We are on our way to the first of two eclipses. The middle of this week is the mid-way mark to it as the moon makes its waxing square while in Capricorn from Tuesday-Thursday. There is no turning back now. Whatever personal mystery you have begun to unravel will continue its undoing, with or without you. 

Might as well jump on the train. 

Venus will enter one of its home signs, Libra, on Monday, September 29th. Under other circumstances this would be a welcomed homecoming but Venus has some pretty hefty hagglers waiting round the corner. Uranus and Pluto. It will square Pluto on the October 8th eclipse and oppose Uranus on October 11th. Their turn to talk to the beauty queen generally brings many a relationship dynamic to the surface. It also tends to bring the actions of radical women and the topic of feminism into our news feeds. 

Thank Goddess.

But the real hot topic this week is Mercury stationing retrograde in Scorpio on Saturday, October 4th. The sun will also square Pluto that day. I’ll be back with a detailed post on it but for now let’s just say that this is a week to watch. It’s about depth. It’s about healing the mind. It’s about understanding our unconscious psychological material, motivations and as a result our own motion, be it retrograde or direct. 

Aries & Aries Rising

The fact of the matter is that anything, anyone and every single situation that pulls us out of our unconsciousness and into seeing what we would otherwise ignore about ourselves is a blessing. 

None of us, I repeat, none among us (save the saints) are ever happy to experience the components of our ego that are socially unacceptable. We might spend long unromantic nights with our shame, guilt and fear but taking an honest look in the mirror is a whole other ball of wax. Feeling bad is easy, becoming conscious is the true test of adulthood. 

We get this opportunity to evolve mostly via one another. We push and poke, we pull and prod, we evoke and encounter every facet of ourselves through our interactions. When something really bothers us (and isn’t overtly hateful or damaging) most likely its some part of ourselves that is too hard to tango with. 

The unveiling of these issues are blessings in deep disguise. 

We grow through pain. We grow through love. We grow through discomfort. We grow through being tested and tricked by ourselves and by each other. We can either suffer or we can go through the suffering necessary to grow. 

October beckons you to the dance floor of life. Find your partners, honor them as teachers (especially the ones that really fire you up) and see what you can learn about yourself. It’s your turn to address the relationship dynamics that are too painful to ignore any longer. It’s not the end of the story, it’s just another chapter but if you come at it with consciousness you have a say in how it will be written.

Taurus & Taurus Rising

It’s more than high time to pay attention to the needs of your health. It’s more than high time to pay attention to the details that you might try to bulldoze your way through in your work life. It’s more than high time you consider the relationship dynamics you have with those you meet at the water cooler. 

Pay attention to what you leave out. Pay attention to what you forget (when you finally remember it). Pay attention to what you need to and what you feel like you have to omit when in conversations with your beloveds.

It’s all about how you get through your days right now: piece by piece, edit by edit and by loving your lover. 

This week brings you into some deep conversational terrain with those you love and those you don’t-whomever gets a strong reaction from you. The feelings will most likely increase in strength and effect on you. Say the things that need to be said with the understanding that you might be misunderstood, you might not be representing yourself clearly and you might be too tricked by your ego to be clear now. It’s ok, just say things as you know them. You don’t have to understand an entire relationship all at once. You don’t have to figure it out. You don’t have to solve anything either. Just be in it. Just be with it. Just be less convinced you know who your loved ones are and what exactly they need. Just be available for revisions to all relationship contracts when applicable.  

Gemini & Gemini Rising

This week your ruling planet does an about face. Yes, Mr/Ms Mercury is gonna go retrograde again. Don’t feel punished though. It’s best not to take these things personally and it’s best not to be persuaded by popular opinion to blame every little thing on it. 

We are in relationship to the energy of the cosmos. 

We always have the potential to awaken and become more conscious come crisis, be it big or small. And the small stuff sweats us in these times. Problems appear monumental when really they are minuscule. 

Egos are like magnifying glasses. 

