By Amanda Painter

The astrology for Halloween on Saturday is not particularly scary (despite the Sun in Scorpio, which rules the ‘scary’ subjects of death, sex and money). Unless, of course, you’re afraid of your emotions, your mother, or cooking for others (Moon in Cancer). Or unless you’re afraid of music, your imagination, or psychic activity, and how those things make you feel (Scorpio Sun trine Neptune in Pisces).

Sadly, I do not have any photos of people in masks…This is along the Fore River Trail in Portland, Maine. Photo by Amanda Painter.

Okay, on second thought, plenty of people are afraid of some of those things (therapy, anyone?).

I have yet to meet anyone who fears music in general, though plenty of people would rather be naked in public than have to sing in public. And I’m sure you can think of at least one musician, song or genre that strikes you as being horrifyingly awful.

In all seriousness, though, take a moment to think about some of the themes I’ve mentioned above in the context of this social holiday, for which people dress up as other people, creatures and objects, masking their true selves. Yes, for some, All Hallow’s Eve and the following Days of the Dead have deep spiritual significance. For most people in our culture, however, Halloween is a big party for playing dress-up and letting the imagination run as wild as your crafting skills allow.

It’s a night when our ability to mask ourselves is celebrated. We mask ourselves all the time, however; we just tend not to acknowledge it.

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By Amanda Painter

Are you ready to look under the hood? As in, under the hood of your relationships, under the hood of your beliefs, under the hood of some of your more self-critical thoughts and undermining emotions — perhaps even under the hood of something that has been developing in the background for months?

In this photo from July 1, Venus and Jupiter can be seen together in the evening sky, in the center of the photo; currently they are visible just before dawn. Photo by Amanda Painter.

If you’re not a mechanic, it makes sense to be intimidated by the prospect of poking around the inner workings of your car.

But here’s the thing about looking below the surface of yourself and your relationships: you don’t need any special training to know what feels good and what does not; you don’t have to go to a technical school to know what is working or not — though the questions of ‘why’ and how to ‘fix’ things might call for some research or assistance.

True, there are languages and systems of symbols and techniques that you can study (such as psychology or astrology, or particular modalities of therapy and spiritual healing) that can help you to make sense of it all and make changes. But simply knowing your own heart or mind? That understanding is open to anyone who is willing to look at it. The problem is how many people are not willing to look under the metaphorical hood of themselves.

So, then: what’s in the astrology to bring up this metaphor? Several things, actually.

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By Amanda Painter

We rarely let the people we are in relationships with know our full selves; there are always things about us that we prefer not to show others. Sometimes, we barely acknowledge these facets of ourselves to ourselves.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

Have you ever told yourself that you are “sparing” your partner from your rough edges, your dark secrets and your “unacceptable” desires?

Along those lines, do you carry around the belief that you are wholly unselfish toward the person with whom you’re in a relationship (or that you’ve been “the generous one” in the past)?

If so, do you base that belief partly on the fact that you have not “imposed” the seemingly unpleasant or needy parts of yourself onto them?

Friday’s astrology features a pair of oppositions that are combining to bring your awareness to these dynamics and questions. The first is the Sun in Libra opposite Eris in Aries, exact at 9:13 am EDT (13:13 UTC). The second is Venus in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces, exact at 10:53 pm EDT (2:53 UTC Saturday).

In Sun-Eris, we get an image of your “relationship self” being confronted with some fragments of yourself that you have perhaps cast off, hiding them in the shadows. The things is, even the parts of ourselves that we try to hide or deny are still, in the end, part of what makes us who we are. If we do not consciously choose to acknowledge and integrate these identity fragments, sometimes they get our attention in less-than-healthy ways that stir up inner chaos.

So here’s another question: how can you bring these fragments of you to the table, in a way that lets you feel whole — rather than assigning these pieces of yourself onto a partner, or blaming them on your relationships? Or put another way, what are you afraid might happen if you let your partner see all of you? If roles were reversed, could you see and accept a lover or spouse in their full light and shadow?

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You can’t get justice on past wrongs done to you by punishing yourself now with intense self-criticism. Similarly, punishing those close to you now who mimic those who hurt you in your early years won’t help, either. Those strategies only lead to unhelpful things like low self-esteem (or outright self-hatred) and repeating abusive cycles.

There is another way to deal with it all.

Monarch on a butterfly bush in Arrowsic, Maine; the first Monarch I’ve seen in at least two years. Photo by Amanda Painter.

That way forward and out is suggested by the chart for when Mercury stations direct in the first degree of Libra this Friday, Oct. 9, at 10:57 am EDT (14:57 UTC).

In Libra, we know that issues of relationship and justice are at play. With Mercury involved, we know that how we think about and communicate these ideas (especially with those closest to us) is the focus. Keep your antennae tuned for any new ‘truth’ that emerges Friday.

Also note that the days on either side of the station can feel especially chaotic or scattered, so try to stay focused and take your time with things.

At the moment that Mercury stations, the Moon and Mars are exactly conjunct in Virgo (with Jupiter close by), and opposite Neptune in Pisces. Venus is in the first degree of Virgo exactly opposite the centaur object Nessus; Venus and Nessus are both square Saturn in Sagittarius.

Eric gave a thorough and humane description of this astrology in this week’s Planet Waves FM, so I’m going to recap and riff on some of the ideas he talked about; they really are that important.

One of the things described by the Moon, Mars and Venus all so close together in Virgo is the potential to be especially critical, fussy or stingy — especially toward yourself. Those qualities in the extreme are not healthy for any relationship, including your relationship with yourself. Always picking at your supposed defects wears on your self-esteem; that is, your self-respect.

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We’ve just passed the halfway mark of the current Mercury retrograde. I’m seeing and hearing a variety of experiences with this one: for some, the emphasis is on revisiting past (and often dysfunctional or unhelpful) communication habits and ways of thinking in relationships; for others, it’s the weak spots in their relationships to technological gadgets that are making themselves known.

Perigee Aries Full Moon rising over Scarborough Marsh, Maine, Sept. 27, prior to the eclipse. Photo by Amanda Painter.

However it’s going for you, take heart in knowing that you’re halfway through. The question is what you do with what you’re learning now, after things get back to ‘normal’.

Today and tomorrow, Mercury continues to draw your awareness to the balance of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in your life. The fastest planet, representing your intellectual mind and how you express it to others, is moving into a conjunction with asteroid Juno in Libra and an opposition to asteroid Vesta in Aries (exact Thursday and Saturday, respectively).

This is basically where Sunday’s Full Moon and total lunar eclipse was. If you felt some kind of intuitive awareness of how you need to stoke your inner creative flame, notice if you feel better able to articulate what that means for you between now and Friday. Alternatively, if on Sunday the issue of stating your relationship needs (or of how you tend to ‘keep score’) caught your attention, Mercury might be asking you to follow that back through your relationship history.

Mercury conjoins another asteroid, however, as Friday rolls into Saturday: Eros, named for the god of love. Sounds to me like a reminder that it really is a turn-on to tell a loved one what you like and what you want in bed, and to have them tell you in return. The mind is quite an erogenous zone, after all.

So go ahead: say it out loud, whether in person or on the phone, and see what opens up. If circumstances prevent using your voice, type it out — just double- and triple-check that name and address before you hit ‘send’. Mercury is still retrograde.

The Moon moving into Cancer for Saturday and Sunday (squaring the Aries and Libra planets) might bring a case of bashfulness, an urge toward self-protection that’s at odds with this experiment. So you’ll have a choice about whether you stay in your comfort zone or step out of it.

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