Big Sky Astrology Podcast
Ep 317 | Libra New Moon: Not So Pink and Frothy! (10.20.25)
Hello Invisible Friend, April here, and the date today is October 20th, 2025. Welcome to Episode 317 of the Big Sky Astrology Podcast.
This week, partnerships and values are highlighted in the Libra New Moon. Neptune backstrokes into Pisces. The Sun enters Scorpio and squares Pluto and gets to work uncovering what we’ve been hiding underneath the surface. Mercury identifies our biggest dreams as it meets with Jupiter and lays out a practical path to success with Saturn. And I answer a listener question about finding community, especially in the realms of astrology and spirituality.
Libra New Moon (Oct. 21, 2025, 5:25 am PDT)
The week begins with the Moon Report, and as always, we begin with the week’s major lunation. This week, that is the Libra New Moon on Tuesday, October 21st at 5:25 a.m. Pacific Time, at 28º 21 minutes Libra on the Sabian symbol, 29 Libra, Humanity seeking to bridge the span of knowledge.
I have a friend who asks me each month at the New Moon, “What is this one about?” And the Libra New Moon each year, in a word, is about relationship. How are we getting along with other people? Are we managing to connect with the people whose values match our own?
This particular New Moon in Libra is not the pink, frothy, romantic Libra New Moon we might imagine. It is at the very end of the sign, and the Sun and Moon are getting ready to move into Scorpio, at which point they immediately square Pluto. Pluto is not pink and frothy. And when the New Moon is in difficult aspect to a planet like Pluto, we know that this is a 29-day period – and in the case of the lunar phase family cycle, it’s about a three-year period – of untangling some of the more difficult issues that might have been standing in the way of us having the best possible experience in our relationships.
When Pluto is involved, it’s about having real intimacy. So, to the extent that there’s anything in your close relationships that has been going unexpressed but is boiling underneath the surface and causing conflict, this is going to be a New Moon that’s going to require us to confront that.
The Sabian symbol, Humanity seeking to bridge the span of knowledge, seems to me to be about the ways we pass knowledge down from generation to generation. We don’t always know everything that we need to know. I’ve sort of wondered as I’ve gotten older, there aren’t a whole lot of elders left in my life, and there are many things about growing older that I’ve sometimes wished that I could go to an older, trusted person in my life to get advice or perspective about it. And I’m at a point now where really what I need to do is to take my place in that chain and to begin to focus on sharing more about what I know with the following generations.
With this New Moon in a conflict aspect with Pluto, we might also experience in some of our relationships some power struggles or issues of control. And I know we’ve talked about that recently when Venus was in aspect to Pluto. And this is a New Moon season, kind of for uncovering that.
Lunar Phase Family Cycle
This is the New Moon in a lunar phase family cycle that will unfold over the coming three years, with important turning points every nine months around the issues of this New Moon. So, they will be about the ways in which we are trying to exercise control or maintain control, especially in our relationships.
The First Quarter Moon in this lunar phase family cycle comes nine months from now on July 21st, 2026. That’ll be at 28º43’ Libra.
And anything that we are thinking about at this New Moon, for example, I have a friend who recently went on vacation and was dismayed to find that she was very out of shape and it was difficult for her to do all the things that she wanted to do. So, she is making a determination to meet with a trainer and to build herself up, which to me is very much of the nature of the New Moon in a square to Pluto. It says, “I’m going to empower myself by strengthening myself.”
So maybe at the First Quarter Moon nine months from now, she might see – or you might see in whatever you’re determined to do with this New Moon – an opportunity to move forward or to see progress on some of the things that are important to you at this New Moon. Nine months from that is a Full Moon on April 20th, 2027, at 00º36’ Scorpio. The Full Moon in a cycle is always when we take stock and we say, wow, this is how far I’ve come and this is how far I still have to go in these goals.
And nine months later, a Last Quarter Moon on January 18th, 2028 – doesn’t that sound so far away – at 28º13’ Libra will show us one more opportunity to push through the remaining blockages or restrictions so that we can finish up this lunar phase family much more empowered and in control of our lives than we were at the beginning.
Void-of-Course Moon periods
Let’s look at the Void-of-Course Moon periods for this week.
On Tuesday, October 21st, the Moon in Libra makes a conjunction with the Sun at 5:25 am Pacific Time, and that, of course, is the Libra New Moon. It’s then Void-of-Course for 3 hours 17 minutes and enters Scorpio at 8:42 a.m. When the Moon comes together in a conjunction with another planet as it’s going void-of-course, the Moon is assimilating the qualities of that planet, and of course, they are in the same sign of Libra. What we are assimilating from the Sun in Libra is an appreciation of qualities like fairness, diplomacy, and harmony.
