To be in harmony
With nature
Is to be in harmony
With oneself.
St. Francis Assisi
Who lives in harmony
With themselves
Lives in harmony
With the universe.
Marcus Aurelius
The New Moon on September 25, 2022 at 3 Libra invites us
to contemplate questions that open pathways to greater satisfaction in the experience of our relationships.
Venus and Mercury Retrograde conjunct the New Moon
Jupiter oppose New Moon, Mercury, Venus
Pluto trine New Moon, Mercury, Venus
Mars trine Saturn Retrograde
Saturn square Uranus (culminating -September 15 - October 23)
Relationship is the key word for the New Moon. Libra represents our experience of anything we identify as ‘other” than ourselves. During this time, many of us will give focus to ways of enhancing a given relationship with a person in our lives that is integral to our sense of well-being. There is potential for ground-breaking awarenesses about this relationship that can shift a dynamic or have us approach the relationship in a new way.
We are, however, invited to consider relationship in a larger context. There is a primary, enduring relationship that is with us our whole lives. It is our relationship to what continually nurtures, supports us and allows our life, albeit all life, to happen. It is our relationship to the earth, the air, the water, the animals and plant life of our terrestrial home.
How are the effects of our cultural conditioning in western society, and our acclimation to a culture that has a profound disregard for the living world, reflected in the root issues we experience in our relationships with each other? If we worked on healing this primary, everpresent relationship with the natural world, how might this ripple out and benefit all our relationships?
Feeding into the New Moon
The Fall Equinox, September 23
The fall Equinox, when the Sun arrived at 0 Libra, was 3 days before the New Moon. It is a pivotal moment of each year when there is a balance between light and dark. The hours of night are equal to the hours of daylight. For the northern hemisphere, it also marks the moment when the darkness, the yin will begin to increase, and the busy time of the year wanes. As the harvest season is nearing completion, we now enter the months where activity is quieter, more time is spent at home, and more and more we sit by the hearth to share stories, sing, and reflect.
The Fall Equinox is a moment where we can feel and contemplate the nature of balance. Consciously or not, we are attuned to the cycles of nature. We may find ourselves pondering what it is to live a balanced life – a balance of rest and activity, a balance of serving others and tending to self care. With balance there is harmony and peace. Balance. Harmony. Peace. These words are signature energies of Libra.
Six Planets Retrograde
There are twice as many planets, as not, moving in a retrograde motion. In the ebb and flow of life's tides, we are in the midst of an ebb. We are cued to pull in, reflect, and re-evaluate what we are doing and where we are heading. It is a natural time of slowing down and taking a step back to allow reflection. We re-examine information, decisions and perspectives so we can make adjustments to our thinking and plans. The Fall Equinox and the Libra New Moon invite a contemplation of Libran values as part of our sorting process so that when we move forward, we do it with an eye to fostering enhanced harmony, peace, fairness, and balance in our relationships.
To love is to recognize yourself in another.
Eckart Tolle
Sifting Through the Chaff to Find the Jewel
Mercury and Venus conjunct the New Moon, oppose Jupiter and trine Pluto
Venus rules the New Moon. One of her symbols is the Mirror. Aphrodite, a Venus archetype, is sometimes depicted holding and looking into a mirror. Her gaze can be misinterpreted as vanity. When we understand that everything we gaze upon is a mirror and whatever we gaze upon mirrors something back to us, then we understand Aphrodite's gaze in a different light. She loves everything she gazes upon. Because she is the personification of love, life always mirrors love.
For instance, as we contemplate the mirror in our lives, we can look at what is mirrored to us in the planet and exclaim, "Look what we have done to the planet!" Yet it is equally true that we are saying, “Look what we have done to ourselves.”
The deep mystery of Venus and of love is that to love one thing is to love everything. If we only seek to have the love of one particular person but reject others, this is not love. To love and be loved, to have self love, to have love for the planet, to love people, it is all the same. We can decide what one person or thing we wish to dedicate ourself to loving as a vehicle to learning to love. Yet, Aphrodite's mirror reminds us that to fully see and be seen by the object of our love is not the end but a portal to love itself. The New Moon is pointing to the a healing process that opens us to loving all that we engage. On this journey, we will encounter much we do not love, but the healing happens when we no longer identify repulsion or unworthiness as something or someone that is outside ourselves.
