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The New Moon this month occurs in the sign of Scorpio (0°) on Thursday October 23^rd, at 2:57 pm (PDT) and is accompanied by a potent partial Solar Eclipse at 2:46 pm.  Depending on your weather, this eclipse will be visible in most of North America.  Scorpio is the archetype of the Mysteries of sex, death, regeneration and rebirth, and is associated with the planet Pluto.  Scorpio is a Fixed Water sign;“Fixed” meaning it is a sign that resonates with the heart of the season.

Death and rebirth can be a messy, cathartic, moving experience.  Allow yourself to ride high on the currents of your emotion during this New Moon.  Let the currents take you and rock you and leave you a blithering mess, fetal on the floor if it feels right.  Scorpio, amongst other things, is about death and grieving.  Whether that be the death of a part of ourselves, a relationship that you know its time to release, or remembering and missing a loved one that is no longer on this plane.  Resist the temptation to make it all neat and dignified, and by the book.  Let’s face it, Scorpio is the shadow realm, don’t be afraid of the dark.  Scorpio is a witchy, freaky, down and dirty archetype that invites us to shed our skin, dig into the dirt with our hands, and release whatever is keeping us from growing.  We then come up on the other side, revivified, regenerated and yes, reborn.  Don’t fight the shadow; move into it.  Open yourself to Ereshkigal and surrender, because it’s futile to fight when it’s time for something to die.  It is simply another part of the cycle.  No new life can come unless you allow yourself to dissolve into the comforting womb of the Dark Mother.

All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain...we can be like they are

Donald Roeser “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper”

The New Moon of October is an eclipse, which means its effects will reverberate for much longer than the standard New Moon — this chart overlooks the next six months to a year. It’s a demanding chart, but with some hope, some ease, and a challenge to take our spiritual awareness up a notch or two. The emphasis is on the sign of Scorpio, so we are looking at a lot of intensity of feeling, intensity of connection with others, confronting taboos, and a need to deeply understand and accept the realities of death and cyclical change. Venus is in a huddle with the Moon and Sun, putting an emphasis on personal relationships. When the chart is cast for Washington, DC, (find the chart here) it is predictive for the entire United States, and these three planets, along with Saturn, fall in the seventh house. This suggests to me that we will probably be seeing a whole lot of “othering” going on, quite a bit of active conflict — and hopefully some cooperation — in the public sphere, and the creation and/or dissolution of some powerful alliances.

I've been doing a monthly podcast for over seven years now. It's the same thing over and over. GRIN! Well maybe it changes a bit. I pull a card for each sign of the Zodiac to offer my interpretation of the upcoming month. Recently I've added a card of the month as well.

The New Moon this month occurs in the sign of Libra (1° 08') on Tuesday September 23^rd, at 11:14 pm (PDT).  Libra is the archetype of the Goddess of Love Herself, and is associated with the planet/goddess Venus.  Libra is a Cardinal Air sign, meaning it is a sign that begins a season; a gateway into the journey of a new chapter that resonates with the objective, intellectual element of Air.  Libra season begins with the Autumn Equinox, or Mabon, as it is called in some Wiccan communities.

Libra is concerned with seeking balance, and of relationships of all kinds; from interpersonal relationships, to the relationships between line and color, and form and function.  Many Libras have a decidedly artistic bent, and an eye for proportion and detail.  This eye for relationship between the sum of many parts can be found in the writer, artist, designer, therapist, or lover.  This sensibility and need for equilibrium also shows up in the peacemaker, the negotiator, and the lawyer or judge.  Many Astrology sources will talk about Libra’s famous vanity, or superficiality, and go on about how this is the guy or gal who always smells good, or won’t leave the house unless impeccably dressed.  Personally, I think this falls under the category of pop Astrology, and it doesn’t explain why some Libras might appear obsessed with appearances.  It all stems from that need to balance, to attain a certain harmony or symmetry.  Notice that Libra is trying to find balance, or the right combination of things.  That doesn’t mean he or she always achieves it. It is the pursuit of the ideal, and that can be a very abstract concept to wrap one’s head around.  

