Many Happy Turkeys to those who celebrate and actually like it.

Personally, I love Thanksgiving. I enjoy getting together with my family and indulging in food excess. Cigars and libations are on offer, as well as turkey-coma naps in front of The Football Game. But I know not everyone has the same relationship with their family, or food, and then there’s the dodgy history of it all, so…I get it. But on the face of it, the holiday does all appear terribly Jupiterian, what with the bounty of delicious blessings and the general tenor of gratitude. This is always fitting for Sagittarius Season (as Jupiter is its ruling planet,) but especially appropriate this year. Why? Because we get a big Jupiterian gift this holiday season, though it is an ephemeral one.

Jupiter re-entered Pisces on 10/28 (almost a month ago, that was quick!) Pisces is one of Jupiter’s strongest positions, where The Great Benefic can do the most good, the Pisces brand of which can encompass, but is not limited to generosity of spirit, fellowship, powerful emotional upswells and breakthroughs, internal growth, and exploration that can be artistic, poetic, intimate, hallucinogenic, or hypnagogic in nature. General revelry can also fall under its purview, though lately that has held a lot of potential for things to go sideways – claps on the backs of our friends turning into fist fights. This is partially because Jupiter has been in a tough relationship with Mars Retrograde in Gemini (more on him later,) but also because Jupiter himself has been retrograde. While Jupiter is the bestower of gifts, the retrograde put a big hole in Santa Claus’ sack, meaning those deserving or in need have been getting stockings full of jack shit lately.

But! For a fleeting three weeks, Jupiter will be both direct and in his domicile. He goes direct in Pisces right on Thanksgiving, in fact! And Mars is now more or less out of range and should not create further fuss and ruckus, at least where Jupiter is concerned. On 12/1, the moon will conjoin Jupiter, and hopefully the blessings will be felt palpably. But like a beautiful, errant snowflake, this mighty Jupiter’s strength wanes quickly. He’s already anaretic on 12/5, meaning that he’s moved into the final degree of Pisces, a condition traditionally thought to make a planet sluggish. Then he moves back into Aries on 12/20, where he has already been for much of the year, though now he will be ruled by a retrograde Mars, leading us to the more self-destructive and frustrating consequences of the bounty.

We turn our attention away from Jupiter now and look to Mercury & Venus, marching together in lock-step through Sagittarius, creating merry moods and lively discussions, inspiring mouths to talk too much, among other things. This will culminate on Wednesday’s New Moon in Sagittarius, which happens almost on top of the Mercury-Venus conjunction, and certainly highlights the influence they’ll have over this cycle. The lunation is ruled by the newly-direct Jupiter and is unencumbered by hard aspects to tough planets. In fact, the only major ray cast will be to Chiron in Aries, which may provide entree into some avenues of healing and self-actualization.

The pleasant walk is about to turn into a rocky hike, however. The two planets will oppose Mars Retrograde starting around 11/27 – the negative connection will be exact for Mercury on 11/29 and Venus for on 11/30. Saturn will also be tightly configured to this array. This may trigger feelings of powerlessness and frustration, especially for those trying to accomplish goals and live up the edict of responsibility. Saturn’s presence makes the importance of accomplishment feel heavy, but the opposition between Mercury and Venus means that getting your actions aligned with both head and heart may feel impossible, that what you want may feel so far away from your grasp. It is important in these moments to examine opportunities to revise your methods.

Right after the duo faces down an angry and confused Mars, they move right into a square with Neptune, and then Jupiter. There is more potential for confusion and obfuscation with Neptune involved, more potential for delusion and paranoia to color thinking and feeling. Jupiter, however, will be freshly direct, and though it may feel grating, will be likely to rally Mercury and Venus to take heart, hope big, and grow full. Mercury’s partile square to Neptune will take place on 12/1 and then to Jupiter on 12/5; Venus’ partile square to Neptune will be on 12/3 and then to Jupiter on 12/8.