Egos get offended. Egos get bruised. Egos say, “You made me feel so guilty. You made me feel so ashamed. You made me feel so abandoned.” But beyond being a child these really aren’t valid statements. People can try all kinds of hocus-pocus on us but in the end we are the ones who need to break the spell. 

No one can make you feel anything you don’t give them permission to.  

You’ve got your work cut out for you – as we all do this month. For you this work starts by listening intently to the body. Supply it with whatever it needs. Your health is your baseline of bountiful and your body is the temple you need to be most familiar with. Everything good is held here in the heart, in the bones and in the blood. Breathe deeply. Oxygenate your soul. Get fresh food to your best internal allies called organs. The other piece applies to your coworkers and counterparts in your career. Keep the focus on what you can do. Stay away from broken photocopiers and broken-telephone-tag-team-gossip-round-robins. You don’t need the mix up and you are above the drama. There will be enough of that kind of temptation in your love life. Keep cool where and when you can. 

Cancer & Cancer Rising

So what is it? What is bubbling up from the depths? What’s bumping around in the night? What’s disturbing your sleep, your home life and your sense of having some kind of control over where and how you get comfort?

What is getting exposed? Especially in regards to the persona that you create in order to get attention and be liked. We all want those that catch our eye to be likewise fixated on us and we do so by putting our best foot forward. 

The good news is that you might trip and fall in the coming weeks. Publicly. 

That would be a good thing. That would be a step in the right direction. That would be a way for you to do some real growing and get some really powerful spiritual insights because it’s all about really seeing what took you down and how exactly you chose to get back up. There is a wealth of wonderful knowledge in that journey. Because aren’t you tired of holding up the facade? Aren’t you tired of scrambling for love? Aren’t you tired of pretending that your shadow doesn’t scare you?

However you play out the games of being sexually desirable, however you set the stage so that  you’re under the best fall in love with me spotlight needs to be looked at now with consciousness and care. In general, we spend a lot of time trying to pull one over on each other or on ourselves because of our fear. We fear rejection. We fear humiliation. We fear that we are unloveable. We fear that no one else would love us if they really knew the truth about us. So the question this week is how do you manipulate the truth in order to try and get your needs met? And then the follow up to that is what do you do with the information once it has come to consciousness? 

Leo & Leo Rising

Writing helps. You don’t have to be good at it, actually it’s best if you don’t even consider what it is you are writing. What I am talking about is writing for healing. Writing for consciousness. Writing for your sanity. 

I was recently on a plane ride from the twilight zone where everything that could possibly go wrong did. Least important of all, the entertainment system gave out. Each of us had a little individual TV in front of us that could be turned off or would loop the same commercials and movie trailers over and over. And over. The oddest thing is that for the two and a half hour flight most people just starred blankly at the revolving door of clips. But it’s kind of how our brain works. Really we are recycling only a couple of clips over and over. And over. For everyone else around us it can be maddening and once we wake up to it it is for us as well. But how to get out of the rut?

Write.

Write your fears, write your hopes, write your losses, write your woes. Write it down so you can see it. Write it down so it exists. Write the ugliest bits of yourself (they need love too). Write from the shadows (they need love too). Write from the rejected (they need some super-loved love). Write from the ones in you that are less known. 

Say hello.

The more willing we are to be in touch with this raw and sometimes radioactive material the easier a time you’ll have when it rears its triumphant head. Because it will. This month will be full of ego-busting bombs and take-out containers full of humble-pie. 

Get a head start by giving the old Dear Diary some more time on the schedule. 

Virgo & Virgo Rising 

I’m going to be formal and somewhat traditional in the advice I give you about this next Mercury retrograde. Don’t sign on the dotted line without understanding and memorizing said documents like a nervous LA actor on her first big-time audition. Leave room for mistakes like a sugar fiend leaves room for cake. Plan for snags, snafus and taboos to roll of your tongue and frighten everyone. You might step in it but you can also use this time to step to it.

Making it a point to put more time in at home will serve you well. Getting going on improvement projects there makes you all the more able to deal with potential difficulties at work. Feeling fired up about the little things, like what you are making for dinner and what sheets you get to climb into at night makes a lot of the ruffled stuff smooth itself out. 

