Mercury and Mars end their retrogrades in the first half of November. We also have 2020’s third and final Jupiter-Pluto conjunction: the final major event of this year’s world-changing Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto Triple Conjunction. We also have a Scorpio New Moon – and all of this happening close to the US presidential election!

This forecast covers this half-month’s most important astrological events. For bonus events, check out my award-winning This Week in Astrology audio podcast and YouTube video forecasts — updated weekly!

Click astrology graphics to see larger images. Some resource links may occur more than once. This is because many people link to a specific day’s forecast from social media, and might not see an important resource link elsewhere on this page.

11/3 (Tue)

Mercury Direct

Mercury turns direct today at 12:50 PM EST (25°53′ Libra). It turned retrograde on 10/13 at 11°40′ Scorpio.

If you’ve been holding off on signing an important contract or making a major purchase, Mercury retrograde is no longer a restricting factor. However, major beginnings such as these are optimally done under a waxing Moon. The Moon is currently waning, and the next New Moon will arrive on 11/15.

However, you can certainly begin acting on other insights you gained during your Mercury retrograde reflections. Here are reminders of the themes that Mercury stimulated during its retrograde.

Scorpio

Mercury was retrograde in Scorpio 10/13 through 10/27. How are you doing with any significant transformation or death-and-rebirth processes? How about wealth and power?

Do you have good shadow work tools for healing old emotional wounds? How’s your sex life? And are you able to blend your light body with your partner’s to revel in the ecstasy of sacred sex?

Libra

Mercury was retrograde in Libra 10/28 until 11/3. How are your relationships? How about your creative expression? Do you have enough harmony, balance and beauty in your life?

Aspects

Mercury conjoined Juno and sextiled the Moon and Venus in Virgo as it turned retrograde. This invited you to contemplate your committed partnerships, important relationships, creativity and finance. The Moon-Venus conjunction in Virgo, which sextiled Mercury, suggests a methodical approach to enjoying relationships with an open heart.

11/4 thru 11/11

There are no major astrology events 11/4 thru 11/11. Take a breather while you can, because we then have …

11/12 (Thu)

Jupiter Conjunct Pluto

Titanic extremes – good or bad – can be fueled by a year-long Jupiter-Pluto conjunction (22°51′ Capricorn). I’ll eventually include Saturn, who’s energetically conjunct these two planets, in this interpretation. I’ll also discuss Pallas Athena, who makes exact conjunctions with Jupiter and Pluto today! But let’s start with Jupiter and Pluto.

This Jupiter-Pluto conjunction came into orb (close enough to connect energetically) on 1/29/20, and will remain in orb through 1/7/21. Their first conjunction was on 4/4, the second was on 6/30, and their final conjunction of this cycle is today (11/12). (Jupiter and Pluto conjoin about every 13 years.)

Pluto, as we’re currently seeing with the pandemic, can bring death, transformation, and (eventually) rebirth. Jupiter, our solar system’s biggest gas giant, is all about e-x-p-a-n-s-i-o-n. So he can take whatever Pluto’s doing and makes it truly gargantuan!

Help From Renn

Renn Butler masterfully lays out these Jupiter-Pluto possibilities in his wonderful book, The Archetypal Universe: Astrological Patterns in Human Culture, Thought, Emotion and Dreams. As always, I feel blessed to draw from his masterwork on planetary combinations, with his permission, to share these archetypal possibilities.

First I’ll share the most compelling ideas from Renn’s Jupiter-Pluto section. Then I’ll add in the most important themes from the multi-year Saturn-Pluto conjunction, as well as other planets who make strong aspects to the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction.

The bottom line is that we’re really looking at 2020’s most important astrological event: a Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto Triple Conjunction!

Let’s start with some positive potentials of the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction:

• great resources and potential
• titanic evolutionary forces
• the capacity for enormous success
• empowerment through education
• intensive urges to improve
• the recognition that power either benefits all or none
• an ethic of “right makes might” (as opposed to “might makes right”)
• dramatic opportunities for regeneration and transformation
• beneficial destruction
• heavy experiences with a positive outcome
• the long trip into and through the underworld of the psyche
• triumph through facing death
• intense idealism
• the faith to move mountains
• empowered activism or philanthropy
• the urge to share one’s transformative experiences with the larger culture
• the power of truth

Obviously, this Jupiter-Pluto conjunction has plenty of upside potential! But we’re also wise to stay alert to its darker possibilities:

• extreme material or spiritual ambition
• a tendency to feel high and mighty, which threatens those in authority
• an obsession with glory and greatness
• political drama
• delusions of superiority
• opportunities to abuse power
• runaway power trips
• inclinations to act as a law unto yourself
• the power elite
• plutocracy
• obsessive righteousness, fanaticism and overkill
• misplaced moral urgency
• religious or other dogma
• ideals of betterment and progress as a reason to dominate other people and nature
• stupendous waste of shared resources

So the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction can be used selflessly and/or selfishly. Earth is a free will zone, so we each get to choose how we behave on this spectrum.

