September seems more placid and ever more gentle as compared to this past month of August. During September, we may be focused on our daily responsibilities, engaging our due diligence and concerned more with our mundane world than setting the world on fire with new projects or new activities. We might feel as though we want to just keep on keeping on, taking care of business while being ever more mindful and aware of the dramatic changes occurring around us.
Interactions with other people can be highlighted this month as we seek solace, comfort and enjoyment in the company of friends and loved ones and join with them in late Summer, early Fall fairs and festivities.
The month of September begins with one planet in a Fire Sign, three planets in Earth Signs, five planets in Air Signs, and one planet in a Water Sign. There are five planets in Cardinal Signs, one planet in a Fixed sign and four planets in Mutable Signs. Six planets are in positive Signs, and four planets are in receptive Signs.
By Sign, there is a Grand Trine in the Air Element. By Sign, there is a T-Square in the Cardinal Signs and a T-Square in Mutable Signs. The T-Square in Cardinal Signs continues the Cardinal Climax that has the ability of tearing away the non-productive and the outdated and stripping down to the core for rebuilding and the essential rising from the ashes.
September begins in a breezy manner. We may seem to have a great deal on our plate — our affairs, our activities, our relationships and a general desire to go from one thing to another to another without much follow through or without getting stuck on to any one thing.
The month also begins with Mercury still retrograde and retrograding through its own Sign of Virgo. We could still be glossing over details, neglecting particulars and a little short on specifics. Although September often calls us to get back on track, we might be reticent to do so, still yearning for Summer fun in a Summer that may not have been all that much fun.
Although we are being harkened back to our daily routine existence, we might also be searching for options and alternatives for ourselves. These desires for change can be both on a small scale, how we do our daily tasks, or they can be on a large scale, our wish to transform our lives and transform ourselves. We could feel like the main character in James Thurber’s story ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, whereby our minds are filled with possibilities and potentials of heroic adventures that are far beyond our normal, everyday lives. We might still yearn for significant changes to our lives and how we do our lives.
Let’s keep in mind the analogy of the oyster and the grain of sand. Out of the constant irritation and aggravation, a pearl is created. So too is it for ourselves. We may feel a certain level of discontent, even verging on the critical, regarding our lives and how things are going. But let’s also keep in mind that we live in a dynamic universe and are living during times of dramatic, even drastic, shifts and changes, whereby things can change without a moment’s notice. We are living in magical times, but times that demand that we let go of our expectations and our blind assumptions that we can bend the world and our lives according to our whims.
Mastery of the universe is no longer an option. The game has shifted to the mastery of our selves.
While the beginning of September offers a tag team between the routine demands of our daily lives and the fun events of interactions with friends and loved ones, the latter part of the second week into the third week of September seem like various transitions and shapeshiftings are going on.
In the US, the first weekend of September is the long Labor Day holiday weekend, also considered the unofficial end to Summer. Before we fully get back on track, we might look for one final Summer blowout — parties, social gatherings, spending time with those important people in our lives and generally celebrating a last hurrah to a Summer that truly never was the Summer of our pasts.
The Sun conjuncts Mercury on the 3rd and Venus trines Neptune on the 4th. We are looking for the idyllic in our interpersonal relationships. While we may feel the demands of our responsibilities, we might also realize the importance of embracing the paradisical, even if it only is a fantasy and a grand illusion. This early part of September can have us in a la-la-land, seeing only the best in things and discounting any negatives or negating any stumbling blocks. Perhaps if we believe hard enough, wonderful things can occur and our lives become a magical kaleidoscope of good treats and constantly flowing abundance. We could even create a Mutual Admiration Society, with each of us encouraging the other, affirming the magic of these times, all the while seeing the world in rose-colored glasses. We may feel that we have gone through the worst of our times and are now prepared to enter the best of our times. What a wonderful world it could be!
A sense of helter-skelter can be triggered with the Virgo New Moon on the 8th. This New Moon impacts the next fortnight and has two Stelliums of three or more planets in one Sign. One Stellium is in Virgo with the Sun Moon conjunction and the retrograde Mercury. The other Stellium is in Libra with Saturn, Mars and Venus in the Venus-ruled Sign and just prior to Venus exiting it’s Sign to enter Scorpio, a Sign where it is not comfortable. The Cardinal Climax is also impactful with the Saturn in Libra opposed Jupiter in Aries and in orb of an opposition to Uranus and all three in orb of a square to Pluto in Capricorn.
