Commonsense Almanac By Ben Commons | September 2025

Tips for almanac use: All the aspects can be felt in advance. It is good policy to view these as due dates for various energies and prepare accordingly for your context. It’s akin to bringing an umbrella with you when rain is expected, but it also helps us to not take the weather personally. When we proactively manifest these symbols then the world doesn’t have to do it for us. Choose to be con(with)-siderate(the stars). Reach out to me for personal explorations of these times.

September, how’d you get here so fast? Well, it’s definitely a dynamic month and any month with eclipses always promises the unforeseen and unexpected. First, Saturn takes us back to the waters so we can dredge and purge more ancient detritus. Then we get hit with the first eclipse, a Lunar Eclipse, asking us to find peace wherever we can. This is followed by all sorts of socially dynamic happenings, where we need to keep connecting, but should do so with care. The Solar Eclipse follows with some very rich and portentous energy around how we show up amongst our people. And the month closes out with an exhortation to find new and reignite old passions and pursuits. We need something to fuel these trains as they move down the tracks.

Saturn returns to Pisces on Monday 9/1 at 1:06 am Pacific, until 2/13/26. This takes us back into the waters of accumulated everything for more processing, honoring, and release of grief, pain, unhealthy patterns, and generational inheritance. This time period could feel very heavy and disheartening as we probably felt as if we moved past so much leading up to this previous May. However, there are always more layers to cleanse and we may become aware of patterns that have remained unconscious. Steady does it.

Mercury enters Virgo on Tuesday 9/2 at 6:23 am Pacific, until 9/18. These couple of weeks are all about organizing our awareness and trimming it down to what is productive. This is a time for taking care of our bodies, particularly the digestive and nervous systems, to avoid getting burned out. We should also be making more healthy habits into standard operating procedures. So, let’s not overthink it all and take what care we can.

Mercury squares Uranus on Wednesday 9/3 at 12:40 am Pacific, throwing volatility around in unexpected manners. This is about how we deal with this brave new world we are living in, where changes outpace our evolutionary designs for keeping up. Basically, we are overstimulated to the Nth and should be wary of blasting people close to us, and avoid people looking to unleash their angst. It’s better to focus on how we can break through, or break out of, old mental ruts and stuck ways of thinking about life’s choices. Be flexible and keep the mind plastic.

Mars squares Jupiter on Thursday 9/4 at 7:58 pm Pacific. This dynamic could fuel some much-needed optimism, though it could go overboard in that direction as well. We should be tempered in eagerness, but should definitely be looking for all the opportunities to grow our relationships and communal connections. Brainstorming with close associates would be wise as we seek to maximize the possibilities of the now.

Uranus stations retrograde on Friday 9/5 at 9:51 pm Pacific, pulling us back into another revision period, except that most have not lived through this one before. It’s about how we adjust ourselves and our minds to this even newer information age; one where not is all as it seems and the pace of change is stretching our capacities. It’s about how we process information; or more importantly, how much we question and investigate what we see before us. Independence of thought and plenty of questioning is highly recommended. We can’t keep rejecting or accepting things just because of how they align with our value structures.

The Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse in Pisces is on Sunday 9/7 at 11:12 am Pacific. This lunation would almost be peaceful except that this cycle started with a very intense New Moon. But it is about peace, finding it wherever you can, but most especially within ourselves, in our sanctuaries, and in our bodies. There’s always self-growth work to be done, normal life work, mundane tasks, and so on, but we need to find the times and spaces to unwind and unfurl or it’s all for naught. Prayer, mantras, walks in nature, and whatever else will help us remember the calm within and around.

The Sun conjoins Mercury on Saturday 9/13 at 3:51 am Pacific, for another mind-heart alignment assignment. This one is really about using the mind for what it’s best suited towards: Organizing intake, sending what’s useful to where it serves us, and jettisoning the unnecessary. If it doesn’t serve us, if it brings back uncomfortable memories, or if it’s just a distraction, then let’s work on letting it go by making firm decisions. Affirm the healthful.

Mercury opposes Saturn on Wednesday 9/17 at 10:46 am Pacific. Now is the time to take another cold, hard look at where we came from, what we’ve gone through, and what imprinted on us and how. Then we should do our best to disidentify with outdated, tired, and counter-productive conceptualizations. We need to become freer to define ourselves anew by ridding of the old. Make room for the new growth that is gestating just below the surface.

Mercury enters Libra on Thursday 9/18 at 3:06 am Pacific, until 10/6. These couple weeks are all about connecting with equals and sharing our current mental conundrums. The beginning of this will be a little spicy and confusing, so balance is a must. And then it smooths out and supports all sorts of pleasant interactions. But don’t avoid the real stuff and make sure to listen and receive instead of making it one sided. We all need the mutual reflection, and some good laughs.

