Think it’s been enough change for one year? Welcome to October, to gold and purple leaves, and to a new portal of transformation. The good news is that we can participate consciously, shedding worn out attitudes and situations to prepare for renewal. As we’ll see a bit further on, relationships and matters related to justice will be in the forefront of this alchemy.
From day one, Mars the mover invites us to assume our role as active agents of autumn. The warrior planet makes a trine to Pluto the transformer, giving a great boost to the energy and results of our actions. This infrequent transit happens to be in earth signs, and is worth collaborating with.
Mars is emissary of the sacred masculine: the potential for initiative, drive and boldness that we all have within. For of most of us, it tends to be more or less dormant. We can identify with Neo of the “Matrix” films, in his first visit to the matronly seer named “The Oracle”. When he asks whether he’s “the chosen one”, she looks at his hand; screwing her mouth to one side, she responds “… you’ve got the gift, but it seems like you’re waiting for something… maybe another lifetime.”
Now in focused, diligent Virgo, Mars doesn’t waste time and neither should we. “I’ll get around to it…” Whatever “it” is, do it! If you can’t get to it on Sunday, October 1, there’ll be a similar window next year… or next life. How long will we wait? Mars is about service and Pluto, about empowerment. Monday, October 2 has enough of this trine’s afterglow to be worth insisting on whatever you couldn’t finish Sunday.
On Tuesday October 3, before the spell has lifted, Pluto takes another trine, this time from Venus, planet of the sacred feminine. Mars has been helping us harness our drive, and Venus boosts our love energy. Focus on loving yourself, giving yourself permission to prosper, valuing your process of empowerment, and attending the connections with others and with life that give that process meaning.
Venus in Virgo helps us look at our lives, discern what’s really valuable, and throw away the chaff. If we use them, Mars’ and Venus’ trines to Pluto will help us get energies moving in our minds and lives in resonance with the higher vibration of the Harvest Moon on Thursday, October 5. This lunation fills out Libra’s reflective, harmonizing potential with an injection of will and energy to move. This moon, in a T-square with Pluto, in some way will tend to push us along our path of power. If we’ve been working consciously with the energies of Mars and Venus, we’ll be able to use their conjunction in Virgo, grounding this lunation’s potential through our work, service, health concerns and chemistry with the co-workers on our soul path.
This lunation ripens a cycle that began with a New Moon in Virgo of September 19 that activated the degree of the August Solar Eclipse. Seismic, oceanic and meteorological forces have mobilized concern for others worldwide.
The most notable silver lining in the cloud of the recent earthquake that surged on the very day of that lunation in Mexico City (where I live) , was and still is, the huge outpouring of civilian service to those who were affected. Many people gave generously of their time and money, and even went into debt, in order to help those most affected. Volunteer brigades, made up of young and old, children and adults, men and women alike, took out rubble and rescued hundreds of people trapped under fallen buildings. Private companies set out to restore their employees’ lost and damaged homes. People filled their cars and rented trucks with bags of food, bottles of water, medications, picks, shovels and electrical equipment, and set off to search for the hardest hit areas.
In some of these areas, bodies marked the streets, hepatitis A was breaking out and there was no electricity or clean water. There were also some robberies, looting, and many accounts of official incompetence and in some instances, even blockage of the rescue efforts.
As one eminent psychologist remarked, “After the earthquake, life will never be the same”. Yet it’s not all loss, part of what’s different is the awakening of massive, generalized love in action. At a talk I gave, I invited the participants to share a new priority that had emerged for them after the seismic event. One person answered, “I knew I had been wasting time, it was time to serve Spirit and people.” Another said, “The quake shook us out of a kind of selfishness that had been prevailing.”
Everywhere one looked in the streets of Mexico, there were reports and signs of somebody helping. One savvy friend predicts it may even represent a new beginning politically.
As for the rest of the planet, despite the contradictions in official response to disasters, the popular sense of unity and will to help other resonates with Neptune in Pisces.
Any given set of astrological, social, metaphysical or climatic circumstances can precipitate different outcomes, depending on how we’re working with those energies personally and collectively, and this month’s first, major lunation is no exception.
The Harvest Moon is an archetypal portal for giving thanks, while the pairing of Venus and Mars in Virgo keeps a flame alive on the altar of service. By acting on these potentials to truly give thanks for our many blessings, and find ways to help others, the earth, or something larger than our personal contexts—finding ways that move us out of our comfort zones—we can contribute to the critical mass of awareness and love that can transmute the more challenging potentials of the times we chose to live.
Is this sounding like a lecture? If so, the tone resonates with the square that comes on the heels of the Harvest Moon, from love-planet Venus to Saturn the teacher. Like a kingly, but strict, schoolmaster, this transit pressures us to look at what we most value and what we are actually grounding. The sobering nature of the planet of limits helps us take a look at what really matters, and do the work to align our self-esteem, service activities and financial resources with those values.
On the same day, Mercury joins Sun in Libra. At face value, this could be an easy-breezy joining of minds and hearts. Yet these two are building to a square with powerhouse Pluto that becomes exact the next day. Libra’s taste for justice and negotiation prevails over the light and charming potential of this connection, pointing to more serious exchanges that can transform us and our situations. If we apply these energies with a clear head, we can develop strategies to experience more empowering relationships, and even influence public policy in a time when human and earth rights can use all the help we’re able to give.
Just when we start to wonder if these weeks couldn’t morph into a nice, passive Libra Sun cycle, and couldn’t we just take a few days off or veg out watching Netflix… on Tuesday, October 10, Jupiter enters Scorpio. For the next 13 months, there’ll be no escaping transmutation. The good news is that the work we face and undertake on Scorpio’s themes will tend to be blessed with good fortune. These include…. Get the rest of the signs and the whole story now! Become a Premium Subscriber! Or, if you are already a Premium Subscriber, log in here.
Crystal Pallas Pomeroy, Maya’s daughter and astrological protégé, offers in-depth astrological consultations from her home in Mexico, in person or via Skype. She is a noted author as well as a regular radio and television commentator on esoteric topics, and leads a spiritual and healing ministry in Mexico City. Crystal offers workshops on astrology, the sacred feminine, indigenous spirituality, and the goddess in beautiful locations throughout Mexico. Her book Angels & Goddesses (Llewellyn, Spring 2022) is available now. Reach Crystal by email here.