By Amanda Painter

We’re building up to one heck of an Aries Full Moon that will peak in the wee hours Sunday morning. Astrologically speaking, not only is there a lot going on in the chart along with the Full Moon, but the Moon itself will be in a conjunction with two high-energy planets that have been reflected in the unprecedented political and media insanity surrounding us for at least the last year.

Projecting our personal issues onto others is not nearly as pretty as a Full Moon; but when we realize we’re doing it, we sure can learn a lot… Photo by Amanda Painter.

Those two high-energy planets are Uranus and Eris, which are in late Aries. The Libra Sun is already essentially opposite that pair, and will move into exact opposition this weekend.

Then the Moon, which enters Aries at 1:08 am EDT on Friday (15:08 UTC), will swing into position to oppose the Sun at 12:23 am EDT Oct. 16 (04:23 UTC). That’s the Aries Full Moon, with Uranus and Eris right there.

A Full Moon often translates into a peak of energy or interpersonal conflict; perhaps a stalemate finally giving way to resolution; maybe something ‘coming to light’ just as the Sun literally lights the surface of the Moon and the Moon reflects that light back to us on Earth. So you already know to watch situations in your life that meet those descriptions.

Culturally speaking, having a Full Moon conjunct an aspect like Uranus-Eris means it’s a good time to pay attention to world events that fit the themes at play. This is called a ‘proving moment’, because something palpable (a Full Moon) is activating less-obvious or slowly developing astrology in a way that brings it to the forefront of consciousness.

Given the planets involved, this Full Moon is a bit of a wild card; be ready for just about anything. The obvious place for it to play out in grand (and possibly awful) style is the US presidential race. But consider these three other events that caught my attention while writing this:

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It was quite a weekend just past for politics in the U.S. If astrological trends are any indicator, the remainder of this week will be partially distinguished in two ways. First, the political or public issues of the previous week (or two) will implicitly come to some sort of culmination.

The word “culmination” as used here is not intended to express an ending so much as a climax — a peak of intensity, rather than a conclusion. The second astrological indicator is of an indirect personal parallel to political events.

In other words, it is a bit less than likely for political events to affect you directly — at least for the near term. Instead, it is more probable that your private life will in some way emulate what’s going on in the public sphere. The reason for that conclusion has to do with how astrological sign rulers are now moving in relation to one another.

Often, when there is a confluence of the political and personal, it is because something significant is taking place in or near the first degree of cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn). As with many things astrological, an understanding of how the doorstep of a cardinal sign functions begins with the Sun.

When the Sun enters a cardinal sign, a new season begins. When a new season initiates, everybody on Earth has a similar experience with the Sun. At an equinox (Sun entering Aries or Libra) all earthlings experience not only an equivalent length of day and night but also see the Sun rise and set precisely east and west

At a solstice (solar ingress to either Cancer or Capricorn) sunrises and sunsets take place either as far North (Cancer) or South (Capricorn) as they will ever get, regardless of your location on Earth’s surface. These common experiences of the Sun, corresponding with the beginning of a new season, are the prototypical ‘Aries point’ events: your life having something in common with both everybody else and the greater whole.

When the Moon or a planet enters a cardinal sign, they can be said to emulate the Sun. On such occasions, the political and personal often flow together in a manner reminiscent of how the object in question expresses in your life.

At the moment, the sign ruler closest to the first degree of a cardinal sign is Jupiter in the eighth degree of Libra. While eight degrees is well within what astrologer’s call Jupiter’s ‘orb of influence’ the current distribution of planets is not exactly indicative of an Aries Point event.

Even so, there is another way for cardinal signs to express: through the planets that rule them. Aries is ruled by Mars. Cancer is the Moon’s dominion. Venus is at home in Libra. Finally, Saturn rules Capricorn.

There is an old proverb asserting that you can take a person off the farm, but you can never take the farm out of a person who grew up there. You might also say that you can take a planet out of its dominion, but you can never take the dominion out of a planet. Hence, wherever a sign ruler goes, it takes some of the characteristics of its home with it.