We can do this in small ways. I always think that the Void-of-Course Moon is a time to initiate new habits and routines and the ones that we’re initiating here have to do with showing a little bit more kindness and consideration. So go ahead and let that person merge onto the highway in front of you instead of speeding up and cutting them off. When you enter a place of business, hold the door for someone who’s walking in behind you. Make sure you’re not taking up two parking spaces when you park your car. Little considerate habits like these are not necessary, but they make life sweeter, less brutal, more harmonious.
On Thursday, October 23rd, the Moon in Scorpio trines Neptune at 9:14 pm Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for only five minutes and then enters Sagittarius at 9:19 pm. A very short Void-of-Course Moon because Neptune will have only just moved back into Pisces, so it’s at the very end of the sign and the Moon makes its aspect at the very end of its sign and then has this very short Void-of-Course Moon.
The Moon trine Neptune, especially in water signs, speaks of initiating some kind of habit that puts you more in touch with the energies of the day with your own intuition. This can be a little routine of getting up in the morning, having your coffee or your tea and maybe pull a couple of tarot cards and consider what they mean with regard to the day ahead of you, or take a look at the transits of the day and think about what you might accomplish during this day that feels right. Again, it’s very much about following your intuition – sitting with that and thinking, “What is my intuition telling me is the best possible use for this day?”
On Sunday, October 26th, the Moon in Sagittarius squares Neptune at 9:42 am Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for 11 minutes, then enters Capricorn at 9:53 am. When we have the Moon square a planet as it’s going Void-of-Course, we know there’s some kind of conflict we’re working with. This one can be about belief and faith. And remember that just because we believe in something doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true, and likewise, having faith in something doesn’t make it any more valid.
I think we can use this Void-of-Course Moon period to consider other points of view, no matter how different they may be from our own, and to condition ourselves to get into a habit of doing that regularly, because we really can learn and grow from it.
Neptune enters Pisces (Oct. 22, 2025, 2:51 am PDT)
On Wednesday, October 22nd, at 2:51 am Pacific Time, Neptune retrogrades back into the sign of Pisces for its final passage through this sign in our lifetimes.
Neptune first entered Pisces back in 2011 and 2012, so it’s been there for a while, it moves pretty slowly. It briefly went into Aries earlier this year on March 30th, and it will leave Pisces for good on January 26th, 2026 – and this really begins a new era of Neptune that lasts through 2038. But before it moves on into Aries, Neptune offers a few final lessons about faith, compassion, and illusion.
I think the sign that Neptune is moving through talks about our universal dream, and the dream of Neptune in Pisces is a world that’s united in peace and healing and spiritual understanding. But the shadow side of Neptune in the sign has really shown us a lot of denial, disillusionment, and a culture that seems to turn away pretty often from truths that are painful.
The Sabian symbol for the last degree of Pisces, where Neptune re-enters the sign, is 30 Pisces, The great stone face and I’m fond of Dane Ruddyer’s interpretation of the symbol, which is, A majestic rock formation resembling a face is idealized by a boy who takes it as his ideal of greatness and as he grows up begins to look like it. And the overall meaning really of the symbol is that we become what we idealize, and that is both a gift and a warning of Neptune as it is moving through signs by transit.
There isn’t really any right way to live or to believe. We do have to be a little bit careful that what we are idealizing reflects our highest ideals, our highest virtues. And as Neptune completes this little rest time in Pisces through the end of January, take a quick review of maybe what we have been idealizing and any wake-up calls that have come along about things that we have looked up to, and decide how this is going to inform our ideal view of the world that we will carry forward when Neptune ultimately goes back into Aries.
Sun enters Scorpio (Oct. 22, 2025, 8:51 pm PDT)
The Sun enters Scorpio on Wednesday, October 22nd at 8:51 pm Pacific Time, and it is on the Sabian symbol 1 Scorpio, A sightseeing bus. This is a really good image for Scorpio, which has this intense curiosity to explore all of life’s mysteries.
The Moon and Mars and Mercury are all together in Scorpio and part of a grand water trine with Jupiter in Cancer and Saturn and the North Node in Pisces. The result is this highly intuitive and emotionally charged atmosphere, and it’s one that invites us to heal and it also encourages catharsis.
