By Amanda Painter

As I write this on Tuesday, the internet is blowing up over two things: 16-year-old Greta Thunberg’s impassioned speech to the UN, in which she spared nobody in her condemnation of leaders’ inaction to stem the climate catastrophe; and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that the U.S. House will open a formal impeachment inquiry against Pres. Trump. With the Sun on the Aries point — via the first degrees of Libra — and the Libra New Moon on Saturday still in that zone where personal and collective meet, this is fitting.

Libra’s hallmarks include balance, justice, initiative and — worth noting — the possibility for something to go either way. That’s the tricky thing about tipping points.

One would think that the tip would necessarily occur in the direction opposite to what has been experienced up until that moment. That might even be true for these two particular issues. Yet ‘the collective’ and the political machine seem to carry far more inertia than, say, personal tipping points.

Pendulums always switch direction eventually. We just can’t always know from our limited perspective when that shift is happening until after it really gets going. Is Thunberg’s speech — and her general arrival on the world stage — a herald of public opinion and governmental policy shifting into one of actual action? Is Pelosi’s announcement and the resulting inquiry going to lead to actual impeachment, or any measurable difference at all in our Bizarro Land presidency? Time will tell.

Personal tipping points can function the same way; often we don’t fully register that we’ve moved through one until some early momentum starts to gather. Yet I also think these moments in our lives can be quite clear: instances when we make a certain decision toward or away from something or someone; or take a particular action that re-routes our previous trajectory; or turn a corner in a new, eye-opening way on some longstanding emotional issue.

Tipping points come in relationships when something has gone out of balance and needs to be brought to equilibrium — though often that will be different from what a previous phase of balance had been like. Processes like healing and growth necessitate re-forming relationships along the way; continuously by small measures, or by dramatic ones when things have gone on too long and are seriously out of whack.

It’s this idea of re-forming that seems to be coming through particularly strongly in Saturday’s New Moon chart. The Sun and Moon meet in Libra at 2:26 pm EDT (18:26:14 UTC) on Sept. 28. They do so at 5+ Libra (properly called the 6th degree). The closest other object is the asteroid Isis, just two arc minutes away (an arc minute is one-sixtieth of a degree, like how a second is one-sixtieth of a minute).

Isis was named after the Egyptian goddess of nature, of the dawn and of the moon, who was wife and sister of Osiris (it’s also the middle name of this asteroid’s discoverer). One of the major myths involves how Isis had to put the body of Osiris back together. From this, we get astrological themes for Isis such as re-unifying, recombining, reconstructing, reconciling, synthesizing, and also feminine strength.

Cozied up in the same degree of Libra with the Sun, Moon and Isis are the objects Makemake and Logos. Eric once described a possible delineation for Makemake as “the mystery of how things came to be the way they are.” Logos not only relates to words, but to logic and reason.

So there appears to be something in this New Moon — the dark, inward-looking lunar phase — about finding that tipping point, the sweet spot, between the mystery of how things came to be the way they are, and the logic of how they have become this way, and using that space between to reconcile or synthesize the two.

I don’t think it’s a surprise — though it is an elegant synchronicity (elegance being another Libra hallmark) — for this message to be coming through the sign most known for signifying relationships. Or that we’re witnessing major potential collective tipping points. In both cases, there is a logic of ‘how things came to be the way they are’ if we’re willing to step aside from our denial (the ‘mystery’) to see it.

The reconciliation and re-unifying part is much more complicated on the collective level. But as with most issues of awareness, healing and growth, the starting point is with each individual, within themselves.

There are some other minor objects on the cardinal cross in aspect to the Libra New Moon, including an opposition to Chiron and Salacia in Aries. It got me thinking about the types of relationship that might be calling for some form of re-unification or reconciliation within us at this time. They include:

— The relationship between your conscious and unconscious, or your adult expressiveness and your inner child.

— The mysteries in your narrative of how you got to this point in your life, and the logic you can piece together if you retrace your steps.

— Reconciling with your inherent freedom (individual sovereignty) and your innate wisdom and courage; many people get divided against themselves at a young age in this regard.

— Reconciling your sense of who you are in relationships with any unresolved issues of individuality (including your inner sexual reality).

— Connecting your sense of purpose and ability to take action (or their mysterious absence) with whatever your father did or did not teach you about such things.

Some of these themes could arise via introspection. Others might seem to be mirrored to you by someone else, or provoked through a confrontation of some kind. Either way, it’s the self-discovery process rather than reactivity or outward blame that appears to hold the key.

Let me know if you can think of a way to fast-track this kind of introspection and putting things (ourselves) back together again on a global level. Until then, we each have our own mysteries and logic to weigh in the scales, and our own inner pieces to re-unify. At least we’re all together in that — and, therefore, able to help each other re-find equilibrium through this ongoing dance of interdependence. Is it time to balance, or time to tip?

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My autumn readings, called In These Times, offer a place of refuge, an opportunity to suspend self-judgment, and my careful reading of the charts. I offer you reasons to be motivated, and strategies for handling the strange complexity of society at this time. To this work, I bring all of what I have learned as a journalist, editor, astrologer, spiritual student and man of the world; and I offer it to you for an affordable price. Read more here.

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