Against the backdrop of both Pluto and Saturn stationing direct, Mars and Mercury in Libra will both join up with the Sun in Libra for a triple conjunction. Our direct experience may be engaging us with a kind of conflict: whether literal conflict is in our spheres or if our reactions and responses to events initiate us into an inner-wrestling and psychospiritual activation.
Every now and then, I compare the astrology (and it’s one of those weeks) to the need to soliloquize – the actor takes a moment to step away from the stage and poetically explicate in a monologue, staring off into the spotlight, what the fuck is happening! Maybe this is that moment we talk to ourselves in the mirror, theatrically exploring the complexities of our inner world or giving ourselves a pep talk in the face of forgetting who the fuck we are — and all the while, also seeking to not become inflated or not to misdirect the heat coursing through the moment.
The emphasis of the air signs suggests mental activity here — that while our bodies and soma feel the heat of our stress, and embodied practices help us metabolize that energy and connect more deeply with ourselves – I think we’re also looking for cognitive, upper-chakra insight, a breakthrough. A needed alignment of root, heart, crown. Some way of looking at the situation that restores our harmony, yet honors our instincts. Some way of engaging the other characters in the grand drama that restores communal harmony, and honors aliveness.
As we perhaps know, much war originates in the mind – in our concepts, our perspectives that create separation. There comes a time when these precepts that inform our warfare or inner-violence come into the light and we have the opportunity to actually change our thinking.
Welcome back! Or in case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’m a soul-centered astrologer. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the zeitgeist feels like at this moment in time, to support you on your path & open a dialogue between us and the cosmos. If you would like to receive these weekly forecasts to your inbox and be notified of upcoming educational opportunities, sign up for my mailing list here.
Watch this week’s forecast on YouTube with added commentary, or keep reading below:
Here’s our week after a few announcements!
The upcoming Evolutionary Astrology Intensive is now open for enrollment! It will be the ninth run of this program 🖤 It is a comprehensive entry (or deepening) into the world of soul-based Plutonic astrology. As I get to see students respond to this material, I’m reminded every time about how Evolutionary Astrology is truly a wisdom tradition. I’ve had the pleasure of developing as a human alongside this material since I was 21, and it’s one of my biggest joys in life to share it and invite others into it. The course consists of pre-recorded content (that you can continue returning to indefinitely) and live sessions weekly to discuss as a group, and five culminating workshop classes.
In the last year or so students of mine have repetitively commented on the field or group dynamic that is created in our spaces. I just follow the lead of my favorite teachers – classes I had where everyone bonded. I watched how they did it, and figured out how to recreate that in my own way – I like my classes to be engaging and world-opening, initiatory experiences and a place to make real friends. I also sincerely think the content shared in this course is profound (the lineage I am a part of is profound itself) and when a group of people come together to attune to that and share how it lands for them, we do weave a beautiful community inevitably.
Enroll here. Apply for scholarship here (BIPOC encouraged). Read the testimonials on the course page. Reach out sabrina@monarchastrology.com if you have personal questions about the course that aren’t answered on the course page and we can discuss if this class is right for you.
New episodes of Magic of the Spheres! Tune in where you listen to podcasts.
We discussed synchronicity, spirit guides, and the radical quality of joy. It is just possible that this episode may be a ~portal~ into a deeper relationship with Spirit – I felt high at the end of this conversation and was distinctly seeing visions and images during this conversation that were very inspiring, uplifting, and enchanting to me. Shahir is a gifted channel and a very radiant being which you already know or will soon find out!
This episode with grey doolin is full of intimacy codes, from a perspective of embodiment — how intimacy with ourselves and others is connected to our capacity for sensation & how calling in what we desire involves preparing our bodies to receive it. grey is brilliant & illuminates the hotness in saying yes to ourselves at a deep level. We both felt the outer planetary presence of Uranus in Taurus and Pluto behind the themes of our conversation.
Here’s our week!
October 6, 2021
New Moon in 13 Libra: 4:05 AM PDT
This New Moon is also a Mars cazimi (cazimi is when a planet is within 1 degree of an exact conjunction to the Sun), with Mars in 13 degrees of Libra alongside the Sun and Moon. The lunation is opposite Chiron in 10 degrees of Aries.
- The New Moon is involved with a Mars-Chiron opposition in Libra and Aries, suggesting some level of tug-of-war internally or relationally around connection versus independence, leaning in versus leaning back, and the like.
- The integration between Aries and Libra may also be emphasized: that is, feeling freely expressed in connection with others, having freedom in our relationships, and connecting with others from a strongly rooted sense of self. While the integration seems ideal, the road to getting there may be marked by going to extremes and having to find balance.
