Here we are again. Another month. Another Cycle. Another opportunity.
If you’re new, welcome. If you’ve returned, thank you.
Truthfully, this article is more scary to write than the first. What terrifies me more is not the starting of something, but the returning. The continuing. The stakes feel higher, and the urge to abandon is stronger.
It could be from all the cardinal energy in my chart. Cardinal energy begins, initiates, but it struggles to sustain, it struggles to change. I’ve told myself over and over that if I’m perpetually beginning that must mean I’m changing.
It’s not not true. But one has to maintain something before it can truly morph into something different. There’s a difference in beginning and becoming.
I’m also new at this. Not studying astrology, but talking about it. Sharing it. So this is me. A beginner. Working to sustain. Showing up again, for another month. Another cycle. Another opportunity.
This one’s a long one too. So strap in, take your time. Pause and come back if you need to. There’s lots to unpack.
This month, we are being called to the deepest recesses of ourselves.
Question is, will you answer it?
We all have free will. Astrology, Tarot, Numerology, any true spiritual practice or esoteric art will never take that from you. The universe is rich with infinite invitations, and we can reject them all, some, or none. Either way, we always get to choose.
That’s not to bypass the many obstacles and challenges that are thrown our way. Choice can be ripped from us, especially when we are young. Especially if we are Black, Brown, Indigenous, Trans, and Disabled. We don’t live in a world where autonomy and agency are freely given, offered, or supported. Especially for marginalized folks.
For some, choices are prohibited at worst, limited at best. But we are never, ever, as powerless as we think or feel. We are not helpless, no matter how much the oppressive systems at large tell us we are, or try to make us feel that way.
The algorithm pushes this message on us daily, but please, do not despair. You are so much stronger than you believe.
October is there to show us just how much, if we can allow it.
This month holds a story for us all. It will look different for everyone. The invite will be deeply personal, and you get to decide whether you take it. Collectively, however, we will all feel it. We don’t get to opt out of our feelings, not forever. Not while we are alive.
More on the story in a moment.
First, the recap:
September was…interesting. In Tarot For The Wild Soul podcast, Lindsay Mack did a monthly reading and pulled the Seven of Pentacles as the card for the month. Funnily enough, I also did a pull for what I needed to pay attention to and I got the Seven of Pentacles as well. Along with the Eight of Wands.
That was truly the vibe of the month.
Seven of Pentacles tells us that a garden is growing, but the fruit isn’t quite ripe yet. The harvest can’t be rushed or forced. An interesting card to pull during the start of harvest season. Things were shifting. We moved into autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, Spring in the South. The earth changed.
But it didn’t always feel like it. I was still reeling from eclipse season. Floating through the month as I processed. The first half was riddled with rest, the nurturing kind and the escapist. I knew change had happened, was happening, and would continue on, but it wasn’t overt.
It was overwhelming at times, yet still innocuous. It was hard for me to witness. I could feel the change, rather than see it. The garden had grown – was growing – but the fruits were not yet ready to be picked. And the month was littered with little disappointments.
On Sept 10th, we had the New Moon in Virgo. What a gift.
I was restless that day. Bracing. Bracing. Bracing. Leftover tendrils from the eclipses wrapped around me, anchoring me to something as I drifted further from shore. I wasn’t lost, just unsure. Unsettled. I didn’t know what intentions to set. I struggled to choose manifestations.
But then I remembered that manifesting isn’t really about calling something new in, as much as it’s about remembering. Remembering who we were, what we wanted, and what we chose before the masking, the coping, the surviving. Manifesting isn’t about making me a different person, it’s about recalling who I truly am, and how I want to truly live.
At the end of the day, I remembered care. I wrote down what I wanted for myself in the next six months and at the centre of it was nurturing. Myself, my family, my dreams, the collective. Ironically, it felt more nourishing than the new moon in Cancer (the one before all the eclipses happened.)
I found that interesting.
But this care had more to do with my body (earth) and my mind (Mercury), less to do with my emotional safety (water+cancer). The Virgo moon cut down to the heart of what I needed, what I deeply required within myself. That’s the care of Virgo. It sees everything and narrows it down to the fragile place and says, there. Let’s help there.
But I still braced. I braced all day, even after bathing in salt water, and meditating naked. I wanted to bare myself to myself. Shed the layers of protective armour I cage myself in daily and just be.
I didn’t do any spells. I didn’t put out moon water. I fed myself, bathed myself, offered myself quiet attention and homemade tea. I whispered to the spirits around me, offered them gratitude and libations, and then rested.
I cared for myself as best as I could. As best as I could allow. Those were the intentions I set, and I’ll be carrying them with me for the next six months, (but also, forever lol) until the final eclipse in Virgo in February, the grand finale to the journey I’ve personally been on for the last two or so years.
What, if any, intentions did you set? What did the moon cut away so you could to get to the heart of you, and see that fragile place that needs tending? Write it down. Here, or somewhere else.
