Sep 2019
The Pope and the Hermit
For the third and last time this year, the Jupiter-Neptune square is taking over the skies. This is our last shot at discerning the transit’s dreams, passions and existential questions.
Since 2019 began, we’ve been trying to put together the ideological heat of Jupiter with the oceanic yearnings of Neptune. Every time the square has been hit by an inner-planet trigger (see the SkyWatches for February and June), we’ve been offered a 
different way to understand this primal conflict: between fire and water.
Ideally, we’ve perceived it with a little more nuance each time.
During the first part of September, we’ll be steeping like a teabag in the fire/water conundrum. Jupiter and Neptune will make a series of connections to four inner planets, one after another.
We’ll be asked to combine, creatively or otherwise, two distinct approaches to seeking truth.
Pop astrology
To appreciate the transit’s inspirations, avoid its pitfalls and learn from its lessons, we need to fully dispense with 
negative/positive evaluations.
Contrary to what simplistic interpretations imply, planetary archetypes don’t make us have a good experience or a bad one. They are symbols. They don’t do things to us. They don’t care whether we like them or not.
Jupiter and Neptune won’t determine whether we’re enriched by these transits or mired in confusion. That’s determined by our understanding of the forces at play.
Pope vs. Hermit
Jupiter in Sagittarius might be likened to the Pope (Hierophant) card in the tarot. This is an approach to knowledge that is relatively conscious, as are ethical, legal and philosophical questions.
Neptune in Pisces is more like the Hermit card: an intuitive approach to the great truths, especially the unknowable ones.
Desire to be bewitched
During the first week of September, the emphasis is on Venus. For many of us, it will be in our relationships that we feel the tension.
Not that the conflict between adventurous Jupiter and utopian Neptune is really about relating. But when Venus is T-squaring them (opposing Neptune and squaring Jupiter, 9/2 – 9/5), they may 
use relating as a vehicle. As always when Venus interacts with an outer planet, we may be flooded by a wave of yearning for a person, even a fictitious one (the latter might be, in fact, more appropriate).
It’s an unconscious desire to be bewitched.
If we project these feelings upon a mere mortal, we are giving the transit’s power away, rather than owning it as a force within ourselves. This is likely to lead to the poignancy of disappointment, especially since Venus in Virgo is unduly sensitive to the imperfections of earthly beings.
Mercury, the Sun and Mars
Mercury’s trigger, squaring Jupiter and opposing Neptune, follows around 9/6-7. That of the Sun peaks between the 8th and the 10th.
Mars’s will be strongest between the 12th and 14th. This one is the one most likely to manifest in behavior, ours or someone else’s. Unconscious motivations are stronger than usual, so proceed with care.
These transits will all probably flow one into the other, provoking variations on the same theme. What our souls want here is an interaction with something beyond the ordinary.
Even if they provoke angst, such feelings can be funneled into art or ritual. Many a beautiful song or sonnet has arisen out of the bittersweetness of disappointed love.
Autumnal Equinox
The Equinox this year is on Monday, September 23rd at 12:51 am PDT. The Sun enters Libra, initiating a season of balancing. The emphasis on equality that we associate with Libra comes from an ideal: the concept of symmetry.
Libra has acquired a reputation as a romantic sign. But it is not a water sign (emotion); it is an air sign (thought). If it is about love at all, it is about the idea of love. An idea that can be, for instance, expressed mathematically: two halves make a whole.
This is why the sign governs partnerships of all kinds. Libra is about marriage in its metaphorical sense more than in its literal sense.
In the collective realm, this archetype expresses as demographic/ political/ economic parity. Under Libran skies, imbalance stands out more starkly, as the mass mind tries — unconsciously and haltingly, as is the nature of collectives — to balance its discordant parts.