Mercury is now direct, and we’ve experienced the last of the solar and lunar eclipses of 2014. I know many people are breathing easier — for many people, the last few weeks were a bear.

Night Side of Saturn, photographed from Cassini Space Probe, Oct. 28, 2006. Photo: NASA; JPL

One element of this was the journey of Mars across Sagittarius, which ended today. Those using a conventional astrology chart would have seen nothing other than Mars in this sign.

But a closer look revealed that Mars made 17 conjunctions to Chiron-like centaurs, Pluto-like bodies, deep space points and various asteroids — a true journey full of twists and turns, particularly for those with strong placements in the mutable signs Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces.

With Mars now in Capricorn, Mercury moving in direct motion and the eclipses behind us, we are in new territory — what you might think of as the third distinct phase of 2014. (The first was the cardinal grand cross era; the second was the initial Jupiter in Leo era.) This past Thursday, planets began entering Scorpio, followed by an eclipse of the Sun; that was a bold line of demarcation. Our abundance of Scorpio is an invitation to focus on inner awareness, your feeling body, your psychological well-being and your sexuality.

If Scorpio is a sign that describes something about relationships, that would be true from the inside-out. Scorpio is the realm of where your inner reality creates the atmosphere that you share with others. It is the space into which you invite the people with whom you want to be intimate. Scorpio can feel like a secret aspect of yourself, but one that you are eager to share — with the right person, at the right time.

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Hong Kong protests: the more the authorities threaten and demand order, the more people come out to protest. After a mob tried to stir up a riot (the police were blamed), the crowds grew bigger. Reuters.

I’ve been tracking the Hong Kong protests against the astrology — as the Mercury retrograde approached, and as next week’s Full Moon eclipse conjunct Uranus draws nigh, the pressure is building. We are seeing the first protests in the spirit of the Occupy movement since the Uranus-Pluto square began in 2012.

Hong Kong is an island once ruled by England (briefly occupied by Japan during World War II), and returned to China in 1997. So there is a tradition of Western-style living, even though Beijing is now the official seat of government.

The pressure is rising as hundreds of thousands of people come out into the streets each night. Local rulers, appointed by China, are demanding that the protests stop, but nobody is listening. And they don’t seem especially concerned that Chinese tanks will come rolling in like they did in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

I think they know that there is strength in numbers — and that unlike in 1989, when the word ‘Internet’ did not exist in its current mode of usage — a government cannot just get away with that kind of massacre without serous consequences. In other words, now everyone knows that everyone is watching.

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This is the week that the intriguing astrology of Northern Hemisphere autumn takes full form. I have written the Inner Space horoscope for October with some ideas about how to work with this astrology to your maximum benefit. Inner Space is the column that’s available to all registered readers of this website, and this month’s is an exciting edition.

Detail of stone bed of the Coxing Kill on the Grandmother Land in High Falls, New York. The direction of water flow is to the left, a few feet north of the waterfall. Photo by Eric Francis.

Mercury is now in Scorpio, just a few degrees from where it will station retrograde on Saturday. During the three-week retrograde, there will be two eclipses, one of the Moon on Wednesday, Oct. 8, and one of the Sun on Thursday, Oct. 23.

The overall effect could be some confusion, and the possibility of getting blown off course. Before that happens, you might want to check your navigation — where are you headed, or where do you think you’re headed? I think that it will be essential to know your priorities, your objectives and your goals, so that at least you can keep some perspective.

There’s another pretty wide-open possibility, however. If you investigate and decide you don’t have any desire or plans to which you’re truly committed, then this astrology will help you shuffle the deck and make some discoveries. It’s interesting enough, potent enough, strange enough, that you could come out in a totally new place, on whatever level of your life you’re considering.

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Today is the equinox — the Sun arrived in Libra overnight Monday to Tuesday in most time zones where our readers live. What distinguishes this equinox from any other is that a planet called Makemake is right in that first degree of Libra, and the Sun is now directly aligned with it.

Makemake with two birdmen, carved from red scoria, or volcanic rock. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

I mentioned Makemake on Thursday; till then I had not given it any press (Len Wallick has, though). Discovered in 2005, Makemake is considered a dwarf planet, orbiting our Sun in just under 310 years.

Since it’s in the ring of planets just outside of Pluto, it got named for a creation god (rather than an underworld god like Pluto — that’s the basic naming schema).

It was discovered by Mike Brown at Caltech, along with other noted discoverers Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz — a rather famous discovery team, the one that spotted Eris (among many other objects). These guys are good at naming planets, often pointing to lost or forgotten myths and the cultures that created them. Those include Sedna (the Inuit creation goddess), Eris (a Greek goddess with quite a reputation) and Quaoar (creation god of the Tongva people, who used to live near what is now Los Angeles).

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Overnight Sunday into Monday, the Mars-Neptune square is exact. Mars is in Sagittarius, making a square to Neptune in Pisces. In Thursday’s subscriber edition I covered a number of manifestations of Mars square Neptune, with ideas how to work constructively with the energy.

Photo by Eric Francis.

One of my long-term subscribers wrote to me this weekend and said, “I was surprised that you did not (for once) mention the sexual aspects. Would there not be a lack of integration/confusion, etc. of the masculine energy, so that it is either augmented or as [astrologer Frank Clifford] says ‘lame duck that has to bow to the forces greater than himself`?

“The only solution seems to be a spiritual approach or motivation regarding what is implied by the aspect.”

Actually, I woke up Friday morning thinking something similar — that I had left the sex angle out of my article from the evening before, and that it would have made an obvious point to include. I tend to trust this kind of error, and this one seemed to have a purpose akin to sparking that particular angle of the discussion without mentioning it.

Here are a few thoughts. Mars often illustrates the attribute of physical desire, not the passive yearning and longing kind but the kind that takes action and wants to get what it wants. Neptune often illustrates the fantasy aspect of sex, or anything, as well as the creative-artistic attribute.

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