A seasonal astro-soul check-in with Jonni & Marielle

Here on the coast, there’s a moment the tide people know well. It’s called slack tide. It’s that strange, suspended pause when the water has stopped flowing out but hasn’t yet turned to come back in, so the ocean goes still. There’s no pull in either direction. For a little while, everything just… hangs there, waiting.

If you’ve been feeling a bit like that lately, like you’re neither advancing nor retreating, like the current that’s been carrying you has kinda gone quiet, you’re reading the season correctly.

I’m back in conversation with astrologer Marielle Croft, and this fall’s cosmic weather is unlike our usual check-ins. There’s no dramatic headline or big crescendo. Instead, there’s a collective stillness I think of as a slack tide in the affairs of the world. And as anyone who’s stood on a dock at that turning knows, the stillness isn’t the absence of movement, but the pause before the water changes direction.

So let’s talk about how to be gentle with ourselves while the tide turns.

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Jonni: Marielle, you told me we’re moving into the Fall Equinox on September 22nd at 5:07 pm PDT, when the Sun leaves Virgo for Libra. Usually you come to these conversations with a whole constellation of dramatic shifts to unpack. But this season feels very different. Quieter, even. What are you seeing?

Marielle: You’re reading it exactly right. Honestly, this is one of those seasons where there’s not a lot of fireworks to point to. An enormous amount is happening, and very little of it wants to go forward yet. The overall feeling is almost like being half-asleep. A kind of numbness, an emotional freeze. There’s no strong direction and clear movement forward. From the retrogrades to the New and Full Moons, everything seems to carry this same quality of stillness.

Jonni: I so appreciate you saying that honestly, because I think a lot of people are feeling it and wondering what’s wrong with them. There’s this pressure, especially in spiritual circles, to always be “levelling up” and “manifesting” and “expanding.” So when a season just says pause, hang here, wait for the turn… we might panic and think we’re doing it wrong.

Marielle: Yes, I understand. But this stillness is purposeful. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are now at the very beginning of their new signs of Aries, Gemini, and Aquarius, and they’ve been showering us with these beautiful high frequencies over the past months. Now, with so many planets retrograde, we’re in a kind of stationary state, digesting all of it.

Jonni: Ahhhh. That’s the reframe I want people to really hear. It isn’t nothing happening. This is integration happening. At slack tide, the water looks motionless on the surface, but underneath, the whole ocean is reorganizing itself, getting ready to move the other way. That’s this season, right? All the movement is happening below where we can’t see it.

Marielle: Beautifully put. And that’s why some people are even feeling it physically as a bodily sense of fatigue, fogginess or needing more rest, almost as though the system needs time to catch up. The consciousness development has been so fast that the system needs time to catch up.

Jonni: Which is such an important permission slip. If you’ve been more tired than usual, or more foggy and less motivated, your body might be doing exactly what this season needs. 

Now, I know Venus is a big part of this season’s story. She rules Libra I think, so she’s especially important as we enter fall. Where is she?

Marielle: Yes, Venus is in Scorpio at the equinox, and she’s not entirely comfortable there. Venus is naturally sweet and harmonious, and Scorpio can be intense and rough. So she’s a bit subdued and uncertain. She’s also just come from a tense square with Pluto in mid-September, and that push-pull between them lingers well into the fall. On top of that, Venus is slowing down (optical illusion, of course). She’ll be retrograde from October 3rd to November 14th, and still in Scorpio.

Jonni: So we’ve got the planet of love, values, and money moving into her retrograde in the sign of depth, intensity, and, if I’m remembering correctly, finances?

Marielle: Yes. Scorpio rules wealth and shared resources, and Venus rules money. So her discomfort here could show up in our collective experience around money and the global economy. There may be a feeling of uncertainty, a sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Jonni: Okay. I know money is a tender subject for a lot of us right now. I don’t think it’s a secret that many people are feeling real pressure around finances. The cost of living and the sense that the economic ground is shifting under our feet. You’re saying the sky reflects that back to us this season?

Marielle: It does. And I want to be careful here, becauseI don’t think this is cause for panic. What we may be witnessing is the beginning of a genuine transformation in how we relate to money and finances altogether. Much of the chaos in the world right now of conflicts, climate response, and crumbling infrastructure, is tied to money at its root. This fall may be a pause where we collectively have to face some financial reality.

Jonni: Understood, Marielle, and here’s where I want to suggest the deeper frame, because this is what I do with people all the time. When an old structure starts to wobble, our nervous systems read it as catastrophe. But wobbling isn’t the same as ending badly. Often a system has to destabilize before something healthier can be built. In other words, what if this isn’t the sky falling, but the ground being cleared?

Marielle: That’s exactly the spirit of it. We’re witnessing the end of an old system that’s collapsing, but under it, something new is already being cultivated. There are more and more people devoted to their spiritual mastery, growing the higher frequencies of what I call the Higher Heart. The old structure is loud in its collapse, but the new one is quietly taking root.

Jonni: Got it. Yes, the old attached to its methods always makes more noise on its way out than the new makes on its way in. That’s worth remembering when the headlines feel overwhelming. 

Now, you mentioned leadership shifts to me the other day. Is that part of this fall, or is that still on the horizon?

