New Moon in Libra Lights, Camera, Action

October Colors                                                        Catherine Al-Meten Meyers

This New Moon in Libra is not your status quo, keep everything in balance New Moon. It's activated by Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus to spotlight the beginning of a new chapter on your journey. New Moon at 26 degrees of Libra (third decan) on Thursday, October 19 highlights whatever sector of your life/chart it transits. It brings popularity, connection, and lots of attention to that area of your life. For those whose Ascendant, Sun sign, Moon or other major planets are in this sector of Libra, it can be a spectacular start to a new phase of life. This new moon is in peregrine (farthest away from Earth) and is therefore highlighting that which is least fortunate. For example, those who are held in disregard, receive extra attention. Or the area where you most struggle with requires the most attention at this time. If you have trouble making decisions, this may be when you’re faced to take that leap of faith. Risk taking is essential to this. Libra most loves to keep things in balance. Seeing all points of view, and not wanting to rock the boat. The growing edge though for any planet where Libra is, is in taking a stand and acting in ways that make way for or room for growth. 

Biding one’s time, or ‘waiting for the perfect moment’ is not what is needed at this time. The New Moon is exactly conjunct Jupiter in Libra (within 5-7 degrees of where Jupiter just entered Scorpio). This is a very potent and optimistic time, and we may feel ourselves on an emotional roller coaster of optimism and outright fear of what is ahead in the mystery that is the future. Focus as best you can, on how the benefits outweigh whatever tests or tasks the future brings. Whatever you have been preparing for and saying you’ve wanted, is now sitting pretty much right in your lap. Instead of freaking out, be glad that you have this opportunity to start anew. The orbit of Jupiter around the Sun is 2 1/2 years, so your journey is blessed in whatever you begin now. The sky is the limit, so take that risk and pursue that dream or at the very least, take some definite steps in that direction. Make a commitment to move forward in the direction of your calling. 

We are protected by the energy Jupiter brings, and we are infused with that same energy to protect and encourage others. Don’t promise more than  you are willing to deliver, but likewise, don’t be afraid. You are prepared for this next shift, and have been releasing whatever stood in the way of your being able to move forward in some major area of your life. The New Moon in Libra also is conjunct Mercury,We are able to speak clearly, and are receptive to straight forward communication. Being authentic and above board, as well as realistic, helps us make the most of all forms of communication as this New Moon opens a new lunar cycle and a new path ahead. We now are able to use the best of our communication skills. Both intuitive and intellectual knowledge provide the necessary guidance and clarity we need now. Libra Moon combined with Mercury creates the storyteller combination that helps us tell a good tale, weave a new myth, or provide a good rationale for whatever we hope to get across. Humor, charm, and intuitive brilliance gild the tales with a magical quality that Jupiter helps brighten. Watch what you say and how you say it. Be discerning in all forms of communication, and listen to what is being said, and what is not. Notice the details, for they will matter greatly later. 

The New Moon in Libra is opposite Uranus in Aries making us highly attuned emotional to shifts and changes in our lives, the world around us, and in the way old patterns are changing and new ones are developing. We need to shed the old skin, and walk forward in the new.  Because there is such significant change happening right now, Uranus’ electrifying shifts and responses can feel highly charged and a bit frightening. Okay, maybe a lot. Because when we are truly on a new path, or having to adjust to a new reality, we have to become the strongest and best of who we are to manage and thrive. Whatever we would like to hold onto like a security blanket, probably won’t do at this time. We are learning new ways to deal with the rapid fire and unexpected changes that is now our world and is manifesting in our lives. Despite your desire to run away or pull the covers over your head, that is not the choice. The energy of a new again is upon us, and what is needed and demanded now is our highest and most capable thoughts, actions, and service. 

What is necessary in this new environment  is discernment. We need to be able to  sift through the panic-driven actions  and rhetoric and outcries for extreme reactions. Very deep and highly evolutionary developments are possible if we maintain a high level of integrity and compassion. Love can and does overcome fear and hate. Turning our energy, individual and collective into uplifting and righteous thought and actions is what is needed. What has shocked and in many cases wounded us, we will find has tempered us to withstand what is needed to recover, heal, and thrive.  We need to create more beauty, seek greater understanding, and become increasingly tolerant of what we at the same time reject as a source of our attention.  A great awakening has taken place, and we are in the first stages of recovering from the shock and pain. The work before us is great, and our strength and attention is needed to recover. For people in the West, particularly the USA, this chaos and disruption is relatively new, in the scale it’s being experienced now. That is not true, however of the rest of the world where resilience and evolutionary change  plus reconciliation are necessary for survival. Our strength, courage, and resilience is being tested, and this New Moon in Libra focuses our attention on what it is within each of us that can be used to cope with what we are experiencing. 

