Your Queer Weekly Horoscope: July 29-August 4

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

The second week of Leo Season might seem deceptively quiet. Life is excellent for many signs at the moment, especially Virgo and Aries! (Sorry, Aquarius; things will get better soon.) But there are still dramas playing out all across the zodiac. Desire-ruling Venus begins the week in Leo, where it promotes healing and spurns weirdness. At the very end of the week, Venus leaves Leo and moves to Virgo. Mercury is currently at home in Virgo, boosting communication for one last powerful week before it turns retrograde next Monday. The Sun and Mars are both focused on the future in collaboration with the North Node of the Moon’s orbit, and the New Moon in Leo offers an opportunity for subtle but profound beginnings.

We’ll start this weekly horoscope with Leo, then move 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:

• Venus and your sign ruler the Sun are in your sign.
• Venus creates a trine with Chiron and squares off against Uranus.
• The Sun creates a trine with the North Node.
• The New Moon in your sign opposes Pluto, forms sextiles with Mars and Jupiter, and passes through conjunction with the Sun.
• In the final hours of the week, Venus leaves your sign and moves to Virgo.

What it means:

Venus in Leo can urge you to indulge in some major drama. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily; it’s just that your needs right now are extremely large and compelling. Your heart craves healing, but you don’t wish to do anything out of the ordinary in order to attain it. You might actually manage to achieve some recovery through avoidance… or you might end up stacking more injury in the process. Regardless, you’re barreling toward the next significant step of your destiny. The New Moon offers opportunity for a fresh beginning with a boost of energy and good luck, but it also comes packaged with resistance to change. In the last hours of the week, Venus moves to Virgo and leaves you alone with the Sun.

What the stars are up to:

• Your sign ruler Mercury is in your sign.
• In the final hours of the week, Venus moves from Leo to your sign.

What it means:

Your sign ruler Mercury is at home in your sign, powering up your signature Virgo abilities. Your wit is skyrocketing, and your intellect is sharp. You’re never short of a word, you’re easily able to adapt amid changing circumstances, and you exude an aura of irresistibly magnetic charm. Life is good. Enjoy it to the utmost while you still can because Mercury turns retrograde early next week.

What the stars are up to:

• Lilith and the South Node are in your sign.
• Your sign ruler Venus begins the week in Leo. Venus creates a trine with Chiron and squares off against Uranus.
• The Sun forms a sextile with the South Node.
• Mars creates a trine with the South Node.
• In the final hours of the week, Venus moves from Leo to Virgo.

What it means:

The South Node, representative of your past, can be a heavy burden to haul around in your sign. This week, the weight becomes easier to carry when you receive assistance from the centering Sun and motivating Mars. You’re finally doing something with your experience of all that history, using the feelings to your benefit instead of passively waiting for future events to wash over you.

What the stars are up to:

• Your sign ruler Pluto is retrograde in Aquarius.

What it means:

Your way-out ice ball dwarf planet ruler Pluto is retrograde in Aquarius, and you’re feeling mentally removed from most of the zodiac. Your ancient sign ruler Mars, which is currently hanging out in Gemini, forms a sextile with the North Node and might lure you forward with a call to pursue your future. Don’t stress too much about forcing yourself to be social if you’re not in the mood to talk. Sometimes you need to look inward to address the looming demands of destiny.

What the stars are up to:

• Your sign ruler Jupiter is in Gemini.

What it means:

LOL, while I was exhaustedly typing the first draft of this ’scope, I mistakenly swapped out the name of your sign ruler Jupiter with “Saturn.” HA! Can you even imagine? What a terrifying thought! Just picture a hoard of organized, power-hungry, and rule-abiding Sagittarians! Impossible. You’d be undefeatable… but then you’d also be Capricorns.

Anyway, your actual sign ruler Jupiter is hanging out with your freewheeling sibling sign, Gemini. Luxuriate in the resultant whirl of lucky chaos. This cheerful, productive state of mayhem feels like home to you.

What the stars are up to:

• Your sign ruler Saturn is retrograde in Pisces.

