It didn't surprise me, not just because of the long-standing rivalry but because people's fuses are SHORT right now. I mentioned the Mars/Pluto/Vulcanus energy last week, and we're still in the thick of it: anger that comes out bigger and hotter than the situation calls for. Folks are coming to blows over things that might have just gotten a side-eye in June. It’s feelin’ real powder-keggy out here.

The Libra New Moon on October 10 lands us smack dab in the middle of that, and it's the last New Moon before midterm elections. Let’s taco ‘bout it.

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☀️🌙 The government and the people

In mundane astrology (the astrology of nations and world events), the Sun is the leadership and the Moon is the public, your average Joes and Josephines. A New Moon is the moment those two meet in the same spot, and the chart for that moment sets the tone for the month.

A Libra New Moon puts partnerships and how we relate to the other on the table. In this chart, the New Moon sits in the 10th house, the house of government and leadership. For a lunation that covers an election, that's pretty on the nose.

The trouble is what the Sun and Moon are squaring: Hades and Kronos. If they're new to you, these are two of the transneptunian planets we use in Uranian astrology. Kronos is authority, the person at the top. Hades is decay, what's rotten or neglected or hidden. Put them together and you get corruption at the highest levels – crusty musty leaders.

With the Sun and Moon squaring that pair, I expect the relationship between leaders and the public to get defined by misconduct and institutions that aren't working. Scandals and criminal activity (more of them, anyway) among people in power come out where everybody can see them, which tracks with the timing. Every election cycle comes with talk of an October surprise, the late-breaking story that drops a few weeks before people vote, and this New Moon lands in that window. Hardship spreads too, hitting regular people and the people in charge as the structures under them wear down.

An October surprise is very on-brand for Scorpio season -- a sign that surfaces that which wants to remain hidden, and this New Moon carries us into it. At 17 Libra, it falls in the via combusta (the "burning way"), a 30-degree stretch from the middle of Libra to the middle of Scorpio. Ancient, medieval, and Renaissance astrologers treated this zone as seriously malefic, especially when the Sun, Moon, or Ascendant landed in it (and we’ve got 2 out of the 3 there!). Modern astrologers tend to read it more psychologically, as a kind of no-man's-land where things get intense, crises come up, and something has to change. Either way, things get hot in this part of the zodiac, leaving October’s New Moon smoldering in the night sky.
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🕰️ Why it already feels like this

Hades and Kronos have been hanging out for decades, but they've been getting closer, and right now they're about a degree apart. But they haven't made an exact conjunction since the year 864. Yes, a triple-digit year. The next one is July 2030.

We don't only feel a combination like this on the day it's exact. We feel it months, years, ahead of time, the way your knees know about the rain before the forecast does. So if it seems like every week brings a new story about somebody in power doing something shady, it's not a coincidence. And this doesn't peak for another four years.
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🗳️ Go vote, and pace yourself

This New Moon also puts Saturn and Neptune in the 4th house. In a mundane chart, the 4th is the land: housing, property, farming, weather, the working people, and the opposition party. Mundane astrologers like Raphael and H.S. Green wrote about governments losing popularity, plans stalling out, workers struggling, property that won't sell, and cold, wet weather. Neptune in the 4th adds agitation over taxes and land, big swings in political feeling, and some discredit landing on prominent people.

The New Moon is also lighting up the USA’s natal Saturn-Sun-Chiron T-square. Yes, America has daddy issues (thanks, Britain). Saturn-Chiron, highlighted here, can point to a major change in authority -- like who gets to be daddy.

So yes, vote on November 3. Check your registration, find your early voting site, and bring somebody with you. I just want you going in with realistic expectations. One election won't clear out a corruption signature that peaks in 2030. Rooting this out is going to take years and a lot of people. And this Hades/Kronos corruption is not a uniquely American story. It’s a global one.
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💪🏾 And...

On the 90° dial, this New Moon puts the MC, Saturn, Pluto, the Sun/Moon midpoint, and the Ascendant in one tight picture. The delineation for that combination talks about hard struggling for success, achievements brought about by large groups of people, tenacity, and the capacity for record-breaking effort. Pluto/Node on the MC adds a common destiny shared by a lot of people at once.

While this can be a super difficult combination that is straight-up cruel and oppressive, at its best it describes endurance, and it describes doing hard things together over a long stretch of time. And in the midst of it all, as I’ve been saying for a couple of years now, Saturn and Neptune offer us an opportunity to formalize our dreams. First it causes us to crumble and then we think about how to re-build in a way that feels more true to ourselves.

What to do with this:

✔️ Vote, and help one other person vote.

✔️ Pick one local thing to put your energy into for the long haul, like your school board, a mutual aid group, your block association, or the library. Saturn in the 4th says the ground under your feet matters.

✔️ Pace your anger. Mars/Persephone on the MC is about being angry over how a transition happens, and that anger is fair. Spend it where it builds something.

✔️ Check on your people. The 4th house is home, too.

🔮 Big Deck Energy

Welcome to Big Deck Energy—where I pull a card each week on behalf of our collective to offer insight, reflection, or a much-needed reality check. Think of it as a weekly reset, a moment to pause and take in what’s unfolding. This week, I asked: Where should I direct my anger this month?

The card: The Five of Pentacles.

The classic image shows two people trudging through a blizzard, one of them hobbling on crutches, going right past a church window that's lit up and toasty inside. They're broke and freezing, and so focused on getting through the storm that neither of them looks up to see the supportive space right next to them.

In the Qabalah, all of the 5s in the tarot belong to Geburah, the sphere of severity on the Tree of Life. Geburah is a purging fire that burns away whatever's broken or stuck. In the Pentacles suit, that fire hits money, bodies, and material stability. The card's astrological correspondence is Mercury in Taurus, which is the mind put to work on concrete, physical problems.

So this card says to point your anger at scarcity itself, especially the parts of it you've gotten used to. That could be the underpayment you stopped questioning, the bill that's been wrong for three months, or the "we'll make do" that turned into a lifestyle. If you turn the anger inward, it curdles into self-pity (and from there, depression), and if you spray it at whoever's closest, you end up in a brawl at the football stadium. When you aim it at whatever's keeping you out in the cold, it gets you to set the new rate, ask for the raise, call the billing department, and finally open the budget spreadsheet you've been avoiding.

Mercury in Taurus wants follow-through. Make the list and make the calls, then follow up when nobody calls you back. If you need to book-end an action, send a friend a quick note before and after you do the thing :) But maybe leave the anger out of the actual communication. Just let it drive you to action.

The window is critical too, because help is closer than the people in the card realize. Sometimes it's a resource you haven't asked for, and sometimes it's your people. With Saturn in the 4th grinding on housing and work for a while, nobody should have to trudge through this alone. The warm room is usually full of folks who'd make space for you. You've just got to look up.

Yes, I still do readings. Book here.​