This week we have a full Moon in Aries, and the rulers of this lunation Mars (for the Moon in Aries) and Venus (for the Sun in Libra) each form last quarter phase squares to outer planets. Mars will square Pluto and Venus will square Neptune. The last quarter phase square is characterized by a “crisis in consciousness” and relates to liberation and breakthrough – approaching a longstanding issue from a place of paradigm shift. The last quarter phase square is magical, in my opinion, in the way it relates to deeper forms of freedom where we move beyond railing against the cage and actually find ourselves outside of the cage to begin with. This requires a certain willingness to let go of the paradigm that has become a cage – to have a flexible-enough consciousness to entertain new vision.
For Mars in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn, we may find ourselves accessing a new level of freedom around how we dance with time and planning – how much effort or force we apply to sticking to the plan and “making things happen” versus how we can ally ourselves more with a deeper unfolding that is wanting to occur, even if it stretches our own capacity to be flexible. Likewise, applying structure in a novel way might also be in service to a deeper truth unfolding. The point is only that our balance with commitment and structure is shifting. This may be playing out in the collaborations we have with others – the direction of a project or a relationship itself.
For Venus in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces, we may be accessing a new level of freedom around our capacity for dream and fantasy as something that elevates our creativity. Imagine being able to materialize your visions because you are a talented dreamer and you possess the capacity for follow-through. Sometimes the path of being this skilled a dreamer means a willingness to let go of certain dreams or fantasies which may have gotten us started on the journey, but are no longer the appropriate target for us. This happens all of the time to people who have a shift in consciousness mid-pursuit of a major dream. How can you keep relating to the deeper truth of expansion and meaning, even if the form itself changes?
You probably don’t hear people talking about phases between the planets (besides the lunar phases) hardly ever 🙂 This is something I teach in the upcoming Evolutionary Astrology Intensive! Along with a deeper dive into all of the archetypes of the signs and planets, and how to read natal charts from the perspective of the soul’s evolution on a multi-lifetime journey… we’re beginning again November 8 and your last day to enroll is November 5! Learn more and enroll here.
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.
Recommended episode of Magic of the Spheres:
From the archives – a semi-recent conversation with Mark Jones where we explored his work on the planetary nodes, and especially focused on the nodes of Neptune which are in Aquarius and Leo, and what this means about spiritual development. Dig it up where you listen to podcasts, or on your browser here.
Here’s our week:
October 20, 2021
Full Moon in 27 Aries: 7:57 AM PDT
This has been a remarkably Martian lunar cycle, since the New Moon in Libra began with an exact conjunction to Mars in Libra. Now as the Moon in Mars-ruled Aries opposes the Libra Sun, Mars in Libra is still a few degrees away from the Sun. During this lunation, the Sun and Moon will square Pluto in Capricorn as well. Here are some thoughts:
- Mars has possibly been a louder energetic in our experience, inspiring moods related to vitality, frustration, anger, arousal, impatience, and conflict-proneness. We may have been having experiences that have directly challenged or invited our courage.
- If we have felt irritable, we may have felt direct reasons or instances spark this anger, or we may have recognized it as a more free-floating kind of activation (and the anger or irritability perhaps larger than the small things that provoke it). The extra and sometimes difficult-to-hold amount of lifeforce energy here has been an invitation to step more deeply into our aliveness and to responsibility wield the potency of that aliveness.
- Aries is a heroic sign that is compelled by challenges in which the individual gets to prove themselves – not necessarily to others or to the world (though that may show up) but ultimately to themselves, to feel themselves as the hero of the grand epic of their lives, to see themselves turn from underdog to victor, or to see one’s greatest potentials realized and expressed externally in the world.
- With an Aries Moon coming into the full light illuminated by a Libra Sun, there may be some emphasis on how these heroic storylines are relational storylines: that we find ourselves assisted by and assisting others, that we are discovering ourselves through relationship, or that in anything we see ourselves “doing alone” we are actually part of a relational ecosystem that includes humans and non-humans alike.
- If you were to sit outside in a forest in the dark, you might start to notice shapes in the trees or the stars, and see your imagination morph and blend with the environment. Nighttime lends itself to imaginative, symbolic seeing. Relationship can have a similar quality, in the sense of how we project parts of ourselves or our hopes and fears onto others. The Sun in Libra and Moon in Aries, at the peak of this full light of the Moon, square Pluto, suggesting that potentially what is arising in our inner, emotional purview about our relationships is laced with more unconscious material. We may be invited here to stay with the aliveness and fire of our inner reality (not suppress it) but apply some level of pause, responsibility, sobriety, or care as to how we engage and relate to the more volatile, fiery dimension of our inner life.
October 21, 2021
Mars in 24 Libra square Pluto in 24 Capricorn: 9:19 PM PDT
- Be mindful of situations where you encounter the feeling that you have no options or your hand is being forced (or likewise, if you are trying to force the hand of someone else). This Mars-Pluto square can relate to power dynamics in negotiations, as well as our unconscious abdication of choice. Even if the choices we have to pick from are not ideal, we may have to find the resolve within ourselves to fully choose our imperfect choice, realizing that even making a decision in non-ideal circumstances is still an act of will (and perhaps at some level also a defeat, but one we are consciously engaging).
