The Harvest Moon arrives on October 1st, at 2:05 PM PT. In Aries, this fiery Full Moon is a rally cry for courage, a call for caution against despair, and a soulful stirring of our strength. It is a sounding of the alarm, warning us to take none of our individual freedoms for granted. A plea to take all threats to justice seriously.
Occurring at the same time as the Mars/Saturn square (which will technically be done but still very much in effect), and in the same sign as Mars retrograde, the Full Moon in Aries plays Captain Obvious. The area of our chart that contains Aries has been, at this point, so thoroughly worked over that a Full Moon here can feel a little insulting to our injuries, but it is also a reminder of our influence as world re-creators.
Aries pushes through. It is urgent, emerging, and forever barreling forth.
This Full Moon is conjunct Chiron, the minor planet named after the wounded healer. This Full Moon is connected to the New Moon in Aries that occurred back on March 24th, which was also conjunct Chiron. That New Moon was the seeding, this Full Moon is the flowering.
What we have built, healed, and come into a deeper relationship with over the past 6 months (that relates to the area of our chart that contains Aries) is calling our attention. It wants to be known, integrated, and celebrated.
Since both that lunation and this one are conjunct Chiron, it’s helpful to remember that Chiron asks us to get in touch with our wounds, but not to wallow in, or be fascinated by them. How we learn to hold what hurts shapes so much of who we are. What we choose to do with our pain defines us more than most things. When we act in ways that reduce harm, we are actively teaching others who we are, how we like to be treated, and what kind of world we want to live in.
The impact of the effort that we make now won’t be understood in this moment alone. In order to win, we must hold the possibility of doing so closely; it must be front and center in all we do, what we go to bed dreaming about, and what we wake up ready to make happen. Of one thing we can be sure: we will look back on these months, the decisions made, the sacrifices offered, the loads carried, and recognize just how pivotal it all was. If we complete, to the best of our ability, the tasks at hand, our lives and our world will be altered.
Significantly.
There is so much more that happens after the Full Moon. Here is a little note on each major motion:
- Venus will enter Virgo on October 2nd and be there through October 27th, giving us a little grounding but also a lot to fix, tinker with, and tend to. This combo makes us work for our pleasure, but it’s so wise in regards to the rituals that keep us centered and attuned to our process. Clean your cauldrons.
- Pluto stations direct at 22° of Capricorn on October 4th, which quite honestly, hurrah. It’s not going to change our lives, but now all planets in Capricorn (Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto) are direct, helping us get on with it, whatever it may be. This moment also waves a flag, reminding us to be wary of power grabs and plutocracies, just in case we forgot to.
- From roughly October 5th – 20th, Mercury will be in an opposition to Uranus which is a lot, to say the least. Full of upheavals and surprises, u-turns and detours, Mercury gets entangled in livewires it can’t get out of easily, leaving us with many last minute changes to deal with. If you refuse to be surprised by the chaos of this world, you’ll have a shot at managing some of it.
- Mars squares Pluto on October 9th. This is the second of three squares. It isn’t quite as hefty as the Mars/Saturn set up, but it’s still extremely significant. Part of the differentiation between this Mars/Pluto and that Mars/Saturn square is speed. Mars won’t be in an exact square to Pluto for weeks on end, like it basically was with Saturn. A meeting between Mars in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn reveals the power struggles, structures, and abuses we are up against. There aren’t any immediate solutions to the entirety of this situation, but there are long-term strategies that need to be put in place now. It’s message: Be wary of who and what you give your power to. Some monsters end up just being a Wizard of Oz.
- Venus trines Uranus on October 10th. Super cute and full of unexpected pleasures, creative opportunities, and meetups, today’s astrology reminds us how revolutionary beauty and joy truly are.
- The Sun squares Jupiter on October 11th bringing a moment of buoyancy. Jupiter might make us go overboard, however, tricking us into thinking that we have more time, energy, and money to spare than we do. Pause on saying yes if you aren’t sure, but do enjoy yourself as much as possible.
- The Sun opposes Mars on October 13th, reigniting the tension that took place on the Full Moon. At this point, Mars is at its brightest: the red planet, ever redder is a sight to behold and a warning to heed. With Mars illuminated, people will be even more prone to feel attacked and to react. Gas lighting burns bright and we all have to be as dedicated to outsmarting our opponents as we are to identifying them, if we don’t want to get burned. The Sun in Libra knows the best strategy is relationships, and the best protection is always connection.
- Mercury will station retrograde on October 13th and will be retrograde until November 3rd. This retrograde gets off to an unreasonably rocky start. Whatever you can secure at the top of the month, do. You don’t want to enter this rollercoaster ride with your purse open. The turbulence can, however, help knock things into place, or maybe even dictators off their thrones?
