Tomorrow — Monday, Sept. 23 — the Sun enters Libra, heralding the equinox. It’s the beginning of a new season (autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, spring in the Southern Hemisphere), and therefore a natural check-in point.

A student at the Portland, Maine, Climate Strike last Friday quoted teen climate activist Greta Thunberg. Photo by Amanda Painter.

As such, the Libra equinox is arriving as a pointed contrast to much of the energy that has colored recent weeks — and, really, much of the past year.

We’ve essentially been living the life of Jupiter in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces this entire time: those two gas giants made their first exact square on Jan. 13, the second was June 16, and the third and final exact contact was yesterday (Sept. 21).

In a year described by such slippery, expansive energy — all glowing intention and vibrant imagination — it’s possible you’ve gotten a lot done to move toward a future you thought could only be a dream. It’s equally possible you’ve been sidetracked and distracted by a fantasy that has tenuous basis in reality.

Perhaps those two ends of the spectrum have intersected or influenced each other, taking turns at being the primary mode of operation in your life over the last nine months or so. As in, however these planets have manifested for you personally, it’s unlikely to have been entirely delusion or entirely enacted ideals.

Really, all that matters is that you’ve been learning about yourself and applying what you’re learning, hopefully in a form that opens the way for further growth. Sometimes that occurs through unexpected successes lighting a new trajectory forward. Sometimes it arrives after disillusionment (and grieving ‘what is not so’) has a chance to clear space to see the truer current path.

Wherever you stand (and it could take some time to sort that out fully), bear in mind that Libra is a cardinal sign. Cardinal signs are all about initiative.

If you’ve been in some kind of a bubble, the Libra equinox looks like a reminder — and the impetus — to pop your own bubble yourself. If you think about it, that’s almost always easier than having it popped by someone else. At the very least, taking this matter into your own hands means that you’re stepping into the role of authority in your life; you’re claiming some of the power you have, rather than giving it all to someone else or to circumstances that could feel overwhelming.

Why is this important? Because just as the Jupiter-Neptune square is beginning to wane, the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn is moving into position. That event is exact on Jan. 12, 2020 — though it, too, has been working gradually in the background this past year.

At the Portland, Maine, Climate Strike; photo by Amanda Painter.

We have less than four months until that conjunction is exact; just a little more than the next whole season.

Capricorn is one of the more grounded signs. Saturn and Pluto are both about getting real: about what is not working and what needs to change; about who holds the power and authority in your life, and the consequences of that dynamic.

To put it in a more global way, we see Jupiter-Neptune in people freaking out about Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s questionable choice of makeup worn as a fictional character at a costume party as a young adult. Saturn-Pluto is reflected in the rampant effects of climate change, the corporate and governmental greed that has led to it, and our relative collective and individual failure to take the necessary action in response.

It’s especially easy to get distracted when the distractions have some basis in Something That Matters. Sensitivity to racial injustice is important. So is figuring out how to focus our individual energy into tangible, meaningful action rather than letting it dissipate into every internet argument available to us.

We have some reckoning to do. The current sky and fast-approaching events (astrological and global) say that it’s time.

As for tomorrow: in early Libra, the Sun meets up with an interesting cast of minor-planet characters: Bacchus, Hidalgo, and a galaxy called M87 in Libra; Quaoar in Capricorn; and waiting just inside Aries, Chiron and Salacia. One theme coming through this cluster is the idea of being some kind of ‘maverick’, or of setting yourself free in some way.

Being a maverick and setting yourself free are not easy for most people. It can feel dangerous to stand out, to stand up, to rock the boat, to step into a space of honesty unprotected by the bubble. It might feel sad. Bubbles can be beautiful — until that moment when you realize that it is, in fact, just a bubble.

All equinoxes and solstices represent a tipping point: either toward more daylight or less. Yet even though Monday’s ingress of the Sun into Libra represents the solar balance tipping toward more night than daylight (in the Northern Hemisphere), there’s no reason — and few excuses — to stay in the dark about yourself.