The Astrology of August 2023

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology. Happy Monday, everybody. Today we are going to take a look at all of the major transits of August, from the start of August all the way to the end. What I do if you are new to my channel is, I always do an overview for the month ahead. And we usually do some horoscopes as well, focusing on a few of the biggest transits of the month for all 12 signs.

Often my friend Alex will join me. Alex will be joining me for horoscopes, I believe, but not for the overview this month; summers are a little bit tougher to coordinate with my kids being out of school and so forth, and I've also been on vacation. I'm just starting to get my head back on straight, which is like, it's funny how you need a vacation from vacation. It's like there's like an integration period. You're like, I'm done, I'm ready to go back, and they're like, Yeah, but I need like a few days to, like, rev my engine back up.

Anyway, we're getting back into it this week, and I'm really excited to look at all of the major transits of August. So that is our agenda for today. Before we get into it, don't forget to like and subscribe, share your comments in the comment section today, and tell us your thoughts about the month ahead, especially if there are any big transits that you're looking forward to or it's hitting your natal chart in an interesting way.

If you want, you can find a transcript of today's talk on the website, which is nightlightastrology.com. By the way, if you have a story, use the hashtag #grabbed when you tell us your story; use the hashtag #grabbed and then the name of the transit and then the story, or, if you'd like, you could email us your story at grabbed@nightlightastrology.com. Don't use that hashtag unless you're okay with sharing whatever story you provide us with because we often aggregate those stories into episodes where I share with the audience all of those stories that we've received. So just remember that, but we do appreciate hearing from you guys.

Don't forget to hop over to the website, which is nightlightastrology.com; you can check out all of my readings and courses; we do have fall courses coming up again, and just a little announcement that in the month of August, we don't know exactly which week yet. We're still figuring that out, but during the month of August, we will be running a one-week flash sale on our online programs. So stay tuned for more information on that. But we give some discounts if you want to sign up early for full programs or if we want to get ahead on some of the January programs that start in 2024. So any questions by way of anything you find on the website, email us at info@nightlightastrology.com.

All right, well, let us take a look at the transits of the month. I don't go into each transit in full detail. What I do is I give you a preview of all the transits that we are going to be looking at on my channel in the month ahead so you can get a feel for where things are going and what we're going to be covering in-depth as the month unfolds.

We start at the beginning of August and roll through it, and I just have a few thoughts that I provide for each of these transits as we go. Well, on August 1, we start off with a full moon in the sign of Aquarius. So the month begins right away, the calendrical month at any rate, with a big full moon, you can see that right here, and you can always tell it's a full moon, by the way, in case you didn't know this because the moon will always be exactly opposite the Sun.

So the opposition of the moon to the Sun happens at the full moon. This full moon in the sign of Aquarius is pulling on that Leo Aquarius axis where concerns about the group, concerns about humanity at large, and concerns that are collective in some ways. The sign of Aquarius is about ideals. Ideal images and thoughts of what humanity can be at our highest potential. It's a kind of almost like a scientific sign, and it has this kind of platonic idealism baked into it.

It's also a sign of tremendous innovation progress. It values revolution for the sake of progress; it can be very dogmatic and ironically rigid and fixed in its sense of what is ideal. Those themes are being pitted against the Venus retrograde in Leo and the Sun in Leo, which of course, tends to emphasize the themes of individuality, individual sovereignty, individual creativity, and the need for personal and creative freedom of expression.

So in a sense, you get that classic individual versus collective standoff at a full moon in Aquarius, but also the opportunity to integrate something of the two ends of the polarity. So we're working with that at the very beginning of the month, and you should pay attention to where that falls in your birth chart and which houses do those planets fall across.

Now on the same day, the exact same day, we also have a Mercury opposition to Saturn. So we'll see Mercury has entered its exultation in Virgo by this point and is immediately as soon as it enters the sign of Virgo moves into opposition with Saturn. Now Mercury-Saturn opposition's can be great when it comes to critical structured discipline thinking when it comes to needing to work intelligently within limits.

For example, to learn something like grammar and syntax and diction and to be a wordsmith and to be a good editor or to have a sense of how to work intelligently within the rules of a game or a structure very nice for Mercury-Saturn combinations.

Mercury-Saturn combinations can also express a kind of lack of creativity or originality, a tendency to be overly disciplined or rigid in thoughts and speech and, and to be stuck mentally or energetically to be met with your Mercury enjoys freedom and curiosity and speculation and playfulness intellectually, and Saturn is maybe going to put the kibosh on that by presenting Mercury with some kind of obstacle or something, some kind of frustrating impediment that Mercury has to deal with.

