Last week the light kept shrinking. The Moon went from full to half, Mercury slipped into the Sun’s glare and vanished from view, and Venus stayed hidden. It was a week for walking slowly and not mistaking shadows for things. This week there is a sliver of light again on the side where the day begins, but the question changes. It is no longer what can be seen in the dark: it is who holds the order of things together, and how.

On Monday night Venus leaves the Sun’s glare. From Tuesday, anyone who looks east shortly before sunrise finds Venus again, bright and alone above the horizon. She is the morning star, the first light to appear and the last to fade when the Sun arrives. She is still moving backwards through the sign of the scales, which is her own home, but she can be seen now. Before dawn on Saturday the Moon, worn down to a thread, passes right beside her, and the two make the loveliest picture in the week’s sky.

Mercury is still hidden and still moving backwards in Scorpio. On Wednesday he passes right through the heart of the Sun, and that is the midpoint of the whole retreat. The ancients said that a planet reaching the exact centre of the Sun is not burned: it is received, like someone who enters the king’s hall and comes out with new strength. The old message that was being reviewed goes into the light and comes out renewed. On Sunday Mercury begins to leave the glare, and on the following Friday he stops and starts moving forward again. Until then, whatever was said and whatever was signed deserves one more reading before going on. This retreat has a piece of its own, with every date along the way.

On the same Wednesday, Venus and Jupiter, the two planets the ancients counted as kindly, stand at an angle of friendship, she in the scales and he in Leo. It is a good day for a reconciliation, for help asked or given, for a generous gesture that costs nothing. In Leo, the sign of the king, Mars, the planet of force, keeps advancing towards Jupiter, the planet of law, and their meeting comes in the middle of the month. Until then, force goes looking for someone to say it is right. Behind all this, Saturn, the planet of order, rules and time, is moving backwards in Aries, the sign where he is weakest, and slowing down until he stops only in December. The old order does not fall all at once: it loses its footing slowly, and is being reviewed. The Moon wanes all week and is born again on the following Monday, in Scorpio.

Every house needs someone to hold it together: someone who sets the rules, keeps the door and says no when it must be said. When that hand is just, hardly anyone notices it, and things simply work. The trouble begins when the order is turned upside down and the one who should guard it starts guarding only their own seat. It has a shadow, and the shadow has two faces. One is the hand that hardens and starts ruling by force, because it no longer knows how to persuade. The other is the hand that will not let go of the chair, and would rather discredit the rule than get up. One grips too hard, the other will not let go.

On the world’s stage the same pattern appears. There are squares where young people camped out for a home, and where, one morning before dawn, the tents were taken down by force. There are workers asking for a wage they can live on who find the police standing in their way. There is a government promising to give judges back their independence and an opposition that will not let it, and there are those demanding that whoever counts the votes should step down. There are elections already held where the losing side tries to discredit the count, and fails, and a large country goes to the polls on Tuesday. There are aircraft getting ready to strike again, and there are those who keep going back and forth with messages between the two sides. None of this binds anyone to anything, because the stars do not compel, they incline. So the question for the week: in the order I follow and make others follow, where am I holding on with justice, and where am I only gripping so as not to let go?