It so happens that the Moon, Venus, Mars and Saturn are now placed so as to project something of their respective cardinal dominions onto the astrology as a whole by where and how they are moving. Without going into a lot of liturgical detail, those movements are combining to indicate that your personal life is occurring in parallel with what you might call history in the making, even if you are not a major political player. All of that implies that you now might be able to better understand what’s currently going on in the world through your own experience.

To have personal experience reveal something of what’s happening for other people and the world as a whole is not something that happens very often. If there is anything to the astrology this week, however, what’s now building to a culmination for you will give you a valuable clue about what you hear from others or learn about through the news media over the next handful of days. Keep that in mind as this week goes on, and you will likely possess a level of awareness that gives you a valuable key to understanding more than just your situation.

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If you are thinking about Hurricane Matthew this morning, your heart is in the right place. After taking nearly 600 lives in Haiti, Matthew has become the first hurricane of category 3 or greater to make landfall on the U.S. Atlantic coast in many a year. Being curious about that, and other facts, could well be the right place for your mind right now.

For example, consider how Mercury (astrology’s versatile emblem for the mind, thinking and curiosity — among other things) concluded many a week in Virgo and entered Libra earlier today just as Matthew was making landfall in the U.S. That would appear to be a bit beyond coincidence.

This is not to imply Mercury causes hurricanes. Astrology is more sophisticated that to say anything of the kind. What an astrologer might say is that you should at least be curious about any astrological and earthly events that parallel each other so closely and in such a striking manner. Think about it. Mercury entered Virgo way back on July 30 of this year. Even when you take its most recent retrograde into account, that’s an unusually long time for Mercury to be confined to one sign.

Mercury typically takes less than three weeks to move through any given sign. In parallel with how you think, Mercury would seem to like it that way. After all, a quick mind is generally considered to be a healthy mind. Conversely, when your thoughts are moving slowly, it’s usually because your mind is in some way impaired.

Even though most astrologers consider Virgo to be a healthy and empowering place for Mercury, it was undeniably moving slowly there for quite a while. It would follow, then, that Mercury’s earthly parallels (including your mind) might be at least a bit rusty now. Addressing the situation is where you come in.

Of all the things you might be responsible for in this world, how you think must certainly be foremost among them. Just as Mercury does not cause hurricanes, it would not follow that Mercury finally getting up to speed in a new sign would cause your thinking to improve all by itself. Instead, what Mercury’s long-delayed ingress to Libra most likely implies is that you should now consciously keep your mind in mind.

Even if your mind has not been somehow impaired during the last nine weeks or so, you could probably use some sort of mental workout about now. When you consider how the symbolically emotional Moon will be spending all of tomorrow and Sunday implicitly inhibited in Capricorn, the astrological message is even more clear. It would be to your advantage to think, and think again.

This does not necessarily mean that you should spend the weekend playing chess or reading Shakespeare, although you could do a lot worse. Instead, you can almost certainly meet the astrology and match it simply by being curious. If your curiosity has gotten a little rusty as of late, think back to when you were a kid.

Remember how, as a child, you were not as satisfied when learning unless you found things out for yourself. Recall how lessons experienced stayed with you longer than lessons taught in school. If you simply go back and try being like that again, you could do a lot worse than that, too.

Eric’s new class, It’s All In the Houses, will be held on Oct. 8. Discover the key to truly understanding a chart. You may sign up here.

You could begin by not being satisfied merely to note that it’s been a long time since there has been a hurricane like Matthew. You can log on to the Internet and find out for yourself how things got to be that way, and what the consequences are.

Then, you could endeavor to contact some people who are open to discussing the issues your curiosity brought up for you. Who knows, in the course of such discussions you could find new words to express new thoughts, and emerge (even as Mercury is now emerging) quicker and more mentally nimble than you have been for weeks on end.

We have some really interesting astrology coming up next week. What will happen for the world and your life in parallel cannot be predicted. One thing can be said with near certainty, however. Watching sports all weekend will not prepare you to make the most of your near future. Thinking will help. And, if there is anything to astrology, you will need to get and stay more curious than ever so as not to miss anything coming up over your life’s horizon.

