. Make the complicated thing you've been postponing. Then sit down and actually eat it.
By Saturday, the Libra New Moon opens a new chapter around friendships and community.
Choose your people carefully.
The right table should leave you energised, not wondering why you agreed to come.
♑ CAPRICORN
Your social world is being edited.
Not dramatically. Just enough to make you notice who is actually contributing to the ecosystem.
Venus retrograde may bring an old friendship or unresolved group dynamic back into view. Don't rush to restore what you have outgrown.
Wednesday's Mercury-Venus meeting is excellent for a candid conversation with someone you've been meaning to approach.
Have it over food.
Capricorn communicates better when there is something practical happening alongside the emotional conversation. Cooking together may be ideal.
And this week, don't automatically volunteer to organise everything.
Let somebody else choose the restaurant.
Let somebody else make the reservation.
Let somebody else bring dessert.
You may discover that being taken care of is not nearly as inefficient as you assumed.
♒ AQUARIUS
The public version of you is getting attention.
Mars and Jupiter in Leo are activating your relationship and partnership zone, while Saturday's Libra New Moon opens up questions around travel, learning and the larger direction of your life.
An opportunity may arrive through another person rather than through your own initiative.
Take the meeting.
But Venus retrograde is also asking you to examine ambition itself. What are you chasing? What would actually feel satisfying once you got there?
A useful test:
Would you still want it if nobody knew you had it?
If yes, keep going.
If no, reconsider.
For dinner, choose something unfamiliar. Aquarius needs occasional culinary disruption to prevent life from becoming too efficiently organised.
♓ PISCES
The week asks you to think bigger.
Travel, education, publishing, creativity and long-distance connections all receive attention as the Libra New Moon approaches.
But before you make the grand decision, Venus retrograde asks you to examine the emotional and financial assumptions underneath it.
What are you actually investing in?
What are you hoping it will give you?
And what would happen if it didn't?
These are not gloomy questions. They're useful ones.
At the table, cook something from somewhere you've always wanted to visit. Research the ingredients. Play the music. Make the meal an experiment in imagination.
Just don't turn it into a three-hour research project.
Sometimes dinner is allowed to just be dinner.
***
This week, my dears, the cosmos is asking uncomfortable questions about appetite.
What do you reach for when nobody is watching?
What do you keep ordering even though you don't really like it?
What have you been calling indulgence when what you actually wanted was comfort?
And perhaps most importantly: what are you hungry for after the hunger itself has been satisfied?
Wednesday brings the conversation.
Saturday brings the reset.
Somewhere between the two, there is an answer.
Eat honestly. Want honestly. And leave a little room for surprise.
The stars approve.