So Mercury opposite Saturn can be a little frustrating on that level. But it's also about the creativity that can come about when necessity is present, which is something we talked about when Mars was opposite Saturn, and I thought that was really interesting.

Just to give you guys an example because I think this one is worth sharing. So we're talking about, I talked about when Mars was off to the side, and I talked about necessity being the mother of invention. When we were in Colorado at the herbal conference that Ashley, my wife, was teaching at every day that we went up the mountain, I got altitude sickness; I'd start getting really bad headaches, I get really dizzy and nauseous, and I started getting really, really fatigued just like walking around.

Every single day after like four or five hours up at close to 10,000 feet in Colorado, the symptoms will get worse and worse, and we'd have to drive down the mountain. Initially, we're supposed to stay up on the mountain because it's like a camping situation. Anyway, we'd have to drive down the mountain, and we had to get really creative with our lodging, which wasn't planned; we plan to camp, you know, and so it was not what we were expecting.

We were met with this like impediment or obstacle, and it was about me having to realize limits which is very Mars opposite Saturn; in this case, Mercury opposite Saturn can bring up some of the same things, and then, you know, it was about creativity and trying to still create a fun time for us even though we couldn't stay the whole day there and we had to go back down the mountain every day to because of my altitude sickness.

Anyway, you know, and yet, please don't leave a million comments about how to deal with altitude sickness; I have heard more than I could possibly use in a lifetime about altitude sickness and how to deal with it. So anyway. You know, it was just that was the reality of the situation. We became very inventive and creative with our time and experience as a result of this frustrating impediment that was presented to us.

That's very anything opposite of Saturn experience. But this month, at the start of the month, we have Mercury opposite Saturn. So can we get creative again with the limits that we face? That's always the question when you have a strong opposition to Saturn.

All right, moving on to August 6, there are so many Uranus and Jupiter transits this month. Let's put the real-time clock back up, so here is the Sun in Leo now making a square to Jupiter in Taurus, and Jupiter is in the superior position. I love this. This transit to me at, you know, at its worst, it could be like bravado and arrogance and sort of, you know, delusions of grandeur and sort of a, you know, it can amplify the ego it can, and sort of any sort of chauvinistic, domineering tendencies might get amplified.

So that's maybe the downside that I see here, but you know, what else I see is, well, and also, I should say karma around fathers or solar figures, again, leaders, especially father figures, or men in authority positions, but anyone in authority position, and that something issues around their authority or their position in your life. There's a weird way in which these transits can mark important events around such people.

So those are the things that I would sort of watch for more, maybe more challenging side of the transit, but Sun square Jupiter is also very grand and majestic, and it tends to amplify the noble qualities of spirit, and it can be a transit that indicates success or victory or enrichment of some kind, as well as expansion of our courage or our heart or our self-belief. It can be very inspiring, and it can promote a sense of like can do optimism.

So that's the Sun-Jupiter square, and I like that because it kind of tempers the early part of the month of the full moon, Mercury opposite Saturn. Just a couple of days later, we get the Sun square Jupiter, and things lift a bit; we go to August 9, and then we get Venus square Uranus through Venus's. Remember, Venus is retrograde, and then we get this amazing square. So let's take a look at that.

Here's Venus squaring Uranus. Now Uranus is in Venus's sign. So there's some nice connection here between the two planets. We've already seen this once through the direct motion now we're seeing it again. So this Venus retrograde is we've talked about Venus retrograde a lot on my channel already, but the innovative and revisionary qualities of Venus right now we're innovating. We're revising. We're rethinking, and We're redoing; we're transforming Venusian things that may look a little bit different for everyone relationships, beauty, appearance, art and aesthetics, love, sexuality friendships. All of the Venusian things are going through a transformation at the moment.

I would say a heart-centered transformation. Venus hitting Uranus is another explosive moment of creative, original transformative, unexpected breakthroughs and a sort of liberation. So I love that Venus is retrograde with Uranus, creating this moment of profound breakthrough, and that is one of the things that we have featured a number of times on my channel as one of the peak moments of the Venus retrograde cycle.

So we go from Sun square Jupiter, which is this very grand big emboldened bright transit, into Venus square Uranus, which I think has a similar feel to it because Jupiter and Uranus are in the same sign. If you watch Becca Tarnas' talk on the Jupiter-Uranus co-presence, we know that the combination of those planets can be about this kind of lifting of energy and innovation and liberation with the kind of ennobling expansive qualities of Jupiter. Well, Venus is hitting Uranus right after the Sun is squaring Jupiter. So you get this powerful lift; it really has the kind of wind at your back feeling to it.