With the Sun also moving towards its square with Pluto, we can see conflict and tensions, and this can stir us toward a powerful transformation. The Major Arcana tarot card for Scorpio is Death, an often misunderstood and kind of threatening card, but what it really symbolizes is the death of an old way of being, endings and then the renewal and the courage to move through life’s transitions.
The Sun will be in the sign until November 21st. As the Sun makes its journey through Scorpio, we move through a season of remembrance and reverence. Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, Samhain, Veterans Day, these are all holidays that honor the bridge between life and death and that goes back a little bit to our Sabian symbol for the New Moon – Humanity seeking to bridge the span of knowledge – and how we are connected to everything and everybody who has come before us and availing ourselves of the knowledge and discoveries of those past generations.
This is a season of curiosity, not the light curiosity of Gemini, which is intrigued by something for a moment and then moves on, but rather a deep curiosity about the things that are unseen. The desire to look beneath the surface and find wisdom in those cycles of loss and renewal that connect all of us.
Sun square Pluto (Oct. 24, 2025, 6:24 am PDT)
On Friday, October 24th at 6:24 am Pacific Time, the Sun squares Pluto at 1º23’ Scorpio and Aquarius, and always when the Sun is a difficult aspect to Pluto, we see a kind of tug of war between the individual self – the Sun – and figures of collective empowerment. This can be authorities, it can be those who we see as being in control of our world and sometimes it’s not even about people at all. It can be illness, it can be a setback in your business or your financial situation.
The Sabian symbols add a little more depth here. The Sun is on 2 Scorpio, A broken bottle and spilled perfume, and this always brings to mind nostalgia, the bittersweet awareness of what we’ve lost. It’s kind of like running across an old lover’s bottle of perfume or cologne and breaking it and smelling that aroma that brings back so many memories. And Pluto is on 2 Aquarius, Unexpected thunderstorm. Change comes suddenly, and it can clear the air and it can wash away what’s no longer real or useful. It will also usually wash away that beautiful aroma of the past as well.
This is an aspect that can make us feel insignificant but actually it’s an opportunity to reclaim your own power. The Sun’s square to Pluto burns away falseness and waste, and it makes room for a renewal of who we truly are, not who we were in the past, not who we are in contrast to others that we see as more powerful. Letting go of the past can be painful, but of course it’s the only way forward. And in that state of vulnerability, there is also the potential for great strength, and having nothing to hide, having nothing to prove can ultimately set us free.
Mercury trine Jupiter (Oct. 24, 2025, 8:08 am PDT)
Mercury trine Saturn (Oct. 25, 2025, 2:17 pm PDT)
On Friday, October 24th at 8:08 am Pacific Time, Mercury trines Jupiter at 24º37’ Scorpio and Cancer, and this is a terrific day for precisely articulating your big dreams for the future, excellent for inspiration and for getting creative ideas. The next day, on Saturday, October 25th, at 2:17 pm Pacific Time, Mercury trines Saturn, and that is at 26º06’ Scorpio and Pisces.
So, in Mercury trine Jupiter, we see the formulation of a great vision, a great dream. Mercury with Saturn is where we write down our plan, our business plan, so to speak, for what it is that we want to do moving forward and a very detailed plan. It’s Mercury in Scorpio, so there’s the impulse to really research something we might be wanting to do, the better to move forward in a productive way.
Listener Question: Finding Community
In this week’s listener question, listener Alyssa writes, “My question is in regards to finding community. I turned 30 this year, and as growth and changes occurred, many of the friendships of my 20s have naturally dialed down or gone in different directions. I’m wondering if you have any suggestions for finding communities for authentic friendships, particularly those that could be based in astrology and spirituality. As I get older, I crave more meaningful connections and I wonder if a shared interest like astrology could attract that.”
Alyssa, this New Moon in Libra is such a great time to be contemplating this question. Community is one way of experiencing relationship. Certainly, there are those one-on-one relationships, romantic partnerships, very close friends that are all very important. But even though community relationships don’t always have the strong emotional resonance of those other kinds of relationships, doesn’t make them any less important. It is very important to have a feeling that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves and I think that’s what group and community organizations represent really.
We do, as we move through life, find ourselves in different kinds of circumstances. You may have had friends in your 20s who are now at a different stage of life, starting a family or moving, or changing career and you will have gone through big changes of your own. So, it is a good time always to be reassessing and think, “What is it that is important to me at this stage of my life?”