- The Sun squares Pluto on October 15th seemingly just to drive home the dark moon’s emphasis on shedding, releasing, and letting go. The New Moon in Libra occurs on October 16th, and on the way to it, we get to process and purge a little bit of emotional residue, get clear on the power struggles we may be in or have to face, and be reminded that we control so very little in life, save our reactions to it.
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Aries & Aries Rising
The Full Moon in Aries shines a light on all of the personal growth you’ve undergone in the past 6 months, with a special focus on the last few weeks. The tests, the turns, the burdens, and the burns of the last little while have been provocative, to say the least. The healing that this is demanding you do, in regards to your identity in particular, is substantive and focuses your attention on the areas of your life where you fear your power or don’t quite know what to do with it. This could be due to the fact that you have access to new levels of it, or are aware of how you’ve misconstrued, misused, or misdirected it in the past. Whatever the scenario, this attunement is a little rough around the edges, but it has the best intentions.
Try to forgive its fiendish force.
Thank goddess you are good under pressure, great at making it just under the wire, and well versed at working whatever angle you’ve got. The glitch occurs when you’ve got to balance the urge to lash out and the need to negotiate calmly with others. All out power struggles and complete changes of plan are par for the course right now. Whether you have to get in touch with your anger in the face of the upheavals, or learn to transform your rage into fuel to power you through the nonsense, the first two weeks of October serve up a smorgasbord of options to choose from.
With so much to show up for and so many details to tend to, don’t forget to forgive yourself for fumbling around some of it. There’s no way to get it right, and when it feels like getting it wrong isn’t an option, investigate the reasons why. In many ways, this moment should be a celebration of all you’ve achieved, worked towards, learned to lead and make happen. However, if you aren’t careful, you might let your inner-critic loose at the very moment it needs to be put in its place.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Taurus & Taurus Rising
The Harvest Moon helps you reap the rewards you’ve worked so hard for. All of the psychological unpacking, the behind-the-scenes healing, the reckoning that you’ve done with your past comes into view. Forgiveness is always an option when it comes to your relationship with yourself, and there’s never been a better moment than this one. Think of it this way: without forgiving yourself, there is no moving on. No future growth. Nothing but circling around the same worries, fears, and wrong turns. The only way to change your relationship to yourself is to change your behavior, one small interaction at a time, one after another.
Your work-life and collegial relationships are under a couple of key transformations at the moment, requiring a lot of balancing from you. What helps immensely is when you can interrupt your people-pleasing tendencies on the job. Whether that’s with clients, co-workers, or key collaborators, you need to be thoughtful, honest, and direct. If that’s too much of a challenge, you need to be incredibly clear about the internal impact of your environment. There’s stuff for you to get firm with, solid on, and centered in the face of; when you do, something is unlocked within you that helps you move mountains.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Gemini & Gemini Rising
The Harvest Moon keeps the focus on your friendships, groups, and communities. What you’ve learned through the more challenging friendships dynamics, what you’ve grown in your inner circles, what you’ve lost along the way, and what you’ve healed here is nothing short of a miracle. While it’s safe to say that some of it has been harrowing, other parts have most likely been life-affirming. As you take the good in your relationships for anything but granted, take the bad and put it in context; challenging friendships help you understand what you tend to overlook and what you can become an accomplice to if you aren’t careful.
With this Full Moon, take a look at the past 6 months and scour them for evidence that you always end up being gifted with exactly what you need, exactly when you need it. Look to see all the ways in which your life tends to encourage your hopes and dreams towards fulfillment. Study your interactions for proof that you are always finding your way, one good talk at a time, one bright idea after another, and one intuitive nudge after the next.
As October unfolds, your creative projects and work rituals become the focus. There are issues that will come up to rock the boat, unforeseen changes that you’ll need to adjust to, and perhaps differences of opinion to contend with. However, they are nothing that you can’t manage. They just require you lessen your grip on your expectations, and open yourself up to what else might be possible if you come with an open mind.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Cancer & Cancer Rising
The function of the disruption that evil-doers create is to disavow us of our agency. It is orchestrated and on purpose. Your ability to focus on, connect with, and care about what you are doing, remembering all the reasons why you are doing it, is a practice to have on repeat.
Without ownership of your impact, it’s hard to understand your power, and even harder to direct it towards what you want to create.
The Harvest Moon urges you to remember your influence.
Pulling focus on the importance of the work you have been steadily getting done, the beginning of October has you taking to heart your tools, platform, and abilities. The last month has seen you showing self-restraint when you’d otherwise like to lash out, and patience when you’d otherwise rush through. How you lead your team, how you lead your corner of the world, and how you lead yourself, mirrors so much about your internal world.