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By Amanda Painter

Free at last! That is, we’re free from Mercury’s post-retrograde shadow phase as of this afternoon. If you’ve been working through the lingering reverberations of recent glitches, you should notice that easing up considerably. The timing couldn’t be better, too, as other factors in the sky are urging self-expression and action.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

The major current aspect is the Sun in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn, exact Friday at 3:33 pm EDT (19:33 UTC).

It’s possible you’re feeling this as an urge to purge: either materially, removing ‘stuff that’s always been there’ from your home or work-space and making your surroundings more beautiful or harmonious; or even more likely, in terms of behavior patterns that have long gotten in your way, including attitudes toward authority figures.

Yet there’s a third kind of ‘purging’ that might come even more easily and be just as beneficial: simply getting something off your chest that’s overdue to be put out there. Chances are you know what that thing is; if not, Pluto adds a deeply introspective tone. You may feel compelled to listen to yourself more closely as the weekend nears.

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It’s not unusual for new patterns to become apparent early in a new season, which is where you are now. Nor is it unexpected if new developments emerge with a waxing crescent Moon, which is what you have in Scorpio today. Indeed, this whole week’s astrology seems to imply something new finally and gradually becoming evident for nearly everybody.

Metaphorically speaking, the seeds of changes now evincing were almost certainly planted days, even weeks ago. The sowing would have been in decisions you made, actions you took, plans you made or events that you witnessed.

Most probably that symbolic sowing took place sometime between the Pisces lunar eclipse of Sept. 16 and the Sun entering Libra for the equinox and new season on Sept. 22. With the New Moon in Libra last Friday, it would also be fair to say that your emblematic seeds had gestated and taken root. This week the seedlings are set to sprout forth, leaf out and grow in parallel with more than just the Moon. Several sign-ruling planets, and you, will be chipping in as well.

The astrological role of any planet is largely determined by the sign it occupies. To paraphrase shamanic astrologer Sheila Belanger, you can think of planets as actors and signs as costumes. This week, cardinal signs would seem to be the focus.

When the Sun enters a cardinal sign (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn), you enter a new season. With every new season come some new climatic conditions that compel you to respond. Among the most probable of your responses are changes in wardrobe, diet and elective activities. The deeper into a season you get, the more appropriate, even urgent, those changes become.

When a planet enters or moves through a cardinal sign, it emulates the Sun. In a cardinal sign, a given planet’s role is to act as an indicator of changes you can expect to see in parts of your life that correlate with that planet’s nature. One cardinal planetary aspect you are probably feeling already will be exact late tomorrow.

Shortly before 6 pm EDT (21:44:39 UTC) tomorrow, Mars in cardinal Capricorn will have opened precisely 90 degrees of separation from Jupiter in cardinal Libra. Astrologers refer to 90 degrees of separation as a ‘square’ aspect. In general, squares imply tension inside of you that often seems to originate from outside of you.

In truth, the anxiety often felt during square aspects is nearly always something you are at least partially responsible for. That’s good news, actually. It would follow that any inner disquiet you contribute to creating is also something you have the power to resolve. Usually, one singularly appropriate and well-timed act is all it takes.

Fortunately, Mars is what astrologer Robert Hand calls “an action planet.” Properly applied, Jupiter’s role in receiving a square from Mars would be to amplify your actions. Hence, you should act as though any action you take, however appropriate, is being magnified by a celestial version of power steering on an automobile.

Eric’s new class, It’s All In the Houses, will be held on Oct. 8. Discover the key to truly understanding a chart. You may sign up here.

In other words, act carefully, as if you don’t know your own strength. Furthermore, refrain from acting upon anybody other than yourself. Take measures to correct, adjust and change yourself first.

Then, rely on Jupiter’s expansive nature to make you an example for others. So long as your example is mindfully set, anything new coming out of your actions to make your inner environment more comfortable should also result in something new and gratifying coming back at you from others.

