“Dawn” by Jules Adolph Breton

Full Moon in Aries - Venus Enters Virgo - Saturn & Pluto Station Direct - Mars Squares Saturn

The wheel of the year is turning. Seeds we planted back in the spring are coming to fruition, and transition is in the air. And as if to drive the point home about the ephemeral nature of things, we begin the month of October with a full moon— resplendent now, but soon to wane. This lunation takes place in Aries, on the same degree as Chiron, the Wounded Healer. Mars, its ruler, is currently handicapped by retrograde and tied up in another unforgiving square to Saturn. And the Reaper God, restored to power and now moving direct, is ready to finish out his work for the year in Capricorn. Pluto follows suit soon after, making his direct station on Sunday. The mood is a heavy  one.

On the other side of the sky, the plot thickens. The Libra Sun, enduring its time in the sign of its fall, must answer to Venus. For now, the goddess sits at the last degree of Leo, atop a royal star, and is in harmonious relationship to Mars. Accord, gratification and pleasure may be harvested. But act quickly, because tomorrow, she enters Virgo, the sign of her own fall. Ceres, the grain goddess, lies directly opposite her. The old story is unfolding: Persephone now begins her descent into the Underworld, and Demeter, in her grief, will soon cast a withering spell over the land. Our girl will be resurrected come spring, but it will be a long wait. We have been observing and venerating this cycle for thousands, upon thousands, of years—maintaining faith in the face of implacable limitation, and fear of the unknown. 

The Harvest Moon, which is the annual full moon closest to the fall equinox, is so-named because, traditionally, it provided the extra light by which the workers in the fields cut the last of the crops before the onset of darkness and winter. Following that, there would be celebration and feasting, as cultures around the world have honored the work of the scythe, which cleaved the sacred space between feast and famine, potency and dormancy, life and death. The Sun is losing its vigor; the Corn Mother is no longer fertile. To give thanks for a bountiful and life-giving harvest is, paradoxically, to give thanks to the Reaper. 

In the midst of life, we are in death, as the old saying goes. I would say the reverse is true too. This, to me, is the lesson at the heart of the Libran scales: holding space for all seasons in the eternal cycle, and recognizing that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. One door closes and another one opens, ad infinitum. This places us into a world of relativity and ambivalence, and challenges us to make peace with uncertainty. Full moons, likewise, invite us to confront polarities, and are times of culmination and release. In this particular lunation, endings, challenges, sacrifice and acceptance are additional themes being highlighted, and carried forward by the other transits throughout the upcoming weeks. 

Meditate on the idea of completion in your life currently: What rewards are ready to be reaped? What is being consummated? What debt has been fulfilled? What has run its course and can now be released? And perhaps the most challenging work: how can you glean peace, find hope, and see beauty, when the darkness sets in?