What were you doing last April? How are the issues that were coming up then finding greater resolution? What are you relieved about? Regretful about? This is all good information about the eclipse season we’re in now. Eclipses put more force behind the full moons and new moons that they fall on as apexes of changes that have been building for the past three-six months. The first eclipse falls on the late night/early morning (depending on where you are) of October 8th and since it falls in Libra/Aries, keep in mind that there is no such thing as other people’s stuff. 

It’s a wild card time in general, but with the grand trine in fire signs and mercury’s retrograde in Scorpio/Libra and Uranus and the Sun forming a lightening rod for cosmic energy, expect the unexpected. The grand trine in fire (now through the 8th) encourages us to use our creativity and spiritual aliveness to focus on all that warms our heart. It’s no surprise that San Francisco is being hit a heatwave. Monitor your energy levels for information about what brings vibrancy and go for more of that. Be careful of burnout though and remember to take refuge in the shade. A blow torch is more powerful than a bonfire or a burnt bridge though I can’t deny that we all don’t have some part of us that loves to watch it all burn. Burn candles, old sheets imbued with sex with an ex or old files that are dragging you down. What phoenix part of you might rise from those ashes?

Know that while eclipses bring change and fire signs love spontaneity, due to mercury’s retrograde, caution is indicated especially around anything that you might not be able to back out of. Feel free to write those harsh emails, but don’t necessarily send them without a trusted advisor’s revision. Burn those letters and journal pages where you've purged your vitriol then perhaps you'll be able to write from a more effective place.  

Don’t overcommit yourself based on the intensity of the moment. If you’re even a little uncertain, breathe deep and expand your capacity to sit with the not knowing rather than forcing a resolution. When we’re seduced by the need to find closure, it’s almost always a sign that we're avoiding the work of sitting with our feelings. The solution is usually to put the phone down, come back to the present and know that the answer will come at the right time (if it hasn’t come, it’s not the right time).

There’s nothing like astrology to give us a sense of right timing and nothing like tarot to get us through those moments of uncertainty. The only question that matters right now is “what wants to happen next.” Pull out the tarot if you’ve got too many options and/or are feeling overwhelmed. Pull a card for each option and see what feelings arise from there. Keep in mind that the cards are a reflection of your relationship to the option in that moment. It’s okay to say “no” right now and you become a “yes” later, when the time is right and more information has been revealed. If you don't have a deck or are away from it, this is a sweet online resource. Use this wild card time to lean on our wild, artful divinatory cards.

As mercury's retrograde moves back into Libra, if you have trouble deciphering the message with all the taboo shit stirring that the Scorpionic energy brings, consult with another person. Take it all with a grain of salt because you’re the ultimate authority on your life, but there’s some clarity that can come only from sorting stuff out with another being. It will be much less about what’s being said and much more about what’s being felt. This is a great time to practice using feeling words in a non-blaming way (NVC anyone?). Good luck!

The final eclipse of this cycle is on October 23rd in Scorpio. We enter the depths, letting go and sinking in to all that we’re here to learn about our psyches.  I’m planning to spend that night making a collage honoring that “no” is a complete sentence. What small, often quiet voice in you do you hope pay extra attention to as the energy of the moment shifts?

Have a blessed Samhain and happy new year to all the witches out there! 


For folks that have been wondering where my more regular postings can be found, for the past six months or so, I've been toying with Facebook so follow me there for more consistent & brief astrologically inspired nuggets of wisdom. It's not my favorite platform, but it does make it easy.

"The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others." -Carl Jung

On this healing path, I've worked a lot on "not taking on other people's stuff." This is a phrase we speak often in bay area healing circles. While I've benefitted immeasurably from the meditations where I've given people back their stuff, envisioned myself surrounded by a protective orb of energy and all that powerful woo, I'm feeling more and more like it's a lie that reveals the truth rather than the truth itself. 

This Friday, October 18th the full moon brings us a lunar eclipse in Aries/Libra. So much of the Aries/Libra story is about self and other. Over the next year or so, our job is to learn as much as we can about how we relate and how we act as individuals in those relations. Now is a moment where we're probably getting a lot of information about that. I keep thinking about an old neighbor who was struggling with addiction. He was abusive, acting out in all sorts of ways and destroyed my garden more than once.  Nothing I did got him to act more sane until I stopped trying to get him to do anything, hung up some mirrors on the front door and in the garden and started wishing him well. Even then, not much changed with him, but I did. Years later, in retrospect, as the child of an alcoholic, I can't deny that me learning how to live with addiction is completely my stuff. 

It's so easy to get caught up in feeling wronged, feeling that if other people would just do what we think is best then we could finally relax and life would get better, we get distracted from what we actually can change: ourselves. The crucial thing to remember in this eclipse heightened time is that whatever is coming up is a mirror. All the things, especially when we're obsessing about the outer world, are just reflections of our inner life. Often they are mirrors of your beauty. Sometimes though facebook, our friends, our family, our inbox, etc. are reflections of our unresolved stuff. The good news is we're being given the (sometimes) agonizing gift of greater resolution and healing, if we take the time to go inward. 

Two weeks from now on November 3rd, that inner work will help us rise to meet a solar eclipse in Scorpio. Along with mercury retrograde also in Scorpio (10/21-11/9), now is a time to look at that part of ourselves that keeps getting attracted to the same lessons, that keeps looking in the same mirrors (over and over and over again). Invite your psyche to tea and ask the bigger questions of what you are to learn from this shifting time. Let go of blame and heal what only you can heal.

Halloween and Day of the Dead remind us that Scorpio's time is a one to sit with the reality of death.  Somehow this unifying thread amongst us all,  this promise of a returning to source, even just as compost, helped me to see that the more I embraced the mirrors in my life, the more clearly I could see myself. Yes, we are separate, embodied beings AND in this mystery of oneness, whatever Scorpionic sh*t you're called on to deal with now is yours to compost, even if it appears to be somebody else's. Perhaps it's as simple as there is no other? Perhaps it's all just a lie that reveals the truth? Either way, enjoy the reflections.

Photo credit: Nathan Taylor