Embrace Conflict to Create Peace: Horoscopes September 14-September 20, 2026
Most people treat conflict like a sportsball game, with winners and losers. In my 20+ years working in law and mediation, I found that conflict is more productively approached like a maze. The other people involved in the maze may be partners in navigating it with you, but they may also be booby traps. Resolving conflict is about our relationship with the conflict, not about defeating the other people involved.
In order to truly resolve a conflict and transform it into something creative, you have to enter the maze.
This week, the astrological and human design transits invite us to look at where we encounter conflict or adversity with rigidity and defensiveness and where we encounter what we do want with obsessiveness or defeatism. When we defensively shield ourselves against conflict, or obsess over one potential outcome, we create traps for ourselves. If we approach conflict with curiosity, it becomes a maze we can solve.
Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash
For horoscope principles this week, I am primarily looking at the following celestial events:
Monday, September 14, 2026:
The Sun in Virgo sextiles Mars in Cancer at 12:52pm Pacific. This provides a practical boost for any healing work or practical care you want to provide to yourself and your community. The Sun in Virgo offers analytical support to look at the metaphorical dirty corners of your life that you’ve been avoiding, and Mars in Cancer provides an actionable boost to your ability to turn those corners into healing spaces.
The Sun in Virgo goes from Human Design Gate 47 (transforming ancestral oppression into healing) to Gate 6 (releasing defensiveness to allow peace) at around 10pm Pacific. This is a transition that offers us the opportunity to go from looking inward to our own healing around oppression to seeing how our defensiveness contributes to conflict. Rather than being judgmental and rejecting defensiveness as a blanket rule, we can integrate defensiveness and become more aware of how it shows up in our lives so that we can become intentional about it.
Tuesday, September 15, 2026:
Venus in Scorpio squares Pluto in Aquarius at 11:34am Pacific. Pluto is one of the rulers of Scorpio, and with Venus there, she is “in reception” with Pluto under this transit, meaning she is communicating with the ruler of the sign she is transiting through. This transit offers the opportunity for us to reflect on the places where we are stuck related to the depth we expect from our social movements and rebellions, as well as our personal relationships and artistic circles. If we are expecting our activist icons to get everything right or understand trauma on a deep level, we may be limiting the progress we can make. Whether we want to put those limits on progress while we perfect our approach to deep woundings and the beauty of intensity is a question each of us may want to answer differently.
Neptune in Aries sextiles Pluto in Aquarius at 7:08pm Pacific. This is a transit that provides support around our ideals and sense of our own depth. The healthy side of this is the ability to deeply relax into our beliefs. That can also be the unhealthy side.
Thursday, September 17, 2026:
Chiron retrogrades into Aries at 6:50pm Pacific. Chiron was last in Aries between 2019 and June of 2026 (this year). We’ve gotten a little sneak preview of Chiron in Taurus over the past couple of months, and now we’re getting another chance to revisit the woundings around authenticity and courage that come from Chiron being in Aries. Consider the woundings around authenticity and courage that came up for you over the 7 years of Chiron being in Aries. This is an opportunity for you to take final lessons from those experiences before Chiron goes into Taurus in April of 2027 for another 7 years.
Friday, September 18, 2026:
Mercury in Libra opposes Saturn in Aries at 3am Pacific. This energy confronts us with the consequences of our thinking and communication. Whether what we think or say is true is a shallow question, and instead of asking whether it is true or dishonest, we can go deeper into this energy if we ask how our thoughts and words feel and what they create. This does not have to be a punishing inquiry, but instead can provide immediate direction to our most painful confusion.
The Sun in Virgo goes from Gate 6 (releasing defensiveness to allow peace) to Gate 46 (trusting intuition to put you in the right place at the right time) at around 4pm Pacific. There is an experience in releasing defensiveness in which we are afraid about what we will allow in and whether we will create misunderstandings. Once we can see defensiveness for what it is and be intentional about where we use it, we can uncover a wonderland of possibilities about how to encounter any moment. Gate 46, then, gives us the spark of understanding for what possibility to choose to move toward luck. It teaches that what we call luck is really deep connection to natural rhythms.
The Moon travels through Scorpio, Sagittarius, and into Capricorn this week; Jupiter continues in Leo; Uranus continues in Gemini.
These are the principles to consider for the week of September 14, 2026. It is worth taking a look at both your rising and sun sign horoscopes (visit astro.com to find your rising sign):
Aries: Our homes are often the space in our lives where we are most comfortable having open conflict, and our families are the people who see that side of us the most. This week provides a good opportunity for you to practice showing up authentically and non-defensively, even within conflict, especially with your family. One rule in challenging conversations is to listen and repeat back what you think you’ve heard about three times more than you think you should with genuine curiosity. This is a great week to create other parameters for how you handle differences in conflict.