Look back at the last 6 months and all you’ve learned through your professional partnerships and projects. What did you do well? What do you wish you would have done differently? What did you cheat yourself out of, let slide that you should have shored up, or didn’t know that you weren’t doing? Where did you go unconscious and why do you think that is?
As the rest of October unfolds, it takes you deep into the heart of your origin stories. The most profound professional lessons that you are learning right now are most likely rooted in your past; once you make the connection you are freed up to heal from the infliction. As the month unfolds, there are some disruptions, innovations, and u-turns to make in a creative project or two. Stay open to the possibility that the turbulence is exactly what you need to knock things into a better place than they were before.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Leo & Leo Rising
Having mentors is essential to knowing that you aren’t alone and there are many ways to live a life. Becoming a mentor is imperative if you want to live in a world where folks feel cared for, on purpose, and able to find their way. It’s not easy to be a teacher. It’s not easy to take as little as possible personally. It’s not a position to take up if you want results in this moment; it’s only and always about investing in a future you may or may not experience.
The Harvest Moon shines a light on the beliefs you currently hold; their power, influence, and impact are made more clear to you. What you do with this clarity is entirely your choice, but as you choose, pay attention to which options encourage thoughtfulness and which encourage frenzied states.
The Full Moon also draws focus to the big goals you’ve reached and are reaching. When you look back over the past 6 months, what have you learned about leadership, especially as it applies to getting to the finish line? What or who teaches you to keep your ego in check so that the common goal can be attained?
As the Full Moon fades, challenging conversations ask for your assistance. The first half of October helps you clarify what the fight is and is not about, for you. As Mercury stations retrograde, it helps you unearth the age-old communication issues that are ready for another go round. There’s no shame in circling back around the same handful of issues you always do; in fact, to expect anything else would be foolish. Make friends with your complexes – it’s truly the only way to ever effectively work with them.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Virgo & Virgo Rising
October’s Harvest Moon shines a light on the quality of the exchanges in your life and the healing that they have brought you. What you’ve learned to let in and say yes to, and what you’ve been able to keep out and say no to, has made all the difference. With this, your understanding of debt, loss, gain, and mutual growth has shifted significantly. Abundance is a lover of clarity.
With Venus in your sign for almost all of October, you are poised to make your acquaintance with many small pleasures; a job well done, a thoughtful response, a wink, a nod, and the perfect tonic can make you feel like a whole new person. Set up as many tiny altars around your world as possible. Each one helps you remember where to place your attention as the world’s dramas vie for it.
Especially in early to mid-October, as chaos gets kicked up a notch, it’s good to double down on consistency. All the changes to your calendar threaten to run amok with your long-term plans. It might not feel convenient, but it also brings a few pleasant surprises. Since there’s no such thing as 100% certainty, let’s just say this: pack extra snacks, give yourself extra time, and don’t be surprised at the mayhem of the world, but always be awed by the kindness offered to you amidst it all.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Libra & Libra Rising
The Harvest Moon illuminates your partnerships: the healing that you’ve done within or because of them, the goals you’ve reached together, and the challenges you are working on in them.
As the light of the Moon fades, there’s a balancing act that you are undergoing, and it’s important for you to hold space for both your competitiveness and your collaborative spirit. As someone that’s always accounting for both sides of the scale, you might be surprised at what tips them. It would be foolish to discount your own power, influence, and impact just because they challenge your self-perception. In fact, be more interested in the aspects of yourself that you’d rather disown as there are megawattages of energy there that you don’t want to deny or misplace. It can feel counter-intuitive, but making contact with what gets in the way of your courage is what helps you move mountains. Becoming intimately aware of how your fear manifests is the only way to make sure it isn’t working against you.
Because Mercury’s next retrograde asks you to review your relationship with your resources, expect for business to be done differently. Scheduled programming isn’t something that happens in October. Stay flexible in your delivery of goods but dedicated to the quality of them.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Scorpio & Scorpio Rising
The Harvest Moon shines its light upon the career projects you are putting out into the world. It highlights what you’ve learned through them over the past 6 months, the courage you’ve called upon and the strategy you’ve implemented to make them possible. What was worth it and what was the wrong call is all being put on display. The proof is always in the pudding, but no matter the goals achieved, the process has been potent, and its aim has always been your evolution. Getting things done is satisfying, but getting a sense of the potential of your powers is life-altering.
