This October can test our balance between extremes and allows us opportunities to shed the past and let go of the extraneous. This is a month for us to focus on our relationships, both old and new. It is a time for us to review our past, eliminate the outmoded and do a good autumnal cleaning by paring down and cutting to the core. We can be highly effective this month so long as we think outside the box, consider our alternatives and realize that there is no way, even if we wanted to, that we can re-create the past. Then is then. Now is now.
The month of October begins similar to the beginning of Autumn. There are no planets in Fire Signs, two planets in Earth Signs, three planets in Air Signs and five planets in Water Signs. The five planets in the Water Signs create a Grand Trine with each of the Water Signs being transited. Four planets are in Cardinal Signs with a T-Square reinvigorating the Cardinal Climax. Three planets are in Fixed Signs, and three planets are in Mutable Signs. Three planets are in Positive Signs, and seven planets are in Receptive Signs.
Instead of feeling proactive and taking the bull by the horns, we might start this month on a more reactive approach. Perhaps we are a little gun-shy regarding life as it has been over the past two years — not knowing what shoe might drop, having to respond to unexpected situations arising and trying to keep all the balls in the air as we juggle more now than ever before. Talk about exhausting!
And so it may be as we start the month. We may not have the Fire or the energy to move mountains. We might be more accommodating to the idea that things happen rather than us making them happen. Not that such an attitude is a bad thing. We do need to avoid the extremes of a metronome, swinging from our previously held beliefs that in order for things to occur we have to make them happen to the other extreme whereby now we feel that things happen and we can only react or respond. The balance point is neither assuming that we can master the world nor accepting a fatalistic disposition of being victims to circumstance. The balance point, in truth, is being co-creators with the natural unfolding. Being aware of the energies, we can then work with them rather than just assume that we can bend the energies to our will.
This October begins with the Sun in Libra, the Sign of Balance and the sense of self and complement to self. Yet, in these volatile times, the metronome can swing wildly, as we still seek to get a grip on the new reality.
The month also begins with Mercury transiting its own Sign of Virgo opposed both Jupiter, exact on the 1st, and Uranus, exact on the 2nd. The optimum scenario for these energy configurations would be for us to work with the energies and devise a best practices approach by which to realize our goals, all the while taking into account the possibility of unanticipated variables forcing us to be flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances. We could see the big picture, aware of options and alternatives, but can also use a detailed approach to address specifics and the particulars. The early part of October is a time for us to strategize, be resourceful and realize that old patterns and old ways may no longer work in the new paradigm.
The downside of these Mercury opposition Jupiter and Uranus energy configurations would contribute to our imagination running rampant, encouraging excesses, glossing over details and a liability towards heightened anxiety. It would be far wiser to operate from the energies’ positive potential. Part of our free will and choice includes our disposition, our attitude and our perspective. We see what we want to see and we operate according to our opinions and our judgments.
One of the beauties of these times, however, is the ability to pierce the veil of maya, get beyond our illusions of reality and our assumptions in regard to how the ‘real world’ operates, and embrace the magic and mystery of these times — the asequential reality, the synchronicity and serendipity of things occurring in accord with their own rhythm and not restricted by linear and limiting parameters.
We also begin this month somewhat lethargic, perhaps without a great deal of energy. There is no Fire, possibly no fire in our belly, and we also feel the influence of the Sun Saturn conjunction exact on the last day of September. We may feel that we have to look back in order to move forward. We might wish to draw upon the comfort zone of our past, our past connections, past identities and past relationships. We could take a walk down Memory Lane, focusing more on where we have been rather than emphasizing where we want to go. We have to be cautious that we are not like the biblical Lot’s wife, looking back and then feeling turned into a pillar of salt, unable to move forward.
Again, the importance of balance as we feel our way through the new terrain, all with an appreciation that we are moving into uncharted territory — our future and a future less impacted by our experience or our expertise and more an exploration and self-discovery.
The first weekend of October can have us searching out pleasurable pursuits, seeking good times and activities that satiate our passions. Our emotions are ratcheted up and we could find ourselves going through wild mood swings, at times recklessly exuberant, other times anxious and despondent.
The 3rd of October has Mercury exiting its own Sign of Virgo to enter Venus-ruled Libra and creating a Stellium of three or more planets in Libra as Mercury joins the Sun and Saturn in the Cardinal Air Sign. Our interest may become more focused on our relationships but we could also be somewhat demanding of other people.
Mercury squares Pluto on the 5th. We have the Libra New Moon on the 7th, and Mercury conjuncts Saturn on the 8th. This period begins a time when some of the bloom may come off the rose. We may feel tethered by our obligations to other people. We might find ourselves reconnecting with people from our past but wondering what the true connection between us might actually be. For some of us, any parade of the past could prove a useful mirror to reflect back to us how much we have changed.
