Full Moon Eclipse in Aries

This is on Monday the 28th September, 3:50 am (GMT).

We are in the middle of a tough week, and we're headed towards an intense and difficult full moon.

It's a supermoon, meaning the moon will be at the closest point to earth in her orbit, and will therefore appear freaking huge.

It is also a lunar eclipse, the fourth in a much-hyped tetrad of “blood moons” which some people believe heralds the end of the world, as in the Book of Revelations or some such shit.

Well I don't think it'll be the end of the world. But it does look quite violent. And as eclipses represent supercharged culminations or endings, the effects of this one will be long-term. So it's good to approach this with caution.

But before we look at it, let's look at the week leading up to it. What a crazy week.

We had the equinox – the balance-point of light and dark, the hinge between seasons – on the 23rd September (Wednesday), as the sun moved into Libra, sign of balance and harmonious relationship. And straight into conjunction with the north node at 1 degree Libra. Meaning Libran themes of balance, fairness and relating to the Other are paramount right now. This is the aim of the whole story, remember. It is about relational harmony and balance, even as everything is falling to shit around you. Civility and basic manners will get you far.

They will be needed, as we have all kinds of mental and interpersonal misunderstanding and nastiness going on right now. This is courtesy of retrograde Mercury in Libra, in lousy aspect to Uranus and Pluto. The Mercury-Pluto square was exact on the 24th September (Thursday) – and on the same day, we had Pluto, king of hell, stationing direct. Painful.

This is the sort of thing that incites verbal nastiness and suspicion. Or obsessive, stinging doubt and worry. Very mentally uncomfortable and lacerating stuff.

So there's just some very ugly, painful and dangerous – but potentially honest and transformative – thought and communication going on here. These influences are in effect (and culminating) at the full moon. And remember this full moon is in Aries, a fiery, warlike, impulsive sign. So there is the possibility of verbally eviscerating people, blowtorching your relationships all to hell...Or setting things on a new footing via radical honesty.

We also had Mars moving into Virgo in the early hours of the 25th (Friday), straight into a square with Saturn in Sagittarius. This Mars-Saturn square speaks of extreme frustration and potential cruelty. You put it together with the Mercury-Pluto stuff, and it's the perfect set-up for all kinds of nastiness. This can be internal (in your own head) or interpersonal – but there's so much pressure involved in this, it might feel like your head's in a vice. Or you might be on the receiving end of nastiness coming from other people.

Again, civility and basic manners will get you far with this. Seeing all sides of a story, not just your own prejudices. Fighting for accommodation and compromise, instead of fighting to 'win'. With the north node at 1 degree Libra, the story is supposed to be about 'we', not 'me'.

OK, and here's something kind of amazing about this eclipse: it involves a massive and very interesting clash of female archetypes. The sun in Libra will be conjunct Lilith (the lunar apogee) and asteroid Juno; the moon in Aries will be conjunct Vesta.

As we've seen, the north node in Libra is about a focus on relational issues - so these should be all lit up at this time. And the relationship story, as influenced by these three female celestial points, is a real wife vs. mistress dynamic. Or Madonna/whore.

Juno is named after the long-suffering and perpetually enraged wife of philandering Jupiter, king of the gods. She represents the good wife and mother: the woman who stays within the bounds of established patriarchal order and gets served a shit sandwich in exchange for her fidelity, over and over again. In the mythology, Juno's fury at Jupiter's recurrent betrayals was directed in extremely cruel ways toward his conquests, not at him. (Nevermind that these 'other women' were often actually raped by Jupiter.)

Lilith on the other hand represents a bitch goddess or outlaw woman – someone who cannot be held within patriarchal norms, who refuses to submit to any authority save her own, and is ostracised and demonised for her independence. Classic temptress / mistress stuff here. This is the one who lures men to their doom...a representation of dark, uncontrollable, wild feminine power and rage.

So these two opposite, but equally angry, destructive and powerful archetypes of femininity are hanging out together in Libra, the sign of balance and interrelationship. And on the freaking equinox to boot, the balance-point of light and shadow, the time of year when the day and the dark become equal. And at a full moon eclipse. I think it's all highly significant!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Plus we have Vesta conjunct the moon in Aries, and this is another powerful female influence. Vesta was the goddess of hearth and home, and keeper of the sacred flame. In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins were women specially chosen to tend Vesta's temple fire, the heart of the city of Rome. They took a vow of celibacy for 30 years, and were freed of the ordinary obligations and strictures put upon women in a rigidly patriarchal society. They were highly respected and independent – as long as they kept to their vows. Because the life of the city was thought to depend on their sexual purity and integrity, Vestals who transgressed their vows were scourged and buried alive.

