While it is a given that the Sun will always spend the first three weeks of October in your relationship sector, with the solar spotlight always on your relationships at this time of year, rarely is that the case on the romantic front. While that changed when Jupiter returned to spend the next 13 months in your romantic sector in June, even then things should have settled down and it should be business as usual. Yet on both the romantic and relationship fronts, it is anything but the case this month. To start with, on the relationship front, it is business as usual with Mercury, the planet of communication having just left your relationship sector as you move into the new month, leaving the Sun on his own until he too leaves on 23rd October. However, not for the entire time, with the Moon moving through from 9th October to 11th October as a New Moon. With Venus having already moved through and Mars not returning until the second half of next year, when the Sun leaves this will end all planetary activity on the relationship front, however not for long. Two days later and just over six weeks after leaving Venus, the planet of love will retrograde back in on 25th October for a do over. Until turning direct on 14th November, Venus will be holding the doors open to the past and once back in direct motion, won't leave again until 4th December. Meanwhile, once the Sun left your romantic sector in August, this left Jupiter, who had returned at the end of June and the South Node, who returned at the end of July on their own and with Jupiter not leaving until July 2027 and the South Node until March 2028, they are playing a long, slow game. However, that all changed when on 28th September Mars, the planet of passion and the warrior planet of the cosmos returned for what should be a six week chance to fire up your romantic passions and fighting spirit. Instead, slowing ahead of his own retrograde turn Mars won't leave until the end of November and like Venus, will retrograde back in to spend another three months here in February. You will get an early sense of Mars' influence when he moves through from 5th October to 7th October.