Let’s keep in mind that these recent two years have been an alchemical process, a time of deep transformation, in which much of our self has gone through a transmutation, even if we have yet to see our new sense of self externalized in new activities, new interests and new projects. We may discover that old connections, involvements and previous associations no longer work for us as they may have in the past.
Each of us is morphing, shapeshifting, going through our own individual metamorphosis. And in so doing, what better way to have a sense of our transformation than through the complement [the Libra Sign] to ourselves. Whether that complement to ourselves happens to be our significant friendships and connections or that completion of self tends more to our involvements, our identities, the ‘what we do’ in our lives; we have the opportunity of seeing and feeling if past complements still resonate with the burgeoning of new being.
Any irritation during this mid-part of October can lead us to a sense of despondency or a feeling of being ‘locked in’ to obligatory patterns. If we do feel the sense of aggravation and irritation, let’s keep in mind the grain of sand within the oyster, the irritation of which creates the pearl. And so it is likely for ourselves. That any irritation and aggravation may not be so much our being ‘locked in’ to situations but rather the alchemical process, the tempering, the honing, the molding from what we have been to refining the sense of self-discovery and greater creative self-expression.
There is a divine design within this whole process of what often seems merely as chaos, confusion and the crash and burn scenario that many of us may have experienced both as individuals and as a society over the past two years.
The Libra New Moon on the 7th impacts much of the month and certainly the fortnight to the 22nd. Saturn weighs heavily and especially with the conjunction exact on the 8th, the day that Venus, ruler of Libra, turns retrograde in Scorpio, a Sign in which Venus is uncomfortable. Our relationships are deeply affected. We may reminisce about past encounters. We might see our present relationships as being somewhat constrictive as we go through our alchemical process.
It will be important that we cut ourselves and everyone around us a fair amount of slack during this October. And yet some of our greatest joys this month may be in the sharing and caring with other people, those special moments of deep connection and interaction with those special people in our lives. We might all feel the sense that ‘we’re all in this together’, this being the disruptions and changes occurring in our lives and the world at large as we move towards and cross the threshold of a paradigm shift.
The 18th, 19th and 20th of this October can be close to idyllic. We may feel heartened and strengthened by the people in our lives. We might be able to see certain future goals. Although some of this month may focus on looking back, there are times when it is necessary to do so in order to move forward without the encumbrances or the expectations of the past.
The 18th has Mercury trine Neptune, followed on the 19th by the Sun trine Neptune and on the 20th Mars trines Jupiter. We may consider future prospects and give greater thought to our world of possibilities. We are in a far more expansionary frame of mind. Even if we do not know how to get from where we are to the realization of some of our possibilities, let’s not limit ourselves by the ‘how’ as much as embrace our intention. As the saying goes: ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ And during these times, we don’t always have to make things happen. On the contrary, the sense of synchronicity and serendipity gives proof to the idea of being in the right place at the right time.
On the 20th, Mercury exits Libra to enter Scorpio thereby creating a Stellium of three or more planets in the Fixed Water Sign as Mercury joins Venus and Mars in Scorpio.
The 22nd – 23rd has the Aries Full Moon with Mars square Neptune and Mercury sextile Pluto, and just before the Sun exits Libra to enter Scorpio increasing the Scorpio influence and Stellium as the Sun joins Mercury, Venus and Mars in the Fixed Water Sign.
We may have contemplated our future earlier that week, but now we’re ready to do the excavation and removal of debris in order to have fertile ground in which to plant the seeds of our new interests.
Scorpio provides a great deal of intensity, has absolutely no interest in the shallow or superficial, but rather prefers to strip away the dross and the non-essential in order to cut to the core. This energy of re-working, sorting through, clearing out and emphasizing our resourcefulness is a large part of this latter part of October.
We seem determined and focused, concentrating on what we need to be rid of in order to provide space for the new and more intriguing.
The 24th has Mars trine Uranus. We can take alternative approaches, streamline our operations and toss out those patterns that are labor-intensive and time-consuming. We want to be lean and mean, and this end of October supports our intention.
Mercury conjuncts Venus on the 25th, the Sun sextiles Pluto on the 26th, and the Sun conjuncts Venus on the 28th, the same day that Mars exits Scorpio to enter Sagittarius.
We may be looking at our finances, taking into account the likelihood of increased tax exposure next year and seeking to budget our time, our monies and our energies to be the most effective under prevailing circumstances and changing conditions.
We may start the month somewhat lethargic and exhausted. We might spend much of the month in reflection and going back over past things. As we come towards the latter part of October, we could be considering potentials and new possibilities for ourselves. With future prospects an impelling characteristic, we can do a major cleaning up and clearing out to make room for the new and involvements more in tune with where we are going.
October 2010… stepping back to proceed forward…
