Will it be a riptide, pulling you out of your depth, pulling you under, or a gentle current carrying you to shore and depositing you carefully on the beach like a coconut floating in a tropical surf? Venus’ direction restores our aesthetic, relationship, and value norms (the standards we hold, not the actual state of matters to pre-retro dimensions), and we may look immediately to ‘the Other’ for feedback or reassurance (Libra), even as Merc’s retrograde in Sagittarius withdraws sharpness and focus from the mind–and at this point we were likely centering reasoning on either ‘the facts’ or our personal beliefs–so that the need to feel that comes forward during any Merc retro shows us the way out of our suddenly fuzzy thinking. The mind expands, and probably begins to traffic in images, sensations, big concepts, and ideas we might label ‘foreign’, as these are what’s accessible at this point of the cycle. Be prepared to spend the next three weeks in feeling mode–and as always, delay signing, agreeing, or formulating rules or conditions until Mercury’s turnaround, 6 December.

Today’s word image is a person holding a key, with no idea what it opens. We have the answer–the only way to use it, though, is to figure out which question it’s the answer to.