Three weeks have passed since the truce. In between, there was a day when Venus and Mercury stood together in Scorpio, and what was wanted and what was said were for a few days the same colour. The Moon was born new in the sign of the scales. That same night Venus ran straight into the force of Mars, and some people found out that wanting something very much is not enough to have it. Then Mars met Saturn at an easy angle, and force learned to be patient. And in the middle of last week the slowest and most distant planet of all, which had been walking backwards since May, stopped and began to move forward again. What was buried began to stir. This week begins with the ground still settling, and with a question nobody likes to ask: what in me was already cracked before it fell?

The storm that three weeks ago stood still in the distance arrived during the night. It passed over the whole town and is now moving off the other way, still raining on the hills. The rain put out the fire, and a thread of steam rises from the ashes. The wayfarer is no longer asleep: he stands beside the woman, and both look at the same place. A stretch of the wall where she used to sit has fallen. The stones lie on the ground, still, and through the breach the field on the other side appears, the field the wall had hidden. The wind knocked down the sheaves of wheat. The great gate of the town is still standing, but up at the top there is only the iron rod where the rooster used to be, and among the fallen stones a real rooster now walks about, loose. The moon, nearly full, makes its way between the clouds, and its light falls on the breach.

On Tuesday Venus meets the slowest and most distant planet of all at a tense angle. Venus has been moving backwards since the start of the month, in a sign where nothing is settled on the surface, and now she runs into something that will not give way. What is wanted is tested by what is true. At the same time Mercury keeps braking, slower every day, on his way to a difficult conversation with Jupiter, who sits in Leo beside Mars. He never gets there. He stops before. There are words this week that are almost said, and are not.

On Friday the Sun leaves the sign of the scales and enters Scorpio. The season turns: the light, which spent a month weighing and comparing, now begins to look at what is hidden. Scorpio is the night sign of Mars, and this week the Sun, Mercury and Venus are all there at once. Almost everything that happens in the sky happens in the house of Mars, the planet that cuts.

Saturday is the centre of the week. Before dawn Venus passes in front of the Sun, right through his light, and drops out of sight. For a few days there is no evening star and no morning star. It is the feather the wind takes from the scales: the pan is left empty, and the one with the stone goes down. When Venus appears again she will no longer be the star that sets with the night, but the one that announces the day. That same morning Mercury comes to a full stop and starts to move backwards, and stays that way until the middle of November. What was said, agreed and signed asks to be read again. This is no time for hurried contracts or for messages that cannot be taken back. It is time to go back to what was said and see whether it is still true.

On Sunday Venus, still retreating, walks back into the sign of the scales, and the temptation is to return to the old balance, as if nothing had fallen. That same day the clocks go back an hour in Europe, and there the night does not grow little by little, as it has since the end of summer: it grows all at once. And before dawn on Monday the Moon comes full in Taurus, the sign of firm ground and of things that can be touched, facing the Sun in Scorpio and at a tense angle with the slowest and most distant planet of all. Under the full light the ground comes into view, and what lies beneath it.

Some things are not taken apart stone by stone. They come down all at once, in a single night, and in the morning there is no going back. Almost always what falls like that was cracked long before, and what the fall does is show what the wall was hiding: the field on the other side, which was there all along. That is why whoever stands by the breach does not usually mourn the wall. They stay still and look at what can now be seen. It has a shadow, and the shadow has two faces. One is to gather the stones and raise the same wall in the same place, with the same stones, to go back to the old balance. The other is to break the rest, since one part has fallen anyway, and to call it freedom when it is only anger. From outside both look like courage. Only whoever stands at the breach knows whether they are rebuilding out of fear or destroying out of pride.

On the world’s stage the same pattern appears. There are buildings of money raised on a promise that, in a single week, lose a large part of what they claimed to be worth, and those who were in a hurry to get in are now looking for safer places. There are streets full of people over the cost of living and of having a home, and in some of them the protest ends in fire. There is a narrow passage of sea that some call open and others closed, while ships keep being struck and the price of what should pass through it climbs again above a mark not seen in a long time. There are nights with thousands of small machines flying in both directions, and before dawn depots and factories burn. There are punishments announced and then suspended at the last minute. Almost everything that seemed firm these days is showing its cracks, and what is done with them is not yet decided. None of this compels anyone to anything, because the stars incline, they do not compel. The question of the week is this: what fell in me this week that had been cracked for a long time, and which wall am I holding up with my hands just so I do not have to see the field on the other side?