September is a good time for reaffirming so that you can go for the long haul.

August was rough! I have to say—when I looked at October 2024 last year, I did feel like October’s transits are not feeling easy. I still think this when I look at what is going on in and around the month of October 2024 today.

The astrology that I have been keeping my eye on will start to hit a little bit before October in September—both benefics are debilitated, Pluto returns to Capricorn, and Mars will enter its fall. However, some things will only happen in October—Jupiter will retrograde, Mercury moves into a water sign, and Wood Dog year will begin (Wood Dog directly clashes with the current year pillar which is Wood Dragon). September is its own month and brings its own transits. Mercury is actually exalted, Venus is at home, and the moment of Mars leaving Jupiter’s side can feel like somewhat of a relief.

The energy of August is like storm season. Everything clashes and we feel overwhelmed! We fight! We get into accidents! August was about floods. The energy of September is more about fermentation.

What is the energy of fermentation? Fermentation is about keeping your word. If you bury cabbage leaves into the earth, you are making a promise to those cabbage leaves. You are saying to those cabbage leaves, “I will come and get you in three years.” Those cabbage leaves are also making a promise to you. They are saying, “Great! When you come get me in three years, I will become stinky and delicious.”

Jeong Kwan once said this of soy sauce, a fermented sauce:

“Soy sauce makes me excited just thinking about it. Every food is recreated by soy sauce. Soybeans, salt, and water, in harmony, through time. It is the basis of seasonings, the foundation. There are sauces aged five years, ten years, aged for one hundred years. These kinds of soy sauces are passed down for generations. They are heirlooms.

If you look into yourself, you see past, present, and future. You see that time revolves endlessly. You can see past from the present. By looking into myself, I see my grandmother, my mother, the elders in the temple, and me. As a result, by making soy sauce, I am reliving the wisdom of my ancestors. I am reliving them. It’s not important who or when. What is important is that I’m doing it in the present.

I use soy sauce, and I acknowledge its importance. It is no longer just me that’s doing things. It’s me in the past, in the present, and even in the future.”

The energy of fermentation is also the energy of birds migrating. September is the season of geese migrating. When the geese leave, they leave with the promise of coming back.

Mercury is strong in September. So is Venus. If you do any kind of organizing, August was tough and October is a month of collision. September is a good time for reaffirming so that you can go for the long haul. It’s a good time to unpack what has been happening, for evaluating your own motives, and for planning. September gives us the energy of preparation and preparation is like a fermented promise. September gives us the energy of planning and planning is like the route that geese take across the sky.

What are you preparing? What are you storing in the ground with the promise to come back? You live between the promises that you made in the past and the ones that you will answer in the future.

Virgo

Happy birthday, it’s your season. Your season is the harvest season for a reason. September is about planning and preparing and you’re extremely talented in this regard. It’s like your psychic powers can come and possess your own hands. You know your own future based on what you do to prepare.

I want you to gather on your birthday—gather your loved ones, gather your favorite things, and gather all of the things that people want to give you because they think that giving you something will make your life a little bit more colorful. In other words, I want you to ask for things this birthday.

September is harvest season. Your birthday is a harvest. When you harvest, you get to taste and sample. You get to refine and sort. You get to use all of the things that you have been learning about all year. Every harvest season is also fermentation season. Store some of your gifts for later. Pickle, jar, and candy some of your desires for later. You don’t have to see every single friend this month and you don’t have to explore all of your existential questions every single birthday. Some of your questions can wait for next month.

Questions for Virgo for September 2024:
Who do you want to gather together?
What do you want to gather?
What do you want to save for later?

Libra

What are the promises that you make to your own body? When you see the sun for the first time during your day, you’re making a promise to your body about when you will rest and slumber. That’s why we get so sleepy on days when we see the sun in the morning. Eating an early breakfast promises your stomach an early lunch, an early lunch promises an early dinner, and so on.

Your body is living with you in the moment. It’s also trying to predict your patterns. You’ve built a certain relationship with your body over the years and every relationship has its own set of promises.

You might have made certain promises to your body about what to anticipate after a lot of friend time, about what you usually do after a hug, and about what to expect right after sex. You may have promised your body a certain amount of dignity, a certain type of respect. You might have found yourself born helpless as an infant with the promise of love. Our bodies crave what we promise them.

What have you promised your own body? Your own being? You know the answer to this question more than anyone. You feel your own promises in the fibers of your muscles and in the space between your lungs.

Questions for Libra for September 2024:
What have you promised your own body?
What do you want to promise your own body?
What can you promise your own body?

Scorpio

In September, I want you to think about all of the stakes in your life. When we really, really care about someone, we have a lot at stake in our relationship with that person. When we put a lot of time into a project, the stakes get higher. We tend to care more about a crochet project that we have been working on for a year than one we’ve only been crafting for an afternoon. The same goes for stories, for collaborative projects, and for friendships.

You care about people. You’ve put time into your ideas. You have people who you will fight for.

When our hearts get bigger, so do the stakes. We care more. We put more time in. We fight harder.

