Insights for Libra
September 22
Sun enters Libra: 8:43 AM EDT
Venus square Pluto
Venus enters Scorpio
Equi-Nox: When day equals night: When time pauses for an instant and Day recognizes all that it is and can be in Night and Night sees its reflection in the Day. We all want to have our fortune told but time will say nothing but I told you so. Light and Dark are One. Maybe that’s enough fortune for anyone.
Libra is art, invented by humans, imitating nature: Art for the wealthy and art on subway walls for all to enjoy. Art reflects the soul. A world without beauty is a world where art loses its way.
Libra is justice. Fairness. Harmony. Balance. Reason. Here in the jangled world of late stage patriarchy we long for the Libran blessings of beauty and reason. Steeped as we are in thousands of years of a paradigm of domination we are reminded that we are all only reflections of one another. Hurting you hurts me. We cannot fight for peace although we must. Libra has become a shadow of itself; a sign of war and argument, debate and dishonest diplomacy, contention and the despair of seemingly unresolvable differences, opposition.
But Libra like all of our metaphors must struggle out of the old framework and reinvent itself. Take marriage for example, the ultimate Libran event. All those years of brides having a price and grooms used as pawns on chess boards of power and influence have left their mark. Weddings can be glorious, conspicuous in their consumption of resources and the demands they put on brides, grooms, families and guests. Weddings are the happy endings but marriage is something else especially when lt becomes too private and isolating. A battleground grows up and the expectation of Camelot fails. Success is often measured in how equitable and friendly the couple is when they divorce.
Libra is the only sign signified by a human-made object. It represents civilization with the profound awareness that art imitates life. Perhaps marriage is meant to be exactly that: A civilizing event which imitates nature.
Who are your challengers? Who opposes your view of self or purpose? How can you engage with the intention to connect, to balance differences, to be a fully human in the civilized sense? I leave it to you to consider these things during the month of Libra as the Sun conjuncts the south node, opposes Chiron and the Moon (always) , trines Jupiter and squares Mars and Pluto.
Venus square Pluto
Venus, the particular guardian of Libra is on a tear, wanting to reveal these shadowy qualities of Libra. The sense of ‘time running out’ as we run toward shorter, colder days in the north and hotter, longer ones in the south underscores the sense that equilibrium is fleeting, a momentary pause between conflicts. Putting an end to war requires something besides politics and power. How do you live in a civil society? What can be done to keep it from sliding into annihilation? Start small.
September 24
Mercury trine Uranus
A bright idea! A bright and useful idea!! Eureka!!!
September 25
Mercury opposite Neptune
A dream of connection on the heels of a bright idea. Time to share what works for the Good of All and it harm none.
September 26
Mercury trine Pluto
Mercury enters Libra
Mercury, like Venus, passes by Pluto’s gate on its way to the next sign. Mercury has been busy over the last few days. We are full of thoughts about how the world is, who the people are and what they mean to us. You might call this creative perception. How we think about the world calls it into being, gives it meaning, sounds true. Mercury invites us to become aware that we are thinking, to consider the nature of mind and the thoughts that arise and pass all the livelong day (and night….). The powerful dictum, ‘I think therefore I am’ might just mean the opposite of what Descartes meant when he first said it. Thinking doesn’t prove our existence so much as it creates the illusion which we mistake for some kind of immutable reality.
September 29
Reaching stretches our potentials, grasping shuts them down.
September 30
Mars trine Saturn
Mercury conjunct Sun
Doing our best and appreciating that we did, settles a lot of tension. Pausing long enough to feel guided honors Mercury in the heart of the Sun.
October 2
New Moon: 10 degrees Libra: 02:49 PM EDT: Eclipse
This NM is an annular eclipse. We would have to travel to Easter Island to see it. Most of us probably won’t do that. The one annular eclipse I witnessed was amazing because at its peak shadows fell on all the tents like a shower of crescent moons. Magical.
We are told that war is inevitable, even natural. It isn’t. At this time, in this space as civilization de- and re- constructs itself we have had many moments when people such as you and me could have ‘gone to war’ but chose not to. Prompted by a sense of kindness, compassion or a simple desire for peace we held back, listened and waited for the storm of our emotions to pass. Once that happened things seemed quite different. When the rules of engagement are not working we need an intention about what really constitutes civilized behavior. Not only in politics but also in relationship with every living thing. After all, it’s all relatives .
October 4
Venus trine Saturn
Stand your ground, with compassion, when it comes to your values. Other people have values as well. Our collective values are our economics.
October 6
Mercury square Mars
It’s all well and good to think, talk and teach about justice and equity but when it comes to action, what gets us off the couch and into the fray are our feelings which aren’t necessarily as high-minded as our thoughts. Time for a vigorous engagement of thought and feeling which could reveal one’s true motives. No judgment.
