The Short Version
For anyone who wants the news and not the lesson:
• The Sun is on the Six of Cups, the memory card, from November 2 until Thursday the 12th of November, and the Six of Cups is the Sun’s own face. For ten days the Sun is home, and Remembrance Day falls within them; we remember and honor the people of the past.
• Mercury is lying on the same card, reversed. On November the 4th, the Sun reaches it, the exact middle of the retrograde, and on Friday Mercury backs onto the Five of Cups, where it stands still for the whole decan.
• Venus is resting on the Four of Swords, reversed and all but stopped for the remainder of the decan as well. You may hear of someone from your deep past who has passed.
• Mars steps onto the Seven of Wands on November 3rd, his own face in Leo, and joins Jupiter there. The landlord who was out all last decan has come home to one of his rooms.
• The New Moon falls on the Six of Cups on Monday the 9th: the Sun and the Moon together on the Sun’s own card. The best New Moon of the year for the old friend, the family table, and the letter you keep meaning to write.
• The rest of the board holds: Saturn and Neptune still sharing the Two of Wands, both reversed, Uranus on the Eight of Swords reversed, and Pluto upright on the Five of Swords.
• Your sign’s line comes next; the Moon’s card is in my Notes, and the next issue arrives on the morning of the 12th.
A line for your sign
The Sun is in Scorpio, so the Six of Cups lands in a different house for each sign. Read your Sun sign.
Aries. The Six of Cups in your house of shared money, endings, and the dead: the inheritance that is more than money, the recipe in her handwriting, the things in the box in the basement. Your ruler Mars steps onto the Seven of Wands tomorrow, home to his own face in Leo, beside Jupiter, so the fight you have been holding the hill for gets its reinforcements this week. Open the box first.
Taurus. The Six of Cups in your house of partners: the old sweetness in the relationship comes back round, or an old partner does. Your ruler Venus is standing still on the Four of Swords, reversed, and you may be invited to a funeral for someone from your childhood; the New Moon on the 9th falls opposite your sign on the memory card. Say the kind thing you said in the first year. It still works.
Gemini. The Six of Cups in your house of work and the body: the old colleague, the job you left, the knee that remembers the fall. Your ruler Mercury is lying on the card reversed; the Sun reaches it on Wednesday, and on Friday it backs onto the Five of Cups to stand still until the 13th. Whatever you keep re-reading says its name midweek. Reply to it after the 13th.
Cancer. The Six of Cups in your house of pleasure, children and romance, which is this card’s natural home: the grandchildren, the photographs, the garden you had as a child. The Moon, your ruler, is new on the Six of Cups on Monday the 9th, the Sun’s own card, and that is the one New Moon in the year made for a family table. Set it.
Leo. The Six of Cups in your house of home and family: the house you grew up in, the one you made, the one you are thinking of selling. Mars arrives on the Seven of Wands tomorrow and joins Jupiter in your sign, both in Mars’s own face, so the hill you're holding now has two of them on it. The memory is the ground you are holding. Name it, and the standing gets easier.
Virgo. The Six of Cups in your house of conversation, siblings, and the short drive: the brother’s voice on the old answering machine, the neighborhood you drive through on purpose. Your ruler Mercury is reversed on the memory card, the Sun catches it on Wednesday, and it stands still on the Five of Cups until the 13th. The letter you wrote by hand last decan gets its answer this one, from an unexpected direction.
Libra. The Six of Cups in your house of money and worth: what you were given, what you were taught about money at the kitchen table, what the first job paid. Your ruler, Venus, has stopped on the Four of Swords in your sign, reversed, and turns direct on Friday the 13th, the kindest day of the month for you. Until then, the rest continues, and the accounts stay where they lie. You may finally give up on an investment that has never come true.
Scorpio. Your card, your decan, your birthday, and the Sun’s own face: the Sun is home in your sign for ten days, and the memory card is yours to open. Mercury is reversed on it with you, the Sun reaches it on Wednesday, and the New Moon on the 9th is yours as well, the Sun and Moon together on your card. A birthday with a New Moon in it is the one to make a wish on. Make it about who you were; the wanting takes care of itself. Just because someone from the past shows up doesn’t mean you have to invite them in.
Sagittarius. The Six of Cups in your twelfth house, the room behind the room: the memory you keep to yourself, the one that comes at four in the morning. Your ruler, Jupiter, holds the Seven of Wands, and Mars joins it tomorrow, so what you defend in private has company now. The Sun reaches your sign on the 22nd. Let the memory keep you company until then; it means no harm.
Capricorn. The Six of Cups in your house of friends and groups: the friend from school, the group that used to meet on Thursdays, the kindness someone did you in 1987 that you never repaid. Your ruler Saturn lies reversed on the Two of Wands beside Neptune until the 10th of December, still costing the plan. Repay the kindness this week. It is the one line item that never goes over budget.
Aquarius. The Six of Cups in your house of career and standing: the mentor, the first boss, the version of yourself that started this work. Pluto stands upright in your sign on the Five of Swords, and the conversation that waited since May either happened last decan or is happening now; the memory card asks you to bring who you were into the room with who you have become. They agree on more than you think.
Pisces. The Six of Cups in your house of faith and far places: the church you were raised in, the country you left, the teacher whose voice you still hear. Your ruler Neptune lies reversed on the Two of Wands with Saturn beside it, pricing the dream, and the memory card says the dream was yours before it had a price. Visit it this week in whatever way you can, if only by the photograph.
The Sun moved this morning, and it knew the room
Good morning. The Sun crossed into the second face of Scorpio before dawn, the morning after the clocks went back, and now stands on the Six of Cups. This one is different from the last two. The Four of Swords was Jupiter’s face, and the Five of Cups was Mars’s; the Six of Cups belongs to the Sun. (Note: Decans were also called the 36 faces of the zodiac; decan and face are interchangeable.)
For the next ten days the visitor and the host are the same planet, which is as close as the sky comes to the Sun putting its feet up at home. And home is the memory card: the courtyard, the two children, the cup full of flowers handed over.
It did not find the room empty either. Mercury has been lying on the Six of Cups reversed since the Tuesday after I last wrote, going back over its own tracks, and on Wednesday the Sun reaches it, the exact middle of the retrograde, the way it reached Venus on the Five of Cups two weeks ago.
Then Mercury backs onto the Five of Cups on Friday and stays there for the rest of the decan.
Venus is already standing still, on the Four of Swords.
Mars comes home to his own face tomorrow, onto the Seven of Wands, and finds Jupiter there.
And on Monday the 9th the New Moon falls on the Six of Cups, the Sun and the Moon together on the Sun’s own card, which the almanacs will tell you is a New Moon in Scorpio, and I will tell you is the best night of the year to ring an old friend.
If this is your first issue, welcome, and pull up a chair. Every numbered card in the minor arcana, Two through Ten, has ten days of the year that belong to it, and the Sun is on the Six of Cups until November 12.
Below is the card and a little lesson on it, then the board, where each planet sits on the card of the days it is standing in, upright when it is moving forward and turned over when it has gone retrograde. No astrology required. I name every card as it lands, and the welcome post has the long version: link to the welcome post