Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.~ Alice Walker
Enjoy a potential interpersonal respite over a relatively slow and peaceful weekend; November’s colder winds whistle in towards the end of the week.
Mercury conjuncts Venus in Venus-ruled Libra, and the Sun resides in Libra as the weekend begins and helps our conversation flow, loans us a spirit of compromise and agreement and can ease more harmonious interactions. Our minds turned all things Venusian; we want to know what’s fair and beautiful.
We are curious about balance in our life. Beauty feeds our soul and so does the moment of gentle social contact, shake of the hand or spark of the eye. It’s a good time to go back and strengthen friendships and connections while people are in a sociable mood. It’s also a good time to take the search for beauty literally, beautify our environment or tuck our garden in for the winter. Our natural sense of aesthetics is supported, our natural sense composition and flow strengthened by this Libran lineup. Walk through the house with Feng Shui eye, look at how the traffic flows, the air and energy flows the house and see if anything needs to be adjusted to improve this flow.
The Libran political adage is “no justice, no peace: know justice, know peace” and we’ll see reflected in the headlines and at home. Take this image, this paradigm of balance and fairness epitomized by the Golden rule to “do unto others as we would have them do unto us” and the corollary silver rule “do not do unto others that which you don’t want done to yourself”, and look at everything from household chores to how the Ebola epidemic is being treated.
Concerning the Ebola epidemic, there are two major astrological features (Saturn in Scorpio and Neptune in Pisces) that suggest we take this situation seriously, but react holistically and with substantial change (Uranus square Pluto) rather than with panic. Saturn in Scorpio asks us to get serious about death and often runs concurrent with epidemics; Saturn is now in Scorpio, has been since Oct. 2012 and will be until this December. Look at the last three transits of Saturn in Scorpio; from 1924 – 26 was concurrent with a bout of smallpox, 1954-56 was concurrent with the polio epidemic, and 1993-4 was in the heart of the AIDS epidemic and concurrent with a hanta virus scare. Neptune in Pisces from 2011-2025 supports our spiritual search, our collective creative process, but also reminds us just how permeable we are all the way from our leaky psyche to our bodily cells. Our boundaries can feel like sieves. Yes, one response to this is to create healthy boundaries. But the deeper teaching is for us to remember in cellular way that what happens to the least of us, happens to all of us. We need to take care of all sentient beings, all our siblings around the globe, in order to be truly healthy.
We can start at home and work our way out. Over the weekend and early next week Jupiter trines the South lunar node, sextiles the North node and offers us a chance to improve our relationships as well as begin new ones. If we recognize their possibility, friendly new relationships that come in at this time are unusually likely enrich our opportunities and help us expand the horizon.
Friday and Saturday we can relax under a warm and sociable if slightly grandstanding and interpersonally demanding Leo Moon. Look for a beautiful Moon-Jupiter conjunction, one of the more friendly aspects, glowing in the western sky early in the evening. We can let its beauty into our heart and help us expand our sense of hope and possibility. It can expand any emotion we have in there, all of our feelings may be more colorful and vivid, and so it helps us to bring our attention to the love around us.
Sunday and Monday a more industrious Virgo Moon reminds us of unfinished work that needs our attention, calls us back to the details we missed before. Unless we’re careful it can also make us cranky and help us try to debug or edit our family. On Wednesday and Thursday a lovely quiet dark of the Moon in Libra is an important time to warm our connections and let people see we care. Get agreements organized now. Because the Sun, Venus, and Moon all enter brooding, intense, willing to look on the dark side Scorpio on Thursday and we roll on with panache and intensity towards Halloween and the Day of the Dead.
Friday, October 17: Depression swirls around us, but delicate optimism can be like a spark on tinder; if we keep it out of the wind and blow on it gently, it can grow into a warm flame of possibility. Our hearts can be sore if we feel ignored but respond warmly to overtures and appreciation. Let’s take moment to stop and be grateful for anything that warms life, anything we want to grow as the Moon conjuncts Jupiter in Leo, glowing in the early evening western sky.
Saturday, October 18: We may feel crankier and older this morning as the Moon squares Saturn, what we take serious is so obvious to us, what they take serious can feel so silly. The mood is more spacious, wandering, if not particular efficient midday as the Moon rests void of course until it enters more industrious Virgo around dinner time. Avoid a ruthless inventory of your own faults or those of others; it’s not productive at this time. Notice what’s working and nurture those seeds instead. Kindness and respect go a long way tonight and help our sharpening mind stay productive.
Sunday, October 19: Check dreams this morning; as the Moon opposes Neptune we may understand our heart and feelings, but not necessarily the truth, in our early morning imagery. Our attention can focus on the problem this afternoon as the Virgo Moon trines Pluto; diagnose, but keep a healthy perspective. The situation may have more possibilities than we think but may require us to utilize hard-won wisdom. Keep health the first priority as well, rest and rejuvenate.
Monday, October 20: Cut people extra slack on this rather cranky morning as the Virgo Moon squares Mars. As our lens focuses easily on the problems, assess unfinished details, tend to problems, but be nice to one another. Important communiqués tonight, notice incoming information as Mercury conjuncts the North node.
Tuesday, October 21: The Moon joins the Sun and Venus in Libra and reminds us to find the middle way; look for healthy compromise and a gentle, honest fairness that allows all parties to flourish. Clear the air and fix imbalances and over the next few days. Make aesthetic decisions. Look for and savor a moment of calm and quiet balance.
Wednesday, October 22: On this last day of the Libra lineup, prioritize balance, composition, beauty, fairness. Roll with early morning turbulence as the Moon squares Pluto and opposes Uranus, then get right with the world; balanced diet, chores, relationships, politics. Pay off debts as the Moon conjuncts Mercury.
Thursday, October 23: Notice the dramatic mood shift as the Sun, Venus, and the Moon roll into Scorpio and conjunct one another. Feelings intensify and focus. Extraneous details are released, and are prioritize priorities clarify. Old wrongs haunt us, retribution makes more sense, but underneath that is a call for transcendence.
Starcodes 