Thursday night, I presented the Aries Full Moon in relationship to its political implications, and how it aspects the charts of the United States, of Trump, and the U.S. Pluto return.

Photo: The Daily Gazette.

To begin understanding the Aries Full Moon on a personal level, first consider what you’re feeling right now, and then consider this. We who are alive today live at a dangerous intersection, where the individual and the collective merge into one another.

This is so natural that we don’t notice it. But we live there, with all our stuff, not where two roads meet but at the railroad crossing of the collective (trains) and the individual (cars and pedestrians).

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There is always something cooking, though a new wave of aspects is coming to a boil over the next few days, culminating in a rather deep Full Moon square Pluto on Sunday, Oct. 13. That is one peak of energy this month; the other is Mercury stationing retrograde on Halloween.

Mother of All Fractals — the Mandelbrot Set.

Our current week of Oct. 7 is sparky for a few reasons. Monday, Mercury in Scorpio opposes Uranus in Taurus. Oppositions can represent confrontations and showdowns that move the story along. This is the first of two such aspects this week.

Mercury’s presence in Scorpio has a secretive feeling, though as it encounters Uranus, you can figure that not much is going to stay contained. Uranus represents a surprise element that can unravel previous plans, so make sure you have Plan B; and it will help if Plan A has some integrity to it, and does not involve confidential information. One of the themes of our era is that people think keeping secrets works, until they are revealed.

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Have you noticed that some weeks feel more clearly than others like a car shifting into a higher gear? This looks like one of those weeks, though you might not notice the full effect until we’re closer to the weekend.

This guy’s in gear. Photo of the Portland, Maine, Climate Strike by Amanda Painter.

According to our astrological road map, we have two major planets changing sign this week, and a third that’s stationing direct. The Moon is also waxing again, after Saturday’s New Moon, adding another — gentler — layer to the sense of picking up speed or directing more power to your engine.

Of these events, the first is Pluto stationing direct in Capricorn on Thursday. I can’t say I’ve ever really noticed a particular sensation or event associated with Pluto stationing; not the way I have with Mercury or Mars, for example, though perhaps you have. What makes this station direct of Pluto notable is that it’s the final change of apparent direction either it or Saturn will make before they meet for their conjunction in January.

Pluto is a ‘take no prisoners’ agent of change and surrender in astrology. Even though Saturn is associated with structures, it has its own way of compelling change and growth. Much has been written about these two planets and their upcoming conjunction; suffice it to say here that Pluto stationing direct signals a new phase where any shifting undercurrents that have gone unnoticed thus far should begin surfacing. It’ll likely become increasingly harder to deny that they’re real.

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Monday’s Libra Equinox chart contains two plot lines that converge at this crucial turning point of the year.

Analemma by Anthony Ayiomamitis, at the Temple of Apollo in ancient Corinth, Greece. Full caption here.

Since early January, we’ve been under the influence of Jupiter square Neptune. This unusual event — Jupiter in its native sign Sagittarius, and Neptune in its sign of modern rulership, Pisces — has been like living in a bubble.

Jupiter square Neptune happens about every eight years, though it’s the sign placements of the planets this particular time around that make it unusually nebulous.

The Jupiter-Neptune square has that bubble-like feeling, of being in a separate reality where it’s not easy to tell what is real from what is not; what is worth doing from what is worth letting go of; what is idealistic and what is truly helpful.

You might not have even known you were there — that’s one of those Neptune things.

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Congratulations on making it through last week. I’m hearing from a number of people that it was an especially challenging build-up to the Full Moon, which peaked early on Saturday — as in, not a typical Pisces Full Moon at all. Personally, I found it to be marked by a variety of external stresses, internal emotional detours, and a number of interpersonal situations not working out as anticipated at all.

One of the largest and longest-lived storms recorded in our solar system, first observed on Saturn in 2010; pictured here in false color. The blue stripe is the rings seen edge-on; that black band is their shadow. Photo by the Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA.

We can likely chalk a lot of that up to the primary feature of this week’s major astrology: Jupiter in Sagittarius in a long square to Neptune in Pisces (which was directly involved in this Full Moon).

On Saturday, Sept. 21, Jupiter and Neptune will make their exact square for the third and final time in this series; the other exact contacts were on Jan. 13 and June 16. Between now and Saturday, Saturn stations direct in mid-Capricorn — more on that in a moment. You might check your calendar or journal to see whether you can trace a progressing or recurring theme between the first two exact contacts of Jupiter-Neptune and now.

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In the midst of the building Jupiter-Neptune square, and with all the personal planets still in Virgo and still broadly opposing Neptune, this week brings yet another Pisces event. That would be the Pisces Full Moon, exact overnight Friday into Saturday (Sept. 14 at 12:33 am EDT / 4:32:39 UTC).

Last month’s Full Moon over Casco Bay; photo by Amanda Painter.

With so much Neptune and all that Pisces, and an abundance earthy-yet-intellectual Virgo energy trying to make sense of it all, it might be worth considering a few watery concepts and sayings. A few of my favorites that come to mind:

— The gradual, persistent accumulative power of ‘drop by drop’.

— The sometimes-sudden, sometimes-imperceptible action of erosion.

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You would think that with so many objects still moving through Virgo, that sign and its qualities might be the only thing to focus on. But here’s the thing: all of those Virgo planets are gradually making contact with a slightly slower aspect that is characterizing the entire month of September: Jupiter in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces.

Figure emerging from the fog; photo by Amanda Painter.

Technically, Jupiter square Neptune won’t be precisely exact until Sept. 21. But they are currently within three degrees of each other; even without Neptune’s wide and permeable orb of influence, that would be close enough to count.

Eric has noted that, “With Neptune you have to see what you’re not usually noticing. The invisible is at work. Perception cannot be fully trusted; it takes time to verify your experience. You can’t just guess how fast you’re driving — you have to look at the speedometer. You can’t guess how drunk you are; buzzed is drunk enough.

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Significant objects and points have been filing into Virgo this past week — all in preparation for the Virgo New Moon on Friday. This Virgo lineup would already carry a strong message of integration, on its own.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

But at the time of the New Moon, these objects will all be opposite Neptune (and Nessus) in Pisces, which brings in a related theme: dependency (such as on substances) and co-dependency (in relationships).

We have a significant — though largely unspoken — issue with alcohol in Western culture, and particularly in the U.S. Consider how much socializing centers on so-called happy hours at bars.

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