The Saturn-Pluto Conjunction

A year of Jupiter-Pluto might seem like a long time. But the Saturn-Pluto conjunction lasts nearly four years! It came into orb on 1/31/18, and won’t wrap up until 12/18/21.

If you can spare a few minutes, I strongly encourage you to read my deep-dive interpretation of the January 12 Saturn-Pluto conjunction. You can also listen to a 28-minute MP3 of me interpreting it, excerpted from my 2020 Astrology Forecast Lecture. This free MP3 contains lots of additional information about this momentous event!

Drawing from that forecast, here are the potentials of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction that feel most important during the pandemic. (I once again acknowledge drawing from Renn Butler’s The Archetypal Universe, as well as Richard Tarnas’ masterwork Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View.)

• profound discipline, strength and endurance
• heroic self-control
• the capacity to bear down with great force and pressure on difficult situations until they’re resolved
• a deep sense of responsibility
• challenges which lead to an urgent reformulation of priorities
• a need to cut your losses and deepen your commitment to the important things in life
• profound feelings of powerlessness … but with the resolve to continue!
• feelings of anxiety and fear
• negative or threatening forces
• a perception of irrevocable pressure and change
• profoundly weighty events of enduring consequence
• the irrevocable termination of an established order of existence
• displays of personal and collective determination
• unbending will, courage and sacrifice in the face of danger and death
• the transformation and forging of enduring structures, whether material, political or psychological

Aspects to the Jupiter-Pluto Conjunction

Saturn

Three planets make important aspects to the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction. We’ve already discussed Saturn in terms of his conjunction to Pluto. But Saturn is also conjunct Jupiter, and influences the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction because of his proximity.

The fact that Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto criss-cross each other throughout 2020 emphasizes how tightly integrated they are this year. Saturn’s influence is well-represented in the discussion of the Saturn-Pluto Conjunction above, and needs no more elaboration here.

Pallas Athena

That leaves two more planets that add major influence to the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction. Pallas Athena is only one minute past Jupiter and Pluto – just 1/60th of a degree! As noted above, Pallas also conjoins Jupiter and Pluto on the same day they conjoin each other.

Pallas is a renowned warrior goddess who sprang fully armored from the head of Zeus. If you want to use warlike terms, she could represent our battle against the coronavirus, or against systemic racism and social injustice.

However, Pallas is also known for being a master of strategy. With no vaccine to prevent it and no medicine that can cure it, we’re ill-equipped to wage a traditional battle against the virus. So Pallas reminds us that we have to be clever to get it under control. (Obviously, we have some catching up to do!)

Strategy is also essential in the Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained historic momentum. Often, momentous social change seems to take forever to happen. But once we finally reach a tipping point, reality can shift with amazing speed.

It seems to me we’re at such a tipping point now. If the leaders of this movement skillfully use Pallas Athena’s tools – strategy, negotiation, diplomacy and politics – there will be less need for battles in the streets.

Eris

The final important aspect to the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction is Eris, who makes a tight square from Aries. She’s best known as the goddess of discord. Snubbed from attending an important wedding attended by many Greek gods, she crashed the party and tossed out an apple marked “To the fairest.” The resulting brouhaha escalated into the Trojan War!

On one level, Eris warns us against sowing unnecessary discord that could make our challenging situation even worse. But even this seeming villain has her upside. Sometimes, when it’s time for a big change, we need someone to upset the apple cart and shock us out of our status quo.

In the case of Black Lives Matter, the “apples” have been the unjustified police killings of so many blacks, caught on video for the whole world to see. Discord can be a powerful motivator for change!

T-square & Sun Sextile

This third Jupiter-Pluto conjunction also contains aspects the first two didn’t. Most notably, the five planets already discussed – Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn, Pallas and Eris – form a T-square with the Moon and Venus. These two feminine planets are tightly conjunct in Libra.

Most obviously, this is a tremendous stimulator of relationships. Any weak spots in an existing relationship could be powerfully catalyzed. (Be ready to whip out your Nonviolent Communication techniques and my Healing Invocation!) Heal the relationship if you can, release it if you must. At the same time, whatever’s positive in a relationship can be powerfully amplified!

