The Moon leaves Mars and applies to Jupiter from Aquarius
Past an opposition to Mars, closing on Mercury and Jupiter: the old terms are separation and application.
The record for 20 October 2026
17° Aquarius
Waxing gibbous, two thirds lit and still filling.
0h · 6h · 12h · 18h
Sign
Aquarius, seventeen degrees
Phase
Waxing gibbous
Condition
Peregrine
The word to know today
Application
A planet applies while it closes on an exact aspect with another, and separates once the aspect has passed. The Moon, fastest of the old planets, is almost always applying to something, and the tradition read her next contact as the first thing a matter would meet.
Dorotheus of Sidon, writing in the first century, judged a beginning largely by two contacts: the planet the Moon had just left and the planet she was moving toward. This morning she stands at seventeen degrees of Aquarius, waxing gibbous and about two thirds lit, and both contacts can be named.
The old terms are separation and application. A planet applies while it is still closing on an exact aspect with another, and separates once that aspect has passed. The Moon, fastest of the old planets, is nearly always doing both. In the rules for marriage in the Carmen Astrologicum, the man was read partly from the planet she had left and the woman from the one she was joining.
Her separation today is from Mars. She opposed him at 02:26 UTC, across the sky in Leo. Her next application is a square to Mercury in Scorpio at about 17:44 UTC, then an opposition to Jupiter, also in Leo, near 22:50 UTC. In Aquarius she has no dignity of her own; she remains peregrine, a guest in Saturn’s sign.
The tradition preferred a Moon applying to a benefic, and Jupiter is the greater of the two. By opposition, though, the contact is made from the far side of the circle, an aspect the old writers counted among the hard ones.
Her last aspect in Aquarius is a trine to the Sun, Wednesday at 08:42 UTC. After that she applies to nothing until she reaches Pisces at 12:35 UTC.
From the shelf
Dorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum
First century, the earliest surviving systematic rules for choosing a moment, in which the Moon’s last and next contacts carry much of the judgment.
Six short letters and one long one, every week
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Monday to Saturday, the Moon's sign today and what the old texts made of it. On Sunday, the week ahead for all twelve signs. Free.
