Venus Retrograde, Mercury's Cazimi and the Week We're Okay

Open on a Monday tea service that begins with a bold announcement: you are not okay. That is how host Aliza Kelly greets viewers in the November 2 edition of her Weekly Brew, a roughly hour-long video that folds three astrological developments into one week. Venus is retrograde in Libra, forming a sextile with Jupiter in Leo. Mercury is retrograde and meets the Sun in Scorpio for a cazimi. Around those two events she builds a tarot pull, a journal prompt about shifting perspective and a set of horoscopes for all twelve signs. Her thesis is not that the chaos has ended. It is that the sky is finally offering a pause, a moment to look around and ask whether you are actually okay. This piece unpacks the ideas underneath that pitch, from the sextile and the cazimi to the practice of returning to an old date, and explains why the structure of the reading matters as much as the predictions inside it.

Why open a weekly reading by telling you that you're not okay?

The cold open is a joke with a point. Before any planet is named, Kelly describes a stretch of "a little diabolical, a little psychotic, a little completely transforming" weeks, then asks the viewer to consider the theme itself: is "we're okay" a question, or an exclamation? "Listen, it's tea," she says. The format is deliberately loose, and the looseness is the method.

What she is really describing is a pause in a cycle. She frames the week as "a lower key week in a very higher stakes season," and uses a physical image to make the point. Like her three-year-old who loves to spin until the room tilts, we have been turning for weeks. This week, she suggests, is the moment to "stop. We hold on to something, or maybe we start to tumble." The question she puts to the audience is simple and practical: "Am I okay? What's going on? Where am I?"

"And frankly, I think that it's actually going to be a very, very important week to recognize where we are standing now after we've been spinning around for all of this time."

— Aliza Kelly, Weekly Brew, November 2 episode (1:20 in the transcript)

That emphasis on orientation, rather than prediction, is what distinguishes this reading. Kelly is less interested in telling you what will happen than in helping you locate yourself inside a long process. Whether you take the astrology literally or as a framing device, the question she asks is a good one to carry into any week.

What is a sextile, and why does Venus keep coming back?

The first planetary event is Venus, retrograde in Libra, forming a sextile with Jupiter in Leo. In astrological usage, a sextile is a harmonious angle, roughly sixty degrees apart, that is generally read as an opening rather than a demand. Kelly calls Venus and Jupiter "the two benefics in astrology," and the description of the video lists the themes they bring: love, creativity, abundance and second chances.

The detail that gives the reading its narrative spine is that this is not a one-off. Kelly is explicit: "this is the second installment of a three-part series." Venus and Jupiter first linked up on August 17, and she argues that the topics and storylines active on that date are returning now. This is an unusual move. Most weekly horoscopes treat each transit as a fresh event. Kelly treats the sky as a serial, where the second episode depends on the first.

"Venus is still retrograde. Yes. But what's actually interesting is that this is the second installment of a three-part series."

— Aliza Kelly, Weekly Brew, November 2 episode (2:13 in the transcript)

For a reader, the practical lesson is to look back. Kelly asks viewers to think about "whatever was going on in your life on August 17th," and the description goes further, asking what was happening in your life back in August and why those themes might be returning. Whatever you make of the astrology, the exercise is a sound one. Returning themes are easy to miss when they arrive in a new form, and a deliberate look at an earlier season can reveal the thread.

What does a cazimi mean when Mercury meets the Sun?

The second event is the cazimi: Mercury, still retrograde, comes so close to the Sun that it sits within the Sun's disk, here in Scorpio. In most astrological traditions a cazimi is read as a moment of heightened clarity, and Kelly leans into that reading. She describes it as "a quick make out with the sun," then turns to what it is supposed to do: illuminate secrets, deliver important information and help us finally understand what these retrogrades have been trying to teach.

