Credit & Copyright: Tunç Tezel (TWAN) http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080922.html
Each new moon acts like a symbolic fertilization and release of the energy of the sign in which it occurs. Each new moon is a conception, a beginning and a cracking open of that particular theme of life.
This months new moon occurs on September 23rd at 11:13 pm PST, a day after the Autumnal Equinox. This seasonal change marks a time when there is equal night and day (Libra is the sign concerned with such balance) before the days grow shorter and the skies begin to darken earlier day by day, urging us into the underworld of winter.
This year (as in many recent years) Libra is the receiver of many a life-changing transit. All planets that go through Libra get caught in the webbing of the Uranus/Pluto square, better known as the #OMFGWHATISHAPPENINGTOMYLIFE?! square. It’s a long range transit: it spans from 2012-2015 and it just so happens that Pluto is stationing direct a couple hours before the sun enters Libra/the Autumnal Equinox. In other words, it’s deep. It’s astrology that is after long lasting changes and cultural shifts and under its influence we set ourselves on a new path. We could say that it’s a revolution in the making and then we must ask, who’s revolution are we participating in? It’s a time of a little upheaval mixed with some underworld traveling. It’s a little bang mixed with some boom. It’s a little earthquake mixed with some big volcanic eruptions. It’s a little out with the old and a lot of in with the new.
In a nutshell Libra initiates us into relationship.
Everything is an opportunity to get to know ourselves better. Truly. Life is about our relationship to it if nothing else. Everything comes and everything goes. There will be fear, doubt, pain, fame, fortune, love, loss, learning, languishing, loathing, wondering, wandering, finding, founding, forming, feuding and overcoming. But how we experience each of these facets of being human depends on how we are relating to them.
It’s easy to moan.
It’s easy to reject what is. It’s easy because it can give us a false sense of control. If I don’t want to accept how life is showing up it’s easier to feel sorry for myself than do something about it. It’s easier to be resentful than to search for gratitude or pray/meditate on how to find a solution. It’s easier to stay in defeat than it is to stay conscious in the problem until I have regained my strength to resist what is not good for my soul and find the part of me that can turn any situation into a spiritual practice.
That takes a dedication saved for freedom fighters, warrior queens and alchemists of all kinds. It takes chutzpa to stay engaged in our relationship to life long enough to get the spiritual lessons from it and to challenge the systems both internally and externally.
And sometimes it’s not so simple.
Trauma can keep us locked, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, in a mindset of having no options (as well as the fact that real life threats to our safety are real and need to be dealt with accordingly). It’s up to each one of us to navigate that terrain for ourselves and hopefully, if Libra teaches us anything, we learn to extend ourselves to help ease the burden of our fellow travelers. It takes every single one of us to make the world a safer place. We need each other.
Libra wants justice, balance, harmony, relationship, beauty, art, culture and love. If we take the glyph of Libra – the scales – as an indication of the energy this sign contains, we know that to be in balance means that the two objects in question are equal in weight, equal in importance. They can see eye to eye.
But, what does it mean to be seen?
To have someone bear witness to our struggle, to our beauty, to our shame, to our strength and to our journey is one of the most healing experiences folks can have. We are social animals. We cannot help our need for reflection, validation and interdependence. Libra initiates us into this realm of experience. Libra says, “Let my life, let my interactions, let my relationships to all of life be connective in nature. May I give others the gift of feeling this connection. May they feel seen, may they know that they are interesting and may they feel valuable and worthy of another’s attention.”
Libra needs to be liked. Loved if at all possible.
Libra is known for being shallow in its less conscious moments. Wanting to be pretty, sweet, charming and can be insincerely effusive to gain this love when unbalanced.
But Libra’s healing and medicinal qualities lay in its ability to remind us of the power of being in relationship to others, not dependent on, just connected to. Extreme isolation is one of the most damaging conditions for us to experience. It hinders our capacity to think, speak, move, grow and develop. Libra reaches out its hand to others and says, “Hey, let’s be friends!” And it’s that little gesture that can radically change another’s reality.
Libra and the equinox initiate us into a new season: we are deeply connected to the turning of the earth, the change of light and the shift in its cycles. This new moon also signifies the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, marking a time where many begin the process of deeply reflecting on their relationship to life, to community and maybe even to god.
The day after the new moon, September 25th, Jupiter the planet of fortune and expansion, will make a harmonious aspect (trine) to Uranus the planet of upheaval and out of the blue events. Jupiter tends to make whatever it touches bigger. It’s an influence that lifts, opens, exaggerates and makes opportunity from what looks like very little or nothing. This is an anything goes type of signature. I don’t read it as all good or oppressively ominous, I think that whatever is already occurring in our lives and in our politics will either be helped out by unforeseen events or thrown a curve ball. We’ll have to wait and see what we need but I recommend expecting the unexpected.
The sun’s entrance into this sign also heralds us into some wild astrology. While it’s still in Libra there will be a lunar/full moon eclipse in Aries (the sign of its opposite) on October 8thThis eclipse is ON FIRE. It shakes, rattles and rolls us into a new paradigm whether we want it or not. These first two weeks are leading up to that event. This new moon is seeding the potential for what the sun, Mercury, and Venus in Libra as well as the Uranus/Pluto square and the eclipse will have in store for us.
Next week’s horoscopes will focus on where the Equinox and the new moon is happening in your chart. They will be like Autumn-magic starter kits (sans pumpkin spice latte because why?!).
Equinox and new moon blessings!
Chani
*thanks to Jenn Zahrt for the volcano link.