Some important aspects this week are:
SUNDAY - Sun conjunct Ceres
MONDAY - New Moon in Libra
TUESDAY - Mercury into Scorpio
WEDNESDAY - Mercury opposes Uranus, Venus squares Mars
THURSDAY - Mercury squares the North and South Nodes
FRIDAY - Sun squares Pluto
Yes, another cray-cray week. Hold on. Know we are all in this together. Tread carefully.
Mars starts covering new ground this week - finally! - after his long summer retrograde through Aquarius. He is in Aquarius for another couple weeks, but now walking new degrees. This can energize stalled actions, initiatives and projects as well as group causes.
Sunday's exact conjunction between the Sun (
in Libra) and Ceres is a big part of Monday's New Moon, so let's look at that.
On
MONDAY the Moon (
in Libra) meets the Sun (
in Libra) at 15 degrees. The Moon and Sun are sitting with Ceres and squaring Pluto (
the Pluto square with the Sun will be exact on Sunday so the square is waxing/building at the time of the New Moon).
This is the Ceres/Pluto story come to life! You have likely heard this before, but the following is a very brief rehashing of it:
Ceres (
known to the Greeks as Demeter) is the mother - the provider, the nurturer - the goddess archetype of spring. Ceres represents the part of our nature that longs to give birth and then nourish and sustain new life. She represents the essential bonding or lack of that occurs between mother and child.
She is the impulse to nurture and also to be nurtured by others.
Ceres's daughter, Persephone, was abducted and raped by Pluto, lord of the underworld. The grieving mother, Ceres wandered the earth in search of her missing child.
In her grief, depression and anger, she caused a famine, withholding nourishment from the world until her daughter was returned. Persephone meanwhile had eaten pomegranate seeds, a symbol of sexual awareness, which gave Pluto a claim over her so she could not be returned permanently to her mother.
A deal was reached so Persephone would spend part of each year in the underworld with Pluto caring for the souls of the dead, but each spring would be reunited with her mother in the upper world as she initiated the dead into the rites of rebirth (
spring).
Ceres in our chart alerts us to any challenges with nurturing and directs us to the kinds of experience we need to feel unconditionally loved and accepted. Our mother issues, the way we deal with painful and uncontrollable loss and separation - that's Ceres.
Although not much in terms of synchronicity surprises me with astrology - this is a kind of mind-blowing line-up at this New Moon given what we have been going through in the U.S. collective with the Supreme Court seating. The entitled masculine and the marginalized feminine (
and we all carry both masculine and feminine energies within us) and with Chiron back in Pisces digging up old wounds and addictions that are demanding our acknowledgement and
release.
With Ceres ruling cycles, the seasons of our lives, the way we nurture and what we need to feel nurtured, our mother issues, the way we deal with painful losses squaring Pluto (
power/death and rebirth) - whatever we have going on - New Moons are all about new starts - is likely to involve the
themes of loss and power imbalances.
We could be dealing with issues that feel like life and death (
which they may or may not be) and potentially de-stabilizing financial issues.
New Moons are times in the dark. The seeds go into the ground, but the day we plant the seeds is not the day we eat the fruit. If we can see the seeds as the ashes of the
old fruit - we can see better what we have in front of us.
Ceres is about cycles - the highs and lows. She represents a very real lack of control - her grief was not only about the tremendous pain inflicted by Pluto over the loss of her daughter (
how are we losing?) but also about the depression (
she could be said to rule over the winter season as well as Saturn) that comes when we can't control important things. She turns away from her life. She wanders the earth.
NOTE - You will find the area of life where Ceres sits in your natal chart to be an area where you experience
extremes. The tide is in or the tide is out. Things are either very bright and sunny or very dark and depressing. We often face situations that are out of our control.
For us, as a collective, this New Moon in collaborative and diplomatic Libra is a fresh start seeded through a painful loss/something outside our control. With Libra naturally ruling our 7th house of 'the other person' this could play out through partnership, through agreements - which are likely to be seen as unfair or unjust in some way - at the core of it all we see the Ceres/Pluto square and story - our fear of losing control, our fear of losing what we love.
The New Moon will also be inconjunct (
rock and hard place) Neptune speaking of fantasies and delusions. Take care with addictive substances. Watch for rose-colored glasses. This could mean our fear of loss is not totally grounded in reality and also reminds us that bigger hands than ours are guiding this whole thing ....
MONTHLY AFFIRMATION TIPS for the Libra New Moon:
What house holds Libra in your natal chart?
This is our annual opportunity to restore balance here. Who/what do we want to partner with?
Get grounded - we have moved from an earth sign into air so this is important - always make affirmations from a positive place (positive meaning
certain).
It is a good idea, since the New Moon is literally a blank sheet, to work in a clean, uncluttered space and maybe right after a bath or shower. Definitely when you are alone.
I find affirmations are most effective if I speak less on New Moon days so my words will hold more weight when I need them to.
I usually burn a white candle to help me focus and thin the veils between me and me. It also helps to channel ancestral energy a bit since I am always thinking as I move my story forward, their story moves forward with me.