So we have these three very powerful archetypes of femininity bound up with the eclipse – but all three are to some extent defined by their relation to patriarchal structures of control over women. They are also defined by their relation to their own sexuality, and by how female sexuality is contained and controlled within patriarchal structures.

We have Juno, the married one who outwardly is highly revered and respected because of her association with a powerful man – she gets to be freakin Queen of Heaven after all. But inwardly she's frustrated, dishonored, hurt and furious at his infidelities – and she takes her jealous rage out on other women.

We have Lilith, the dark temptress who could not give a fuck about marriage or respectability or 'belonging' to a man – but she's also defined by her bitterness and destructive rage because of her treatment by men.

And we have Vesta, the sacred virgin, whole and complete unto herself, independent and respected – as long as she renounces her sexuality in service to the patriarchal state.

It's all very interesting! These archetypes, when you look into them, are a lot more alike than they might seem at first glance. They are all images of dishonored or feared (or tightly controlled) female power.

And with Pluto in Capricorn (representing rotten, corrupt old power structures which must fall away or be transformed) squaring this full moon, maybe it's a good time to look at how we are all affected by these constricting gender dynamics. Things have to change. The 'good' wife, the 'other woman', the saintly Madonna – these are shitty roles for women to be caught in, and they put women at odds with each other in a destructive way. They don't serve men too well either: they prevent men from seeing women as actual, complex human beings.

I keep thinking of this movie. Saddest thing ever:

Or this one:

Or this song:

Anyway, all in all, a very powerful and intense eclipse - for women especially. Potentially very shocking, cruel and hurtful thought and communication - but it can also liberating.

I think the sacred hearth-fire imagery associated with Vesta is a key thing to focus on. As Vesta is in Aries, which has to do with selfhood, I think it's all about defining your own internal core of meaning / value / intergrity / autonomy. What do you hold pure and inviolate; what fires do you devote yourself to keeping lit, no matter what? What is sacred to you at your core, and how do you protect and nurture it?

If we can keep the focus on what keeps our internal heart(h) fires lit, it should be easier to transcend the rage and darkness associated with the Lilith/Juno stuff.

Anyway, beware of nastiness directed toward you or coming out of your mouth – maybe cut people some slack this week, because this moon will be stressful enough. And remember your manners (Libra). Basic civility is pretty important right now.

New Moon Solar Eclipse in Virgo

This is early on the 13th September, around 6:40 am (GMT).

It's an eclipse – a supercharged new beginning – in the detail-oriented, service-minded sign of Virgo. And I am determined to see it as a good thing, though it looks quite painful and uncomfortable – because Virgo is an immensely practical, grounded, orderly sign.

So if things hurt, there are practical things you can do to heal. You can start a new health regimen. You can focus on doing practical, helpful things for yourself or others who are hurting. You can clean the house and do the laundry. You can volunteer at something.

The focus will be on doing practical, humble, everyday stuff. Jupiter is in Virgo also – so our blessings and happiness this year are tied up with a focus on the everyday, the humble, the small but necessary. Attention to the little details will go a long way.

Hopefully this new moon will be painful like necessary surgery - or like how a wound stings when it's being cleaned and sewn up. Or like root canal, which is painful but functional.

Of course, it could also feel like a knife twisting in your gut, or jagged worry and mental misery. Try not to worry too much. It's definitely a worried kind of sky.

The moon and sun in Virgo will oppose Chiron in Pisces, which represents a deep, incohate sense of wounding. They will also inconjunct Uranus in Aries, which is a jittery, erratic, angry kind of energy.

Virgo's ruler, Mercury,  is also in cardinal t-square with Pluto and Uranus. This is full of the potential for raw, painful, shocking thought and communication. Quite violent and explosive.

In addition, we have Saturn at the very end of Scorpio, hammering out the karmic consequences we are going to be living with for the next few decades (ugh). He will leave Scorpio for Sagittarius on the 18th September, and this should lighten things up a bit – but the month ahead is colored by the energy of this final grinding transit of 29 degrees Scorpio.