Now then we go on August 9, and we have another very lifting transit, and this one is Mercury, trine Jupiter. So you're gonna see now that after going through the opposition to Saturn, Mercury hits a trine to Jupiter, and I think this is great because whatever Mercury had to deal with at the beginning of the month is now maybe going through you know, after facing a limit, and a contractive moment at the beginning of the month is now going through a more expansive moment.

Mercury trine Jupiter also is about the lifting and expanding of the mind, intellect speech. There's a kind of spirit of science and learning, technical precision. Mercury is pretty close to a conjunction with Mars at this time, and that conjunction with Mars is happening as Mercury is trining Jupiter and as Mars is trining Uranus.

So you get this, like, it's practical, but it's like this is the kind of thing where someone starts studying or learning something that the practical side of things, but they may be artistic or earthy, or Venusian and we're like biological, like someone going and studying massage or acupuncture or, you know, someone learning something that's both sort of practical and sensual, where there's sort of a science to it, but there's also this spirit of progress and experimentation. I just love this transit in terms of the lifting and expanding of the mind and maybe even developing a skill or something like that.

Anyway, there's a lot more that can be said about this transit that we will be looking at later in the month because this is a big one. If you take this forward just a little bit, you're going to notice that it's pretty soon after that, Venus.

First of all, the first transit I want to mention is Venus's cazimi. Here we go; on August 13, Venus will then be cazimi. This is a powerful, transformative moment for Venus where she's going from being combust, which is rather difficult for her, and there's a breakdown that's happening in that kind of transformation, and Venus is retrograde is going through the heart of the Sun, and as it goes through the heart of the Sun, there's a kind of rebirthing moment that for Venus where her transformation is going through this acute healing and rebirth experience that kind of culminates on August 13.

Now it does so, of course, right as it's coming off from the square to Uranus, so this revolutionary moment followed by this rebirthing moment for Venus, these are some of the biggest moments for the Venus retrograde.

Two days later, the Sun is square to Uranus. So if we look here, now we have the Sun square Uranus, which is absolutely remarkable, and on the same day, we have the new moon in Leo. So we have a new moon in Leo as the Sun is squaring Uranus, and Venus is starting to gradually separate from the Sun through its retrograde, a very powerful time.

You'll notice at the same time we're going to fast forward this in a second to the 16th, where you can see what's developing simultaneously is the mercury Mars conjunction in the trine to Uranus. You see how heavily Uranian the month is, and don't forget, Jupiter is co-present with Uranus. So there's so much creative spark here and expansion and lift in the sky, which is really, really great. This is, I think, one of the more uplifting periods of the year, especially the first half of August.

So the new moon in Leo amplifies the themes of Leo, the development of the heart, the development of a healthy sense of pride in ego where loyalties lie transformation, and all the Venusian areas with this kind of expansive and revolutionary kick from Jupiter and Uranus. We're getting a very technical intellectual, scientific, but very practical and helpful Mercury, Mars in Virgo, and also trining Uranus, which is going to give it the kick of revolution as well. So if we go forward on the 16th, Mars trines, Uranus, now take it forward just a little bit past this, and we get to August 22, when Venus squares Jupiter, and then the continued development of Venus is retrograde is still very positive overall.

First of all, let me just say about that little period around the new moon that you get the feeling that the rebirth of Venus retrograde, all of the expansion and revolution that it indicates, is kicking off the new cycle, and there's also this very practical, technical kind of like scientific, intellectual side of like developing your understanding or developing skills or the process of learning something, or problem solving or creativity both mentally and sort of sensually, or creatively and there's this really intense theme of like that being born about the middle of the month at the heart of the Venus retrograde cycle and its rebirth.

Then you hop forward to August 22, Venus squares Jupiter, which we had a long time ago, sort of back in June, and now we're getting it again through retrograde motion and Venus-Jupiter, I mean, it can amplify like the sort of luxurious materialistic themes like it can be about buying expensive things, or you know sort of material opulence and flashy, you know, expensive dresses or something. But it also has a very like it amplifies romantic qualities.

It makes friendships and love and sex and tenderness and care and attraction. It amplifies all those things, and now it's doing so in a moment of revision for Venus. It's like you thought this was attractive back in June; now we've redone things and look at it now. So this is kind of something coming full circle.

