This week we’re moving through what many astrologers have suggested could be one of the most challenging and important passages of 2020. And that’s saying something, I know. All 10 planets in our solar system are making hard aspects to one another, but as always there are silver linings. With the exception of Mars opposing the Libra Sun/New Moon conjunction on Saturday October 17 (6:30am EST), which is the most potent energetic focus of the week, all planets are simultaneously making aspects that enable us to turn these heightened tensions into exceptional manifestation opportunities.
We’ve been building up the muscle and the maturity to deal with the epic challenges, changes and emotional pressures that 2020 has thrown in our paths. We’ve made it through some intensely difficult weeks and months and they’ve led us to important realisations. We’ve got a strong inkling about how we want our lives to look and we’ve got ideas about how to make that happen. The lead up to this week’s Libra New Moon focuses our attention on identifying what we need to release, revise and/or integrate in order to live into those possibilities fully.
As Pluto is reactivated by an exact square to retrograding Mars on October 14 and triggered by the New Moon/Sun conjunction on Saturday, destructive patterns of behaviour that we’ve developed in response to trauma, which no longer reflect who we are or are wanting to be, may be triggered. But there’s an extraordinary healing opportunity being magnified through these planetary dynamics. With Mercury retrograding in Scorpio from October 15 and opposing Uranus, the planet that governs the radical resolution of irresolvable differences, the power to transform situations that we’ve been grappling with all year suddenly becomes available.
Mercury in Scorpio acts as Hermes the Psychopomp, who ushered souls to Pluto’s realm in the underworld. The ancients considered the land of the dead to be the source of dreams and worldly abundance and this descent to the site of our suffering, fury, fear and shame both frees up our vision and allow us to re-emerge from the psychic realms of our karmic wounding richer for having reckoned with the truth of who we truly are. In emptying our souls of the secrets that have been poisoning us, they become a source of incredible richness, and Pluto, lord of our darkest fears, reveals himself to be something entirely unexpected: a god of total transformation who shows compassion for our suffering, rewards us richly for our courage and delivers unimagined healing.
Deep, courageous, honest communications, in which we hold ourselves and those we care about accountable, can become vehicles for profound transformation now. Counselling, therapy, journalling and divination will also provide powerful pathways for insight during this transit. It could be a week and month of revelations. Mars is at its closest point to the Earth this week (13-15 Oct) and opposes the Sun (exact on Oct 14). The effects could last a week. Intensity is at maximum pulse. We may feel angrier, more frustrated and exhausted or alternatively more powerfully motivated and super-charged. The Sun’s opposition to Mars either heightens tendencies for exaggerated overreaction or illuminates where we may have overreacted in the past. We’re reminded to look for the deeper emotions that lie beneath reactivity and rage, at the fear, hurt, sorrow and experiences of powerlessness that are calling for attention and redress. Tending to them with compassion allows us to channel Martian energy into epic feats of personal courage that are required now for us to truly be ourselves.
Even Venus, who rules the Libra New Moon, is conspiring towards transformative interpersonal revolution. Her intentions are for harmony, balance and peacemaking, but it’s a shit-show out there, so she must raise her voice to be heard above the fray. Her critical faculties are heightened in Mercury-ruled Virgo allowing her to clearly identify the factors blocking the flow of love. We will be wise to listen. As she opposes Neptune in Pisces the fears and illusions that we’ve been projecting onto others suddenly become illuminated. Neptune is considered the higher octave of Venus, and while she represents harmonious interpersonal love, Neptune represents the visionary, transcendent experience of love that centres on compassion and forgiveness. In this world-changing epoch, characterised by seemingly intractable divisions and irresolvable differences, we’re being offered a vital opportunity to upgrade our vision and understanding of love.
Saturday’s New Moon invites us to make space for these new possibilities by honouring and giving thanks to what is leaving, to make rituals of the big and small beauties we want to nourish and preserve in our lives, to be bold in our intentions for the future, and sit tight.
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