November 2026 Astrology: Venus, Mercury and Mars Transits

Chris Brennan recorded his November 2026 forecast on October 22, two days before the retrograde he most wanted to discuss had even begun. The episode, number 555 of The Astrology Podcast, is a month-long walk through a sky that is unusually crowded: Venus finishing a retrograde that began in Scorpio and ends in Libra, Mercury turning retrograde in the same watery sign, a Sun–Mercury meeting on November 4, a Mars–Jupiter–South Node gathering in Leo on November 15 and 16, and Mars slipping into Virgo at the end of the month to begin a long, tense square with Uranus. Brennan treats these not as a list of events but as a sequence, with each transit setting up the tone for the next. What follows explains the core ideas behind that sequence, so the forecast can be read as more than a calendar of dates.

The episode opens with a scene that Brennan himself found too perfect to skip. The day before he recorded, a serious security flaw was reported in PHP, the widely used web software that a large share of the world's websites run on. Sites were told to patch immediately or go offline. Brennan said he saw at least two astrology software sites announce they were going dark. He called it "classic and funny Mercury retrograde stuff," and it captures the logic of the whole month: the sky doesn't cause machines to fail, but it spotlights the places where systems, messages and relationships were already fragile.

What makes this Venus retrograde the last of its kind?

The most distinctive thread in the forecast is a sign-change story that unfolds over decades. Venus began its retrograde in Scorpio in early October, then moved through a cazimi, the close conjunction with the Sun that traditional astrologers read as the planet sitting in the Sun's "heart." Around October 23 and 24, Venus joins the Sun in Scorpio and then, as the retrograde continues, turns back into Libra, the sign it had passed through in September. It will station direct in Libra on November 13.

Brennan's point about this specific cazimi is that it is the last of its kind for a long time. In the episode he tells listeners: "this is the last one we're going to get" (Chris Brennan, The Astrology Podcast, 2026). He explains that these Venus retrograde cazimis in Scorpio have been recurring for almost a century, and that after this one, the cazimi will fall in Libra, roughly every eight years. In other words, the Scorpio version of this pattern is closing, and what replaces it is a Libra-centered cycle.

That shift matters because Brennan links Libra to something personal. Early in the broadcast, at about the 6-minute mark, he notes that there is "something about the Libra sectors of our birth charts," particularly the sign-house relationship that Libra has with the chart, and that this is an area the forecast will return to. For readers who want to test this in their own charts, the practical question is which houses Libra occupies in their natal chart and which areas of life those houses govern. That is a useful way to make a general transit specific.

Why does Mercury retrograde in Scorpio feel like buried secrets?

Mercury stations retrograde on October 24 at 20 degrees of Scorpio and then backs up to 5 degrees before turning direct on November 13. That means Mercury spends the first half of November covering ground it has already crossed, with its communication-related themes folded into the same sign where Venus has been operating. Brennan describes the familiar Mercury retrograde signatures: missed messages, misunderstood emails, plans that need to be checked twice and revisited.

Scorpio adds a particular flavor. As a water sign, it is associated with depth, emotion and what lies under the surface. At around 19 minutes into the episode, Brennan is describing how the water element in Scorpio tends to bring things up rather than let them pass, and the forecast leans into the idea that what gets revealed in this period is often what was already present but unspoken. The way he frames it, a retrograde is less a cause of trouble than a reading of what's been left unaddressed. Relationships in particular are a focus, and the episode treats Venus retrograde in Scorpio as a period when desires shift and surprises surface.

Brennan also emphasizes that retrograde periods have a "shadow" before and after the station, and that the planet's themes are present well before the official dates. That is why the forecast starts on October 22 and not November 1. The idea is practical: if you wait for the first day of the month to notice the effects, you may already be in the middle of them.

What happens at the Mercury cazimi on November 4?

The first major date of the month is November 4, when Mercury joins the Sun in Scorpio. Brennan describes this as the midpoint of the retrograde cycle, the moment when Mercury and the Sun meet and resolution begins. His description of the principle is precise: issues that were set up at the start of the retrograde, or things that needed to be revisited, begin moving toward resolution "even if they're not fixed." That distinction is worth holding onto. A cazimi, in this framing, is a turning point in understanding rather than a finish line for the practical problem.