- The emotional landscape of this New Moon appears very galvanized, or more negatively, agitated. If we are certain of who we are, what we want, where we are headed, etc. there may be some internal motivation to take necessary steps along that path. Agitation, likewise, may reveal to us through aversion/contrast what we value.
- As far as agitation, be mindful of the capacity for PROJECTION. There are many ways it is still culturally normal to see others as responsible for our emotions and problems, to see others as the cause of our opening and closing alike. It can be harder to see ourselves. Where we have blindspots, interactions with others (and where we have the most activated emotion) will show us those places. It is easy to associate the feeling with the person, but is it really about them?
- Perhaps from a higher perspective, this subjectively hairy-looking lunation is an opportunity to, with the spirit of the warrior (Mars in Libra and Chiron in Aries) prepare ourselves for a new level of intimacy by getting to know ourselves deeper. The more sovereign we are, the more freely we come to relationship from a place of actual choice, as opposed to games or defenses.
- Personal responsibility being noted, relationship tensions are real. The meeting of two different individuals, with different life experiences, desires, rhythms, etc. is bound to create moments of cohesion and moments of separation. Our capacity to discern self and other, to balance our own direction, will, instinctual nature, with more collected, thoughtful, tactful, harmonic ways of navigating life is being activated.
Pluto stations direct in 24 Capricorn: 11:29 AM PDT
(Image: Kate Moss by Rafael Pavarotti)
- Capricorn, like Aries and Libra, is a cardinal sign. Each cardinal sign relates to interdependence – Aries as the sense of self we bring into or discover via relationship, Cancer as attachment, Libra as the harmonic arts of love and connection and how we balance/attune/listen to others, and Capricorn as the rules, agreements, or containers that facilitate relationships.
- Pluto in Capricorn can relate to the undercurrents, unconscious, underbelly etc of the Capricorn archetype: our ethics that may not totally belong to us that we have inherited (and it takes awareness to unseat it) or our hidden agendas and expectations that we well, expect others to be on board with and is the place that we judge others from. “How could so and so do that? How could they say that?!”
- From a shadowy place, Pluto in Capricorn can also relate to the ways that we or others try to coerce compliance. In a more mutually empowered position, Pluto in Capricorn would relate to contracts and agreements that come from a place of free will. It becomes our responsibility to be aware of the power we do have so that we leverage it with intention, as well as to be sovereign and coming from a place of choice when we engage the power we perceive in others.
- For example (simply put here), if a friend asks another friend for a favor, it is arguably the responsibility of the person answering to answer honestly (as to not be resentful, out of integrity with themselves, etc.) and it is the responsibility of the person asking to be willing to hear a yes or no. Otherwise it is a demand, not a request.
- In relationships, when we are deriving our sense of security or self-esteem from another, we are far more likely to seek to subtly control or dominate the other to behave in the way we want them to. It takes a great deal of honesty to examine this and make a change, but is important if we are wanting to really be in connection and have satisfying relationships.
- Pluto’s station timed in synchrony with the New Moon suggests that whatever agitation and projection we are experiencing in relationship with other people is likely connected to unconscious material around expectations that is coming into conscious awareness through our sense of dissonance or emotional activation.
October 7, 2021
Venus enters Sagittarius: 4:21 AM PDT
- With Venus just having spent the last month in cathartic, intense Scorpio, this ingress into Sagittarius may bring a mood shift of levity. One of the inherent promises of the Scorpio-Sagittarius transition in general is that when we honestly face our shadow and deeper material (Scorpio), we subsequently gain access to larger perspective (Sagittarius). The shift into Sagittarius can herald philosophical integration.
- The aphrodisiac of Venus in Sagittarius is honesty: whether that is in our expression/words or how we bring all of ourselves, our fullness, into life. Venus in Sagittarius is not afraid to be a unique robust flavor that repels some and attracts others. The labor of making oneself smaller to be more palatable to a general audience is practically of no interest here. Venus in Sagittarius loves to take up space, in one’s own expression as well as in generosity of affection toward others.
Sun in 15 Libra conjunct Mars in 15 Libra: 9:01 PM PDT
(Image and top image: Army of Darkness, 1992)
- In some sense Mars has perhaps lost some patience being civil – Mars in Libra is like a brute warrior at a fancy dinner, eating meat with his hands, ignoring the layout of silverware with different size spoons and forks that he could care less which foods they are meant for. Some dynamic in our lives may be challenging our civility: we see what would be appropriate, but we feel this impulse to act out. Likewise, we may be directing a lot of energy toward civility that is difficult for us – like imagine being at a dinner trying to impress people you care to impress who aren’t well-disposed to you.
- In the midst of this drama around civility, Mars fusing with the Sun signifies that there may be a peak moment of gnosis, consciousness, illumination, in the face of this activation. Like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, facing a moral dilemma at the start of a war. There may be some struggle around a call to action.
