October 23
Sun enters Scorpio: 05:37 AM EDT
Venus rx conjunct Sun (cazimi)
Each and every day is meaningful for someone: It's a birthday, a death day, a wedding or a lottery win: the day we met, the day we split up, the birth of a baby or the start of something new. Today calls for the deepest kind of reflection on all and any moments of significance. Venus in the heart of the Sun as the Sun steps into Scorpio is a reminder of the profoundly mysterious nature of life. Something is happening, we can feel it but we can't quite name it. It's no accident that Halloween is a Scorpio event, meant to honor our ancestors, our dead. Because they live in our cells, we see with eyes we have inherited from them and hear with their ears. And yet, the world is new every moment. The story of this moment is Venus in the Underworld. Scorpio has a real connection to this place where things die and are reborn. Every loss is an opportunity for something else to live. The past is never gone only composted, turned into something else.
It is the nature of existence to protect our lives and the lives of those we care about. Nature protects Her Own. She does this by cleaning house. We humans generally fear what we don't understand. Scorpio is about fear of loss. But more powerfully it's about surrender to the ways of Nature that seem mysterious and immutable. Just for today we might consider the deep relaxation of acceptance. If it seems like nothing is moving, that's just a bend in the river, an invitation to sit between the inhale and the exhale, and then again between the exhale and the inhale. Magic happens when we open to it. To trust the Universe requires accepting that loss is part of the process, a feature, not a bug.
October 24
Mercury stationary retrograde
Listen. Just listen, not to the noise which is always the first thing we hear. Not even to the music which carries us along its own river. Listening doesn't always mean hearing. Hearing is the mandate for Mercury retrograde especially in the richly feeling sign of Scorpio. Listen until you hear the sound of transformation, loss and regeneration. Listen for the changing seasons and the movement of time. Listen for the cause, not the effect. Once you hear something, let it take you where it wants. No fear. Just the power of a bubbling cauldron in the very guts of existence. Retrogrades are about reflection, remembering, and even regrets. We are called, if we are, to do this in aid of transformation, cleaning up, cleaning out. We can never go back in time, except in our minds but we can make amends, even to ourselves for regrettable behaviors, seeming wrong turns or bad choices. What retrograde Mercury isn't about is wallowing in guilt or wearing a hair shirt. Those only reaffirm our most problematic selves. Retrogrades take us in and down to the place that is most intimate and most universally human. Something the algorithm can't abide. Reflection requires silence, stillness and unflinching human will. We want a witness. It starts with witnessing the self.
October 25
Venus Rx enters Libra
In the mysterious ways of the Underworld we sense a subtle shift. Venus is still hidden from view but past the midpoint of the journey. The time of return is near. It's a great story. It's our story. Having relinquished ALL in the bowels of hell, the Queen of Heaven is restored to life and bracing for the arduous journey of return. Her greatest asset will be her determination. And you? what are you determined to accomplish? In Libra Venus is strong and willing to do what is necessary for justice. How is this important in the microcosm of your reality, the one in which you are empress or emperor? Who sits, undeserving on your throne? What needs to be overthrown in the weeks to come that might restore balance and reason to your world?
October 26
Full Moon: 2* Taurus: 12:11 AM EDT
Sun square Pluto
The most profound and real mysteries are in the body. The things we sense but can't fathom are known by our senses. The mysterious interaction we have with our moment to moment existence is as close as the beating of our heart or the scent of a lover . It's wild in there, the way it works and doesn't, the way it is our companion throughout life, the one we take for granted, the one we pamper and neglect. Our bodies are engines of the soul, the means of engagement with the ever-changing constant. Today Pluto engages the Sun and the Moon, reminding us to acknowledge the inevitable realities of life. Our bodies are created and destroyed at the same time. We are uneasy in the face of our own endings but not if we can imagine a world for the generations to come.
October 28
Venus rx opposite Chiron
When Alice fell down the rabbit hole, there was no going back. Even after her return she never forgot the caterpillar’s question, 'Who are you?'. Same for Eve. Once she ate that apple there was no going back. Much as we (some of us) like to blame her, there were conditions. She didn't eat just any apple. Maybe she was bored beyond belief, maybe she was lied to in the first place and was just looking for some truth. Lucky for us, she took the whole human race with her. And so we know that to be human is to fall, at least some of the time. We shouldn't forget that. The question when down a rabbit hole is, 'What can I learn?'. Maybe most importantly, ‘What can I learn about who I am?’. Alice gives a nod to Eve across the eons. Maybe Pandora as well.