Such mindfulness is especially important now, when Mercury (astrology’s archetype of mind, among other things). is winding up more than two months in Virgo. As this week draws to a close, Mercury will finally move past the last degree of Virgo (where it stationed retrograde way back on Aug. 30) to join the Sun and Jupiter in cardinal Libra.

We will look into Mercury’s impending ingress to Libra more deeply on Friday. In the meantime, remember: Mercury is at the end of a long, winding and laborious journey. In all probability, that’s also the case for your mind and the minds of everybody you know. It’s been a long haul. Amidst everything new implicitly emerging, it’s currently just as important to think as carefully as you act.

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At any given moment, you can plausibly say it’s been a long time until now. For all practical purposes you can also say that any ‘now’ is also the very beginning. Neither point of view excludes the other. Both perceptions are continually true. Being able to embrace and integrate both perspectives would appear to be at the heart of today’s Libra New Moon.

Three weeks ago today, Jupiter left more than a year in Virgo behind, simultaneously starting a similar tenure in Libra. One week ago today was the first full day of a new season, initiated when the Sun entered Libra on Sept. 22.

Now it’s Luna’s turn. First, the Moon briefly shared the same degree of Libra with Jupiter for the first time in well over a decade. Shortly after 8:11 pm EDT tonight (00:11:19 UTC tomorrow) the Moon will move on to merge with a Libra Sun for the first time in nearly a year. Today’s conjunction of the Sun and Moon will in turn begin a new monthly cycle of lunar phases. The result is many endings and beginnings connecting you with many other beings, times and places — all in the course of 24 hours.

Of course, you could plausibly make a similar case for any given day if you take the entire solar system into account. That being said, it is not every day that invokes cycles of the Sun, Moon and Jupiter intersecting by cyclical tangent through the auspices of airy, cardinal Libra.

The Sun is our central point of reference in the sky, symbolically associated with being awake and interactive in the world during daytime hours. The Moon is the other side of the solar coin, corresponding to the largely introspective consciousness which usually dominates while you are asleep. Jupiter is largest planet orbiting the Sun, its name indicating an ultimate source of aegis. To have all three implicitly imploring you to be present in the moment, while simultaneously evoking both closure of cycles past and the dawn of eras to come, represents something you might call transcendental.

To a large extent, that’s because Libra itself is transcendental. Cardinal signs are where new seasonal patterns begin. Furthermore, when the Sun enters a cardinal sign we are all quite literally connected in the same moment through a common solar experience. The air of Earth’s atmosphere circulates far and wide, forging a spatial connection between you and everyone else. Finally, Libra is the only sign represented by an inanimate symbol (balance-beam scales) representing a timeless, universal principle (the continuous process of all things oscillating into and out of equilibrium).

Eric’s new class, It’s All In the Houses, will be held on Oct. 8. Discover the key to truly understanding a chart. You may sign up here.

All of which is information you can use to orient your own life with this year’s Libra New Moon.

You might want to begin by contemplating what has finally gone around to begin coming around again for you. Then, you can look ahead to speculate about where the patterns of your life up to this point appear to be taking you.

Finally, you can take a little time and endeavor to focus exclusively on being present with anybody who (and everything which) has somehow come together from far and wide to be present with you now.

That may not sound like much. Not until you consider how so many days just fly by, amounting to something significant only as they accumulate. Rare are the days you will always remember, and even most of those are not made that way by your intent to make them so.

If you at least give some thought to consciously making today one of those you’ll never forget, you will have done the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, the world and your very own self some appropriate justice. On any given day, you could certainly do far worse.

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By Amanda Painter

Friday, Sept. 30 (early Oct. 1 in some time zones), we have a New Moon in Libra — the first New Moon following a pair of eclipses, Mercury’s recent retrograde, and the beginning of a new season. If you feel like you’re in distinctly different territory compared to one month ago, it’s because you are. Tomorrow’s New Moon seems to begin something rather distinct; and, like all New Moons, it also implies the coming Full Moon.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

What a Full Moon that will be: on Oct. 16, the Moon will conjoin Uranus and Eris in Aries, and all three will oppose the Sun in Libra. Eric has written much about the Uranus-Eris conjunction that spans this year.