New Moon in Libra with the Mars-Jupiter influences pushes and invites us to stretch our emotional, physical, creative, and intuitive muscles to allow for a new path to emerge—one that will enable us to move out of a place of stagnation, fear, pain, or hopelessness. As a warrior girds for battle, we have many resources within  and much in our history to prepare us to stand up for what we believe and to work for what is good, loving, kind, and right for all and for the planet. Nothing worth having comes without some sacrifice and dedication to help make it happen. Now is when we can see what gifts, talents, and experiences we have to help us live more purposeful and fulfilling lives.

Harvest Moon: Aries Full Moon Illuminates Cracks in the Shell

Enlightening                   Catherine Al-Meten Meyers

Full Moon in Aries, the Harvest Moon.

This week there are several major aspects that are having a powerful impact on our lives. The waxing of the Full Moon that peaks in Aries on Thursday, October 5, the opposition of Uranus and the Moon, and the final days of Jupiter's lengthy transit through Libra. Combined with other aspects and significant energy shifts, this Full Moon at 12/43 Aries floods our lives with light and energy that can cause great floods of release and retribution. The crows come home to roost. What has been done, now appears in whatever is manifesting in our world, our lives, and our own individual consciousness.

This is and has been a time of great awakening. With Jupiter in Libra for years now, we've been seeking that proverbial balance, and finding that in order to do so, we must first come to know and understand what our own truths are and what we are willing to do in order to defend and allow those truths to guide us.
When Jupiter shifts into the energy of Scorpio, the elements of the unconscious are activated, plunging us deeper into the depths of whatever is lurking beneath the surface. We have seen signs of this already, and our reactions and responses to the upsets and tragedies in our lives, will be very telling. How have we been attempting to find ground as we live and move and have our being on a dynamic, ever-changing planet giving birth?

Aries-Libra Axis.
At 11:40 a.m. (PDT), Luna reaches her fullness in Aries opposite the Sun and Jupiter in Libra. Shining light on our relationships, we find ourselves aware of the pull we feel between our own need to stand on our own and our need to merge and connect in relationship. The realm of balance, beauty, and connection finds the Full Moon in Aries lighting up the spaces and cracks where strength, tenacity, and the need to maintain our grounding is challenged.

The Aries-Libra axis challenges us in areas of our lives where we seek to establish our own path, start anew, and take risks against our need to maintain harmony, be fair minded, and negotiate our needs against the demands made of us in all types of relationship. This includes our desire to create beauty, seek outlets for the use of energy and resources, and live from a deeper understanding of what our own truth is versus what we're being asked to accept. Aries on the other hand, strikes out on its own in ways that care little for a map or guide. Rashness, impulsiveness, and callous disregard for the needs of others radiate when Aries acts from its shadow, unhealed wounds. With Jupiter in Libra, opposite the Moon in Aries, this area of our lives may be more intense and may reveal the underbelly of that which is unhealed in ourselves and others as well.

Aries Full Moon, Harvest Moon.
Harvest Moon comes at the time of the year when what has been growing comes to life and is gathered up to be stored, used, and celebrated. It also is a time of revelation. What have we brought to life, what has our life borne? The Aries Full Moon may trigger us to express ourselves in uncharacteristically strong or explosive ways. Whatever has been festering beneath the surface may now burst through to the surface in our effort to find a way to stand on our own against whatever or whoever has been holding us down or back. This is an inner battle that has been looming for a while now, and while it may be more obvious or easy to see expressed outwardly in the behavior and actions of others, it is a battle going on within as well. Its' a good idea to not overlook whatever you may have been stewing over so that you maintain some sense of equilibrium in the face of what feels like a pot boiling over. This may come in whatever form stress usually takes when you are overwhelmed, feeling out of your depth, or are on the verge of breaking through to some new awareness and stage of development. This Full Moon at 12/3 degrees of Aries will surely light up those areas of your life.