Venus conjunct the New Moon and with Mercury. Unlike the Sun and Moon in Libra, Venus and Mercury are in Virgo, bringing an analytical and discerning quality to the New Moon. This helps us to cognitively discern and translate the movement of what is dawning around how we can foster greater balance and harmony in our relationships.
There is an optimism and expanded perspective that allows us to see larger and larger wholes. We may experience being lifted and carried towards a deeper connection with ourselves and within the relationships that matter to us (Jupiter oppose the New Moon, Venus and Mercury).
Our thoughts can more readily penetrate beneath the surface of appearance and circumstance to perceive the root cause of our feelings of separation, disappointment or lack of satisfying connection in our relationships. We are better able to focus on our desire to love and be loved without getting lost or distracted by the pettiness that can pollute our desire nature. (Pluto trine the New Moon, Venus, and Mercury)
Rather than looking to what we can change in ourselves or a given relationship, we are invited into an exploration of relationship with life itself. The natural world is talking to us about the imbalance and disruption of the natural rhythms that have resulted from humanity's lack of relationship with its environment. There is an escalation in the number of species facing extinction, of inhospitable weather patterns, the erosion of soil, the drying up of major rivers, and the contamination of the earth's water and air.
There is an increasing awareness that if balance is not restored in some measure, humanity will face its own extinction. We can look to recycle, grow our own food, put up solar panels or ride our bicycles to work, but this new Moon points us to look not so much at conservation or green-friendly practices, but instead invites us to foster our relationship with the natural world in the same way we would foster a relationship with a friend or lover. When in a healthy relationship, we will naturally care for what we love.
We are called to enter into a relationship with the natural world. Like any primary relationship in our lives, we are to dedicate ourselves to spending time with it, to converse and deeply listen to how it responds. We are to feel grateful for what it offers us and look for ways to nurture its well-being. The disconnection and sense of not being valued in our personal relationships can be found reflected in our lack of connection with the primal and enduring relationship we have with the natural world we inhabit. We are part of it, not separate from it, interwoven as part of its very fabric. Dedication to this relationship will help to heal the relationships we have with the people we love, collaborate and build community with.
Everything is interconnected
And nothing exists except in relation
To everything else.
Bill Harris
Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
Rumi
The Power of our Thoughts and Words to Build or Burn Bridges
Mars trine Saturn
The sign where Mars resides reflects where we are currently driven to action and assertion. Normally in a sign for 6-8 weeks, Mars is in the midst of a seven month sojourn in the sign of Gemini. Mars has entered its shadow phase for its upcoming retrograde cycle in Gemini (October 30 – January 14).
In Gemini, Mar's focus is on communication and exchange - the exchange of ideas, of information, of goods. Gemini rules all forms of social interaction including social media. We are likely to see an increased activity in social media, opinions given rashly and impetuously, and more and more information coming at us from all sides.
We are to curb the natural inclination of Mars in Gemini to shoot from the hip, speak without thinking, engage in a combat of words, or to dart from one activity in another until we feel scattered and mentally exhausted. We are encouraged to slow down and consider our words, consider the source of the information we have received, and look at the patterns of our own thinking processes.
For the rest of September, we can gain traction in setting an intention to have our words and thoughts create understanding, coherence and pathways of connection. We are to recognize how the power of a thought or a conversation can generate, confuse or destroy. We are to be mindful of how we talk to ourselves and others so that our words nurture connection and help fuel our dreams, values and what we wish to see in the world. We can monitor ourselves for habitual or automatic ways of thinking that pollute the balance and harmony of our wellbeing.
The New Moon has us focus on building relationship. The Mars/Saturn trine says that we can gain the most traction with this invitation if we examine and are intentional about what we are thinking and speaking. The thoughts we feed our minds and put out in to the world have impact and we be mindful about the impact we each have.
Love is not a relationship,
love is a state of being;
it has nothing to do with anybody else.
One is not "in love", one is love.
