Curfew
If you were a big reader growing up, you might recall occasionally running afoul of your bedtime curfew by pulling your blanket over your head and finishing off a particularly compelling book by flashlight. You might have gotten hollered at by mom or dad, or been pretty tired the next day, but it was worth it.
When Mercury, the voracious reader of the solar system, comes together with the big flashlight of the Sun (Sep. 30, 2024, 2:09 pm PDT), it begins its transition from morning star to nighttime star. The ideas and inspirations we’ve gathered since their last conjunction (Aug. 18), while Mercury was retrograde, are ready to be carried under the blankets with us for an absorbing review. The exact right story or insight has a way of appearing while Mercury is cazimi (within 17′ of the Sun – between 5:35 am and 10:47 p. m. Pacific Time) – and that’s worth breaking your curfew for.
Learned from a Libra
This week’s Libra New Moon (Oct. 2, 2024, 11:49 am PDT, 10.03 Libra) is the last eclipse in this sign until 2033. After bouncing through a couple of other Libra eclipses over the past year (Oct. 14, 2023 and March 25, 2024), you’ve probably watched the edginess of eclipses shake up more than a few relationships close to you. This one will be no different; in fact, with the Sun and Moon square Mars, this may be the tipping point eclipse that topples relationship on the verge of collapse.
Libra is the sign of relationship, but as an air sign it isn’t the most touchy-feely. A Libra friend is fond of pointing out that it’s the only zodiac sign represented by an inanimate object. She says it to be funny–as though Libra represents a triumph of engineering over feeling–and it is funny. But there’s a deeper truth in Libra’s scales of justice, a cool, elegant, mathematical precision to the Libran mind and worldview.
I married a Libran, and this sign is an utterly foreign land to me. I was born with zero planets, angles, points, or major asteroids in the sign; I’m headstrong and a little rough around the edges, and I suspect my unconscious mind steered me toward someone who could guide me through Libra’s finishing school.
Now, I used to complain strenuously about the folly of trying to fill our empty spaces with another person’s gifts. Marrying someone who will supply what you lack seems like a precarious position in which to put oneself. Why not develop ourselves into well-rounded people by becoming good at math, understanding insurance policies, or getting to appointments on time, instead of marrying someone else who can do those things with ease?
But here’s what I was overlooking: If you marry a person who is good at the things you’re not, they just might help you develop those qualities yourself.
Like everyone, I have plenty of faults and weaknesses. But because I’ve lived with this particular man for three decades, I’ve adapted to better perform functions that did not come factory-installed in me. For example, I’m better than I used to be at critical thinking, at standing up for myself, doing simple repairs and troubleshooting, and math. I’ve become better, too, at compromise, and the give-and-take of relationship. All because I’ve had a long, happy partnership with someone who was born knowing how to be married, how to contribute to another person’s happiness and growth. He’s shown me how to be better at it, too.
It is a flaw in the machinery of mankind that we periodically come to brink of destroying one another. We could use a few more evolved Libra types on the job, trying to repair that particular mechanism. Meanwhile, here in the cheap seats, we would do well to just enjoy one another a little more, and to help each other fill in our empty spaces and work our way toward completeness. It’s the essence of relating, of peace, and of love–and in spite of the world’s many flaws, and our own, it seems this is the way the world works best.
I learned that from a Libra.
Recovery
Venus in Scorpio loves deeply and, when its heart is broken, grieves commensurately. After an emotional setback (you may have experienced one around the time of the Venus/Pluto square on Sep. 22), the time will come to get back on our feet; but usually, it’s wise to first lay low and recover our emotional strength.
At its most positive sense, Venus’ trine to Saturn (Oct. 4, 2024, 10:04 am PDT, 14º07′ Scorpio/Pisces) can mark the deepening and formalizing of a relationship – especially as they’re both very close to the same aspect with Mars in Cancer at this time. If that’s the case for you, warmest congratulations. But if you’re feeling hurt, unloved, undervalued, even betrayed… take this transit as a prescription to spend time alone to recover and to protect yourself from further harm. When we’ve loved deeply, we grieve deeply when love is lost – and we need time and space to recover deeply.
Consequences
Anytime Mercury, the planet of communication, makes a square to Mars (Oct. 5, 2024, 11:37 pm PDT, 17º33’ Libra/Cancer), the planet of war and battle, we have to step pretty carefully when it comes to what we say, and how.
At this week’s square, Mercury is on the Sabian symbol 18 Libra, Two men placed under arrest, and Mars is on the symbol 18 Cancer, A hen scratching for her chicks. What these symbols share in common is the concept of taking responsibility – two men facing legal consequences for their actions, and a hen taking care of her little chicks. And this week we, too, might find ourselves in the position of coming face to face with the consequences, whether good, bad, or neutral, of what we’ve set into motion, and words that can’t be unsaid.
Mercury in Libra, as it is here, is generally civilized and tactful; but the tendency of an intellectual air sign like Libra is to be clear about what it thinks, rather than what it feels. At this aspect to Mars in tender Cancer, be aware that words, however artfully spoken, can sometimes be hurtful. People will be very sensitive on this date to what is said and the way that it’s said. So even if you have to speak hard truths, do it with heart. And if you find yourself hurt by another’s words, walk away, and give those feelings a chance to settle.
Writing and images © 2017-24 by April Elliott Kent
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