What it means:

Your patron planet Saturn is drifting perspectively backward in Pisces. Life continues to unspool as usual, but you might feel a bit sensitive emotionally, and you might think about your ambitions just slightly less than you usually do when Saturn’s orbit is direct. Embrace the change and allow yourself to float for a while, instead of marching grimly forward to batter down your objectives. Saturn’s muted, retrograde status might actually allow you to enjoy a moment of summer vacation. Imagine that! A Capricorn taking time off!

What the stars are up to:

• Pluto is retrograde in your sign.
• Your sign ruler Uranus is in Taurus.
• Venus squares off against Uranus.

What it means:

Bucking the larger zodiac trend, you grit your teeth and stomp through a period of struggle this week. Venus spurns your sign ruler Uranus, causing you to face disadvantage in matters of desire and aesthetics. (If you suffer an especially bad hair day on August 2, now you know why.) No matter! You’ve never required universal popularity in order to enjoy a decent night’s sleep. Carry on, and this too shall quickly pass.

What the stars are up to:

• Saturn and your ruler Neptune are both retrograde in your sign.

What it means:

Your week might pass slowly, seemingly unhitched from the flow of linear time. Both of your planetary charges are retrograde, and while their powers of discipline and intuition remain with you, both are presently muted and low-key. Try not to stress about your current lack of edge. Sharpness and alacrity will return to you in future. For now, it’s time to drift!

What the stars are up to:

• Chiron and the North Node are retrograde in your sign.
• Your sign ruler Mars is in Gemini.
• Venus creates a trine with Chiron.
• The Sun creates a trine with the North Node.
• Mars forms a sextile with the North Node.

What it means:

Wow, you’re in for an awesome week. Step carefully, just in case: Chiron is currently retrograde, and capable of attracting injury in addition to healing. (The North Node of destiny always travels generally retrograde; that’s no big deal.) Outside of that one minor Chiron caveat, your week is looking golden. You’re slated for healing in the realm of desire and some profound personal development on the path of fate, with plenty of energy to proactively pursue your future. Go get out there and do it!

What the stars are up to:

• Uranus is in your sign.
• The waning crescent Moon in your sign squares off against Venus, passes through conjunction with Uranus, and forms a sextile with Neptune.
• Your sign ruler Venus begins the week in Leo. Venus creates a trine with Chiron and squares off against Uranus.
• In the final hours of the week, Venus moves from Leo to Virgo.

What it means:

The Last Quarter Moon in your sign just wrapped up at the end of last week. Now, you ride out the remainder of your time with the Moon in waning crescent phase, helping you wind down toward conclusions. Your sign ruler Venus causes some internal conflict when it clashes with creative Uranus in your sign. You’ll be fine, though: you can’t personally move a planet, but you’re stubborn enough to wait out any inconvenience until Venus orbits to a position you prefer. In the last gasp of the week, Venus moves from Leo to your fellow Earth sign Virgo.

What the stars are up to:

• Mars and Jupiter are in your sign.
• Your sign ruler Mercury is in Virgo.
• The waning crescent Moon in your sign creates a trine with Pluto; squares off against Mercury, Saturn, and Neptune; passes through conjunction with Mars and Jupiter; and forms sextiles with the Sun and Venus.
• Mars forms a sextile with the North Node.

What it means:

This week brings you an emotionally messy Moon and a call to destiny. You’re high on energy and luck, and confident in yourself and your desires. Briefly, you crave an enormous, totally obliterating life change. But your senses of communication, organization, and intuition are misfiring, which will probably cause friction. Whatever you end up doing this week will ultimately open an important path to your future, though it probably won’t seem apparent until you look back later with the benefit of hindsight.

What the stars are up to:

• Your sign ruler the Moon travels through Taurus, Gemini, your sign, and Leo.
• The waning crescent Moon in your sign forms sextiles with Mercury and Uranus, and creates trines with Saturn and Neptune.
• The New Moon in Leo passes through conjunction with the Sun.

What it means:

The waning crescent Moon comes home to you at the turn of July to August, blessing you with improved communication, creativity, organization, and instinct. The New Moon in Leo is resistant to change, but also energetic and lucky. The fresh beginning it offers may seem subtle, but new starts in life don’t need to feel dramatic. Low-key resets are incredibly important!

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