Two weeks have passed since the fire. In between, the Sun entered the sign of the scales, and there was a day when light and darkness were the same size. Since then the night has been gaining, a little every day. And last Saturday the Moon came full in a fire sign, and what had been burning slowly came into view for everyone. This week begins with that fire still warm, and with a question almost nobody asks when strength is rising: when do you stop?

The fire has sunk low. It no longer climbs high as it did two weeks ago: it burns small inside the stones, just enough to warm whoever sleeps beside it. The wayfarer is asleep on the ground next to it, lying on his side and wrapped in his mantle, his head resting on his arm. It is his first real sleep since he took up the bundle of staves. The woman does not sleep. She is still sitting on the wall, with the stave that put out leaves standing beside her, and she keeps watch over his sleep. Behind her, above the hills, a dark storm stands still, and the rain falls there, not here. On the roof, the iron weathercock that has pointed backwards for weeks is still not moving.

On Monday Mars leaves Cancer, where his fire struggled to catch, and enters Leo, a fire sign where he burns freely. For weeks that strength was held in, warming from the inside, and now it finds the place where it can grow. Jupiter, the planet of what grows, is already in Leo, and the two of them together in the same sign bring courage, generosity, the wish to be seen. They also bring pride, and a hurry to be right. What was kept inside the stones now has air to rise, and that is exactly why this week will call for knowing when to stop.

On Wednesday Mercury enters Scorpio, and words drop their tone and gain depth. People say less and mean more, and what they say is hard to forget. On Friday those words run head on, on the same day, into Mars and into the deepest and slowest planet of all. It is the day a conversation can turn into a trial of strength without anyone noticing the moment it happened. If you have something hard to say on Friday, say it slowly. And that night a quiet help arrives: Mars meets the planet of mist at an easy angle, and strength gains a little compassion, or at least the wish not to wound.

Saturday is the centre of the week, and three things happen on it. Mars stands exactly opposite the deepest and slowest planet of all: the strength that has just reached its own place runs into something that does not give way, does not hurry and cannot be bought. A trial of strength like this is not won by pulling. That same morning Venus stops. She had been braking for weeks, as was said here last time, and now she stands still in the sky and begins to walk backwards. She only moves forward again in the middle of November, by then back in the sign of the scales. Venus is in a sign where nothing is settled on the surface, and when she stops, what you want, what you love and what you desire ask to be looked at again from the root. This is not the time to begin a love affair or to make large purchases. It is the time to ask what you still truly want. And still on Saturday the Moon returns to half its light, now waning: one half lit, one half going out. It is the point in the month when you let go of what no longer serves.

On Sunday the Sun stands opposite Saturn. Both are in places where they have little strength, the Sun in the sign of the scales and Saturn in Aries, walking backwards. It is the meeting of two tired authorities, one on each side of the table, each waiting for the other to give way first. On the scales outside the wall, the first light of morning kindles the pan with the feather, and the pan with the stone stays dark. The pans still hang at the same height. Nobody wins this Sunday by weighing more. What is won, if anything is won, is a truce.

What this week asks for, with so much force in the sky, is the opposite of what it invites: to stop. It is not giving up and it is not running away, and the weapons are not thrown out. They stay close, within reach, while the body rests and someone keeps watch. It is the rest of someone who has been through a fight and knows they will need to be whole again. It has a shadow, and the shadow has two faces. One is the retreat that turns into flight: calling it rest when you simply do not want to look at what hurts. The other is the truce that only serves to catch your breath and come back harder to the same place. From the outside both look like calm. Only the one resting knows whether they are healing or only running.

On the world stage the same drawing appears. There are great assemblies where people speak in the name of everyone, and the decisions take shape in small rooms next door. There are truce proposals, written and handed over in person, that are left without a clear answer, and there are those who cross the sea only so that they will not be accepted. There are old conversations that people try to restart in someone else’s house, while the nights stay full of small flying machines. There are narrow sea passages that remain closed, and the price of everything that should pass through them weighs on every home. There is borrowed money that has not cost this much in almost twenty years. There are great powers that agree not to touch anything for a few months, a truce with an expiry date that nobody calls a truce. Almost everything called peace these days is a pause with the weapons close at hand. None of this compels anyone to anything, because the stars incline, they do not compel. The question of the week is this: where do I need to stop for real, with the weapons laid down but within reach, and where am I calling it rest when it is only fear of going back?