A Single Cut, a Martial Embrace, and the Beast Awakens
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Measure Twice, Cut Once
A Full Moon can act as a reflecting pool or a funhouse mirror, either amplifying or distorting the truth. The Aries Full Moon (Sep. 24, 7:52 pm) asks, are you fighting to clear the air, or just spoiling for a fight? Are you being good to yourself, or self-indulgent? Are you showing courage, or being a bully? The Sun in Libra serves as a reminder that balance requires two equally strong forces that know when to assert and when to yield. But the Sun and Full Moon square Saturn (the Sun’s exact square to Saturn comes the next day), brings with it a tendency to see these things in black and white, with relatively little nuance.
As Mars makes its conjunction with the Moon’s South Node (Sep. 25, 10:17 pm) and the Moon squares Pluto (Sep. 26, 3:28 am), it may be time to have some tough conversations that permanently change long-time relationships. Sometimes that’s completely necessary; be sure this is one of those times. In the old woodworkers adage, measure twice and cut once.
“Don’t do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.” ― Assassin’s Apprentice
In a Martial embrace
Twice each year, I find that in the week before the Sun squares Saturn, my energy flags and things feel much more difficult than they should. Of course, I’m a Leo, so the Sun is my ruling planet; but I think the general principle holds true for us all. Stick the solar seed of incipient selfhood into hard, compacted soil, and it doesn’t matter how much water and fertilizer you give it: it’s going to have a hard time spreading its roots and growing.
The Sun/Saturn square is exact on Sep. 26, and the very next day the Sun falls into the willing, waiting, excited arms of Mars (Sep. 27 4:35 pm). “Let’s dance!” they exclaim. “Let’s make love, and create, and celebrate the fact that we’re alive, dammit, and we made it through that awful damn summer while Mars was retrograde and there were all those eclipses! WE’RE ALIVE!”
These sentiments are echoed by the Moon a few days later, with trines to each of the Sun (Sep. 29, 6:34 pm) and Mars (4:16 pm). But first, the Moon enters her Disseminating phase (Sep. 28, 1:46 pm). The Disseminating Moon begins with a scratchy, smoldering, dissatisfied Moon/Sun sesqui-square; call it a hangover, after the jubilant release of the 27th. Hydrate, get a little rest, and by the time the Moon enters Gemini early on the morning of the 29th, you’ll be ready to shift into full Disseminating mode. Picture an operatic diva walking onto the stage, centering herself in the spot light – then taking an enormous breath and letting forth a glorious noise. It is the thrilling sound of a story that needs to be told.
If you’re gonna sing, sing loud. – Travis Tritt
The Beast Awakens
This is the moment in the story when we might imagine that everything has resolved, and the protagonists will link arms and stroll merrily into the sunset. But then a monster awakes from its slumber and rolls over with a mighty bellow. It’s Pluto, turning direct (Sep. 30, 7:01 pm PDT at 18.45 Cap) after its usual long, retrograde slumber.
Pluto last passed over 18.45 Capricorn on the last day of 2017. The Sun and Venus were Pluto’s bright companions then, and the calendar year finished on a decidedly Plutonian note. We didn’t know what 2018 would bring, but we could safely assume we would not end it as exactly the same people we were when we entered it.
As Pluto turned retrograde last spring (April 22, 2018), Mars was his hotheaded, renegade sidekick. And after Pluto rolled over to go to sleep, Mars leaped over him and headed off, utterly unsupervised, toward his summer of retrograde mischief. Imagine as Pluto awakens to a landscape which Mars, Saturn, and Uranus have recently trampled like a team of wild stallions. Even the old controversy about Pluto’s planetary status has been reignited!
We live most of our days lulled into comfortable unconsciousness by routine, but now and again, the tectonic plates of our lives slip and shift. The volatile summer has unloosed our moorings, making change possible; and now, at the dawn of a new season, Pluto is making it inevitable, and permanent.
“Leis go brown, tectonic plates shift, deep currents move, islands vanish, rooms get forgotten.”
― The Year of Magical Thinking
© 2018 April Elliott Kent