October 30
Mercury rx square Mars
Halloween is what's left for many of the more ancient celebration of Samhain; once a time to mark the descent of the year into the underworld of long nights and naked trees. At this time of year, in the north, we can't help but be reminded that everything that lives, dies. And so we honor our dead. We all have them. Mars throws down the absurd gauntlet of ‘what if?’. The challenge to travel to the realm of the dead and return. The possibility that we could even, maybe, if only, live forever, or at least for a lot longer. We refuse to go gently into that dark night. And so we struggle like true hallucinators, with the material notion of forever. Meanwhile, 'forever' is offered to us each and every moment through the memories and reflections we cannot help but have in consideration of the dead; where they have gone, what they have left behind and how was it for them when they were here. Whose clothes will you wear for Halloween?
October 31
Halloween
Originally this date was determined by the exact midpoint between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice when the Sun was at 15 degrees of Scorpio which is 45 degrees of arc between 0 degrees of Libra (equinox) and 0 degrees of Capricorn (solstice), on or very close to November 7th. Sacred geometry is the root of much knowledge.
November 1
RESUME STANDARD TIME (set your clocks back an hour, the ones that aren't 'smart' enough to set themselves back.)
November 4
Venus Rx sextile Jupiter
Mercury Rx conjunct the Sun (cazimi)
Stay open and receptive to the promise or opportunity to learn something: We haven't called ourselves Homo Sapiens Sapiens for nothing.
November 5
Mars in the shadow of coming retrograde
A planetary shadow happens when a planet that is soon to appear retrograde enters the part of the sky where it will spend that retrograde time. It calls us to the tasks of the retrograde period to come. Maybe it’s the first strains of the violin, suggesting a shift of energies in a specific way: a call to rise to the occasion, a chill in the air, a sense of challenges ahead. Mars is, after all, a warrior and sometimes a terrorist, by nature. On January 10, 2027 Mars will station retrograde until April 1st. Between now and January 10th we may 'hear the call' to a challenge which will be stronger between January and April. Or not. It may not be for you or it might be too subtle to hear. Pay attention for clues on days when Mars aspects other planets (November 10, 16, 19).
November 9
New Moon: 16* Scorpio: 02:02 AM EST
You may or not consider that you live in a time of global cultural and climate collapse. However, there is no getting away from the massive changes that are afoot. At the time of a New Moon in Scorpio we are invited to align ourselves with the power of deep acceptance and surrender to the conditions at hand; not to relinquish agency or to ignore the need for change but to relax into reality and arm ourselves by disarming. In relinquishing what no longer serves we only lose what is gone anyway.
November 10
Mars sextile Venus rx
Desire is a tricky character. We get caught in our passions, often to wake as if from a dream once they are gone. Today desire presents itself as opportunity, creative, aesthetically appealing and good for the soul, perhaps measured and considered over recent weeks while Venus has been retrograde. Trust yourself to love what you love and let your actions arise from the impulses of a nobel heart. What would Sir Gawain do?
November 13
Mercury stationary direct
Venus stationary direct
Look up! Look around. Something that has been simmering in the cauldron of your life, your world, is ready for tasting, for using, for sharing. Life is a journey, each of us on The Path. Who we meet and how we meet them matters.
November 16
Mars conjunct Jupiter
Be creative. First, do no harm, at least not to the people, places or even things that you love. Art is activism; just making art flies in the face of fascism. It takes courage to express yourself. And it harm none. The ‘better world’ we long for does not entitle us to anything more or less than anyone else. The challenge is to bring our fear of lack and loss to our passion for a good life. We can share with all that lives. After all, we are only humans.
November 17
Sun at the bending of the Nodes
The 'bending of the nodes' is a square to them (90 degrees). The Sun is there today. Bending toward the North node in Aquarius, asking us to be the best we can be, to live into the chaos in ways that live up to our ideals, leaving fear and paranoia in the compost. Doesn't have to be big, just kind. It's the secret sauce that we all have access to.
November 18
Sun square Jupiter
Today pulls us in the opposite direction from yesterday (toward the south node in Leo). A challenge that began yesterday will take us through tomorrow when the Sun will square Mars (which is close to Jupiter and the south node). A good time to consider how hyper-individuality and the feeling of specialness messes with our ability to enter or claim the Age of Aquarius. The answer isn't to turn ourselves into points of data like numbers on a spreadsheet. The Sun challenges us to take this seriously. To express ourselves for the good of ALL not the few, to ponder the difference between individualism and individuation.
November 19
Mars trine Chiron
Sun square Mars
If you're tired of a civilization that venerates heroes especially when they are in service to death and destruction (captains of industry, kings of extraction, bosses of more production for less investment), if you feel the exhaustion of it, consider your own creative offerings and how they lean toward a different kind of world. Not because they are big and turn heads but because they are from the heart, vectors of truth - not the ultimate kind, but the kind that skips from soul to soul. Just what the world needs now. It's not likely that most politicians know the way to a New Age. They are steeped in 'business as usual' paradigms that have outlived their usefulness. Some try nobly to stem the tide of chaos others are grifters. As systems reveal their inadequacy it's creativity (not hyper-individuality) that is required. Yours. Mine. Ours.