Your Queer Weekly Horoscope: August 26-September 1

Welcome to your Queer Weekly Horoscope, a bite-sized look at the coming days broken down by your zodiac sign.

Hang in there, friends. Mercury retrograde is almost over! First, we just have to make it through a prickly Last Quarter Moon in Gemini and some drama from Venus in Virgo. But the finish line is in sight, and this weekly horoscope can help you lean across it.

Venus loves revolutionary Uranus this week — hello, romantic disruption! — and then opposes Neptune. Intuition, who? Venus doesn’t know her! The very last hour of Mercury retrograde is liable to be the most dangerous: Be extra careful about sudden impulsive urges for new haircuts, piercings, and flash tattoos. (If the compulsion lasts until Thursday, you’re safe to go for it, but please sleep on it first.) After Mercury turns direct, Venus jumps from Virgo to Libra and falls briefly in love with Pluto, initiating a major shift in desire. On Sunday, Uranus turns retrograde and relaxes its usual strangeness slightly, and Pluto slides retrograde away from Aquarius to spend a few months with Capricorn for the last time for the next 250 years.

We’ll begin this weekly horoscope with Virgo, then progress through each sign until everyone’s fate is foretold. If you know more of your placements than your Sun Sign alone (Moon, Rising, Mars, etc.), check their entries as well to get a full picture of your astrological forecast.

What the stars are up to:

• The Sun is in your sign.
• Venus begins the week in your sign, where it creates a trine with Uranus and opposes Neptune. Then, Venus leaves your sign and moves to Libra.
• Your sign ruler Mercury begins the week retrograde in Leo. Then, Mercury turns direct!
• In the final moments of the week, the waning crescent Moon enters your sign.

What it means:

Mercury retrograde is OVER! Well, almost. You still have a couple days’ opportunity to make unfathomable romantic decisions first. Within the very last hour of Mercury retrograde, actually, you run a high risk of making an impulsive, idealistic aesthetic choice that you will absolutely regret. If you experience a sudden urge to cut your hair, put the scissors down until at least Wednesday night, maybe Thursday just to be safe. On Thursday morning, fickle Venus sashays away to Libra and your emotions level back out to your usual degree of rationality. The end of the week is smooth sailing, carrying you easily toward the fresh beginning promised by next week’s New Moon.

What the stars are up to:

• Lilith and the South Node are in your sign.
• Your sign ruler Venus begins the week in Virgo, where it creates a trine with Uranus and opposes Neptune. Then, Venus leaves Virgo and moves to your sign.
• In your sign, Venus creates a trine with Pluto.

What it means:

Damn, Libra. Y’all are really in it at the moment! The South Node is some heavy shit. I never realized the impact of the South Node until it slammed retrograde — the direction the Nodes always generally travel — into my own Sun sign for most of 2022 and 2023. I truly sympathize now! The South Node is a lot, all of the time. Then on top of that, you’ve got Lilith, ruler of the psychological shadow, dragging you even deeper into the depths of your own mind. This situation has been your baseline for a long time now, and will be for even longer yet to come.

This week, your sign ruler Venus returns to your sign — hurray! Then, Venus decides it loves unpredictable weirdness, has never heard of the concept of intuition, and you know what else? Venus thinks it’s the perfect time to launch an enormous life change! Like…. LOL. WTF? I’m not quite sure how to predict exactly what’s about to happen with you, but it sure is coming at ya.

What the stars are up to:

• Your sign ruler Pluto begins the week retrograde in Aquarius.
• Venus creates a trine with Pluto.
• On September 1, retrograde Pluto slides back from Aquarius to Capricorn.

What it means:

This week, Venus shoots a meaningful glance at Pluto and dares it, “Bitch, make a move.” In response, Pluto stares back steadily and actually does throw down some choreography! Maintaining proverbial eye contact with Venus, the dwarf planet of doom walks backwards out of Aquarius across the border into its old territory: Capricorn.