As the sweaty summer draws to a close, we’ve got a month full of opportunities to reconnect, hook up, explore, reconcile, and do all the processing that our communicative hearts desire. Mars, planet of desire and fiery hotness (as well as how we set boundaries), is continuing its forward path out of Scorpio, and moves back into Sagittarius on the 2nd, the same day as the Leo New Moon. New Moons are often a time for planting seeds and quiet reflection, but that with all that fire energy, expect this time to feel more erotically charged, more restless, and more externally focused. Use that fire energy wisely!

With Venus in Virgo, there’s another theme of approaching our relationships with a sense of care, devotion, reserve, and the desire to fix whatever’s broken. Expect processing to be especially fruitful right now, if you resist the urge of Mars to blow up or plow through it all — and resist the Virgo tendency to overanalyze the smallest problems. Pay special attention to these possible pitfalls on the 13th, when Venus forms a hard aspect with Saturn (planet of “y’all gotta get your shit together and do this better”) — and again when Mars crosses over Saturn on the 24th. Use the Venus-Saturn energy of the 13th to think about what relationships feel useful and reciprocal right now, and which you might need to let go of — or what relationship patterns are helping you build the life you want, and which are merely draining your energy. On the 24th, expect some insight about your own desire nature, which may come to you through having your desires feel blocked. Mars-Saturn connections teach us how to handle our passions responsibly, often by throwing obstacles in our way. Treat these events as opportunities to learn how to fight fairly, how to practice better consent, and how to embrace your sexuality without disrespecting yourself or others.

This is a time when we can experience tremendous freedom, which has the potential to enrich or threaten our relationships, depending on how much our partners respect our need for independence and new experiences. Treat each other gently during these transits. Even changes that feel hard initially can blossom into joyous new ways of connecting. Stay guided by your hearts, your truest desires, and your devotion to those you love — placing yourself in the center of that map.

As always, take only what resonates from these horoscopes! The astro-literate are advised to read their Venus and Moon signs first. For more information on Mars and all the fancy ways it works in your own chart, contact me for a reading or check out Playing With Fire: Mars Through the Signs.

Aries

All that is fiery in your nature is calling out to the world right now, and the world is calling back. You’ve been facing big changes and upheaval in your romantic life, but this month reminds you that change can be exciting. Now is the time to flirt with someone new. Now is the time to declare your intentions. If you aren’t wooing someone right now, someone is sure to be wooing you. If you’re in a monogamous relationship, this can be a time when new friends reignite your passion for life — or when you and your boo start fresh in a new phase of intimacy. Be advised that Venus in Virgo is also calling for some care and communication in all your relationships, and you may have to navigate issues arising from your need for spontaneity and freedom. Boundaries to draw this month: Don’t let anyone prevent you from feeling connected to a larger world. Desires to embrace: The joy of adventure.

Taurus

Believe it or not, right now you’re drawing in the people that will help you most in your next few years of life. You may be more focused on what you’ve lost and what relationships have changed, but if you pay attention to who’s coming into your life (even if they feel peripheral right now), you’ll notice some exciting opportunities. Watch out for some unsettling energies around the new moon and the full moon (on the 2nd and 18th), and don’t be too quick to react to any drama that flares up. Let it be information about where you want to use your energy. You’ll need a lot of it for yourself right now, and for the relationships that are helping you become your best self. Boundaries to draw this month: Stop approaching your sexuality in ways that feel dishonest or fill you with shame or confusion. Take certain activities off the table for a month, or change the terms of your connection to certain people. Desires to embrace: Let your sexual desire lead you toward changes that will help you feel renewed and restored. Let your sexual imagination be a cauldron of potential.