October 8
Venus trine Mars
Mercury trine Jupiter and oppose Chiron
Having touched our impulses, drives, motivations and desires we might be ready to consider that our values as well as our actions are rooted in feeling. We know what we like and what we don’t. Mars and Venus are all about attachment and aversion. Mercury suggests a loftier position when we see the world as curious and interesting. Thinking and feeling leading to action for what we perceive as the good has consequences. No action at all does too.
October 09 & October 11
Jupiter stationary retrograde
Pluto stationary direct
Two planets in two days. Tectonic shift. The zeitgeist is adjusting its position.
Jupiter in Gemini is surely about the stories we tell ourselves as well as the ones we listen to (or watch). These stories are like paths in the wood. They lead us nowhere and somewhere at the same time. They are not without effect. They live inside your mind and condition your view of reality (that ever shape-shifting thing). Could be that it’s time to switch channels or to dig more deeply into one or two stories that matter in your particular life. Maybe it is time to tell a story: your story, history, herstory.
Pluto shifts beneath and within us, its realm being neither nowhere nor somewhere; suggesting that we leave the past behind and accept the changes that are overtaking us and let go of what no longer fosters life and trust. This is not to be confused with capitulation. Surrender requires deep relaxation and presence, capitulation is contracted, resistant and fearful.
October 12
Chiron sextile Jupiter
On our way to new stories are many opportunities for learning. Our hard-won wisdoms, warnings and wonderings provide the materials we use to fabricate those stories.
October 13
Mercury square Pluto and enters Scorpio
Mars square Chiron
Sun opposite Chiron and trine Jupiter
The kaleidoscope of planetary change mirrors life down on planet Earth, for those who care to connect the world above to the one below. Our thoughts turn from seemingly endless debates and discussions to the subjective meaning of these discussions; time to consider your reaction first. An inner shift opens the way toward deeper understanding of sky wisdom. We instinctively defend our rights and freedoms. Given the nature of what it is to be human, this inclination to defend needs to be tempered with awareness of feeling which often motivates actions. No matter what we think… Reason is only part of the picture.
Here is a poem for Mercury in Scorpio:
Anagrammer
By Peter Pereira
If you believe in the magic of language,
then Elvis really Lives
and Princess Diana foretold I end as car spin.
If you believe the letters themselves
contain a power within them,
then you understand
what makes outside tedious,
how desperation becomes a rope ends it.
The circular logic that allows senator to become treason,
and treason to become atoners.
That eleven plus two is twelve plus one,
and an admirer is also married.
That if you could just rearrange things the right way
you’d find your true life,
the right path, the answer to your questions:
you’d understand how the Titanic
turns into that ice tin,
and debit card becomes bad credit.
How listen is the same as silent,
and not one letter separates stained from sainted.
~~~~~~~~
To this list I would add sacred and scared.
October 14
Sun square Mars (Mars in the shadow)
Venus opposite Uranus
What kind of permission do you give your feelings? Are you in the habit of letting them fly, cooking them slowly, harboring grudges or washing them as best you can through what you might think of as ‘cleaner’ feelings such as kindness, compassion, empathy and wisdom? However you’re used to dealing with feelings, today catches us off guard if something or someone we want or value takes an unexpected turn. Allow for a disturbance in the field of your feeling.
We could say that the square of the Sun and Mars is the opening gambit of Mars’ retrograde journey between December 6 and February 23. Astrologers call it the shadow period and it is considered that the issues which Mars retrograde will present us with are stirring, starting today. Our feelings seem to be pointing the way. For more on this listen to Planetary Pictures on YouTube or join Sarah Walton and me for our AMA: Pieces of the Sky: Mars Retrograde 2024-2025.
October 15
Venus sextile Neptune
As awareness of our inner reality expands, so does our ability to recognize all beings everywhere with the desire that all may be happy, peaceful and live with ease.
October 17
Full Moon: 24* Aries: 07:26 AM EDT
Venus sextile Pluto
Venus enters Sagittarius
What does it take to understand ourselves as part of civil society? Does it frighten or enliven us? We certainly don’t have to like each other all the time to get along and there is no mistaking that we are happy when our hearts are loving. Love is likely life’s first cause. We don’t have to go in search of it. We just need to get out of the way of things that obscure or block it. In Sagittarius Venus is called to adventure. What’s yours?
October 22
Mercury trine Saturn
Sun square Pluto
Days are getting shorter in the north. Nature itself calls us to reflect upon the dark, despite the overabundance of light in the world: streetlights, blue lights, night lights and even our obsession with living in the light. Put your hand on your belly and give some mind to the dark: the shadow: the fascinating realm of mystery and all the things that don’t add up. On this last day of Libra even as the Sun tangles with the guardian of the Underworld we are strengthened by Mercury and Saturn in water (feeling) signs. Consider how reason and rationalization don’t empower us to have control over nature – not even our own nature. Whether we believe in ghosts or not, here, in 2024 it is still true that:
“There are (and will always be) more things in heaven and earth… then are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Shakespeare: 1602).
We are made of light AND shadow.
But we are not made to be ‘a house divided against ourselves’. (Abraham Lincoln: 1858)
Thank you for reading these insights. They are meant as contemplations. Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.