Marielle: It’s still on the horizon, I think probably not this fall just yet. But it’s inevitable. New kinds of leaders will progressively emerge to transform the politics we’re familiar with. They will be leaders who embody dignity, respect, honouring, and collaboration which are true Aquarian Era qualities. The current model of “them versus us,” of “what they have, I want,” is running on an outdated operating system. It really can’t sustain itself as the new consciousness develops.

Jonni: That gives me such hope, even knowing it’s not immediate, because it means the exhaustion so many of us feel watching the current power dynamics isn’t the end of the story. It’s the friction of an old model grinding against a new one that’s still being born. And, to carry the metaphor further, births are messy and they take their time.

Marielle: They do. And Mercury joins Venus in retrograde this season too, from October 24th to November 13th, also in Scorpio, on nearly the same degrees. So we have both planets asking us to review and reconsider, especially around finances and resources. It may be a season for paying down debts, tightening up, and being thoughtful rather than expansive with money.

Jonni: Which, honestly, aligns beautifully with the whole slack-tide theme. This isn’t the season to launch the big thing, or make the bold financial move, or force momentum against a current that isn’t flowing yet. It’s the season to tend, review, and conserve. To be a good steward of what you already have while the bigger picture reorganizes itself.

Marielle: Yes. And it’s worth mentioning that the other slow planets are all doing their work too. Saturn retrograde in Aries is slowing down the impulsive, pioneering energy so it can prepare solid ground first. Uranus retrograde in Gemini is testing the new technologies before we rush ahead. Neptune retrograde in Aries is carrying a bit of wisdom over from its long years in Pisces, developing a new, sensitive way of relating to each other and to nature. And Pluto is transforming global consciousness toward equality, dignity, and sovereignty.

Jonni: Wow! I love that perspective. Well said. So even in the stillness, there’s this enormous amount happening under the surface. It’s all preparation. All of these planets are basically saying slow down, get it right, and build it to last. 

There aren’t any eclipses this season, are there?

Marielle: No, there are no eclipses this fall. In fact, we’ve just come through the August eclipse season, and there aren’t any more eclipses for the rest of the year. So rather than another big celestial punctuation mark, fall has more of an aftermath quality as a period of absorbing what’s already been stirred. Most of the New and Full Moons carry the same atmosphere we’ve been describing. It really is a season of holding steady rather than dramatic turning points.

Jonni: And I think that’s the invitation, isn’t it? That not every season is meant to be a breakthrough. And some seasons are just meant to be moved through gently and kindly, without demanding fireworks from ourselves. 

Marielle, I know you feel strongly, as I do, that even in a numb and heavy season, we’re not powerless. Can you speak to that?

Marielle: This is what I hold onto most. Everything is energy. The energy we carry and nurture in our own mind and heart literally creates our reality. So even when the outer scene feels morose, we get to make a choice each day about which frequency we’re tending. If we nurture fear, we feed what’s already heavy in the world. But if we choose to align with our Light, with our Higher Heart, we become part of the transmutation.

Jonni: And this is where I get emphathic with people, because I don’t want anyone to hear this as spiritual bypassing, as “just think positive and ignore the hard stuff.” It’s not that. The heaviness is real and the tiredness is valid. But within that reality, we still have a sphere of choice. We can choose where we put our attention. We can choose the company we keep, the media we consume, and the practices we return to. That’s sovereignty.

Marielle: Exactly. And there are so many ways to tend that frequency. We can spend time with people who live consciously, be with a spiritual teacher, meditate, or simply contemplate something beautiful in nature. These aren’t luxuries. In a season like this, they’re how we keep our footing.

Jonni: Let’s end there, because it’s so practical. If this fall feels flat and foggy, don’t force yourself into false brightness. Instead, do the small, real things that genuinely nourish you. Take the walk, call the friend who gets it, sit by the water or at the base of a tree. Rest without guilt. That’s the work this season is actually asking for.

Marielle: To use your metaphor, Jonni, the tide doesn’t apologize for going slack. It knows it’s about to turn.

Jonni: That might be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever said to me. So, here’s to a season of tending, honest rest, and trust that the current will shift, even when the water looks still.

Marielle: May we all be patient with ourselves and with the world as it turns.

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So if this fall doesn’t sparkle the way you think a season should, and if you find yourself moving slowly, feeling foggy, and wondering when the momentum returns, I want you to release the idea that anything’s wrong.

This is slack tide. It’s that suspended pause between the water going out and the water coming back in. The ocean isn’t broken when it goes still. It’s just between directions.

The world feels heavy right now. Many of us are tired and are watching things shift in ways that unsettle us around money, power, and around what we thought was solid. That weight is real, and we feel it.

But also, what I know after decades of doing this work is that the stillest moments are usually the most consequential ones, precisely because nothing on the surface distracts us from the deep reorganization happening underneath. The tide is preparing to turn, in the collective, and in you.

Your only assignment this fall is to tend your own frequency with care. I don’t mean with forced positivity. The sky isn’t asking you to fake anything, but with gentleness and small, honest practices that keep your heart open when the world would rather close it. So, rest when you’re tired. And seek out the people and places that feel like light. Let yourself digest everything these last months have poured into you.

The water is still, but the tide is about to turn.

Jonni

P.S. If you take nothing else from this, the universe has essentially prescribed you a nap and a walk by the water. I’m not going to argue with a prescription like that, and neither should you.

P.P.S. And if anyone asks why you’re moving slowly this fall, you now have full astrological permission to say “I’m digesting high frequencies” and drift off mid-sentence. You’re welcome. 😊