Astrology for Oct. 3-9, 2022: Sitting in Silence

Sitting in Silence

Dates and times are given for U.S. Pacific Time zone.

None of the Trappings

I love staying in hotels for reasons that go beyond a nice view and tiny soaps and bottles of shampoo. Mostly, it’s because I love spending time in a place that contains few traces of my real life. A hotel room may have a bit of personality, but none of it is mine. There are none of the trappings that distract me at home – the bric-a-brac that needs culling, the paper that needs shredding, stacks of books and file folders that need refiling. The very best hotels are in remote places where internet access is extremely limited, so I can’t distract myself with electronic clutter, either. There’s just… me. Whoever that is.

This week, Mercury in Virgo makes the last in a sequence of trines to Pluto in Capricorn (Oct. 6, 2022, 8:55 pm PDT). The first two, on Aug. 22 and Sep. 27, reminded us of the importance of what we tell the world – and ourselves – about who we are. This final aspect rewards that introspection with the focus and power that comes from removing the trappings and messaging that annoy us, overwhelm us, and distract us from our true purpose.

Not Everyone Makes It

After moving retrograde since April 29, Pluto turns direct this week (October 8th at 2:56 PM PDT, 26º06′ Capricorn) on the Sabian symbol 27 Capricorn: A Mountain Pilgrimage.

Pluto on this Sabian symbol brings to mind a grim story I heard on an episode of the Omnibus podcast. It seems the path to the top of Mount Everest is now populated, if you will, by the frozen bodies of hikers who didn’t make it to the top. They’re unburied, frozen monuments to the true peril of the endeavor, and a harrowing reminder that it’s never easy to reach any worthwhile goal.

There is a moment in any life journey where things get kind of grim. I mean, not Mount Everest grim, but still… the moments when Pluto changes direction tend to be when something stops us in our tracks and reminds us of the stark reality of our frailty, our mortality, and the experience of futility.

We celebrate the stories of those who made it to the top of the mountain, but the reality is that not everyone makes it. And that has been the story of Pluto in Capricorn ever since 2008 when it entered this sign. We’re coming into the home stretch now, as Pluto reaches the end of Capricorn. The top of the mountain is in sight.

As Pluto reaches the end of this very worldly and ambitious sign, it may become evident that we’re not actually going to reach the heights of the mountain we started climbing when Pluto entered Capricorn all those years ago. But maybe it was the wrong mountain, and maybe we’re in a much better position now to reach the summit of the right one.

Sitting in Silence

A newly married couple are dining, side-by-side, at their favorite restaurant. They spy an older couple a few tables away, eating their dinner in silence. “We’ll never be like that,” they whisper to one another, tsking sadly at what looks like the chilly indifference of long acquaintance.

But speaking as somebody with the Moon in Gemini, who loves to talk more than anything – and my husband has Gemini rising, so we will never run out of things to talk about – honestly, after thirty years together, there’s just a lot less you have to say. You develop a shorthand with each other, and with so much shared history you can observe something going on around you, exchange glances with slightly raised eyebrows, and burst into laughter without saying a word.

The Sabian symbol for the Aries Full Moon (Oct. 9, 2022, 1:55 pm PDT, 16º32’) is 17 Aries, Two prim spinsters sitting in silence. Maybe it is a sad image. Maybe they’re bored and uninterested in communicating with each other. But maybe they just don’t have to speak so much in order to understand each other.

Aries, in any event, is a sign of action rather than talk. This is the halfway point in a lunar phase gestation cycle that began with the April 11th, 2021 New Moon in Aries. We’re precisely halfway through a story that began at that tough, gritty New Moon, which featured a close square from the Sun and Moon to Pluto, accentuating Aries’ most independent qualities. At this Full Moon – which is a more comfortable distance from Pluto – we might feel a little more relaxed, more willing to throttle back on that prickly independence.

The Sun in Libra at this Full Moon is on the symbol A retired sea captain, another solitary image. Is he lonely, or just alone, happy in his own company, content with his accomplishments? Are the spinsters silent because they understand one another deeply, or not at all? There’s independence, and then there’s loneliness. This is a Full Moon to contemplate the difference between the two, and to adjust the parameters of intimacy accordingly.