You’re a deep softie. You’re affected by all of the sorrow and love you hold in your heart even when you pretend that everything is fine. In September, take some time to account for what is at stake in your life. When you understand what is most important, then you naturally start to make a plan. When you realize all that you have already done, you plan from a place of experience.

You are a person who tends to show up to honor your own word. Let that fact of personality give you confidence.

Question for Scorpio for September 2024:
What promises do you always keep?
What is at stake in those promises?
What makes those things so important to you?

Sagittarius

What are the promises that you have made to your friends? Have our promises to our friends ever been simple?

When I was younger, different friend groups would fight occasionally about promises that we made to each other. We promised that we wouldn’t tell our friend’s secrets, that we don’t break our friend's hearts. As you can imagine, these promises become more complicated the more people are involved.

We make political promises to our friends. When we say that we stand against injustice, we are making a promise to do some degree of action. Now, your promise and a friend’s expectation of you may not be the same. You might have different expectations of yourself than a friend has of you. You might expect things from a friend that they never saw themselves committing to.

Some of our longest relationships are our friendships. There’s something fermenting in every friendship—something yummy and stinky that stands the test of time. That something is a set of promises. Fermentation is about creating an ecosystem and your promises are not singular but varied. No promise is singular. A promise is always a multiple.

Questions for Sagittarius for September 2024:
What promises have you made to your friends?
What do your friends expect from you?
What alignments and discrepancies do you see in your answers to the two above questions?

Capricorn

I think that you have a lot of opportunity coming your way. I don’t know—I would expect that the condition of your Saturn dictates what those opportunities look like but I see Capricorn rising being moderately busy in September. Jupiter gives you many tasks right now and, ruled by a strong Mercury, you find valuable lessons in every task.

You’re learning. You’re excited about life and about your ideas. You’re like a student—you get to dabble your mind in a subject matter every single day.

I want you to think about what makes you most happy about being yourself in your social life. What do you love being noticed for? What do you like being celebrated for? What compliments feel most authentic to you because you understand that the praises people are singing reflect promises that you will never break?

I want you to use your mind to trust yourself in September, to feel brilliant each and every day. Enjoy really good writing days in September. Attend powerful events where you find clarity about what needs to be done. Harvest delicious crops and meet new neighbors sharing from your garden. Get active—moderate joy is in your life in September.

Questions for Capricorn for September 2024:
What makes you most happy in your social life?
What gives you moderate joy in your social life?
What do you want to prioritize socially?

Aquarius

What are the promises that you have given to what you call your work in the world? I’m talking about your actual work—not necessarily your job. Your work can be any number of things. Maybe your work is to research shamanistic practices from antiquity, maybe your work is to love in the present, maybe your work is to nurture the seeds that contain our futures. What are the promises that you have made the work that you want to commit to doing in and for the world around you?

I’ve had moments when my work is really clearly and specifically defined. “My work right now is to show up and do a project because I said I would.” Those promises are easy because all you have to do is lay out time for doing what you need to do every day.

Sometimes, our work is less clearly defined. I’ve had moments when I don’t know what my work is anymore. Those moments usually make me feel incompetent. I’ve had moments when I know that my task is to redo my client intake form so that my needs around consent in an astrological session are better expressed, when I’ve fumbled around because I’m not sure how to do this thing that I have promised myself.

What promises have you made to yourself around your own work? What promises have you answered recently? I think that we answer at least one promise pretty much every day. You’re a very accountable person most of the time.

Questions for Aquarius for September 2024:
What promise did you make to your work when you started?
What have you promised to your work this year?
What might you promise your work this month?

Pisces

In September, you’re not going to want to do anything that you don’t want to do. It’s just one of those months. Sometimes it’s like that. You have times in your life when you can really push yourself to do chores and you have months when you’re just not dealing with it.

It’s alright if the dishes pile up sometimes. It’s alright if you don’t get all of your work done. A moderate amount of unfinished work sometimes is fine. Lower your expectations around hard to do tasks this month.

September is going to be a good time for just feeling what you actually want to do. Remember what I said about how you probably won’t do what you don’t want to do? You’re going to have energy for what you want. September brings that new obsession energy. You just want to do something and you’ve got to do it right now. You have a new crush and you’re not paying as much attention to other things because the crush is new. You’re actually excited about something.

So, lower your expectations around discipline for a little bit. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy your desires. Let yourself have some time for desire. You’re putting asymmetrical energy into the things in your life right now. Forgive yourself for being a person.

Questions for Pisces for September 2024:
What do you not want to do?
What do you want to do?
What could help you lower your expectations around what you don’t want to do just for a month?

Aries

In September, I want you to be aware of your irritability. Irritation happens when you experience a lot of friction in your daily life. You brush up against people who don’t get you, against people who try to work against you, and against rules that discipline you unjustly.

We live in an extremely unjust society. Of course you feel irritable! You feel irritable when you are pushing back and when you are taking a break. The irritability doesn’t cease.

