August starts off in Leo, whose element is fire, whose symbol is the Lion, and whose ruler is the regal Sun. Leo season is a time for drama, fun, entertainment; spotlights and limelights; big ego; showing off; exhibitionism in the boudoir. On August 23rd however, we switch into demure Virgo. Ruled by analytical Mercury, the Virgin is about practical details. If Leo is the star of the show, Virgo is the stage manager, making sure everything runs smoothly. Within this general context, we should pay attention to the big transit of August, that is, Venus retrograde. Love, beauty, and romance (all Venusian themes) could feel a bit wonky this month due this cumbersome transit. Check your August horoscopes below to see where this retrograde might impact you in 2023.
LEO
Complex horoscopes in August 2023. Why? On the one hand it’s your season, with your ruling planet, the glorious Sun, lighting up the Selfhood zone of your chart. Usually, a time of plenty for you. Indeed, the Sun in this part of your chart makes you feel like royalty atop a gilded throne. You feel extra empowered, extra visible. But, on the other hand, Venus (love and beauty) is going retrograde in the Selfhood zone too, all August. In other words, a shadow cast on your sovereignty. This Venus retrograde could have you questioning your rule, your status, your treatment of others and your high regard for yourself, especially concerning beauty and appearance: maybe my style choices haven’t been so good of late? Maybe I’ve been a bit too cocky in that fur coat? In sum: Maybe an attitude adjustment is in order. But then again: maybe not? The point is that you could be more prone to doubt over this month. On the 23rd, the Sun moves into frugal Virgo, where it lights up your Money zone – a time to save, not spend.
VIRGO
Overall, an intense month for you. Your ruling planet, Mercury (communication, commerce, conveyances), is well-positioned at home in your sign (good), but it’s co-present with ornery Mars (not as good). While Mercury-in-Virgo indicates intensified focus, efficiency, and precision in words, thought, and action, Mars betokens confrontational energy (either with yourself or others). Virgo’s precise and orderly nature will allow Mercury to get down to business, especially as it relates to analytic work, but Mars (a solo planet) will make teamwork not ideal. Advice: approach work-projects that require precision and attention, but do so alone. This isn’t a three week stretch for brainstorming, but rather for finishing touches. On the 23rd, the cosmic energy shifts when Mercury goes retrograde in your sign for a few weeks. A Mercury retrograde is notorious for mistakes, errors, and miscommunication. Make sure important outstanding detail-oriented work is done by then, as retrograde could cause major delays or miscues.
LIBRA
Your ruling planet, diamond-studded Venus, goes retrograde all month in Leo where it will be activating your Friendship zone (cue sad trumpet sound). Retrogrades aren’t easy transits. During them, a planet’s usual effervescence gets wonky and weird. A Venus retrograde, in particular, can make romance, beauty, and desire strange. With this transit impacting your Friendship zone, you might find feelings for a friend becoming romantic. Or, conversely, you might find that feelings for a lover transmuting into something more like mere friendship. These kinds of retrograde confusions could be intensified around August 1st, when you have a Full Moon lighting up your Romance zone. Full Moons betoken celebrations, but also culminations. Such energy in your Romance zone (especially when coupled with the Venus retrograde) could be a particularly fraught transit: Am I celebrating the end of a friendship because now I’m in love? Or am I celebrating the end of a romance with someone who is just a friend? Wait out these conflicted questions until the New Moon in Leo on the 15th. Leo is a party Moon. You’ll better know what you’re feeling and toasting to by then.
SCORPIO
Until August 27th your ruling planet, ornery Mars, transits precise Virgo where it will impact your Friendship zone. This is a somewhat difficult transit in that Virgo and Mars betokens an energy that is at once fault-finding and confrontational. The advice here is more toward all friends of Scorpio: beware. Indeed, Scorpios could find themselves extra mincing about little things over the next few weeks. Group dynamics, in particular, could be a major source of conflict, as your crew wants to see Barbie while you're drawn instead to moody Oppenheimer. In sum: make sure you have plenty of me-time this August. And what about work? Well, Venus is going retrograde in your Career zone all month (not a good transit, as retrogrades cause difficulties). One bit of useful advice during a Venus backspin: use this time to reflect on career. Do you need to spice up work? The office space, like the boudoir, needs variety to keep one’s interest.
SAGITTARIUS
Until the 23rd, the Leo Sun transits your zone of Spirituality, Travel, and Higher Learning, which is the part of the chart most favoured by Jupiter (your lovely ruling planet). The Leo Sun likes to be seen and it can influence us to show off more than usual. But the Spirituality zone is a more noble sector of our chart. It invites us to look inward for personal growth. Meet these oppositional forces somewhere in the middle: be seen by others (Leo) by presenting yourself in a new, spiritual light. This is your best time of the year to align with those cosmic energies that pull us toward higher calling. This doesn’t mean you need to become a monk, but think about returning to school, applying to graduate programs, going on a spiritual retreat, or submitting your work to a writer-in-residence program. Higher calling doesn’t mean world-renunciation. On the 23rd, the Sun shifts into analytic Virgo, where it activates your Career zone. Combative Mars will also be there until August 27th. This could be an intense week at work – arguing over little things, especially. In this sense, it’s a total volte-face in comparison to the expansive energy that starts the month. The Cosmos is always giving and taking.