So things look pretty difficult overall. Plus we have this Jupiter-Neptune opposition which speaks of big delusion, big disappointment, mental confusion, pragmatic reality vs. huge swirly dreams.

Ack, whatever. It all looks a bit shitty – not the loveliest cosmic weather. But there is work to be done regardless.

So do your Virgo: focus on the small stuff that keeps the whole show running. Take out the trash, take the cat to the vet, do your homework, sweep the floor, trim the hedge, do some pushups, help someone who is in direr straits than you. (There's always someone.)

There are a lot of shifts underway this month. It should be interesting.

We have the aforementioned shift of Saturn from Scorpio to Sagittarius on the 18th – so we will be done with the grinding hellish psychodrama of that transit for another 28.5 years, thank Christ. Awful stuff.

The day before, the 17th September, we have Mercury going retrograde in Libra till the 9th of October. Expect the usual glitches in communications, troubles with communication devices and travel delays. Because the retrograde is happening in Libra, sign of close relationships and partnerships, there will be plenty of room for misunderstanding and miscommunication in the context of close relationships, and that can lead to major blockages and frustrations – so be aware. Paying close attention to what people are actually saying and what they actually mean will be helpful.

Pluto will resume direct motion on the 24th September, after a retrograde period that started in April. This, along with Saturn's move out of Scorpio, signals the end of the exhausting inward psychological focus of the past few months. Hopefully we can quit brooding and move forward in our lives now.

Not without frustration and blockage though: Mars moves into Virgo the next day, the 25th September – straight into a difficult square with Saturn in Sagittarius. Mars-Saturn aspects are full of frustration that can express itself as cruelty and abuse – this square will be in effect for the latter part of the month, and things could get very tense. Nitpicky and nasty, destructively critical.

And then Venus moves into the same square in the middle of October. Suffice it to say, we have not seen the end of our blockages and delays in love and money matters. (Though there will be plenty of new opportunities as Venus trines Uranus during the latter half of September.)

Well it's all potentially very frustrating, but remember – now and for the year ahead, do your Virgo. When things get shitty and your nerves are all fried and your head's a mess from beating itself against walls, do something healthy or practical or helpful, for yourself or for others. Stay humble and focused on the everyday. Plenty of people are going to be needing help, and helping others is a good way to forget your own worries.

There's a full moon eclipse in Aries on the 28th September – a 'blood moon' which some people claim will be the end of the world. I don't think that's likely, but it does look jangly and difficult. Not the easiest month ahead overall. But Saturn leaving Scorpio is a big deal, and a relief - so there's that anyway!

New Moon Eclipse in Scorpio / Uranus square Pluto

I didn't get a chance to write anything for the full moon eclipse in Aries a fortnight ago (18^th October). I was in transit, Venus in Sagittarius style—and the exact Mars in Virgo to Neptune in Pisces opposition was sending me out on some beer-fuelled adventures. It was a lot of fun, but a little too hectic for writing about at the time!

Anyway, for a quick synopsis of that fiery, dreamy, drunken, free-wheelin' full moon eclipse: it was all about relationships, a culmination of the themes of last month's new moon in Libra.

The moon was in headstrong, headlong, impatient Aries, disposited by Mars in the early degrees of Virgo—not a very aggressive placement for Mars. Mars in Virgo is a stickler for detail and a bit of a nag. He is driven to perfect things; he wants to be useful. In this case he was opposing Neptune in Pisces: this is like a man transfixed to hypnosis by his smartphone. Or a watchmaker getting drunk in a bar by the water. Or a drugged-out classical musician. Or a lovelorn dude nagging, nagging, nagging at the object of his affections out of a sense of utter uselessness. (Well those were some of the themes I encountered anyway!)

The sun was in lovely Libra, sign of relationships, disposited by easy-breezy Venus in Sagittarius. Venus in Sagittarius is your basic good time girl. She's just passing through—she doesn't feel like committing to anything real heavy. In the case of last fortnight's full moon, Venus was harmoniously aspecting Uranus in Aries and squaring Neptune—basically this was a firecracker of a lady looking to get drunk, dance on a table, meet some foreigners & have some exciting adventures before moving halfway across the country. Venus in Sagittarius doesn't want to be fenced in or guilt-tripped or coerced in any way—she likes her freedom.