And at the same time, there were other things at play that day. Three major shifts that accompanied Virgo’s new moon.
Venus moved into Scorpio. Fixed Water. Ruled by Mars and Pluto and associated with the Death card in Tarot. Already in her shadow, Venus made the move to the sign they will be retrograding in for six weeks. Scorpio is the backdrop behind their descent into the underworld (so very fitting) and they were already giving us whispers of what’s to come at the start of September. More on that soon.
Mercury moved into Libra. Cardinal air. Ruled by Venus and associated with the Justice card in Tarot. The balance between what is actually happening and what we want to happen. The truth of what is and what could be.
Our speech may have been more restrained, dialled back to allow for nuance at best, people-pleasing at worst. Maybe you started talking to yourself more gently, with more understanding and compassion. Or maybe you made more excuses for yourself, for the people around you. Conversations may have had a more diplomatic spin, burgeoning new perspectives and harmonized view-points. Maybe. Maybe not.
And then Uranus went retrograde in Gemini. External upheaval and innovations turned inward. Into the mind, into the psyche. By the time Uranus goes direct again in 2027, how you receive information may look different. What you consume, and (hopefully) what you create will be more free and more innovative. But it will come at a cost. The price of liberation always does.
But here’s the other thing that Uranus and Gemini is influencing: censorship. Gemini is all about language, raw perception and unfiltered truth. I think that’s why they get a completely unfair rep. I heard another astrology say something of the same ilk once and it’s always stuck with me.
Gemini is mutable air, it receives information and it speaks to it instantly. Raw and unfiltered. It hasn’t turned it over too many times like Libra and it hasn’t zoomed out like Aquarius. There is a loveliness to that. It says the damn thing, unadulterated.
So here’s the thing with Uranus’s influence: it’s the great liberator and it upends in the name of innovation. Language, especially colonized English, is desperately needing an upgrade. You may be noticing that conservative and fascist powers are fighting against that — I hope you are.
Whether it’s refusing to call a Genocide a Genocide, or referring to the horrifying lynchings in the states as suicides: the systems don’t want us calling a spade a spade, and Uranus in Gemini (for the next seven years) is saying: fuck you, this is what it is.
So during this retrograde, notice the inner cop within you and the way powers that be are policing and censuring language. Say Genocide. Say Rape. Say Lynching. Say Racism. Say Murder.
Say the damn thing.
And really start to question and dissect why you struggle to say the hard and true stuff.
What are you afraid to say, out loud, to others? What are you terrified to call out, in private and in public? Especially to the people you are closest to.
And then the Aries Full moon befell us on September 26th. It wasn’t subtle. Aries rarely is. Full Moons rarely are. The sign of the ram is the fresh burst of life, and the full moon shines brightly so life can be seen. This moon was the answer to seeds planted back in Spring. Intentions set on September 17th have grown, for better or worse, and this moon gave us the courage to clarify which one.
What did it show you? What can you take with you into the Libra New moon this month? What needs balancing? Where did you overdo things, and where did you underperform?
And after all of that, what are you carrying into October? The veil is growing thin, preparing us for Samhain and Día de (los) Muertos. But most of all, for Venus’s descent into the underworld.
Venus Rx in Scorpio:
This one is a big one. Venus, the planet of love, abundance, worth, values, money goes retrograde every eighteen months. This is the last time they’ll be reborn in Scorpio for many many many years, so this one is going to feel extra potent, extra poignant. (I learned this from Farstellar and their fabulous article on Venus Rx, read it here.)
What does it mean? What can we expect?
The unexpected, for sure. Duh. Retrogrades just be like that. And in Scorpio, more so.
But let’s break it down.
I connect Venus with their Tarot Card counterpart: The Empress. The name has a colonial femme tilt, but Venus, and The Empress, are so beyond the binary and not about ruling over anything or anyone.
The planet Venus embodies our love, our relationships, our worth, our values, our money, and our abundance. The Empress card, as Lindsay Mack teaches in Soul Tarot, is the Great Dilator. They represent creativity, abundance, harvest, pleasure, and fertility. The Empress card, and therefore Venusian energies, teach us to expand our capacity to receive. To really experience the harvest.
The Empress card is number three in the Major Arcana, and threes in Tarot are all about transitions. Transitions are tough. It’s like we’re in a boat in the middle of the ocean: we can barely make out the shore we left and can’t make out the land we’re heading toward. We’re not the old and we’re not the new. We are in the liminal space, expanding. We are dilating.
And Scorpio (like the planet Pluto, which is its modern ruler) is the great investigator. It wants to go deep, digging beneath the surface to see what’s hidden, what’s veiled. Libra, who comes before (and where the Sun is resting during most of this month) shows us the chasm between what actually is and what we actually want; Scorpio is the one who descends into those depths.
Scorpio energy wants to pull us under, peeling back the the layers of protection (and corruption) put in place to keep us complicit, palatable, and comfortably safe. By our own hand or others. Scorpio is less interested in the why (that feels more like Libra territory) and more interested in the how and the what for.