This lunation also highlights your relationship to the remedies you need. Your witchy powers are at an all time high. What heals you wants to remain close to you. What calms you carries you forward in ways that are unimaginably helpful so seek them regularly
With Mercury about to retrograde through your sign like it’s 1999, all bets are off. Who knows the genius that will be channeled through you unexpectedly, the abrupt changes life will have you make, or the radical departures you’ll take. However, we do know this: it will not be boring. Prepare by letting yourself live more radically in the moment than you’re used to.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Sagittarius & Sagittarius Rising
The Harvest Moon pulls focus on your creative talents and the many ways in which you’re being asked to put them to use. The thing about being someone who functions from a place of optimism is that you know you can get a lot done and generally with good results, but the problem is when others rely on you to do so for them. This moment asks you to deal with a tremendous tension around what you can produce and what is fair for you to be burdened with. By the looks of it, your resources have been considerably taxed all for the benefit of the creative process, but you’ll have to take refilling them seriously.
Because so many people are looking to you for leadership, and in such a tense moment, you need to be extra thoughtful about the impact of your actions. What you do now bears an extra weight on the psyche of your collective. It’s not your job to protect anyone from the truth, but it is your job to deliver it in ways that help you feel like you did so fairly, directly, and kindly. You owe yourself that much.
As Mercury gets caught up in it’s retrograde wires, you are asked to remove yourself from much of the business that isn’t essential. Behind the scenes projects have glitches that need working out and surprise blessings that you’ll want to receive. The deep dive that you will unexpectedly need to go on is non-negotiable, and you’ll feel less inclined to be busy with what isn’t a top priority.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Capricorn & Capricorn Rising
The Harvest Moon makes clear the healing work you’ve done regarding your roots, ancestry, and lineage. If you look back on the past 6 months, what has your journey been with both relatives and where you live? What has this time period helped you to clarify, clear out, and worry less about? The lessons in this area of your life last far, far past the Full Moon, but its light gives you important insights that, if taken seriously, help you find a more stable base within yourself.
As the Full Moon fades, you are tasked with the important work of reclaiming some part of your professional power, projections, and responsibilities. This is that moment in the story that the main character realizes what they needed was in them all along. Being yourself is your career; apologizing for who you are may be a survival strategy that helps you cope with the world at large, but it will hold you back in ways incalculable. Take the reigns in your own way, without asking for permission, but by being thoughtful about how you hold them.
As the weeks of October unfold, remember that people change their minds all the time. Careful not to get too frustrated when the script gets flipped, the setup falls through, or the thing you had banked on fades to black. Remember that your life is bigger, vaster, and far more intricately woven than you know; there are supports all around. Don’t get tunnel visioned in a moment that calls on you to keep an open mind and a flexible agenda. This is that moment. Besides, it just might be you that wants to change course half way through.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Aquarius & Aquarius Rising
The Harvest Moon highlights your accomplishments in writing projects, your progress on calendar management, and the healing that you’ve been able to experience through your ritual work and divination practices. If you take a look at the past 6 months, you’ll probably be able to see just how far you’ve come in regards to using your days to the best of your ability, being relentless about what you want, and being direct when stating your intentions.
Success is fleeting if clarity isn’t claimed.
The other interesting thing about this moment is that the fears that get revealed, and there are many, bear little resemblance to the images you had of them in your head. Much smaller, and way less threatening, this unveiling helps you get in touch with your options and your agency. You’ve got more of it than you knew.
This encouragement is needed as confrontations and career-defining changes follow you through the first part of October. Be extra thoughtful about how you approach conversations on the job that are already dicey: the truth in its entirety isn’t fully accessible right now. Since the necessary information tends to come out in shocking fits and starts, you’ll have to practice patience, especially in your more public-facing roles. The more proactively you think, the more trusted of an ally you’ll become.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.
Pisces & Pisces Rising
The Harvest Moon pulls focus on the lessons you’ve been learning about sustainability. The energy you offer out has to support you in return. If deficits are recurring, rethink your calculations. There is no rushing production right now, but there are small recalibrations you can make that help you move towards balance. With your creative projects in a crunch, or children that expertly push your boundaries, it’s up to you to shore up your resources and direct them to the most urgent needs and pressing priorities. You don’t want to ignore the squeaky wheel, but you don’t want to overindulge it either. Be lovingly firm with your applications of time, energy, and talent. The more direct you can be about your intention, the deeper it lands. Right now, it’s all about transformation from the inside out. Take note of how you tend to misplace your power and reclaim it ritually.
With Venus checking you out all October long, take some risks with your affections, send love letters to the people you might generally take for granted, and try new ways of connecting with folks. Break the habits that keep you from enjoying yourself, your life, and your partners. This little love affair doesn’t last long but, if you work with it, it reminds you that relationships are a choice you make everyday.
With Mercury’s station retrograde, changes to your calendar run amok, especially with long-term plans. If you take October’s roundabouts personally it will really mess with your mojo. Instead, keep your options open and your flexibility a priority. Whatever feels sticky and hard to sort out now will be returned to many times over. You can’t sort every mishap out this second.
For a more detailed reading and guided meditation for your sign for this Full Moon and Mars Retrograde cycle, click here.