September 2020 Horoscopes for Actors

Happy Virgo season! This month is bookended by supportive transits from Mercury (your ruling planet), helping you communicate creative ideas. First, the full moon in Pisces on Sept. 2 offers a flash of insight and a fresh perspective. This is a great day to have conversations with the people who can help you build upon your ideas and make them happen. Then Sept. 17 brings a new moon that closes out your season in classic Virgo fashion: with hyper-productivity. With the moon trine to Saturn and Mercury squaring Jupiter, the creative projects you begin on this day will have legs, especially if they involve writing or storytelling. The only thing holding you back this month is yourself. When intrusive thoughts come up, resist the urge to dig into them. Focus on what you can do right now.

September is asking you to live outside the tyranny of “should.” You’ve been doing intense work around your home and family of origin this year, so this is nothing new. But as Mercury moves into your sign on Sept. 5 and the sun follows suit a few weeks later, those investigations might start to feel more personal. Tease out whether your decisions are coming from intuition or conditioning. A conditioned response comes fast and loud–intuition is often much quieter and arrives when we’re alone, open, and relaxed. The messages we integrated at a young age have less power over us under a critical eye. The next time you find yourself feeling defensive, get curious about what secret shame you’re trying to protect.

You might be looking at your friend who is fitting yoga, baking, and personal projects into their pandemic routine and thinking, “how?!” First of all, perception is rarely reality. Second, if you envy someone else’s free time, it means you need some for yourself. It can feel impossible with a workload like yours, but try to find the cracks in the concrete. This month, listen to your body and reclaim rest. You’re more than what you produce. Find ways to feel useful that also align with what you need. Make your college roommate feel loved. Schedule a Zoom lunch date with your cross-country BFF. Ask for a favor and let someone feel good by helping you out. Being of service doesn’t have to mean self-neglect.

September is asking you to get granular about your career. As actors we tend to live in piecemeal, accepting whatever jobs come along and hoping it adds up to a career. Maybe you’re not in a position to be picky when it comes to money, but getting clear about your goals will allow the right opportunities to appear. When you’re feeling frustrated creatively, find a new system to dig into. Watch every film shot by a cinematographer you admire. Listen to all the songs from an obscure Broadway composer. Research a body of work and see how all the disparate pieces fit together. Then brainstorm what your career throughline might be. Figure out what unique quality you bring to the table, and bring it every time.

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This month, your words will have power. Whatever ideas you communicate to the world will have outsized influence–people want to hear what you have to say. Get specific about your vision and the messaging will follow. At the same time, there’s some frustrated energy in your home life or family of origin. Where you’ve been and where you’re going might feel at odds with your identity. Other people see you as a strong, independent person, but you know you’re struggling deep down. Shame lies at the core of imposter syndrome. Untangle the idea that you have to be successful, knowledgeable, or always “on” to be lovable. Everyone who ever achieved greatness had challenges, pain, and insecurity. You don’t have to hide yours.

Invest in your close relationships. Collaboration is an opportunity to externalize your gifts, reminding you of your vast resources. Your partner or BFF is your lifeline in a month that would otherwise keep you picking at old wounds. The mind can be a dangerous neighborhood–you don’t want to spend too much time in its dark alleys alone. Treat the next three months like a Mercury retrograde on steroids: double check your emails before you send them out and prepare yourself for aggravating conversations. Become acquainted with your anger: are you calling it something else, like sadness? Are you unconsciously externalizing it? September is the perfect month to start a journaling practice. Even jotting down a few bullet points will help slow your thoughts down to a pace where you can deal with them.

For the next three months, you'll need to prioritize. Your relationships are going through a reorg and this is a good thing. You’ve been witnessing your community’s power like never before, and in a rush to give back, you now find yourself overcommitted. Take advantage of your newfound momentum, but set boundaries for yourself too. There will always be someone who needs you. If you don’t value what you already have, you’re never going to feel like you’re doing enough: trust that you are. This month, try going at a pace that feels luxurious. See if you can make the most stressful part of your day fun or at least interesting. Gamify one of your work routines. Unclench your jaw. Rediscover the childlike joy of living according to your own timeline.

Your career feels like a rollercoaster right now. At the beginning of the month, helpful trines from the sun and Mercury are showering you with opportunities. It’s one of those rare moments when your work seems to be building towards something meaningful in your career, and your achievements are reflected in your bank account. You’re in your flow and recognized for your efforts. Then Mars goes retrograde on Sept. 9. This is always a challenging transit for Aries since Mars is your ruling planet, but astrology should never be feared, only worked with. Instead of ramming your head into a brick wall, see if you can find a way around it. Maybe that role wasn’t meant for you. Maybe you need to learn how to slow down, dream even bigger, and make your own luck

This month, get into the nitty-gritty of your creative projects. Listen to Sondheim’s “Putting it Together” and get inspired. The small details of a story or a performance can elevate it something divine. Practice the art of noticing. At the same time, Mars goes retrograde in your House of the Subconscious and Behind the Scenes Work. The next few months are going to be an internal exploration, but be careful not to get lost in the stories that keep you stuck. Ask yourself why you feel like you need to isolate: do you need time to reflect or are you afraid of being seen? Make a note of the ways you self-sabotage. Look at the pattern and bring it into your awareness so that it can’t control you.

On Sept. 5, use your gift of gab for a little healthy self-promotion. Your creative communication skills are ramped up this month, but be careful what you say when you’re feeling triggered. What do you take personally, and what’s at the root of your reaction? The way you express–or stifle–your anger can have a corrosive effect on your network. Try to find creative ways around the issues that seem insurmountable. There will always be aspects of life that are inevitable, draining, and just plain boring. Your job is to find the joy. You tend to overextend yourself, but this month, it’s essential to keep your circle small. Trust and invest in the people who have always been there for you. You don’t owe anyone else anything.

This month, experiment with a daily habit to improve your relationship with your best friend or romantic partner. Write one nice thing you noticed about the other person each day and read the list to each other at the end of the week. Stay keyed into the ways this relationship might be presenting obstacles to your goals, even subconsciously. What compromises are you making that no one asks you to make? Conserve some of the energy you spend on making other people happy and redirect it to your career. Audition like you already have the part and you’re just showing up to offer your insights about the character. It’s not about being cocky. It’s about approaching your career with an attitude of abundance. Needing the job the most doesn’t get you the job.

Get your finances in order in the first half of this month, and everything else will fall into place. As actors, we can have self-limiting ideas about money: that it’s bad to want it or that we can’t possibly have artistic fulfillment and a healthy bank account. But money is just a form of energy, and welcoming it into your life also welcomes in other forms of abundance. Drudgery is unavoidable, but it shouldn’t grind you down to the point where there’s no room for joy. You don’t have to work yourself to death to have a good life. Small changes can lead to big returns and being kind to yourself is the perfect place to start. Remember that you have big dreams. Rediscover the pleasure of being seen.