Scorpio doesn’t want safe. It wants true. It wants real. It wants depth. It doesn’t revel in superfluous embellishment. It wants us naked, and unafraid to be so. And Venus wants this too. Yes, they love adornment, and aesthetics, and pleasure, and sensuality, but not at the cost of truth. There is a reason they rule both Libra and Taurus.
So what happens when they meet up with the Scorpion, and allow it to take them under?
Jealousy, vindictiveness. A simmering vengeance can be hidden within the neglected caves of ourselves. Pain. Loss. Grief. We will be faced with the shadows of wanting, of yearning, of desiring. The price we are willing to pay to have it, and the toll it takes to avoid reaching for it.
I also think, collectively, we will all bear witness to the cost and price of extraction and corruption. Venus also rules our values, and Scorpio wants to figure out if and how they’ve become corrupted. Some of us – too many of us – are still avoiding the consequences of colonization, capitalism, surveillance, racism, and white narcissism. You know who you are. You can continue to opt out with your positions of privilege, but you won’t be able to blind yourself.
Venus in Scorpio feels so incredibly corruption coded. Not as a cop trying to cancel you, but as a raging Goddess forcing you to see. To witness. The Sumerian myth of Innana is what Venus retrograde is all about: descending down to the depth of the underworld through the seven gates to experience a form of death, witnessing our deepest pain, before ascending the seven gates, reborn.
And there are whole peoples in pain. Many peoples. Ignoring it, and them, is less and less of an option. You have free will, of course, you can always ignore, but there will be a price.
This isn’t a threat, it’s a natural consequence. And colonial capitalism whiteness works very hard to avoid and minimize consequences for the ones benefiting from and protecting privilege.
But Venus, and the Empress, and even Scorpio know that equity, sensuality, pleasure, love, and abundance are a birthright, yet too many people aren’t allowed to access it right now, and haven’t been allowed for centuries. I find it veeerrryyy interesting that since the 1930s, Venus’s rebirth has cycled around Scorpio. There’s lots to dive into there – pun intended – but I won’t get into it here.
We have a bit more ground to cover.
Lunar Cycles:
On Saturday October 3rd, we have the last quarter moon in Cancer at 10°. Last Quarter Moons are a time of reflection and release, in preparation for the Balsamic phase which prepares us for the New Moon.
Think of those virgo-esque intentions you set on Sept 10th, combined with the celebratory and illuminating information you received from the Aries Full Moon, and use the Cancer energy of the last quarter to release what you need to, emotionally. You may be feeling a lot with this one, that’s okay. Lean in if you can.
Then we have the Libra new moon on Saturday October 10th at 17°. Once more, we return to intentions and invitations. After going through the whole lunar cycle of Virgo, Libra offers an intellectual slant, asking you to initiate new intentions into your values.
Are your thoughts in alignment with them? Do you even know what they are? They’re different from beliefs. Our beliefs stem from our values, what we cherish and live by. Our values dictate our inner code and Libra asks you to stand by them so that you can be in relationship with others (even when, especially when, they differ).
Next comes the first quarter in Capricorn at 25° on October 18th. The sea goat is, technically, in its detriment here, so it may feel challenging to dig into, but Capricorn is a great energy to work with while you assess and act on those Libra intentions. Do you need to pivot? Do you need to double down? Or do you need to seek advice and ask for help?
Finally, the Full Moon in Taurus, on Sunday October 25 at 2°. This one feels like a bit of a breath. A momentary tonic amidst chaos. The moon is exalted in Taurus, there is safety here. A moment of stability that the bull provides to the changeable moon. A pause. A breath.
Being the polarity of Scorpio, where the Sun is resting, and which Venus has just moved out, allow the Lunar Taurus energy to bring you back to your body. Taurus is ruled by Venus, which will be in Libra (whom it also rules) at the anoretic degree (29°) and it’s fixed earth. It brings Venusian energies into the material world, into the tangible, into form.
What does your body need for emotional safety? Do you need to eat? Drink more water? Do you need rest, cuddled up in a warm blanket with a good book or a great film? Do you need a bath, with salts and oils and candles or bubbles? Do you need to move, walk, lift, run, dance?
How can you ground yourself into your being? The Libra New moon intentions were surrounded by air, the element of the mind. Venus retrograde (and Neptune and Uranus and Saturn and Chiron) have pulled us deeply inward. We’ve gone down into the depths of ourselves and this Taurus Full Moon will meet us there, while also offering the gift of meeting our bodies — extending an invitation to relish in the material present.
Let it lead you there, so you can see more clearly. Let it help you witness yourself and your needs in the present. Even if it’s just for a day. An evening. An hour. A moment.
Okay, I’ve hit my limit on writing, and I’m sure you have hit your limit on reading. I’m not going to leave you with other transit dates this time, but once again invite you to reach out to the astrology world to seek insight.
Breathe. This month is going to be, and feel, like a lot. Do what you can.
Until next month, lovelies.
Thank you for being here.
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