Taurus: Taylor Swift says that the thing about illicit affairs is that they show truth one time and then lie a million times. On the other hand, Shakespeare tells us that “the truth will out.” Part of what Taylor Swift means, I think, is that the truths we share in secret can feel more true than those we share publicly, but if we don’t like our reasons for keeping secrets, they can ultimately betray us. This week, consider what you hold in secret, what you keep private that is not secret, and what you expose publicly. All of them have value, and privacy is important. Also, true intimacy involves some exposure.
Gemini: There is a phenomenon that happens regarding creativity, where if people with knowledge on a particular topic are put into an intense, or sometimes dire, time limited situation and asked to solve an impossible problem, they come up with an innovative solution. In this way, the constraints we put on our creative projects matter as much as the freedoms. This week, consider what constraints you put on your creativity and experiment with manufacturing the intensity that forces you to see what you create in a new way. Your friend groups may be able to help.
Cancer: The difference between changing someone’s life in a helpful way and traumatizing someone is often consent. This week, write yourself a post it note that reminds you that the taboo, secret, obsessive, mystical, or simply angry things you have to share and create this week may be the key to someone else’s transformation. Write yourself a second note that reminds you to get consent first. You know that what is right for you is not necessarily right for everyone, but don’t let that hold you back from sharing. Just take a minute to ask for consent first.
Leo: Money is a neutral energy in the sense that it is a resource like water or air. Each of us has a relationship to money, whether that relationship is healthy or unhealthy. This week is a good opportunity for you to unpack your unconscious relationship to money. If you imagine money as a person, how do you treat your relationship to them? A lot of people talk sh*t about money and then hope money will want to hang out with them. Others obsessively stalk money and wonder why their other relationships suffer. The more intentional we are about our conscious and unconscious relationship with money, the more we can check in with its health and needs.
Virgo: Conflict exists because people have a mutual interest and different perspectives on that mutual interest. It cannot exist without mutual interest. This week, change and conflict that happen in your friend groups give you an opportunity to notice spaces where you feel defensive about who you are. You can see a friend’s perspective and still know yours is different. It also is a great opportunity to write down your values and even make a budget (consider a budget vision board if a regular budget feels too dry).
Libra: The more deeply we understand and love someone, the more fully we allow them to be free to be themselves. This is the essential difference between love and obsession. This week, consider how this applies to your creative projects, specifically, and children if you have some of those. The intensity and depth of your values, and your freedom of expression in your creativity have the potential to release something new into the world or to crush your projects under the weight of obsession. Check in with who you truly are and what is important to you if you find yourself ruminating on drafts.
Scorpio: Byron Katie says that defense is the first act of war. At the same time, sometimes enforcing our boundaries involves defending something in a healthy way. This week, consider what you want your identity to be in your friend and social groups, how it relates to your morals and ideals, and where any defensiveness may keep you from fully integrating the two. For example, if you want your friends to think you are smart and analytical, and your highest ideals include being community oriented and giving back, this week offers an opportunity to join the two together and release any defensiveness that may be keeping you from fully expressing that spectrum of care and capability.
Sagittarius: Religion is the term we usually apply to spiritual beliefs that have been institutionalized and codified. Most people belong to some type of religion, whether it is Christianity, Islam, the legal system, sports, science and academia, or in some other shape. We also have internal structures for our personal religions based on the thoughts we think all the time, like, “I should do the dishes.” This week, consider putting structure around your personal religion. Listen to what you say to friends to get insight into the core tenets of what your belief system is, as opposed to what you want it to be.
Capricorn: We often think of disciplined thinking as dry and non-emotional, or attached to a polarized right and wrong, which is quite false. Actually, disciplined thinking has a strong relationship with being able to understand and observe the impacts of a thought or belief system. This week, if you feel inclined to invest in a get-rich-quick scheme or passionate romance in your friend group, take a step back. Consider the impacts of even your mental investment in the intense and obsessive. This is a good week to allow clarity and non-defensiveness around your mental investments.
Aquarius: Overthinking happens when we allow our brains to ruminate on a topic we don’t like, without testing out how healthy or unhealthy the thoughts are. This week gives you a good opportunity to look at any obsessive thinking or even just overthinking you might be experiencing. It is a good week to write down the thoughts you have as they come up, not as a documentation of your experience of life, but so that you can look at them as separate from you. Test how they feel and what they create. If a thought is unhealthy, release it and choose something healthy.
Pisces: Most groups, and even some activities and friendships, are cults. The more your instinct is to deny that you are in a cult, the more likely it is that you are being influenced by cult mindset. Cult mindset happens when our group identification overtakes our ability to also individualize. This is not something to be embarrassed about, but just something to identify. This week, consider the intense connections you have and how you can also find ways to ease into freedom to express difference.
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