And of course when one is love, one is in love
Osho
Reluctance to Blaze a New Path towards an Unknown Future
Saturn square Uranus (4 exact squares beginning 2021 and culminating on October 23)
Throughout 2021 and 2022 the Saturn/Uranus square has been a consistent underlying theme running through our lives producing a tension between the impulse to embark on a new way of living (Uranus) while simultaneously feeling entrenched in the traditions, patterns and ways of living to which we are accustomed (Saturn). The desire to stay with what we know and what has been taught us (Saturn) may seem the safest, surest bet. Yet, we are being compelled to recognize that ways of living that worked in our favor for years may not work for us moving forward. We are being prodded to break away from the familiar to venture into unknown territory so we can discover a new kind of authenticity and freedom of expression that will sustain us (Uranus).
Uranus, planet of revolution and change, is in the sign of the earth (Taurus). We are to seek a New Earth, or rather, a way of life that recognizes and honors the value of our earthly home. There may be disruptions to finances and to the stability of what we have created. We may experience electrical outages, flooding or other upsets. We are meant to have interruptions, disruptions and eruptions that snap us out of an automatic way of living so we can wake up to the fact that we are living a life that can be sustained.
Saturn in Aquarius is looking for a vision of a sustainable future. While it looks to value the individual, it also seeks advancements in technology as the solution. The development of AI and other other technological advancements will have their benefits. But to move in this direction out of a desire to control and subdue the natural world and to further honor and respect the mechanization of life will only produce more imbalance. Uranus is in Taurus is prodding us in the direction of using our technology to assist us in being stewards of the earth, rather than its overlords.
The Uranus/Saturn square culminates on October 23. These next weeks as the tension between these two planets seeks resolution, we may experience some crisis as a catalyst for a breakthrough that clears our vision or shifts our perspective. The current issues with food production and distribution, the rising inflation, flux of global financial systems are vulnerable to another level of upheaval. Rather than trying to restore what has been lost or stabilizing a way of living that is slipping away from us, we can ask questions that can lead to a vision of a way forward that does not further denial or powerlessness. The earth is speaking to us through melting icecaps, record breaking heat waves, and the drying up of the world’s largest rivers. We are invited to listen to her message and be willing to awaken from a way of living and see it for what it is: a way of dying.
For more than a decade, planetary configurations heralded the shifts taking place – from the breakdown of structures that are not aligned with the soul of humanity (Pluto in Capricorn 2008-2023) to the Earth Changes and effects of global warming (Uranus in Taurus 2018 – 2026), to other key planetary aspects that include the current Saturn/Uranus square, The planets are reflecting humanity’s growing and urgent need to break away from a mechanized, industrial, technological, materialistic way of living that focuses on expansion and rampant consumption.
The shift of our times is a monumental one. We have been indoctrinated and trained to be dependent on the current western way of living. I recognize my own dependency on modern conveniences and reliance on food in grocery stores and gas to drive my car where I please. I want to make the shift, but I can feel at a loss as to how. It feels like we are collectively in the grip of a cultural addiction and it is hard to break an addiction when everyone around is reinforcing, supporting and rewarding the addiction.
Astrology helps cue me to the next step. Rather than taking some gigantic leap or succumbing to the feeling that we may have to do the big shift all at once, we are offered the next step and then the next step, and then the next step in the journey to dismantle the mind trance that holds us captive.
The step to take this month:
Let us pay attention to our thoughts and how we talk to ourselves. Let us ask the questions that will open us to new ideas, thoughts and possibilities. We can ask questions that lead us to stepping outside to watch a sunset, to feel the soil beneath our feet, to smell the rain in the air, or listen to the wind rustling through the leaves of trees. Instead of trying to resolve the cultural and political polarities, we can be curious about the natural rhythms of the earth and how to better move in tune with them. Rather than asking why my boss doesn’t appreciate me or my friend doesn’t support me or my partner doesn’t love me the way I wish, we can ask ourselves questions that bring us into a rich, alive dialogue with the living world who is always speaking, always giving, and waiting for us to engage.
We start from where we are. We take the next step. And the steps we each take will support others to take steps, so that together we can arrive on a new earth, or rather a new relationship with the same earth that supports us in feeling connected and at peace in ourselves, families and the relationships with everything around us. The ruler of the new Moon, Venus, reminds us that connection and relationship is forged by love. We all wish to love and be loved and somehow this seems to be the hardest thing for humans to realize. If we can snap out of the tendency to look for what we can get from the world and instead truly feel how we are an intrinsic part of the natural world, all relationships then have the potential to come into balance and harmony.
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