Gemini

This month continues many of last month’s energies. You may be feeling riled up, raring to go, and restless — or you may be exhausted. Either way, there’s a sense that your relationships, especially committed partnerships, need to make more room for your fiery feelings. The worst way this could work would be picking fights and then crying (she can’t get mad at you when you’re sad). Better ways to handle the intensities of this month: Sweat it out dancing. Wrestle with your boo. Wrestle with an attractive stranger. Sing in a metal band. Get hella competitive in team sports or board games. Stand up for your right to be angry, without taking it out on anyone. Make sure your relationships can makes space for all your emotions, without letting your emotions control the relationship. Boundaries to draw this month: Don’t let your partner take up so much space your own needs are ignored. Don’t take up so much space your partner’s needs are ignored. Desires to embrace: Celebrate the people who care for and feed you and stick by you so that you can become the strong, fierce creature you are.

Cancer

Good news! All the drama is on the sidelines this month — you get to rest and enjoy yourself. Luxuriate in the relationships that are working right now, and recognize your right to feel calm, tenderness, sweetness, and love. Let yourself sparkle in the sun like phosphorence. With Venus in Virgo, there may be a tendency to want to fix a few details in your communication or understandings, but approach it with a sense of ease and it won’t even feel like processing. This is a good time for recovery, for hedonism, for beach going and eating ice cream in bed. Boundaries to draw this month: Don’t let your routine obligations suck all the joy out of your life, or stress you so hard you can’t appreciate the beauty around you. Desires to embrace: Feeling better in your body, and about your body. Embodiment as something less stressful than it’s ever been.

Leo

The stakes can feel high this month for the people who love you to prove it. Remember that you’re already excessively adored. If your heart is feeling empty and you want others to help you fill it, don’t buy into that story! You are never empty. If you feel sad or disconnected, that’s an indication of how much love and desire you are full of that you want to share. Come to your intimacies feeling full, not empty. Nothing in you is lacking. Loneliness is a symptom of all experiences of love, of the ways we always desire more than we can ever have. Let that desire be something you own and claim right now. Boundaries to draw this month: Protect your creative spirit. Share your brilliance with only those who will appreciate it most. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Desires to embrace: Reconnect with your playfulness, your flirtatiousness, your trust in your own voice, and how inherently lovable you are.

Virgo

Not all Virgos are shy, but folks with strong Virgo energy in their charts do prefer to be behind the scenes. With Venus in your sign this month, and the Sun moving into Virgo on the 23rd, you’ll be in the spotlight. Expect cuties to be hollering at you. Practice being suave. No, scratch that, being adorably awkward in the ways that feel real to you will be far better. Most of all, remember that it’s possible to love people for their imperfections, and not because you want to perfect them (or perfect yourself through loving them). Bask in the love this month, and learn what you can about what feels right for you without getting too caught up about all the things that could go wrong. Boundaries to draw this month: Don’t let people into your inner circle until they’ve really earned your trust. Desires to embrace: Spending time with the people in your life that love you the way you wish your family could — unconditionally, and with wants to support you.

Libra

You may feel like there’s a lot percolating around you right now, but you have the choice about how to engage with it. You’ll be noticing what’s not getting said, whose voices aren’t part of the conversation, and if you choose to you can champion those left-out perspectives. But watch out for high tempers and miscommunication around the 2nd and the 18th, and make sure you’re not only acting with the best of motives but the clearest sense of how your words will land. You may have a perspective others lack, but will a conversation be enough to help them see it? Recognize where people need to learn their own lessons, and let go of your desire to be understood by everyone. Boundaries to draw this month: Resist the urge to shit talk your exes and your difficult friends. Don’t get drawn in to destructive gossip. Desires to embrace: Trust that you have the words you need to describe the world you need, and the love that will help you experience that world. Be articulate about your desires.

Scorpio

This month is all about recognizing that the past has passed. Are you still holding on to an old love, or an old grudge? Have all your old loves become old grudges? How small will the world have to become for you to never get hurt again? The new and full moons this month (on the 2nd and 18th) can be uncomfortable but profoundly healing times for you to reconnect with love as healing. Think about what you need to feel trust, and to be trustworthy. Expect that something beautiful and enduring is possible. Cultivate a long, tender romance with yourself first. Boundaries to draw this month: Don’t let anything into your mind that is designed to make you feel bad about yourself. Look away when you pass certain billboards. Make different choices about the media you consume. Stop yourself from imagining that anyone else deserves more happiness than you do. Desires to embrace: The need for some kind of abundance and beauty in your life, even if it’s just fresh flowers in your bedroom. Feeling you deserve the good things in life, without fearing you’ll become a bad person in pursuit of them.