This Jupiter-Pluto conjunction also features the Scorpio Sun sextiling Jupiter, Pluto, Pallas and Saturn. This harmoniously energizes your personal transformation and evolution. It can also help boost your wealth and power.

A Necessary Corrective

So now we know what all these planets are bringing to the party. Here’s what I make of all this:

The pandemic could act as a necessary corrective for humanity. It has accomplished something extraordinary – you could even call it miraculous — that has never before happened during my lifetime.

COVID-19 has presented humanity with a global mortal threat. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, industrial world or developing world. The virus couldn’t care less about your religion, your sexual orientation, or the color of your skin … although it has spotlighted the systemic racism that has existed all around the world for centuries.

Because of this, people of color are less likely to get quality healthcare. They’re more likely to live in crowded conditions, where social distancing is difficult or impossible. They have greater health challenges, which makes them more likely to die from COVID-19.

With a virus like this, what happens to any of us can happen to all of us. To ensure our own well-being, we have to make sure that everyone else also gets their needs met.

(This bounceback effect also extends to all other living beings, including the planetary ecosystem. The pandemic currently dominates the headlines, but the environmental crisis is a far more serious threat. The pandemic will pass, but the climate crisis is an existential threat that could wipe out most life on earth … including us humans!)

It would be great if all the harm caused by millennia of patriarchal dominator culture could be cleared with the snap of a finger. Instead, it appears that the whole stinking mess has to be flushed up, made conscious, and collectively cleared.

Shadow Work Opportunities

As we deal with the toxic service-to-self aspects of our civilization – in the world around us and in ourselves – we”ll experience challenging feelings and thoughts. Some of us already have effective tools and techniques to do this essential inner “shadow work.” Others will learn how to do shadow work using simple, DIY tools like my free Healing Invocation.

Spiritual Awakening and Service

Some will discover that each layer of shadow work, effectively done, automatically opens them to a new level of spiritual awakening! Encouraged and excited by this newfound bliss and ecstasy, they’ll feel called to establish a deeper spiritual connection. They’ll unearth, perhaps for the first time in their current incarnation, an ever-present peacefulness inside themselves – burning warm and steady, like an unquenchable fire.

They’ll learn how to seamlessly merge their human self with the higher self that created them. They’ll discover that this makes harmony, flow, ease and grace their “new normal”. (Thousands do this every day, quickly and easily,  using my free Embodied Awakening Invocation.)

Once they awaken enough, they may have a realization that’s first shocking, then comforting. At the soul level, they chose to be on earth at this time – even knowing in advance what a mess it was going to be! They came not to simply survive … but to serve.

They knew in advance that it would be a high-risk operation. Many lightworkers come to earth, fall under the spell of spiritual amnesia, and never remember their missions. They get plenty of hints and nudges, as well as more dramatic wake-up calls like the current pandemic.

But earth is a free will zone. Each human gets to choose whether to awaken … or continue their spiritual slumber.

A Tremendous Opportunity

The coronavirus has given us a tremendous opportunity, individually and collectively. At the very least, we can tune into the calm spiritual core that will help us navigate these troubled times more smoothly. Many of us will awaken to the service we came here to perform. And, by deepening our divine connection, we’ll receive the ongoing intuitive guidance we need to fulfill our mission.

The particulars of each person’s mission are unique. But they’re all being coordinated by an overarching divine intelligence toward one glorious outcome: a new Golden Age on earth. And the coronavirus, followed by the Black Lives Matter resurgence, are exactly the catalysts we needed to get it rolling!

How We Can Support the Shift

I’m convinced that the global shift to higher consciousness is happening now. If enough of us act as if that’s true – by treating each other with more love, compassion and generosity – the world will become a much more wonderful place!

That’s our choice with the titanic energies of the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction, the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, and their collective Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto Triple Conjunction. The awesome potency of all this astrological power could result in a totalitarian hell or a utopian heaven. It’s our choice.

Every thought you think, every word you speak, and every action you take is a choice for one or the other. It’s a U.S. election year, but you won’t make your most important votes on a ballot. With mankind’s fate in the balance, what future are you voting for with your thoughts, words and actions?

11/13 (Fri)

Mars Direct

Mars turns direct today at 7:36 PM EST (15°14′ Aries). He’s been retrograde since 9/9 (28°8′ Aries). All the personal planets are now direct.

Have the last two months been especially intense for you? Of all the personal planet retrogrades, Mars’ can be the most significant. Mercury and Venus can have notable effects, but neither of them can pack a punch like Mars! This is especially true since Mars retrograded entirely within Aries, a sign that he rules … and which shares his planetary meanings.