August 22, Mars is also opposite Neptune. To me, this is a really curious transit to be happening at the same time that Venus is opposite Jupiter. Mars opposite Neptune has this kind of, I always call it, the Joan of Arc. The Joan of Arc theme. I have it like the Mars opposite Neptune always makes it. There's always a sense of, like, I'm dying on behalf of something larger than my own. We get it's like martyr kind of at its worst, but sad sacrificial, visionary and fighting or working or acting or moving on behalf of something that's inspiring that's imaginal. That's romantic that spiritual, a quest, or a crusade motif. It feels sort of chivalrous like there's a quality of romantic, grand, you're in the air but also kind of sacrificial themes. Very interesting to see how that shakes out.

All right, well, on the 23rd, right after that, Mercury turns retrograde in Virgo, which is a really pretty good place for Mercury because it's going to be projected from the combustion by virtue of being in its own chariot, and both its rulership in its exultation. A planet will be protected from the beams of the Sun. So I gotta say that with Mercury pretty close to a trine with Uranus, a trine to Jupiter in its own chariot-like, I think this Mercury Retrograde is going to be pretty positive.

I suspect that with especially given that the Mars-Neptune theme and the Venus-Jupiter theme kicks things off, there's some kind of reworking of things intellectually, philosophically, and organizationally that's rooted. It's almost like a clean out your drawers and reorganizing them so that they can accommodate a new aesthetic or changes that have happened in some kind the way that your ideals are leading you to new conclusions and new concerns and new adventures, and then it's like Mercury has to clean the drawers out somehow. Anyway, we're addressing that one pretty loosely for the moment. I feel like I need to develop more of my thoughts on that one. But we'll do that later in the month when we get to it as well.

On August 24, Mars will try and Pluto, and you know, Mars trine Pluto; at least it's a trine, right, so you get a much more constructive and helpful connection between Mars and Pluto. But it's pretty intense. It's sort of like, what dirt do you find when you're cleaning out the drawers, and it's kind of like, well, good that I'm getting rid of it or good that I'm addressing it or good that I'm working with something a little Plutonian and heavy and it's like it's beneficial ultimately, but it's still going to have that kind of confrontation with the subterranean qualities, that will be a part of it. Well, the end of the month is a little bit more difficult.

On the same note, we have on the 27th the Sun moving through Virgo and the early degrees of Virgo and opposing Saturn right away. The Sun Saturn opposition while Venus is also getting to the conclusion of its retrograde in the sign of Leo; it's now appeared as the morning star. I think that the karma around fathers, in particular, Dad karma, whether that's internalized, whether that's the healing that you're doing generationally, even if your dad was a good person, it's like you're working with stuff around father figures around paternal karma, I suspect.

But there's also, again, any kind of solar figure leaders, people in positions of leadership, and also just looking at the ego and the power that it has or doesn't have, the self-esteem that we have or do not have, how we deal with moments that feels like our light is being limited in some way. That's important here as the Sun opposes Saturn, and Venus, in the sign of the Sun, is starting to get to its station point where it's really finalizing things.

Then, of course, on the 30th, at the very end of the month, we end with the full moon in Pisces, and let me just fast forward here a little bit. So here's the Full Moon in Pisces, and that Full Moon in Pisces is going to be coming off from a conjunction to Saturn. Although the Sun has separated from Saturn, the moon's sort of picking that up and reiterating it a little bit, and you get the feeling with immutable signs like this, I think of transitions and whether we're listening to everything that's being presented to us or not.

Whether we're receiving the feedback that the environment is trying to give us that stands out, for example, we have Mars, also entering the sign of Libra, a place where we can start with justice and the balancing of the scales. The idea of temperance is such a Libran theme and a good one that we need. We need things to be balanced out karmically in our lives for the balancing to take place, and whether we accept that or not is so much a part of whether things become smooth and harmonious again; when do we accept cosmic justice?

Mars enters Libra, it becomes a little bit more assertive and direct and a little bit more confrontational, it's like justice is carrying a sword, and that's not always easy. This full moon coming off from the conjunction with Saturn in the Sun's opposition to Saturn and Venus reaching her last couple of days before turning direct.

Again, I get this idea that at the end of August, there's a little bit of a karmic reckoning to fit to kind of finish off the cycle. But really, given how, like, the first half of August is so buoyant, I love how much like bounce and pep and excitement there is like the last half of the month is a little bit more difficult. But, you know, extremes need to be tempered, and sort of, you know, we always have to come back to a sort of place of moderation. So I think that there's a likely like, the likelihood is that the end of the month sort of does that for us, especially with this Full Moon in Pisces, but pretty closely conjoined to Saturn.