The push pulls between refining, reworking and constantly re-evaluating, all the while that we are looking for a serenity and a placidity in an increasingly chaotic world, can have us caroming from our focused intent on our mundane concerns to our desire for companionships and connections with others which can either be an important support system or could devolve into an attitude of ‘misery loves company’ and that we’re all in the same boat, a boat which seems to be taking on water.
Venus exits Libra to enter Scorpio on the 8th, followed by Jupiter retrograding out of Aries and back into Pisces on the 9th. There is a Mars trine Neptune aspect also on the 9th, and we could easily buy into the possibilities and the potentials all the while avoiding the blips on the screen and some of the difficulties yet to be addressed.
The weekend of the 11th and 12th can have us doing a pre-Autumn cleanup, looking at what we can be rid of, all the while concentrating on keeping and maintaining the truly meaningful and essentially important in our lives. Although we may want to socialize and spend quality time with those significant people in our lives, we are also likely to be doing an inventory-taking, balancing our needs against our superfluous desires. Venus sextiles Pluto on the 12th, the same day that Mercury ends its three-week retrograde cycle and turns direct. The 13th has Pluto ending its five month retrograde cycle and turning direct. And the 14th has Mars exiting Libra, a Sign in which it is uncomfortable, to enter Scorpio, a Sign it co-rules with Pluto.
This mid-September period can be quite intense. Nothing may be done in half-measure and the possibility of lashing out could be a sign of frustration and a sense of enforced limitations. While people may have hair trigger-like reactions to situations, we could also work with these energies to be far more resourceful in our expenditures of time, energy and monies. Now is a time for us to work smarter rather than harder and to be more effective with less expenditure of energy.
We may become aware that economic recovery is not as strong as presented by the media and agencies. We might realize that some of the stimulus to the economy also comes with a cost, and a cost that may soon be born through increased taxation, decreased exemptions and the need for us to be increasingly sharp with our personal accounting of our revenue streams and our expenditure outflows.
If ever we needed to recognize the metronome-like qualities of these times, times akin to Charles Dickens’ ‘best of times, worst of times’, this September allows us insights into these whipsaws. The volatility of these times can be ratcheted up in this September and that could be especially true around the 18th when Jupiter conjuncts Uranus and Mars sextiles Pluto.
The potential for overreach is strong around this time and even reinforced around the 21st when the Sun opposes both Jupiter and Uranus on the last full day of Summer 2010. While we might want to focus on the big picture with a sense that we can in deed pull rabbits out of the hat, our best use of these energies now is to take a visionary stance, concentrate on the specifics and the particulars, all the while that we are making our plans in pencil and with a large eraser. We must continually recognize that unanticipated variables and unexpected situations can arise that force us to adapt to shifting conditions and be flexible in accord with changing circumstances.
Increasingly, we have to accept the reality that nothing may be as it first appears. Shapeshifting is a key component of these times and the shapeshifting demands that we not be fixed or rigid in our opinions but rather we be aware and mindful as things evolve, morph and change. It is important that we continually keep our eye on the process and realize that we are no longer working in a sequential, linear progression but rather a kaleidoscope of various ingredients, all of which we might not be fully cognizant. We are crossing the threshold into the paradigm shift of asequential reality.
Autumn begins on the 22nd – 23rd, just before the Aries Full Moon, which also triggers the Cardinal Climax and the T-Square of Aries, Libra and Capricorn. Five planets are in Water Signs as we begin the Autumn and emotions can run high, even to flood stages.
This latter part of September can see continued ‘crash and burns’ going on. With the Sun square Pluto on the 25th and the Sun conjunct Saturn to end the month on the 30th, this latter part of September could have us feeling as if our backs were up against the wall.
Although there could be a general tendency to panic or throw our hands up in the air in desolate frustration as we begin the Autumn, these times demand that we not make knee-jerk reactions, that we avoid snap judgments and that on the contrary we take our time and allow some of the dust to settle before determining what is truly going on.
There is a saying, wise and true, that the cup has to be emptied before it can be filled. The emptying of the cup may be a several year period with moments of refilling. But it would be wise to keep in mind that we are at a paradigm shift, and the ways of the past and some of the traditions, institutions and agencies upon which we have relied are falling away. While we might see more of the eliminations rather than the new gatherings and new ingredients, if we keep in mind the emptying before filling, then we are less likely to be come anxious and concerned that the sky is falling.
Appearance is one thing, reality is often another. In true reality, the universe does not like a vacuum. So, while there can be more slip slidings away, beyond the releases and eliminations we might all be experiencing there are new factors to evolve and come forward.
September 2010… it is what is, or isn’t…