- Considering this transit, it reminds me of a time I had a housemate with marked anger issues who went from being my friend to deciding she actually didn’t like me and was not open to reconciliation, and she became an open enemy in my life – very clearly directing hateful and aggressive energy toward me for the duration of the time living together as we were making our exits. I remember feeling like I hadn’t chosen this conflict (I would have chosen working through it instead of war) but feeling the pressure to respond to this aggression in an environment I hoped would be civil. It wasn’t just against my preference to deal with being around her – it was a deeper trip around having to address a conflict and seeing myself in that zone. At times we face dilemmas that are nearly philosophical. Consciousness (Sun) is illuminated because of the fight, the problem, the challenge, the severance (Mars).
October 9, 2021
Mercury retrograde in 16 Libra conjunct Sun in 16 Libra: 9:18 AM PDT
- With Mars still in 16 degrees of Libra, this is a double cazimi. Mercury-Mars relates to debate, argument, verbal aggression, interrupting and talking over in conversation. Mercury is retrograde, suggesting we may be re-thinking our way of engaging or disengaging in verbal combat.
- It’s possible that we are feeling aggression come up but are slowing our roll around expressing it. It has the energy of a character in a show having a secret blow-up in their imagination but just smiling and saying something agreeable instead.
- Likewise, if it is appropriate and necessary to say something, we may be doing that! It may be a process of deliberating, refining, and getting clear before delivering a message. A wise non-violence teacher (who I read their work in a pamphlet at Naropa years ago and don’t remember their name 😭) expressed that the violence of the world is reflected in each individual microcosm of the individual, and that when we transmute the violence that lives inside of us we help heal the world. There is a difference of course, between simply repressing that fire/anger/violence and actually working to integrate and appropriately channel the beast energy within.
Venus in 2 Sagittarius conjunct the lunar South Node in 2 Sagittarius: 12:11 PM PDT
- Venus is the dispositer of the lineup of planets in Libra (still Mars-Mercury rx-Sun in 16 Libra). The Moon will also be in 2 degrees Sagittarius with the Moon and the South Node in that degree. This combination suggests that the relational activations we are working with (conflict and conflict resolution, processing our aggression and need for freedom and expression, processing our will to connect with others, etc.) is connected to illumination around old patterns: how we’ve tended to relate, how our ancestors have tended to relate, the cultural and familial beliefs we are working with. Situations are only activating in that they are touching on something. If we didn’t have a story, a pattern, an opinion, it would just be neutral.
Mercury retrograde in 16 Libra conjunct Mars in 16 Libra: 3:49 PM PDT
(See above delineation for Mercury conjunct the Sun and Mars.)
October 10, 2021
Saturn stations direct in 6 Aquarius: 7:17 PM PDT
(Image: by Mert & Marcus for Vogue Paris 2011}
- Planets stationing become louder energies in the sky. We already had the god of the underworld stationing 😂 and now the cold, dry, god of karma and cause and effect 😂 Something to be mindful of is that this is a strong Saturn (Saturn traditionally rules Aquarius) so on the positive end this can bring skillful discipline, focus, the capacity to take responsibility, and the intelligence to architect a vision into existence. On the negative end, Saturn’s increased ‘mood lighting’ in the sky may correlate with a heavier sense of shame, remorse, and regret, feeling that we are bad, or that we have fucked up or done something wrong. We can be our own worst persecutors.
- With this in mind, this is a good time to practice compassion and perhaps engage in prayers like Hoʻoponopono, or absorb a little Brene Brown magic by reading some of her work or listening to a podcast (she is a shame and vulnerability researcher). Shame can be debilitating, but learning how to process it and grow in integrity and care (as we reconcile with ourselves and others for mistakes) can be just as powerful on the other side in a positive way.
- Saturn’s station direct also signifies that some free-floating “what am I doing with my life?!” kinds of feelings may start to find more direction. Of course, we always need to walk the path and genuinely engage (this doesn’t just happen for us) but Saturn retrograde can relate to a deeper internal questioning of exactly what we are doing with our lives. When Saturn is direct, it can correlate more with that sense of moving forward, having a plan.
Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! If you would like further guidance, I have been increasingly focused on longer-term experiences in the form of the Evolutionary Astrology Intensive, higher level courses for alumni, and 1:1 mentorship – helping people form a depth relationship to their natal chart and personal transits over time, to develop themselves, to be in their power, and to reach their goals, all through the soul-making lens of evolutionary astrology. I would love to support you in building your relationship with astrology. The intensive is now open for enrollment, and I am to take on new coaching clients again in the future.
Find me on Instagram @sabrinamonarch, get on my mailing list to stay apprised of all upcoming offerings and events, and I’ll see you next week!
With love,
Sabrina Monarch
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