Let yourself be irritable. Let yourself vent and be mad. Be aware of your irritability and let yourself express it in your own way. Don’t waste your irritability. Your irritation contains so much information about the daily injustices that you suffer and see. Your irritation grants you precision of language to articulate your pain. Your irritability shows you where you are complicit and what you have at stake. Your irritability shows you your sharpness and reminds you that you actually do care even when you’re trying to pretend not to.

Be aware of your irritability. Treasure it. Harvest all of your small and big angers. Your anger keeps you raw, it keeps you precise and knowing. Your anger gives your life bite. It tells you about all of the friction that heats up your heart every single day.

Questions for Aries for September 2024:
What tells you when you are irritable?
What has your irritation taught you?
Is your irritation asking for anything from you?

Taurus

In September, I want you to enjoy your good relationships with people. We tend to pay attention to the differences and conflicts we have with people but you have plenty of solid relationships that you don’t even have to think about. You really like some of your coworkers. You always have the best time with some of your friends. You get excited whenever you get to spend time with some of your cousins.

What is working in your relationships right now? Is there something about your partnership that is just going great? Are you getting to enjoy your mom for a bit?

The things that feel great in your relationships may feel old because you’re so well practiced in them. The habits that keep your relationships supportive fit you like a glove. They feel so habitual you don’t even need to really think about them. You just happen to have friends who you never doubt. You no longer have to think about the one hundred habits that keep those friendships going so well.

I saw a story the other day—two adult women who are friends ran into each other in a grocery store. When the first person spotted the other person, she started to make turkey sounds. Without even turning around, the other person made turkey sounds back. They found each other using turkey location. You also have people like that—people who you don’t even need to think about because you’re just so comfortable around them. Enjoy.

Questions for Taurus for September 2024:
Who do you just feel great being around?
What makes those relationships feel so solid?
How do you want to enjoy those relationship this month?

Gemini

September is the best time for intellectual creation. It’s the best time for making up a new game for playing with your friends. It’s a time when a solution to a problem that’s plagued you all year arrives into your brain during a late night shower. It’s the best time for epiphanies and sudden brilliance.

It’s not a great time for money. You might spend a bit this month. I’ll let you figure that one out.

You’re funnier than you’ve ever been in September. Catch up with everyone you know while this spirit of great humor remains with you. Sometimes we’re just funnier than we expect ourselves to be. I don’t know why. I think that you will be funny in September. Maybe it’s a good time to do a stand up set if you have been wanting to do one.

Enjoy your sense of humor. Engage with a hard topic—you have the emotional breadth to feel loose with hard ideas right now. A harder conversation will probably go smoothly if you have one planned. We tend to have better conversations about serious topics when we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Let yourself laugh. Let yourself have some catharsis.

Questions for Gemini for September 2024:
What was the last joke you made?
Who is the funniest person you know (besides yourself)?
What topic do you really need some humor around?

Cancer

I wonder what gives you confidence in your ability to protect yourself. I remember when I was younger and more conflict avoidant than I am now (I’m still working on it). Discovering that I had the words and ability to stand up for myself cut me loose. When I realized that I had the option of fighting back, no matter the cost, I was able to take more risk.

What reminds you of your already earned expertise in self protection? Knowing how to protect yourself doesn’t need to look like taking a self defense class. You might have an intuitive understanding about when to leave a room, one that has protected you again and again. You might be really good at understanding what is your responsibility and what isn’t. Your sense of caution when walking down the stairs might have protected you from many accidents.

What do you want to learn about your protective spirit? The protection that you desire is personal, collective, and ancestral. You learn how to protect yourself from the people around you, from the people who fight with you and the people who fight you.

Questions for Cancer for September 2024:
What do you trust about your protective spirit?
What do you not know about your protective spirit?
What makes you curious about your protective spirit?

Leo

This September, I want you to express the love that you feel. I want you to express your love with all of its complications using your very precise tongue. I want you to express your complicated love when you’re having a tough time relating to people. I want you to express love to people who are good to you even when you are mad at them. I want you to express love when it’s easy.

I think that expression gets lost. We do things for the people we love. We cook for them and clean up after them. We analyze them and we pay a lot of attention to them. We fight with them because we care what they do and what they think. And, even when relationships go well, we forget to tell them. “I actually really care about you.” “I love you.” “I’m really liking your energy right now.”

Sometimes, words are just words. With love especially, we look for the follow through. But words are nice! It’s cool to tell a friend when we appreciate them! I forget to a lot especially with my closest friends. I’m too busy sharing inside jokes or teasing them—I forget to use my nice words with them too.

Give your nice words to those who matter most. Give a nice word when you feel like you haven’t been around enough. If you feel like you haven’t done enough in a friendship, don’t avoid that friend. Just give them a nice word. “I know I’ve been neglecting our friendship but I love you,” can be enough. Sometimes, we have a lot going on. Sometimes, just words are enough.

Questions for Leo for September 2024:
Does saying “I love you” feel right to you right now?
What about “I like you?”
What about “I’m cool with you?”