Now, things will get really interesting here; Neptune has also been retrograde for a long time (since the end of June,) and at the same time that Venus makes her exact square to it, Neptune will copy their neighbor’s homework and also go direct. Neptune is pathologically slippery to talk about, and it’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve experience multiple electronic disturbances when me or other astrologers whose Zoom lectures I’ve attended have tried to discuss Neptune. Calls dropped, garbled audio, video distortion – that sort of thing, right on cue and never again in the session. Even in person, I find myself getting hung up on the right words, stuck in the mud, taking a long time to elucidate. Because Neptune is the great sea of dreams and nightmares, the collective unconscious, the place where fantasies are born. Some have called it a pure exression on yin (to Uranus’ yang,) others have called it a higher octave of Venus – interesting, because that’s who will be triggering it on its direct station. We can expect our aesthetic, social and sensual expressions to be problematized by confusion, coming out as a distorted versions of how they may have seemed on the inside. Not every substance should be exposed to air, as they may spoil. Neptune is also thought to preside over altered states, and it may be that things don’t manifest as expected because the expecter is somewhere else entirely. Then again, this needn’t be a bad thing; Neptune direct is likely to stir inspiration and romance and feelings of interconnection, you might just stub your toe on the way to all of that.

So it may feel like quite a miniature season, the end of which comes when Mercury and Venus leave Sagittarius’ cacophonous halls and enter the biz-cas cubicles of Capricorn. Mercury makes ingress to Capricorn on 12/6, Venus enters on 12/10. While both planets do reasonably well under the taskmaster rulership of Saturn, there’s no denying that the special little party between the two is wrapping up. They will then be 5 degrees apart by then, and they are no longer walking hand-in-hand, the two Chatty Cathy’s in the class made to sit further and further across the room from each other. Though it should be noted that they will still pass notes, as they will be around 5 to 6 degrees away from each other for the remainder of the solar month. Side note: Mercury is also starting to pass over ground he will retrograde over in the next solar month. He’ll moonwalk us into the new year, going retrograde on 12/29.

The Full Moon in Gemini is right around that time, and it will be happening right on top of retrograde Mars. This day is potentially dangerous. The full moon brings a lot of raw power to whatever it touches, and Mars is in werewolf mode already, primed to hurt itself and to unwittingly harm others. This is not to fear monger, but to encourage readership once again to adopt healthy outlets for the raw martial current. A couple of blessings to count here: Mars is ruled by Mercury, who is now in cool-headed Capricorn. Moreover, while Saturn can be a notorious party-pooper, he is great at restoring order. He’s strong in Aquarius, rules Mercury, and is casting a positive ray to Moon-Mars, hopefully giving them a proper channel, a container. There is treasure to be mined here: Mars retrograde should be about learning new ways to Mars more effectively. The Moon and Saturn may show the way here, and if it works under these conditions, it’ll work under most.

In the third and final decan of the solar month, the Sun will also square Neptune and Jupiter, as Mercury and Venus did before. The Sun’s partile square to Neptune will take place on 12/14, and though it is unlikely to carry the power that came with Neptune’s direct station, we can consider it an aftershock and a reminder of its power to distort our vision and draw forth inspiration. We will not, however, get a partile square to Jupiter while the Sun is in Sagittarius, or while Jupiter is in Pisces. They will square each other exactly on the day of the Winter Solstice, 12/21, when the Sun enters Capricorn and faces off against Jupiter in Aries.

More on that as it draws nearer. For now, here’s some dates –

11/23 – New Moon in Sag on top of Mercury-Venus. Jupiter direct in Pisces.

11/24 – Moon opposes Mars Rx in Gemini. Potentially volatile, emotional.

11/28 – Similarly volatile. The moon makes contact with both malefics, and squares Uranus-NN. Could be some surprises in store.

11/29 – Mercury exactly opposed Mars Rx. See description above.

11/30 – Venus follows suit, exactly opposed to Mars.

12/1 – Moon contacts Jupiter, optimism turned up to 11. Mercury square Neptune.

12/3 – Neptune goes direct in Pisces. Venus square Neptune.

12/6 – Mercury square Jupiter. Moon contacts Uranus-NN, shake-ups and surprises possible.

12/7 – Mercury enters Capricorn.

12/8 – Full Moon in Gemini on Mars Rx. Danger! Venus square Jupiter.

12/9 – Venus enters Capricorn.

12/12 – Moon contacts Uranus-NN by square.

12/13 – Sun square Neptune.

12/14 – Mercury trine North Node, possibly a trigger for actualization of cognitive work. Mercury also squares Chiron here though, which may bring up insecurities or wounds that slow progress. Probably for good reason!

12/19 – Moon conjunct South Node, opposed Uranus-NN. Venus makes contact with NN and Chiron, as Mercury did previously.

12/20 – Jupiter makes ingress into Aries.

12/21 – The Sun makes ingress into Capricorn, squaring Jupiter. The Winter Solstice.