Astrology Highlights for Oct. 14-20, 2024: A Moonlit Battlefield

Consent

There are many reasons why we might become embroiled in conflict. It could be that we want something that someone else wants, and only one of us can have it. We might feel that someone means to harm us and ours. Or, our ego may be injured.

Every now and then, we have occasion to feel disrespected, not very smart, and general lesser than someone else. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me much at this stage of life, but when it does, it stings as much as ever, despite my advancing age and reasonable level of confidence. Does it make me want to retaliate? I mean, it kind of does, if I’m honest.

The Sun symbolizes ego and the sense of sacred selfhood. When it engages in a square aspect to contentious Mars (Oct. 14, 2024, 1:15 am PDT), don’t be surprised to find yourself fuming at some slight, perceived or imagined. Open warfare is one way to respond. But a cannier response would be to address your own insecurity. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Dream House

I have met my dream house. It’s a tiny, dowdy beach house on a desirable stretch of beach in a small, rather remote village on California’s central coast. Let’s say the gods someday saw fit to grant my wish to live in this house. But then, one wintry, rain-soaked morning, a gigantic mudslide closes down the main highway through town, essentially trapping me in the situation I’d wished for.

Even if we succeed in summoning our desires, they can be complicated by unexpected realities that we didn’t see coming.

This, in a nutshell, is Venus in magical Scorpio opposed Uranus (the unexpected) in down-to-earth Taurus (Oct. 14, 2024, 3:22 pm PDT). The desires we’re intent on manifesting, if realized, could take us in unexpected and perhaps unwanted directions. We may just wish for a change in our current circumstances which, when it happens, opens a genie’s bottle of drama.

The ultimate objective of this opposition is something in-between – a dream that satisfies our desires while keeping us from becoming too complacent. As Venus in Scorpio opposes Uranus this week, it will find a way to demonstrate that even magic has its limitations, and is subject to the visible world’s unforeseen interventions.

The Approach of the King

I was born with Venus trine Neptune, and before my life as an astrologer I was a singer and musician. When I stood onstage to sing, I felt a loving exchange of energy between me and the audience. If it was an especially vulnerable and emotional song, I could feel a kind of magical, almost healing interchange.

All art has the potential to elevate us, heal us, and bond us more closely with others. As Venus trines Neptune (Oct. 15, 2024, 5:49 pm PDT) this week, it’s on the Sabian symbol 28 Scorpio: The king of the fairies approaching his domain. And Neptune is on 28 Pisces: A fertile garden under the full moon.

This is a healing aspect on magical symbols. We return to our place of greatest comfort, a fertile garden under a full moon. When Venus trines Neptune, it’s easier than usual to summon our talents and our loving hearts to create a beautiful, uplifting, and healing bridge between ourselves and others – or maybe one special other.

A Moonlit Battlefield

Each Full Moon shines its light on things we haven’t been able to see before, and particularly on the inner, lunar landscape. During each Sun in Libra season, an Aries Full Moon highlights the ways in which we’ve been prioritizing ourselves, whether more or less than is healthy for our relationships with others. And this particular Aries Full Moon (Oct. 17, 2024, 4:26 am PDT), with the Sun, Moon, and Mars all tangled in a furious cardinal cross with Pluto, is like being shoved out onto a moonlit battlefield with rockets bursting all around you.

This Aries Full Moon is part of a lunar phase family cycle that began with the dramatic Solar Eclipse of April 19, 2023, at 29º50′ Aries. It was the first Aries Solar Eclipse since 2015, with all the intensity of a Sun and Moon at the very last degree of a sign. The Aries place in our birth charts was awakened by that eclipse, and ever since, we may have been struggling to figure out what to do with the spaces that opened up there.

This Full Moon reveals some answers. Every important relationship is tested – with family, with your partner, with your boss, and most importantly, with yourself.

Apple Pie

One autumn weekend a few years ago, I took a drive and ended up in the mountain town of Julian, where the trees were changing color and the autumn apple season was underway.

I parked myself at the window table in a diner at the center of town and ate my breakfast with a view of the autumn leaves and bustling tourists. Every one of them seemed determined to wear their autumn sweaters even though the temperature was edging into the mid-70’s, determined to buy fresh apple pies to take home although no one is eating gluten. In short, determined to have the best damn autumn Saturday possible in the mountains of San Diego.

And I noticed something else: Everywhere I looked, there were pregnant women. Even my waitress was pregnant!

Venus, the goddess of attraction, walked among us glowing and fecund, radiating new life in the season of endings. Venus and Pluto in aspect, as in this week’s sextile (Oct. 17, 2024, 5:30 am PDT), contain the contrasting wisdom of life and death, brightness and dark; and from time to time, if we sit quietly at the window, we can glimpse them holding hands and carrying an apple pie.

An Exciting Stranger

You can love someone for a very long time, really think you know everything there is to know about them… and then one day, they surprise you. They use a word you’ve never heard them use, or share an anecdote you’ve never heard. And just like that, it’s like being in love with an entirely different person.

When Venus is in Sagittarius (Oct. 17, 2024, 12:28 pm PDT, through Nov. 11), anything novel, different, or foreign is especially enchanting. Sagittarius is a vagabond sign, and Venus in this sign loves to travel. While Venus is in Sagittarius, we gain enjoyment from the unfamiliar, even if we don’t venture far from home. Try cooking a new dish from an unfamiliar cuisine. Download an app that will help you learn a few phrases in a foreign language. Pore over maps and plan future adventures. And keep your eyes and ears open for those happy little moments when a loved one of many years suddenly becomes an exciting stranger.