- In situations where we feel more free (i.e. we are not selecting from non-ideal choices) or situations where we have the agency to create more freedom for ourselves, we might be accessing a more liberating set of options – maybe a choice we’ve never thought to make before or never knew was an option, is in our field.
- On the other end, if we are in a position where we have the agency/leverage to apply force, simply be mindful if it is justified. In my opinion, force is largely overused. Often people using force feel like victims and are swinging onto the persecutor side of the pendulum. Mars-Pluto can be very libidinal about “getting my way” or here in Libra and Capricorn, perhaps one set of interests determining what the relationship or group is going to do. Anyone who finds themselves with the capacity to get things from people that those people don’t necessarily want to give may want to reflect on why they are showing up with such force. Anyone who finds themselves giving what they don’t want to give may want to reflect on why they do not uphold stronger boundaries.
October 22, 2021
Sun enters Scorpio: 9:51 PM PDT
- Scorpio is a fixed water sign, relating to our most deeply anchored emotional attachments, fixations, and bonds. If we are bonded and related in a way that is truly life-enhancing, this kind of emotional loyalty can be generative. Often, however, Scorpio challenges us to get deeply emotional honest with where were are hooked and addicted. We cannot simply destroy the thing or blame the other, but we must unhook ourselves at the deepest possible level from ‘getting off’ on the drama or loving the pain.
- Since there is no limits to how deep these dynamics can go, Scorpio often involves the occult, esoteric, or even shamanic ways of approaching inner and outer realities. At times we might need ceremony, catharsis, or beyond-ordinary means to radically change our lives. The Taurus polarity to Scorpio might speak to more practical, body-oriented means of changing our lives, like our relationship with food and pleasure or how we cultivate/build resource in our lives.
- Scorpio also may invite or challenge us to develop a healthier relationship with death. Scorpio contains the capacity to resist death and annihilation (to hold on till the bitter bitter end) as well as the capacity to really be and move with death. Parts of our ego and egoic identities cyclically have to die to make space for universal energy to move freely through our channels.
- The freer we become in our capacity to form and disentangle ourselves from attachment, we get to INVEST in our energy. Scorpio challenges us to become more honest with how we are participating in our entanglements. Being entangled does not mean we are ‘bad’ or doing something wrong, but if we choose to take a deeper level of responsibility for our lives this includes taking account for how we are an energetic match for the situations that we are embroiled in. (As always, Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliot is a recommended read 😉
- As we evolve personally, we also shift the environment around us (because we are all connected). Scorpio relates to empowerment, and often when we are empowered in a particular way, we become guides for others, literally or symbolically.
- A big medicine of Scorpio is to be in relationship with our desire, as desire is a catalyst for the soul’s evolution. Consider how you approve (or don’t approve) of your desires, and what inner engagement may be needed to come to a place of acceptance of your nature. Consider as well how cleanly you relate with your desires, versus how often your desires come out sideways in hidden agendas or manipulative tactics. Typically, the more we approve of our desire, the easier it is to discover clean and honest ways to pursue fulfillment of that desire.
October 26, 2021
Venus in 20 Sagittarius square Neptune retrograde in 20 Pisces: 6:06 PM PDT
- Sagittarius seeks to capture the vision of the divine and put it into story, knowledge, direct experience, cosmology – while Pisces IS the divine that we melt into say, when we are having a mystical experience. Sagittarius and Pisces are united by sharing the traditional ruler of Jupiter – both signs seek to understand the whole, the bigger picture, while Sagittarius approaches this in the realm of elemental fire, and Pisces the realm of elemental water. In Sagittarius we experience enthusiasm and a sense of larger-than-life-ness, and with Pisces we experience ecstasy, flooding, the cup flowing over.
- As joyous as both of these signs like to be, the experience depends on the perspective and the territory. If we are situated inside of our fear and anxiety, we are closer to the hell realms than we are in the bliss bunny peak experience states that are also possible in these signs.
- The potential for freedom here is this: joy and love are birthrights. We need supportive ways of seeing/feeling life and our experience to return to this inner-home, this blissful inner nature. Sagittarius and Pisces both have a way of approaching the question of human suffering from the perspective that we simply need knowledge or insight, or some dissolving of illusion, to return to our true state. Thus, if we are encountering a state of our heart or our circumstances that we do not value (Venus), rather than be attached to these circumstances as though this is just the way life is, we might open ourselves to higher wisdom about our situation. Sagittarius and Pisces source greater knowledge through prayer, oracle, ceremony, dream, meditation, experience, going within, consulting guides, noticing synchronicities and signs, and so on. It feels to me that the Universe likes seekers, and that if we are earnest about our desire for greater understanding, that we will surely encounter it.
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
(Top image: Justin Gedak)
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