Write your affirmations down by hand in cursive, we want the letters all connecting and flowing together. Speak the words out loud.
I used to write my affirmations on strips of paper and put them into a bowl of rice so I could mix them around every now and then with my fingers if things got stagnant. Then I decided to burn them. I have written them on rocks and buried them.
This month, I'm doing something I did a few weeks ago to line up with a specific thing that happened pretty effortlessly afterward -
I'm going to write my affirmations
(
astrologer Jan Spiller recommends writing 10, but I have found myself stretching to do that or writing the same things every month which feels silly, so I have worked my way down to 3 which feels like a powerful number to me)
on my chalkboard while burning a white candle - when the candle burns out, all by itself - don't burn your house down - I erase the words first and then clean the blackboard with water.
Some people store them until the corresponding Full Moon (
in this case during Aries season next April) and burn them then. Do what feels right.
I don't think it's terribly important what we do with our writings as long as we are not pulling them out and checking on them all the time. Setting intentions is like baking a cake - checking on how things are going just slows things down.
We are not handing a honey do list to the universe! We are lining up with the universal energies of creation here.
And I wouldn't be sharing them with other people, which also feels like it dilutes the process or pulls them into our story. I was writing them on my blog for a few months, as examples for people, and that definitely wasn't helpful.
Then - and this is the important part - release your attention from your words knowing your
intention is known.
Know these things are already yours
On
TUESDAY, Mercury dives into Scorpio (
joining Venus and Jupiter). The planet of communication/ideas/thinking/new/information - also rules siblings, pets, our local neighborhood (
Mercury) ingresses into the sign of power, transformation and secrets (
Scorpio) until October 31st - note his November retrograde will bring him back into Scorpio to re-walk the final degrees.
This is excellent energy for deep (
Scorpio) investigation/research (
Mercury).
Instead of learning/thinking/communicating about a little of this and a little of that, now is the time to go "all in" with a subject we are passionate about.
Our mind can
focus. Multi-tasking will be harder because our intellect will want to
sit with one thing for longer than we usually do.
We will be getting to the bottom of things and will not be satisfied with Libra's (
Mercury's last stop) conversational civilities. We'll want to know, and think/talk about, what is
really happening.
It won't always be comfortable.
The hard truths won't be blurted out spontaneously - we will have to dig for them.
Decide first if you really want to know what is hiding underneath because Plutonian authenticity is not only transformational - it is permanent. There is no going back to "not knowing". Mysteries can be solved. The truth could come out. Secrets can be languaged and spoken out loud.
Difficult conversations will create deeper levels of intimacy now.
If you are dating someone and you have sex (also Scorpio ruled) with them you can never go back to not having sex with them even if you never have sex with them again. The intimacy is still there. It will be like this with our words now.
And once we know the information - we own it. It's our move (with Scorpio the move might be internal).
It changes who we are and we ignore who we are at our own peril.
Careless language (
disrespect for ourselves and others) and our careless treatment of other people's words (
and their reaction to ours) will be karmic. Keep this in mind.
There could be battles for mental supremacy and mind games during this transit.
People prone to manipulation could be extremely effective (
or someone will finally see right to the bottom of what we are doing - maybe that someone will be ourselves).
This is a time to take a good, long look at what we are really seeking when we are trying to make a situation/person behave in a way that pleases us. Think about it. There are gold nuggets to be mined now. Even tiny specks can be used to create great fortunes. Scorpio rules our
inheritance.
The fly in the ointment here is that we might think we are mining for gold when we are really just obsessing on the same old same old.
Scorpio rules obsession and compulsion and our minds could easily go there now. Notice it. Don't judge it. Think about - "what does it
mean that I keep thinking about this?". Scorpio rules death, too. It's not only what we dig up, but what we put
into the ground that matters now.
Maybe some words/language/story needs to be put to rest.
This transit could also be about money and paperwork, contracts - wills, loans, etc.
The Moon is void all day Tuesday.
On
WEDNESDAY, the Moon will be in Scorpio focusing us on Scorpian issues - life/death, other people's money - loans, inheritance, taxes, partner's income, the things we share with other people, intimacy, sex, reproduction.
Mercury (
in Scorpio) is going to oppose Uranus (
in Taurus) at the same time the Venus/Mars square becomes exact.
This is a BIG day.
Immediately with Mercury/Uranus we get a
surprising truth.
Maybe some disturbing news. Maybe a brainstorm or stroke of genius. Maybe a shocking conversation about money or intimacy issues. If something has been a secret or done below the radar this is the time it could come out.
We have talked about the Venus/Mars square before because we have been dealing with it for a while - although not with Venus retrograde. This is where we really want something but are blocked somehow. Our actions and our desires are at cross purposes. This is the masculine vs the feminine. There could be power struggles.
With Venus retrograde this isn't really the time to push. Do what needs to be done, yes. Don't miss a deadline or just come to a complete stop. Take the actions you can, but know that things have a bit of unwinding to do. Things are in flux. When Venus is direct in November - things will start to fall more smoothly into place.
We will flesh out the rest of the week in the next post. It is equally dynamic!
xo all
