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Last night, as I was preparing the altar for New Moon circle, there was a fretful energy in the house as my oldest kid retired to her room to study for her finals. It’s her first year in high school, and the sheer amount of material she'll be tested on next week, feels overwhelming to her. She took a break to go to her sister's holiday choir concert, and to hand me her wish list. But until her last paper is turned in next Thursday, the happy holiday season is deferred.

The altar is dressed in royal blue silk, with a deep blue candle and cobalt glass stars to symbolize the night sky, and also to honor Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius, the generous God. As I listen to my kid groan over my computer, I am reminded that Sagittarius is a sign of learning and teaching, of professorship and the love of knowledge. I know that the joy of the upcoming Winter holiday season has so much to do with that Salutatorian optimism and joviality. I also know that that last push of school work, the ratcheting up of pressure to get all the work in on time, is not limited to my kids.

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.
None but ourselves can free our minds.”
― Bob Marley

"Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.”
― Adrienne Rich

The chart of the Autumn Equinox will resonate until sometime around the Winter Solstice. The equinoxes are always points of balance, and this chart emphasizes that we are at a tipping point — globally, nationally, locally and personally. Change is in the air, and decisions we make now will have long-term repercussions. Fortunately, this chart offers much-needed inspiration, energy and opportunities to improve our connections with others. We are heading into a challenging Winter — but we will be given the opportunities and wherewithal to make a difference. Thoughtful, skilled use of the cosmic tides of energy and change will help us steer ourselves and our world toward a better future.

I expect that most of my readers do magic, meditate, pray, or have some spiritual practice they engage in regularly. There’s plenty of energy to light a fire under your practice in this chart, and I hope you will use it, because the world needs all the positive vibes we can send it right now. There are deeply destructive forces — patterns of thought and emotion — that have woven themselves tightly into the fabric of our culture, and it will require clear, focused work on the energetic/astral/magical levels by those who are capable of it to unravel and re-weave ourselves into a strong, sustainable, global society.

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult." – E.B. White

Full Moon charts are generally said to be in effect only for the two weeks until the next New Moon. But a chart is a single moment in time on the restless sea of planetary movements - a moment that lets us get a reading on where we’re heading, and make any necessary course corrections Used wisely, the course that is set in that moment can influence our lives far beyond the next couple of weeks.

I thought briefly about writing a post on “what’s ahead in 2015” or some such, but the planets pay no mind to human calendars, and my personal calendar follows the sabbats and the seasons, so I decided that for the secular new year, I'd take a look at an aspect of Saturn’s recent entry into the sign of Sagittarius -- the need to review the rules by which we live our lives, then to set goals, to have a plan.

This placement of Saturn will be in effect for about 2/3rds of 2015 — it will take a brief dip back into Scorpio between mid-June and mid-September, before settling in for an extended stay in the Centaur’s sign, and it won’t move into its home sign of Capricorn until the day before the Winter Solstice of 2017. (Saturn was also teetering on the cusp between two signs in the recent Winter Solstice chart, which you can read about here. That chart is in effect for about three months.)