So we had this wild-horse, commitement-phobe Venus and this OCD Mars facing off symbolically during that full moon eclipse, both of them drinking a shit ton of liquor. Well I dunno about anyone else...but I thought it was really fun! What I can remember of it.

I guess the most interesting thing about it was that despite all the superficial excitement, there was this inescapable heaviness and darkness underlying interactions. A poignancy; a sense of fatedness or loss. So much Scorpio in the sky—there's no way it could've been a shallow kind of party. It was more like this:

or this.

Anyway, here we are almost two weeks later, headed for Halloween 2013 & a new moon eclipse in Scorpio. Deep Scorpionic skies now: Saturn, Mercury, the sun, the north node, all conjunct in Scorpio. And the moon will join them for the new moon eclipse on the 3^rd November.

This story is about depth, death, absolute trust, transformation, regeneration, hardcore insight. All the deep lessons you've been learning this whole hard year about who and what you can trust; who and what you can't; what saps your energy and depletes you; what nourishes and drives you at the most basic core level... Well it's time to process all that. The harvest is in and the days are getting short. Time to sit by your hearth and watch the sky out the window darken, and (silently, methodically, intuitively) process what you've learned. That is—if you are lucky enough to have some silence and solitude. If you are lucky enough not to be in crisis. A lot of the people I meet these days are undergoing crisis of one sort or another—par for the course as the Uranus squares in toward Pluto. More on that in a minute.

Anyway, this Scorpio season, the places inside yourself that scare you most: that's where you have to go. Why? To perform surgery, to cut away the rot, to bring light and air to what is stagnant and stuck. Ultimately to heal.

This is a time of epic endings and you are well advised to start learning how to let things go...especially the things you hold onto the most tightly. It is a time of shattering revelation, and you are well advised to start learning to look fearlessly into the dark and the depths. There's no easy way to gloss things over, and trying to do so will not serve you well.

The Scorpio stellium sextiles Mars in Virgo and trines Chiron in Pisces: this deep internal processing really is all about healing. Bringing the rotten stuff to consciousness, doing the necessary work. Mars in Virgo is all about creating healthy physical routines: eating right, exercising, getting enough rest, clearing out physical and mental clutter. It's a good time to start new health routines or commit to cleaning out your living space. Mars will be in Virgo until the first week of December, and he is currently trining Pluto in Capricorn: if you're willing to put the work in, it's a very good time for making the necessary deep structural changes.

But what we are looking at here are also problems that are not just personal but collective. The Scorpio stuff sextiles Pluto in Capricorn (rotten structures) and Chiron in Pisces (collective wounding). And in the case of the collective wounds, the problems go so deep and are so systemic that the only healing response possible would appear to be a radical acceptance of mortality. Yesterday I read this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/25/us-fukushima-workers-specialreport-idUSBRE99O04320131025?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71&google_editors_picks=true

and this

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-operation-spent-fuel-618/

Diligent worker drone Mars in Virgo is staring down Chiron in Pisces: a poisoning that has no boundaries; a sacrifice that defies logic. What better metaphor for the abused and coerced sacrificial cleanup workers at Fukushima? Do you think those poor guys in their thin little suits are gonna be able to get those fuel rods out of Reactor 4 without bringing down (as the somewhat breathless article puts it) “a true apocalypse”?

(So what is it now, then: a middling one? A low-level apocalypse?)

Further: do you think your personal health and well-being is something you can safeguard against this kind of threat? What is your personal well-being even worth, in the midst of so much loss?

Doubtless we will all be finding out in the months ahead.

“Apocalypse” comes from the Greek for “uncovering”, “revelation”. Expect all kinds of revelations to begin to come to light in the next few weeks. They are likely to be traumatic because of the nature of the cosmic weather at this time. The 4^th square (of 7) between Pluto (the lord of death, the rapist) and Uranus (sudden shock) hits exactitude on the 1^st of November, 2 days before the new moon eclipse at 11 degrees Scorpio.

This is some very dark and spooky Halloween weather, and potentially stressful as all hell. I don't want to get all dire about it...I'd like to be positive and chirpy. Like, “you can work with this to effect beneficial change in your life!!” etc. And you very likely can, given the way Mars in Virgo is aspecting Pluto and the Scorpio stellium. But these are outer planets we're talking about, and they don't operate in predictable, controllable ways.

Try to stay healthy and focused on the details. Avoid toxic people and situations. Mind yourself. Watch what you say. Go deep.

Happy Halloween.