CAPRICORN
The showy Leo Sun activates the Intimacy zone of your chart. True, your nature is understated and elegant, but this is a moment of the year where the Stars are saying: be a bit more Leo-demonstrative in your affections with someone. Let your hair down, hold hands in public, slow dance with your date at a wedding (cheek to cheek). While such PDA might be pushing it for your Goat nature, remember that Leo energy is in the air. And, what’s more: intimacy doesn’t always have to do with the boudoir and erotic assignations. On August 22nd, the Sun next moves into dutiful Virgo, where it will energise your House of Travel, Spirituality, and Higher Learning. You actually have a lot of power in this part of your chart this month (curious Mercury and caffeinated Mars are also there all August). Such planetary ballyhoo in your Travel zone could make you feel that your world may be too small. Mercury’s placement here, in particular, could have you inquisitive about furthering education, taking a language class, travelling to Greece – anything that pulls you out into the world beyond your world.
AQUARIUS
Relationship month alert! Until the 23rd, the showy Leo Sun activates your zone of Partnerships, while, at the same time, Venus goes retrograde in the same spot all August. Retrogrades tend to weaken or even subvert a planet’s powers. Venus stands for love, beauty, desire, but when it reverses, then romance gets tricky. We may find ourselves looking back on old loves during these transits. Or, because Leo is such a public sign, we could also find ourselves getting into adolescent romantic spats that play out in the eyes of others: arguments at brunch with your help-mate, for example, as you angrily pick at your eggs florentine. By the same token, Leo’s public-facing persona could also inspire grandiose displays of affection toward a partner. So, all in all, a bit of a roller coaster month for romance. However, by September 3rd, when Venus starts moving direct again, anticipate a more even-steven situation, rather than love being at sixes and sevens.
PISCES
With the showy Leo Sun activating your Health and Diet zone for the first three weeks of the month, you might feel somewhat more energised to head to the gym – not necessarily to get in shape, but rather to show off. On the 23rd, the Sun ambles into tidy Virgo, where it will be powering up the Relationship zone of your chart. The Virgo Sun has the reputation of being fussy and somewhat nit-picky. Granted, it can be, but the true essence of the sign is about selflessness, service, and sacrifice. End the month, therefore, by thinking about Virgo ways to support important partners in your life, whether that means romantic or professional ones: “No worries love, I’ve organised all receipts for taxes and sent them to the accountant – I know how facts and figures give you anxiety.”
ARIES
Until the 27th, your ruling planet, caffeinated Mars, lights up what is usually seen as a humdrum part of the chart, namely the 6th House of Routine, Health, and Diet. But Mars is said to have its “joy” here. Why? For one,Virgo rules over the Health/Diet/Routine zone. When Mars meets up with Virgo, the two supercharge our yen to tackle tasks and projects. Virgo is analytical and Mars is libidinal (meaning that it provides a kind of thrust to life). Without direction this libidinal drive gets confrontational. But when Mars is provided a proper framework, such as the kind Virgo provides, the effects can be magnificent – like when you finally figure out the perfect toy for a child and all of their haywire energy instantly changes into supreme concentration. Now is the time, then, to make a list of stuff to get done this month and do it all. When Mars moves into your Relationship zone at the end of the month, this should make you more protective than usual over a business or romantic partner. While the influence of Mars tends to be confrontational toward most, we mustn’t forget that it can also manifest as fierce loyalty toward those in our inner circle. As such, it’s empathetic: it feels the pain of those, and moves to vanquish whatever or whoever may have caused it.
TAURUS
Your ruler, lovely Venus (usually such a sweet and kind influence), is going through a big-time retrograde in drama queen Leo, where it will be activating your Home zone. This part of the chart ultimately deals with feeling secure and safe – both physically (as in being sheltered) and emotionally (as in feeling taken care of). At the same time, we know that retrograde transits tend to flummox a planet’s influence. During a Venus retrograde, our perception of love and beauty can get distorted. Over the next month, then, you may be feeling uncertain, on a superficial level, about your home’s appearance, questioning its architecture or furniture. But, on a deeper level, you may be experiencing emotional angst about your living situation: do I feel at peace here? Do I feel loved here? Am I at one with all its elements? Feeling slightly out of joint? That’s Venus retrograde in this part of the chart. Avoid changes to your place (both cosmetic and relationship-wise) during this transit. Check back on it in early September, when Venus goes direct again. You will likely see everything in a more glowing light.
GEMINI
You love to talk and the cosmos is pretty much saying to chat it up this season. Why so? The showy Leo Sun highlights your Communication zone. But let’s be a bit more precise, because Venus will be going retrograde in this same part of the chart, as well. A Venus retrograde can make romance more difficult – it can also prompt us to reflect on the past. Given that Leo likes drama and to put things on display, you may find yourself feeling the need to have some big conversations about love and romance this month. Even though Leo is a drama queen, don’t engage in long, rambling, self-indulgent monologues. Say what needs to be said to a partner, but also be prepared to listen to reach a suitable denouement to any simmering relationship tension.
CANCER
The showy Leo Sun energises your Money zone this season. While the Cancerian nature tends to be more private and internal, the cosmos doesn’t want us stuck in a rut. Flexibility, adaptability, becoming: these are as much a part of the astrological order as staying grounded in one’s primary mode of being. This is all to say that with the dramatic Leo Sun highlighting the cash sector of your chart, it might do you well to emerge from your shell and flash a bit of cash. Since the home is the location most connected to your sign, invest in a beautiful object for it – one that will take on sentimental value over time. Until the 23rd, the stars are inviting these kinds of financial manoeuvres. After that date, the Sun shifts into prim and proper Virgo, where it will activate your zone of Communication. Time to get back to all those messages you left on read.
Photo by Ferdinand Stöhr on Unsplash