The same day, Venus in Libra makes a sextile to Jupiter in Leo, a gentler aspect that the episode describes as a moment of breathing room. Brennan uses the phrase "breathing room or a little bit of grace" when discussing the wider stretch of the month, suggesting that not every part of November is dense. Taken together, the November 4 pairing gives the first half of the month a mix of reckoning and relief: the Mercury turning point invites honest reconsideration, and the Venus–Jupiter sextile offers space to act on it.

Two days later, on November 5, Mars enters its pre-retrograde shadow in Leo, the early phase in which its themes begin to build before its formal turn backward. That sets up the most intense cluster of the month.

Can a Mars–Jupiter–South Node conjunction in Leo really shape war and peace?

Brennan calls the November 15 and 16 gathering of Mars, Jupiter and the South Node in Leo "probably our biggest alignment of this month." It is a rare triple conjunction, and the episode treats it as the center of gravity for the month's social and political questions. The themes he returns to are war and peace, and the stakes he describes are high: "sometimes conflicts break out," he says, while also noting moments when peacemaking has been seen to follow.

The approach here is historical. Brennan devotes a segment to earlier Mars and South Node conjunctions, around the 57-minute mark, examining how this combination has coincided with periods of conflict and negotiation. He is careful to frame this as pattern recognition rather than prediction, and he pays attention to the specific sign and degree involved. For a reader, the value of that method is in comparison: a planetary combination is read not as a single event but as a recurring signature whose outcomes depend on the surrounding chart.

The transit does not arrive alone. The Sun squares Jupiter and Mars between November 18 and 22, then enters Sagittarius, adding a second layer of tension to the mid-to-late month. Brennan's framing suggests that the Leo conjunction sets the emotional and strategic tone, and the Sun's square tests how that tone is handled in the days that follow.

Why does Mars entering Virgo matter for the rest of the year?

The forecast's longest-lasting development is Mars moving into Virgo on November 25. Brennan explains that Mars is slowing down and preparing to station retrograde on January 10, 2027, at 10 degrees of Virgo. Mars will not leave Virgo for the final time until July of next year, which makes this a long-term transit rather than a passing one. As he puts it, "we're really starting some long-term transits here by the end of the month."

The immediate concern is the square to Uranus in Gemini, which begins right after Mars enters Virgo and runs into early December. Brennan says the effect will be felt strongly during the last week of November. Before that, the full moon on November 24 falls in Gemini, conjunct Uranus, which intensifies Uranus's sudden, disruptive qualities in the very days Mars arrives. The episode also notes that Mercury will be squaring Pluto in Aquarius on November 13, and that Uranus in Gemini trines Pluto in Aquarius later in the month, a more harmonious configuration that offers a counterweight to the square.

The closing segments of the broadcast shift toward practical timing. Brennan presents an electional chart for November 22, a tool for choosing favorable moments to begin something, and he reviews the late-month shift in which Mercury exits its shadow and Venus sextiles Jupiter on November 28 and 29. That final sextile is the month's most hopeful note, and it lands just before the Mars–Uranus tension fully sets in.

How should a reader use a forecast like this?

The most useful thing about Brennan's approach is its structure. He doesn't ask listeners to accept a single prediction. He builds a timeline of stations, conjunctions, squares and ingresses, then asks how each one touches the others. A reader can treat the episode as a map: note the retrograde windows, mark the cazimi and the direct stations, watch the late-month Mars move, and then examine what those dates touch in their own charts. Whether one reads these correlations literally or symbolically, the method rewards slow attention rather than headline-level reaction.

Where to go from here

To hear the full forecast, listen to episode 555 of The Astrology Podcast, which runs close to two hours and includes a solo deep dive, a historical look at Mars and South Node conjunctions, and the late-month electional chart. The episode also closes with a letter that Brennan's co-host Austin sent from a trip, delivered, as the episode puts it, by carrier pigeon. For readers who want to go further into the chart work, Brennan's courses are available through his site, theastrologyschool.com. Start with the November 4 cazimi and the November 15–16 conjunction, then trace what Mars does after November 25. Those are the dates the month is built around.