As the Moon transits Aries, it has been making  aspects to all the planets lining up in opposition Venus, Mars, and of course the Sun in Libra. During the night the Moon formed a square to Saturn, the Great Teacher, perhaps disturbing sleep or revealing some deeper lesson in our dreams. The Unconscious works while we sleep, revealing what needs to come to light when we wake. The Moon forms a conjunction with Chiron, the Wounded Healer today too, so pay attention to emotional disturbances and/or shifts that might signal intuitive awareness and synchronicities tied to old issues, wounds, or lessons that define your life path. What are those 'same old things' that rise up in your life over and over, teaching you what is calling for attention and letting your know where you are to seek balance next.

On Thursday, the Moon in Aries opposes Mercury a couple of hours before reaching its exact opposition with the Sun in Libra. Hours later, the Moon squares Pluto, the Great Transformer, triggering underground, unconscious movement.

Mars-Venus Conjunct in Virgo
Mars and Venus are symbolic of the love god and goddess. When they conjoin in Virgo, we get a solid grounding in the depth of their passion and how this passion is bringing forth practical, pragmatic shifts in our lives. This powerful aspect occurs as the Moon rises to fullness: Venus forms an exact conjunction with Mars in Virgo. This signals a very passionate, strong, powerful connection in the areas of your life wherever it hits. Notice what sectors of your life this involves (hint, it's where life has been most active throughout the transit of the Sun through Virgo). With Mars and Venus both transiting Virgo in opposition to Neptune and Chiron in Pisces, is shaking up the order and organizational patterns that have become unconsciously holding you back from growth and development.  Notice when passions are stirred, the old messages that rise trying to set you off course or tempt you to give up practical changes that will unleash greater abundance.

When I awoke early this morning, I looked up at the stars to see Cassiopeia brilliantly lit up in the inky pre-dawn sky. This Full Moon in Aries sits right atop the fixed star Alderamin in the Constellation of The King. The King, husband of Cassiopeia, who originally formed the right arm of the king, now forms the shoulder.  Myth says that King Cepheus was taken into the heavens with his wife Cassiopeia and his daughter, Andromeda to commemorate the deeds of Perseus. According to the ancient teachings of Ptolemy, Cepheus is like Saturn and Jupiter, both severe and sober authoritarians who subject to cruelty and severe trials. Associated with the Tarot card, the Fool, the King, is depicted in royal robes and the attire of a tragic actor. Cepheus, also called the Ape King, was said in Greek mythology as "one who lives on worry and incessantly recalls traditions of a bygone age and old Cato's (the Censor) maxims."

Cepheus is not a strong, benevolent king, but rather one who tries to influence the young, especially would-be warriors, to suffer and perish for his own glory. The message of this Full Moon is to free ourselves of both collective and individual dependence on weak leadership and need for authoritarian rule. Breaking ties with and reliance on the positions and straw idols that threaten us with no power but our own to do so, is necessary now. The Aries Full Moon beckons us to heed the call of our individual path, and strike out on a path that befits our talents, provides for our needs, and rewards us for our toils and gifts. Having completed a great cycle during which we have come face to face, heart to heart with the wealth we hold within, we now set out on a new path equipped and willing to be born to a new life.


Using Our Energy for Good.
The most important thing to remember on this or any new journey is that there are both positive and negative ways to use and express our strength, tenacity, authority, and talents. Discern as you go along what is best for your own well being as well as what is also serving the greater good. To become the pawn of someone who abuses or doesn't appreciate you is the negative way to use this opportunity. It is important to proceed and commit to a new path with an awareness that we must do so with allies who honor and respect the mutual give and take of good relationships.

To do this we need to commit to ourselves and in all we do, to submit ourselves to the power  and authority of what we hold within our own hands, heart, and soul, and to release ourselves from the bondage of depending on external authority to approve and give us permission to be who were are meant to be. Remember who you are, and walk in the light of this Full Moon in Aries, fully honoring your God-given gifts and hard-earned experiences as you enjoy the fruits of the harvest and consider how to carry that abundance forward.

"No authority of any kind can ever know the truth of our own experiences and perceptions. And therein lies our power."
--John Phipps.