Sagittarius

This month signals a new burst of passion in your life, even if there are some bumps in the road. As Mars moves back into Sagittarius, you can reconnect with desires that have been on hold since the spring. When Mars joins Saturn in your sign on the 24th, pay close attention to any events that help teach you how to work with your passionate nature responsibly. This could mean working through the harder parts of sexual intimacy with your partner. It could mean taking a break from sex to work through some of your own patterns of shutting down or piecing out. It may not feel easy, but it will help you choose a life in which you don’t have to choose between passion and responsibility (the kind of life that will eventually self-destruct). Doing that work now will guarantee you an easier time later. Meanwhile, enjoy the enlivening influence of Mars and find ways to express your enthusiasm and fire. Don’t bottle that shit up! Boundaries to draw this month: Your body is sacred, and not just anyone gets to touch it (or comment on it). Desires to embrace: Reconnecting with your lust for life.

Capricorn

This month will make it very clear to you what you’re trying to be strong for — and who brings out your inner butch daddy. Feel free to indulge in some role play that helps you eroticize this role, or cast if off if you’re feeling like bottoming. But watch out for the way you might privately assess the doom of certain intimacies. Phrases like “this will never work, because nothing ever does” or “everyone breaks up eventually” are not doing you any favors right now. If there are problems that need to be fixed, identify them and give a good faith effort to solve them. If the problems are too big to solve, recognize that and let relationships change. But don’t let the fear of endings ride around in your head all day, sounding like good sense, and preventing you from ever relaxing into your love affairs. Boundaries to draw this month: Stop yourself from indulging in paranoia, jealousy, or pessimism. Desires to embrace: Any romantic situation that lets you play with bondage, restraint, or even just being secluded in a private world with your boo.

Aquarius

The full moon in your sign on the 18th will be an eventful one for you, especially for those of you born close to January 25th. This can be a time of looking to others to define you, but resist comparing yourself to anyone else! Can you admire someone, and recognize that you don’t need to be like them? There may be some big changes in your relationships over the next few months, but they will all reflect changes in what you need now, and what gives you energy or saps your reserves. It may feel that you’re out of step with your deepest desires right now; recognize if there are parts of yourself you’ve been shutting down and denying. Spend some time on the 2nd cultivating all the fiery, passionate, erotic, or otherwise energizing powers of your heart. Let your heart be your compass for all the decisions you face right now. Your rational mind can watch and learn. Boundaries to draw this month: Don’t give in to despair. Don’t let anyone talk you out of your big dreams. Desires to embrace: Being a part of queer community, in all its flawed glory. The ways we come together to build a better world.

Pisces

Sex for you doesn’t always have to be physical — sometimes you feel you could climax just by looking in your lover’s eyes, or hearing her growling voice. Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be a clear boundary between sex and other intimate activities. Sometimes your body can feel like an afterthought, or even a barrier to getting it on (especially for those working through any body shame or dysphoria). This month, though, your ticket to pleasure and intimacy is going into all those places in your body where it’s hard to live. Reclaim your secret places, your soft and hard and intricately shaped places, the sensations and the strengths in what they can do and feel. Remember they are all you, are all brilliantly beautiful because they are you. The beauty it’s so easy to recognize in other people (and the babes will be plentiful in your life this month, so steady on) is something you always already have. Boundaries to draw this month: Don’t let anyone talk you into taking on responsibilities that will only drain you. Desires to embrace: Where you’re already committed, be the boss bitch in a lesbian power suit with the biggest shoulder pads the world has ever seen.

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