Dear Friend and Reader:
Venus is now retrograde in Scorpio, and Mercury is about to be retrograde in Scorpio beginning Oct. 24. This is an unusual condition that describes both planets passing between the Earth and Sun at the same time. It’s even more unusual that they will both turn direct within hours of one another on Nov. 13.
Scorpio contains the secrets of life and death. Everything that Scorpio represents is seized by religion or government and turned into a sellable product, or some device to control humanity. This means you. How you feel about the mysteries of existence, including sex, is not some organic birthright; it’s something that was done to you.
If you could tap into the innate wisdom of your genetic code, you would probably feel very different than you do now.
Retrograde inner planets are a reference to the past; they represent an inner inquiry of some kind; and they describe a time of soul retrieval — particularly in a sign like Scorpio. Well, there really is no sign like Scorpio, with its mysterious processes of what some call transformation and I call transubstantiation.
I don’t just mean this in the Catholic sense of the Eucharist (water becomes wine or wine becomes the blood of Jesus), though that would apply. I mean it generally as the changing of not just the form but the inherent substance. But speaking of the Catholics, retrograde planets are about awakening what has been shut down; what was considered threatening to our adult caregivers.
The Discussions Rarely Had
In our society there are two kinds of discussions rarely had: sex and death. What is denied and suppressed turns into chaos. Discussions of sex therefore emerge as chaos such as the Jane Doe situation unfolding at Cornell University. If we cannot talk about sex, let’s talk about ketamine-infused alleged gang rape.
And if we cannot talk about death, let’s gawk at Christa Pike, the Tennessee woman who did not succumb to two doses of lethal injection. She is now on life support. If people could have an honest discussion about death, there would be no death penalty. We would not fall for that kind of brutalizing propaganda. Death would be a fact of existence treated with respect, not something turned into a weapon of control and manipulation. We pay a high price for what we cannot be honest about.
One thing I’ve noticed during my astrological career that spans back to the 20th century, now touching four decades: people are less willing to have an honest conversation about sex. More and more, matters of sexuality are pushed into the shadows or the clogged septic system known as politics.
Women are no longer “allowed” to want sex. They are only “allowed” to be disgusted by men; to be desirable but repel desire; and to claim or not claim to have been raped. Attack in some form is the only “socially acceptable” context for women’s sexuality. Even the female sex teachers I’ve encountered over the past year sprinkle their advocacy for women’s pleasure with disgust for men.
But this is an old story. Even Betty Dodson, author of Sex for One, did some of this, though I was sent the quotes a few years after she died and could not confront her about this viewpoint (which she never expressed to me).
The Discomfort Zone of Disembodied Denial
There is no longer sexual truth for most people; there is only sexual power. There is no longer the instinct to fulfillment and exchange of feelings but rather the extreme agonizing tension of unresolved desire. And this is a commodity. As far as I can tell, young people are barely experiencing sexual exchange; they are taunting one another with the possibility. There is no giving and no receiving. Then nobody is surprised when sexuality expresses itself as violence.
Not only is nobody surprised, denial is treated like a comfort zone. It really is no such thing. What we get is not just chaos but expanded opportunities for abuse, victimization, and trauma bonding.
I believe it is that state of being that terrifies people: the possibility that you might not have to hold it in all the time; that you don’t want to; and who you might be if you could actually breathe and feel.
Remember that we are living in digital existence now. Sex is embodied when it is real; we now live in the disembodied state of low-level, nonstop electrocution. Can we go over that Eric McLuhan quote again? Let’s take it in parts.
“The body is everywhere assaulted by all of our new media,” he wrote.
This assault “has resulted in deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture throughout the world.” Look around. That’s exactly what we’re living with. Only in this condition could Donald Trump threaten to nuke San Diego or Los Angeles and not get arrested.
“In the age of disembodied communication, the meaning and significance and experience of the body is utterly transformed and distorted.” That is us, now.
Venus and Mercury are Going In
For the rest of 2026 we will be experiencing some phase or another of Venus and Mercury retrograde. This is an inquiry. Venus is going so deep that it’s going to come out the other end of Scorpio and end up in its own domicile, Libra, where it will turn to direct motion on Nov. 13.
I often think about one thing Alice Bailey wrote in Esoteric Astrology. She said that modern astrologers are obsessed with Scorpio as the sign of sex, but they have it wrong. If you want to know about sex, she said, look to Libra. For the purposes of this discussion, think of this as where Venus can be herself, rather than in the steroid-soaked, Mars-infused Scorpio.
Venus does not want to “go after” anyone or anything. Venus is all about “come hither.” However, what most women will notice, if they’re being honest, is that when “come hither” is connected and the men in fact come hither, the allegedly only suitable response is disgust or dismay.
This is the result of too much hormone birth control, suppressed ovulation, and hormone pollution generally (endocrine disruption from things like EMFs, dioxins and plastics). It is also the result of SSRIs (and related drugs), which are now known to have effects like shutdown of orgasm and desire and cutting off genital sensation long after the drugs are no longer taken; some say this is permanent.
Men Are Being De-sexed
Men, meanwhile, are also being de-sexed by a diversity of environmental influences. This includes exposure to synthetic female sex hormones (dioxins, plastics, drugs in the water), leading to a radical decline in sperm counts over the past three or four generations.
This comes with reduced capacity to be attracted to women, reduced desire to impregnate or even relate to women. Then men are called either violent ogres, or feminized simps and sissies. They are chided either way: for not being bold enough to approach women, or being too assertive and “creepy.”
This is not just affecting young people, though the impact on them is especially tragic. Everyone is affected. Older people may feign lack of interest in others, but the sense of isolation is obvious. Just look at people’s faces.
And it seems like a lot of people want things to be this way. In Gestalt therapy, the question is: who benefits? The benefit is not always net positive. It can be about (for example) avoidance of intimacy.
If we allow this to go on, it will not end well — and by all indications, it is not doing so now. In every respect, including on complex genetic levels, sex and death are intertwined topics. That can work for us, or against us.
Is anyone interested in a real conversation?
With love,
Your faithful astrologer,