Uranus-Eris in Aries seems to be describing the ways that identity has been fractured by the internet; a kind of disembodied existence we’re all trying to get a grip on even as we try to catch up with it — and with ourselves — as its effects snowball. In as much as Uranus-Eris represents our surprising, innovative and unpredictable relationship with our technology, it also suggests the ways we seek our identity through conflict.

One look at the way even the most well-meaning post on social media can become a no-holds-barred battleground between people who cannot actually see, hear or feel each other — and who might never have met — demonstrates this.

At the same time, we live in an environment where this online dissociation allows us seemingly to be ‘here’ and ‘someplace else’ at once. Suddenly, the Syrian refugee crisis and the Dakota Pipeline protest and an eclipse only visible on the other side of the planet are all unfolding in real time while we watch. Often it is too much to handle; often, in response, we shut down. It’s getting harder and harder to find the sane middle ground between overextension of our senses and emotions and ignoring everything.

When that Oct. 16 Full Moon peaks, it may very well shine some light on all of it. You might start preparing the ground with the New Moon on Friday, and you can begin today. If you have not already begun to tie up any loose ends that freed up (or frayed) with the Full Moon and eclipse two weeks ago, consider that on your agenda now.

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Once again, the interior of the solar system is moving to symbolically bring the farther and slower planets out of their usual background role and into the foreground of your life. With those moves come implications for you. Also, don’t be surprised if you soon begin to experience a bit of what the late, great Yogi Berra called “deja vu all over again.”

The process started in earnest last week when the Sun joined Jupiter in cardinal Libra to initiate a new season. Mars followed suit last night by entering cardinal Capricorn. The Libra New Moon on Friday, and Mercury’s ingress to Libra early next month, will further up the ante.

All of which brings to mind what started when Pluto entered Capricorn for the long run nearly eight years ago. You remember. You were there. Barack Obama had just been elected President of the United States.

Because the Sun’s annual cycle through the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) is synchronized with the sequence of Earth’s seasons, any other object entering a cardinal sign is thought to initiate a season of its own.

If you look at things that way, you can see how Pluto’s current position at the midpoint of Capricorn plausibly represents an era only halfway done. When you consider what happened during Pluto’s previous tenure in Capricorn (basically, from 1762 through 1777), it gives you an idea of what you are living in the midst of now.

While history is not destined to repeat, it does tend to rhyme. The result is what you might call a series of songs. Each tune evolves from a previous melody to integrate the gradually accumulating experience of humanity, and plays out along with the proverbial music of the spheres. It would now appear that the first verse of our current song is nearing completion and is about to offer a refrain.

Eric’s new class, It’s All In the Houses, will be held on Oct. 8. Discover the key to truly understanding a chart. You may sign up here.

Just as with performances of the greatest blues artists, the refrain will not entail repetition. We will almost certainly experience an evolutionary elaboration instead.

It is even more certain that you will somehow contribute to the further development of and embellishments to our ever-refining tune. Be aware of that. For if astrology has anything to say to you right now, it’s that you do not have the luxury of being a witness to history. For better or worse, you are a participant.

While you cannot ever go back to the beginning of a history and start over, you are now implicitly being afforded a rare opportunity to start our next verse for the better. You can see it happening in the world at large. No doubt you can see hints of the same process in your personal life as well.

Strictly speaking, it’s not a second chance. What’s has been written since 2008 will not be revised, but it can still be resolved, very much as with a melody.

Indications are that the song of our era is only halfway over. The final verse may not yet have begun, but at the very least we have reached what blues musicians call a “turnaround”: a musical phrase that functions to conclude one phase of the tune while also leading into the next. Make it yours, and look for a chance to turn at least a few things around yourself. By doing your part consciously, and with awareness, you can give our collective composition its own chance to play out at least a little better than it did the last time through.

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