All right. Anyway, these are just some first impressions of the month ahead. I'm looking forward to spending time with a lot of these transits together, going through them in depth, hearing your stories, as always, your interesting comments, and, you know, seeing where this goes; I'll tell you an interesting story. We were, you know, we were excited. We were in Colorado, and Mars was opposing Saturn, which, if you remember, in this month of July, was a really big transit at the same time; Pluto was opposite the Sun, and, you know, I kept dealing with altitude sickness.

So like, every day, I would go back up and hope that I had acclimated enough, and the first day was really bad; I had to go down, and like, once I was down to lower altitude, I felt fine, and then next couple of days, I would go up, and it was like, you know, five, six hours, and then I'd start feeling miserable again, and we'd go back down and then the final day was really bad. I pushed it too much and to the point where Yeah, it was just bad.

So I'll just leave it at that, and I just as, as we were going down the mountain, and I was sort of getting lucid again because the altitude was going down. I had this memory of a time, and I knew exactly when it was because it had been a part of the book that I wrote, and I looked, I've looked at the astrology of that time, many times before, and I realized that it was a time when my father, who was a Methodist minister, had gone through a collapse, he had literally collapsed and then become very, very sick, because he had just pushed it too much and I knew oh my god, the Sun was opposite Pluto when that happened to my father, and I believe Mars was conjoining Saturn, and so I looked back just to double check and sure enough, Mars was conjoining Saturn in the sign of Leo, while the Sun was opposite Pluto, across the Gemini, Sagittarius axis.

So here I am, years later, the Sun is opposing Pluto, and Mars is opposite Saturn, and every day, I'm nearly collapsing because I'm pushing it too hard, but I wanted everyone that we, you know, everyone we were with to have a nice time and be able to attend this conference, and of course, they were not pushing me at all. In fact, they were like, you're pushing it. They were telling me you're pushing yourself too hard, especially my wife.

As we were coming down and I was like, just realizing my own, like my own foolishness, you know what I mean? Like just my own stuckness in it is a very Mars Saturn moment where, you know, I just wasn't accepting a limit. I was trying to push past it, and Sun was also opposite Pluto. So this, if you remember this week in July, we're talking about just a couple of weeks ago, Sun was opposite Pluto from Cancer to Cap at the same time that Mars was opposite Saturn, and then Venus just turned retrograde, my ascendant ruler, right so I was dealing with this health stuff.

Mars opposite Saturn, I wasn't accepting a limit, and the Sun was opposite Pluto, bringing up karma around the father. So I had this reflective moment where I remembered, Oh, yeah, when my father had this collapse, this physical and in some ways mental and spiritual health crisis for him. Sun was opposite Pluto, and Mars was conjoined with Saturn in Leo, and here I am; Mars is opposite Saturn, and the Sun is opposite Pluto, and there's an echo. That was deep. That was really, really profound, and it really shifted something in me in terms of that pattern or complex of trying to push through things when we shouldn't.

So anyway, for whatever it's worth, I wanted to share that story because you know, you guys, you guys know that my favorite way of understanding transits is through stories. The stories of the transits are when the archetypes really come to life, and their lessons and their meanings unfold in such beautiful ways that you can't ever forget them again.

This month has a little bit of that; there are several oppositions to Saturn in the mix of the month while Venus is retrograde; the difference this month there's so much bounce between the planets and Leo and Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus that I feel like it's gonna be a very different month, like that week in July was, to my mind was one of the harder weeks of the year so far, at least, you know, experientially for me, but I think astrologically too.

That was a tough week of astrology, for I don't know if you guys are concur or not, but anyway, the thing that I would share with all of you is if you pay attention to transits, it's interesting how there'll be these echoes, between different periods of time in your life, and paying attention to those echoes in how you deal with one Sun-Pluto versus another time in your life when you had Sun-Pluto, whatever, Mars-Saturn, it can be deeply educational, you can start to see the ways that the patterns of your own behavior and psychology and that's when we can transform that's when we can really change and start doing things in a different way.

Hopefully a healthier way. I feel like, hopefully, I've learned something from that. Well, we'll see. We'll see. But at any rate, I hope you're all doing well. This was a fun and useful talk. Glad to be back in action and look forward to more soon. All right, take it easy, everyone. Bye for now.