Mercury opposes Neptune and trines Uranus and Pluto on Thursday 9/18 at 3 pm, 9:52 pm, and 11:26 pm Pacific, bringing the heavy. This triple whammy will be dredging up some bullpucky from below, making it all sort of surreal and confusing, and also having us itching for massive and effortless breakthroughs. But big shifts do require effort, clear discernment, and a willingness to confront and undo our mental hangups and reactionary tendencies. Focus on changing you and avoid ruminating about others.

Venus enters Virgo on Friday 9/19 at 5:39 am Pacific, until 10/13. These four weeks could be challenging, as it highlights our insecurities and whatever is not functioning as smoothly as we would like. A good strategy is to practice appreciation of all the improvements, however minor, and keep pushing through to better days with better ways. Validation will be most valuable at this point, so be willing to offer that to those close to you. And definitely don’t beat yourself up about the unavoidable faults from being in this messy world.

Venus squares Uranus on Saturday 9/20 at 8:41 am Pacific. Well, this is another instance of very low tolerance that could lead to outbursts in poorly chosen directions. It’s really about how we dance with and through our own constructs of expectations and goal-achievement requirements. We humans tend to set ourselves against unrealistically-long to-do lists and then get bummed. Instead, we should celebrate all that we accomplish and be patient with the pace of reality. Dance with it.

Sun opposes Saturn on Saturday 9/20 at 10:45 pm Pacific. This is a chance to grieve for our former selves and all the challenges, difficulty, and pain that we have gone through. It’s about further disidentification with the stories of old, the family patterns, and the ancestral inheritance. Let’s dive into the cleansing waters with our hearts and free ourselves of narratives gone by. Let’s make space to reframe ourselves into the now.

The New Moon/Solar Eclipse in Virgo is on Sunday 9/21 at 12:53 pm Pacific. This is an especially profound lunation that is so ultra cleansing prone that words could not capture it. It’s about taking the disidentification push happening this last week and putting its roots deep into the soil of our beings; our bodies. Being aware of things is not enough if they are not integrated and allowed into our personal spaces. The body needs the benefit of these lightening exercises to ease the stress levels and bring some joy back to our physical constraints. Let us be refreshed beyond what we can imagine.

Mars enters Scorpio on Monday 9/22 at 12:55 am Pacific, until 11/4. This period is about diving into our emotional reservoirs and seeing what we could release to the sands of time. However, more crucially, it is about reinvigorating old passions and finding something, anything, new to sink the teeth of enthusiasm into. Life is drab without something that stimulates our inner ‘Wow,’ and now is the time to get our inner Zorba dancing around the evening fires once again. Even if it’s just some new music, or a new dish, or a nice swim. Venture forth and seek openly.

The Sun enters Libra on Monday 9/22 at 11:20 am Pacific. As per usual, we should be tending to our social connections, getting caught up with our people, and enjoying the nice side of human culture. But this Libra season definitely has an extra emphasis on keeping things healthy, increasing healthfulness, and avoiding people that have shown themselves to be more of a drain than an equal. It’s great to support good people through hard times, but we got to draw the line somewhere. Just be careful not to jump to any conclusions because the early phases will be convoluted. Play fair and play nice, but take care of yourself.

Sun opposes Neptune and trines Uranus and Pluto on Tuesday 9/23 at 5:53 am, 7:54 pm and 11:04 pm Pacific. Of course this is complicated. Somehow, we have to balance our need for connection and merriment while not projecting or allowing projection, and not going after people or allowing bizarre attacks towards us. The deeper lessons could be learned through seeing ourselves in others and learning through whatever we may witness. We are all so similar despite our gargantuan differences, so there are always morsels of wisdom to be extracted from even the most mundane of happenings. But let’s not be too risky by, say, flipping someone off on a drive. We don’t know how ready to pop people may be.

Mars squares Pluto on Wednesday 9/24 at 4:51 am Pacific. This is an extremely emotionally sensitive celestial event. Ideally, we should be using this to purge ourselves of the people that still inhabit our thoughts and to whom we still spend unnecessary energy while reacting to events of the past. Which is also to say, watch out for over-reacting now because of getting old wounds triggered. We should truly allow ourselves personal emotional freedom from the demons of our past and strike certain people and events from the record as best we can. That milk was spilled long ago, so let’s honor it within ourselves and release it as thoroughly as we can. Moving on.

Oh, September. How can we know where this portal in time will leave us. But hopefully, we stayed flexible, willing, diligent, aware, cautious, eager, and ultra open to all the opportunities that buzzed by. And we would be wise to remember that the momentum set here, particularly through the eclipses, will carry us into the wildly unknowable future. But we will still be us, so let’s focus on upgrading ourselves.

‍

‍

‍

  Ben Commons

ASTROLOGER | Ben has been studying astrology since 1994 and started doing readings professionally in 2002. He is also a practicing Reiki master, and works with stones for healing. He uses astrology as a strategic tool and calls himself an Astro-strategist.

or Book a Remote Reading with Ben!

Follow Ben @astro_strategist on Instagram for more astrological wisdom