For those of you who have been moved out of the home and into more wide open spaces this week’s astrology will help you feel more at home in your skin and more sturdy as you wander about. 

The main take away from the moment however is contemplating the connections between your thoughts and your lived reality. It’s one of those classic astrological times that helps you detect the synchronicity between the two. How deep do your mediations go? Do you give yourself the time to stop and heal your mind? 

After years of working with people’s bodies in therapeutic ways there is one thing I know for sure: we are pattern making and pattern sustaining beings and to change unhelpful patterns takes every ounce of our awareness. We survive trauma and the story gets imprinted in our bodies. We move in ways that try to conceal our fears and hide our un-cried tears. The mind is no different. We think in ways that protect us from feeling humiliation and we deny the dirt we know is smeared across our consciousness. 

And there’s nothing wrong with some soil, in fact it’s necessary and natural, but we need to be conscious of how the tricks of the mind trade in the pace of the soul. It’s no good to lie to ourselves. This Mercury retrograde begins by asking you to be deeply mindful of all your communications and the psychology behind them.

Libra & Libra Rising

There are no shortage of challenges for you this week my loving lovers of the zodiac. But if you can live up to this statement, “This is my best self in this moment and in this situation,” you will be doing a stellar job of being a spiritual being grappling with the complexities of having a body and an ego.

This week is not for babies stuck in big bodies. This week will rip the soother right out of your mouth. This week will put hair on your whatever needs it. But it’s not just this week.

And it’s not just you out here in the cold.

We are all with you. All of us living our own version of hell or heaven depending on our outlook (or as astrologers would say, your ninth house). We are all entering this next little portal of drama, doom or delight. 

We are all in this together. 

And yet we must get through each piece on our own. We must face the internal challenges with whatever it is we’ve got working for us. This is the kind of astrology that illustrates our strengths, our weaknesses and our growth edges. 

You are a hotspot this week and in the next few weeks to follow. With your ruling planet, Venus, gracing all inhabitants of your sign with an extra dose of like-ability, you can witness another level of self-awareness around what it is you are attracting. It’s like a crash course in contact. What are you pulling in? What’s bumping up against you? What do you like and what would you rather not keep around?

Scorpio & Scorpio Rising 

Stand still Scorpio. Stop. Pause. Ponder. Let yourself wander around in the deeper caverns of your psyche. A lot is coming up. A lot is revealing itself. A lot is trying to find it’s way to the surface so you can see it. 

But it’s slippery material. You might get an inkling about it before you get an understanding of it. Right now you are just collecting data, data that will make more sense later in October. We are steadily marching towards an eclipse in your sign then but first Mercury turns retrograde (also in your sign) this Saturday. This turn of the Trickster may feel bewildering at first but it’s less about knowing the answer and more about knowing that you don’t know it…yet.

The next layer of this week has to do with an out of the blue opportunity to make mountains of self worth out molehills of self acceptance. This could translate into making money. This could translate into having some savvy business swagger. This definitely should translate as an opportunity for you to awaken to your power and potential. 

In fact if you can let the deeply colored hues of the psychological material arising seep into your vision, everything you see will be warmed by it. It’s not what we live through, it’s how we view it. No matter what is occurring for you, no matter how emotionally trying, I dare you to remember this: your potential is locked up in it. 

Whatever tests you, pushes you and pokes you wants your attention. Not because it’s a bad brat (even if it also is), not because it’s full of malice (even if that too is present) and not because your life sucks (though sometimes it certainly feels that way), it’s because your daemon is sometimes dressed up like a demon. It’s because we often don’t see what is right in front of us. It’s because we often misunderstand the code words given to us to set us free. Breaking out of the chambers that imprison us is the only way to true self worth, self-knowledge and self-reliance. 

Sagittarius & Sagittarius Rising

There is a lot going on this week and this month. Upheaval, challenge and breakthroughs abound. For you however there is a very unique opportunity to be on the receiving end of what looks like liberation. Or at the very least, invigoration.