Mars retrograde also stands out because it’s more rare. Mercury goes retrograde three times a year, and Venus reverses direction every 18 months. But Mars only stations retrograde every two years.

As I wrote on 9/9, Mars retrograde was a great time to reflect on all the ways that the Red Planet expresses in your life. How skillfully are you embodying the roles of the warrior, pioneer or entrepreneur? How’s your sex life? How good are you at getting things started and taking fast, effective action?

This can also be an important time to reflect on the dark side of Mars. Are you having any challenges with anger, aggression or violence? How about impulsiveness, or sexuality that’s harmful or nonconsensual?

Mars retrograde wasn’t the best time to start important new things. The timing is better for new beginnings now that Mars is direct. Better yet, wait until after the New Moon on 11/15!

Aspects

Here’s a summary of other things you might want to begin taking action on, based on the aspects Mars made as it turned retrograde. (For more details, click here.)

Even the best committed partnerships might have experienced challenge. But the greater the challenge, the greater the possible breakthrough. Committed partners who work skillfully with these intense energies can emerge with their relationships functioning at a whole new level of awesomeness!

At the same time, other aspects Mars made as it turned retrograde gave flowing support to committed partnerships that align with your soul purpose, as well as harmonious communication. Additional themes that were stimulated include creativity, home, family, security, and shadow work, as well as learning and communication.

11/15 (Sun)

Scorpio New Moon

A New Moon lines up at 12:07 AM EST (23°17′ Scorpio). I gave a detailed description of Scorpio’s themes in my 10/22 interpretation of the Sun entering Scorpio. I repeat it here for your convenience, followed by new information specific to this lunation. New beginnings in any or all of these areas are supported by this New Moon.

Transformation is a central Scorpio theme. Death and rebirth processes, especially those that are emotional or shamanic, are highlighted. It’s a good time to have effective shadow work processes ready, such as my free Healing Invocation.

Wealth is also a Scorpio theme. This could be lots of money, or anything that you value. Anything that makes your life better, tangible or intangible, could count as wealth.

Another Scorpio theme is power. This comes in two basic flavors. “Power over” is all about domination, control and manipulation. “Shared power” is exercised by those who have found their power internally, and want to help others find theirs as well. An easy and effective way to source your internal power is with my free Embodied Awakening Invocation.

Sex, another Scorpio theme, also has two basic levels. The first is simple lust, the raw physical desire for sexual pleasure and orgasm. The second is sacred or Tantric sex. This operates at a much higher level of ecstasy, made possible by the conscious blending of your light bodies.

Scorpio also rules the occult. Occult simply means “hidden”, and in metaphysical terms refers to what’s beyond the five senses. It need not be dark or creepy. Occult practices include astrology, tarot, energy healing, mediumship, and psychic abilities.

As you can see, Scorpio has a lot of themes. Choose the ones that most excite you and dive in!

Aspects

In this Scorpio New Moon, The Sun and Moon conjoin Juno. This invites you to deepen your intimacy, on all appropriate levels, in committed partnership. As noted above, doing skillful shadow work with your partner when challenge comes up can profoundly deepen your connection. And, in a sexual relationship, be sure to explore the opportunities for more ecstatic and passionate erotic connection.

The luminaries also trine Neptune. This creates a more smooth and easy flow for spiritual awakening practices and inspired creativity. It also opens the door for operating in “flow state” more consistently in all that you do.

Finally, the luminaries make tight sextiles to Jupiter, Pluto and Pallas Athena, and a looser sextile to Saturn. Pluto carries the same themes as Scorpio, and Pluto’s effects are amplified by Jupiter. So the primary effect of these sextiles is to make all the Scorpio themes I’ve already described even more powerful! Since sextiles are harmonious, this makes it easier to reap the positive potentials of this life-transforming archetype.

Saturn, as well as the placement of these four planets in Capricorn, helps you be more organized, manage your time better, and get more done. Pallas Athena reminds you to work smart and create win-win alliances that benefit everyone.

Sabian Symbol

The Sabian Symbol for this New Moon is, “Crowds coming down the mountain to listen to one inspired man.”

Scorpio energy is about telling the honest truth, even when it’s taboo or controversial. Are you inspired to share information that could help others? Do you have the courage to share it, so that those who are ready can benefit from your wisdom?

Whatever your Sun Sign, my forecasts can help you make the best use of the current astrological energies.

All dates and times are in the U.S. eastern time zone. Events are most powerful on the dates listed, but their influence will be active for at least a week before and after.

Everyone is affected by these global transits. However, you’ll be most powerfully impacted when moving planets activate sensitive points in your natal chart. Discover how these transits will personally affect you by booking a session with me.

Learn more about my Astrology+ sessions.