If you’re really clear about that, it’s much easier to start to reach out and find others who feel the same way. You’ve identified astrology and spirituality as being things that matter to you and that would suggest stronger and more meaningful connections with those around you. Fortunately, it’s never been easier to connect with other people who share those interests.
I always think the best place to start with this is to find something in your community, and even if it’s an astrology group that only meets once a month, or if they’re a little bit of a distance to get to, you can do that once a month. One place you can look is the website for NCGR, and we will put the link to that in the show notes, because they have a lot of local chapters throughout the U.S. and in fact throughout the world. And if you can find one of their meetings, I know we have one here in San Diego that’s fantastic, and gives you an opportunity to hear wonderful speakers and, more importantly, perhaps just to meet people who share that interest and that you can speak the language with.
It means so much and depending on where you live, especially if you’re close to a fairly large city or metropolitan area, there’s probably a local astrology group that you can find and reach out to. Just Google astrology in your city and you might be surprised at what you find. Check that out.
They might have just a monthly lecture or a lecture and a workshop and some cities have more than one of these groups. Here in San Diego, where I live, we have a wonderful local group, the San Diego Astrological Society and also a chapter of NCGR.
Now, since the pandemic, some of these local groups have gone to a hybrid model where they’re meeting in person and online and some have just stayed online. But I think increasingly more and more groups are going with this hybrid model and part of the advantage of that is they can attract speakers from all over the world, not just locally.
But in terms of building community in the way you’d like, I really encourage you to reach out and try to find these local groups that focus on astrology or spirituality in whatever way seems meaningful to you. Most astrology groups, anyway, are open to people of all levels of astrological knowledge.
You can be anything from a complete beginner to a practicing professional and learn something from these groups and be welcome.
And if it works out for you, time-wise and where you live, consider going to an astrology conference. It can be a great opportunity. I went to my first astrology conference when I was just a little baby astrologer. I’d only really been studying seriously for a couple of years and boy, what an amazing experience it was, and it meant so much to see these wonderful speakers whose books I had read.
We have a big conference coming up – I’ll just put a little plug for it. The United Astrological Conference will meet next year, September 2026, in Chicago. It is a wonderful conference. We haven’t had it since 2018 because of the pandemic. Normally, this conference meets every four years or so. I’ll be speaking at this conference, so if Alyssa or if any of my Invisible Friends end up going to this conference, please get in touch with me and we will make sure to get together for a coffee.
I would really encourage you to try to make it. It can be literally life-changing for people when they come to a conference like this one. There are other groups that have conferences as well. We’ll just put a little list of resources for you in the show notes so you might look these things up and see if any of them are interesting to you. Try to do it in person. And there’s the convenience of being online, I’m not saying anything against it. I have people I’ve known online since 2000 or so and I consider them real friends even if we haven’t met in person. So that is a kind of community as well.
Look in your own birth chart, Alyssa, to the sign that is on the 11th house cusp. The 11th house really represents people who share our interests. They may or not become close personal friends of the heart, but we have things in common, and there can be real support in that, in making those connections. And the sign on the cusp of that house will say what it is that you’re looking for in an organization, what you seek in community, and how you seek it.
If you have something like Virgo or Capricorn on the cusp of that house, maybe you want to get involved and volunteer in these organizations. They always need volunteers and if you have some kind of real-world skills that you can bring and make your contribution, I’m sure that would be most welcome to certain groups. If it is an air sign like Gemini or Libra or Aquarius, it is about sharing learning and information with other people.
So you get the idea, and let that be a little bit of your guide on the way to engage with these kinds of groups.
I welcome you to the world of astrology, Alyssa. The people are wonderful, there’s always something to learn, and I hope that this is the beginning of a long and rewarding journey for you. Thank you so much for making my podcast one of those resources you turn to on this journey.
If you have a question you’d like me to answer on a future episode of the podcast, leave a voicemail of one minute or less at speakpipe.com / bigskyastrologypodcast or send me an email at april (at) bigskyastrology (dot) com and be sure to put “Podcast Question” in the subject line.
Donor Thanks
Well, that is everything on my show sheet, so I’m going to wrap this one up. Thank you for listening to the Big Sky Astrology Podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to subscribe or follow the show in your app of choice. It really helps us get discovered by new listeners. Leave a rating or a review, and I hope that you’ll help spread the word by telling an astrology-loving friend about the podcast.
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That is it for this episode. Join me again bright and early next Monday, and until then, keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars!
Writing and images © 2017-25 by April Elliott Kent
For more on this week’s planetary news, read my column!