You are well situated to take the reigns and redefine yourself both in your social circles and in your view of yourself. All of this comes about in a yes/and kind of way. Yes a lot of outward movement and momentum is carrying you forward and you are in the midst of a very deep and introspective pause.

When we match our outer with our inner movement we grow at a rapid rates. We grow at rapid rates because we are keeping an eye on both aspects of ourselves. One gives meaning to the other. One steers the other. One points to a problem and the other offers the solution. One is the pot of gold to the other’s rainbow. They influence each other. They teach each other. They lean on each other-if we’re lucky. 

When held in equal importance, our outer life begins to reflect our inner one and we come into alignment. When in alignment we move at rapid rates. Life picks up the pace and we ride life’s train down the tracks of our greatest ambition. Our heart’s ambition. Our soul’s ambition. Our divine mind’s ambition.

Capricorn & Capricorn Rising 

Busted. Big time. But why not? Why not be exposed? Why not risk your reputation? Why not battle your public image for the title of most valuable player? 

Well, the thing is this: you don’t want to burn bridges. You don’t want to ruin working relationships. You don’t want to be taken for a fool by your own ego, ambitions or unconsciousness. This astrology might make it tempting or this astrology has come along make sure that you do not waste another moment in vain. This astrology has come along to make sure that you do your work out there in the world. This astrology is asking you to face more than one fear about your role in the world. 

If you have yet to find the drum that is yours to beat these next few weeks will give you one.You might experience this as an abrasive pounding or a melodic melody, it all depends on how ready and willing you are to give way to the rhythm. It all depends on how willing you are to take the lead and ring the bells. It all depends on how deft you are at working through big triggers in the spotlight. 

No shame if you aren’t. Not all of us have that kind of game. Not all of us have the smooth moves, but I suggest you start practicing. Extra time at the court never hurt a player. Extra time working out your motives won’t hinder the outcome either. It’s good that you get really clear on why you do what you do because you are about to get a lot of attention for whatever that is. 

Aquarius & Aquarius Rising

So go already! What are you waiting for? And if you’ve already gone, keep going. Seriously. 

Keep. Going. 

But keep room for a little retracing. This isn’t a straightforward journey. It’s going to loop, swoop, saunter, climb and bend so make sure you don’t break. The destination is about understanding your beliefs and finding faith vast enough to house your entire life. For what is this life without an understanding of why it’s important to live it?

And live it you must.

To stop for fear’s sake would be a tragedy. To be hindered by insecurities is understandable but not reason enough to curtail your passage. There is a feeling of initiation in your chart this month. Some of this will happen in the corridors of your mind and some of it will happen to you in the most public of places. It doesn’t really matter which occurs more or which occurs less. The fact of the matter is that it’s happening so you can trust that you are ready for it. 

Initiations are awakenings. Initiations are not for the sleepy sleepers. Initiations are for our own good and they don’t take place unless we are strong enough to experience them. 

Trust what you have been given. Trust what is showing up as your life. Trust the continued  weaving of your tapestry, even if it doesn’t quite look like it’s going to be a connective pattern. It will if you just keep working on the next stitch. 

Pisces & Pisces Rising 

What if almost everything about reality that we have been taught is wrong? What if you have never known the value of your soul, the power of your mind or the meaning of your making?

It’s time to take another look.

It’s time to take another look at what gives you reason to get up in the A and M. It’s time to take another look at what gives you the freedom to find yourself amongst the multitudes of meaningless ads that magnetize our minds and try to tell us who we are. 

You are on to their glossy smiles and blinding veneers. 

You are on to something far more interesting. You are on to something far more empowered. You are on to something far more possible. You are on to the potency you posses when you have made up your mind to believe in yourself. Trying to fit into someone else’s image of us does us no good; it’s a dead dream. Living in the image that our nature is urging us to embody fuels our fortune and lights our fire. 

We are slip-sliding around with this year’s final installment of Mercury Retrograde: Madness and  Realness so somethings might not get done at the speed with which you would prefer. Some things might needle and muck up your view. Some things might make you mad. But some other things are trying to tell you not to pay attention to what isn’t working and instead to pay attention to what you have passion for.