The tension is the interesting part. Mercury governs communication and information, and it is moving backward. A cazimi asks a retrograde planet to deliver clarity while it is still turning around. Kelly's framing is that the clarity is arriving inside the retrograde rather than after it: "We are going to receive some clarity from this retrograde hellscape." That line captures the whole weekly argument in miniature. The chaos has not finished, but the information is starting to surface, and the sky is offering a way to read it.

It is also worth noting how much Kelly relies on humor to hold the seriousness. Her readings are built to be playful and warm, which is part of why they work as a weekly ritual. The tone never asks you to abandon your judgment; it asks you to hold it lightly while you look.

Why pull a tarot card when you're reading the sky?

The tarot segment, which begins about seven minutes in, is where Kelly's method becomes most visible. She explains a small piece of backstage honesty: she usually works with the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, but it is not in front of her this week. During the previous Mercury retrograde she could not find a Rider-Waite-Smith card, and when she finally located the deck she called it "a miracle." This week she has reverted to the Hermetic Tarot, and she jokes that she hopes the cards agree they can have a good time.

The aside matters because it reveals how the reading is made. A tarot pull here is not a sealed oracle. It is an improvised conversation with the week's themes, subject to the same mood and constraints as everything else. Kelly treats the card as one more thread to be woven into the astrology rather than a separate authority. For a viewer who wants to try this at home, the lesson is to pick a deck and read it in dialogue with what you already know.

The video also includes a journal prompt built around shifting perspective. That fits the week's logic. If the sky is offering clarity, the prompt is the place to test whether you can actually see differently, rather than only hearing about it.

How do the twelve sign readings work as a set?

The back half of the episode moves through the twelve signs in sequence, each reading a few minutes long. The sections are chaptered in the video, starting with Aries and running through Pisces, and they follow a consistent pattern: Kelly describes what the week's planetary events might mean for that sign and then names specific areas of life where the shift may show up. Her Aries reading, for instance, opens with the observation that "maybe it's an unexpected opportunity," which is the language of the sextile applied to one sign's life.

Because the readings are personal and delivered at length, a transcript excerpt cannot capture all of them, and this article will not pretend to summarize each one. What is worth noticing is the structure. Every sign is asked to recall something from its own life, to look for a returning theme, and to consider where it is standing now. That mirrors the opening frame of the whole episode. The horoscope is not a verdict; it is a set of prompts for self-observation.

Readers who want the full detail for their own sign should watch the chaptered sections directly, since the framing and specifics are where Kelly's voice does most of its work.

How can you use a reading like this without losing yourself?

The episode offers a useful discipline for anyone who reads horoscopes regularly. Take the three moves Kelly makes. First, look back: what was happening in your life on the date she names, and do those themes seem to be returning? Second, notice where you are spinning and where you could sit down. Third, use the journal prompt as a checkpoint for whether your perspective has actually shifted.

Kelly also models an unusually open relationship with the audience. She shares that she has a three-year-old, and asks listeners a question that is not about astrology at all: how do you feel now that you are stepping into the holiday season? Her own answer is candid. She says the season carries "something exciting and anticipatory, but also very nerve-wracking," and that there is "something kind of sad and bittersweet about this season." The reading becomes more useful when the host admits that the holidays are complicated for her too.

"Think about that. Low-key week, high-stakes season."

— Aliza Kelly, Weekly Brew, November 2 episode (1:18 in the transcript, paraphrased phrasing from the opening segment)

Where to go from here

If this reading left you curious, the most direct next step is to watch the full episode, paying attention to the tarot segment at 7:11 and the journal prompt at 23:43. Kelly's Weekly Brew runs on Mondays, and her Wednesday episodes go deeper into astrology as a companion. The host also points viewers to her virtual community at constellation-club.com, where she announced a coven meeting on Monday, November 9, timed to the new moon in Scorpio.

For readers who want to keep building their own practice, the lesson of this episode is less about any single planet and more about method. Look for returning dates. Give the retrogrades room to finish their work. Treat a horoscope as a question you bring to your own life, and let the answer be as honest as Kelly's own admission that she is not sure whether she is okay, yet.