We have an interesting confluence of energies coming up this week. First, Pluto goes direct at 8:37 pm on the 22nd (all times EDT). Then, less than two hours later, the Sun enters Libra, giving us Pluto stationing direct in the Libra Ingress chart on a Dark Moon. Just over a day later, there is a New Moon, still on the sensitive Aries Point at 1 degree of Libra. (The Aries Point is zero degrees of any cardinal sign. Anything within a degree and a half or two degrees of that point is given strength and emphasis, and gets things moving)

The cardinal ingress charts — in other words, the charts of the solstices and equinoxes — are usually predictive for the next three months. (Occasionally, they will be in effect for longer — the influence is more like a tide than a line drawn in the sand.) A New Moon chart that is not an eclipse is predictive for the month ahead, and Pluto going stationary direct is…well, you know how hitting just the right note can set up a vibration that shatters glass? Listen as Pluto’s hum changes key and increases in volume now that he and Uranus are once again heading towards each other. They meet in their next exact square December 15th.

The New Moon this month occurs in the sign of Virgo (2'19) on Monday, August 25th, at 7:13 am (PDT). Virgo is the archetype of the Virgin goddess, originally meaning, “whole unto herself”.  And, no matter how devoted Virgo is to the people in his or her life, a certain part of Virgo’s psyche always remains “untouched” by the opinions or influence of anyone else. Virgo is a Mutable Earth sign, meaning it is a threshold sign, bridging one season into the next, and it resonates with the grounding and stable element of Earth. Virgo season is summer transitioning into autumn, and this energy is indelibly imprinted into the archetype, giving way to a Mercurial nature in the Virgo personality. The Virgo archetype echoes with the preparation for harvest: we begin the task of separating the grain from the chaff in our lives.  This requires clear-headed logic, as well as attention to our deep intuition about what crops we will harvest, and what needs to be turned back into the soil, or allowed to die on the vine.  The Virgo personality is often lauded as analytical, discerning, and as having a superior flair for organizational activities. When you think of the qualities of the season, this makes sense.  And, although this time of year is fast paced and busy as we get ready to go back to school or work, there is also a quiet turning within now.

Virgo embodies the aspect of the Priestess that is self-purified and dedicated to the practical expressions of serving the divine.  The archetype is associated with all types of ritual, and integrated daily spiritual practice. There is a visceral body/mind connection with Virgo, and you can find many with Virgo strong in their charts working as nutritionists, yoga teachers, herbalists and holistic practitioners.  Health, healing and daily care of the body are all Virgo preoccupations. Virgo is also the inspired craftsperson, using their attention to detail to produce beautiful works in a variety of mediums.  Additionally, they have an innate talent to elevate what others might term “puttering”- beekeeping, gardening, flower arranging and so forth - into an everyday art form.

We need not feel ashamed of flirting with the zodiac.  The zodiac is well worth flirting with.  ~D.H. Lawrence

I find that a lot of people shy away from astrology because they believe it is based on incorrect astronomy, and so cannot possibly give accurate information. Perhaps they’ve seen a video by Bill Nye or Neil deGrasse Tyson taking about how the constellations don’t line up with the signs anymore, and that pesky “extra” constellation (or two). Unfortunately, both Nye and Tyson are clearly ignorant about astrology — a great deal more ignorant than most astrologers are about astronomy. We are not only fully aware of the positions of the constellations, the precession of the equinoxes and the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun (OK, I’ll try to tone back the sarcasm) but astrology is divided into two major branches based on how we deal with the constellations (groupings of stars) and the precession of the equinoxes.

I’m not going to address the different types of sidereal astrology, of which Vedic astrology is one. Sidereal astrology carefully makes allowances for the precession of the equinoxes, because it works with the positions of the signs relative to the constellations. I’m going to explain the basis of Western astrology, a tropical astrology, which determines the position of the signs relative to the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun around the Earth. I find that a number of astrology students worry about learning the “technical” side, but while the math of astrology can get complex, the basic astronomy really isn’t very difficult to understand, and understanding it will give you considerably more insight into the craft than you could possibly have without it. So I encourage you to take a deep breath and jump into the learning — I’ll make this as easy as possible. Ready? OK, let’s start.

Meanwhile, back on Earth…