On Tuesday, October 30, we move into a Grand Water Trine, with the Moon in Cancer, Jupiter in Scorpio, and Chiron in Pisces, all at 28 degrees. Then on Wednesday, October 31, Venus retrograde in Scorpio moves into opposition to Uranus retrograde in Taurus just before re-entering Libra.
 
The Moon in Cancer is in its domicile, the sign that it rules and in which it has access to its resources. The Moon is the luminary associated with our most basic, primal emotional needs. It is also associated with the daily rhythms and cycles of the body. Reflecting the light of the Sun, the Moon shows us where we are living our life’s purpose. Cancer is sensitivity and care, the instinct to nurture and nourish, to provide and protect. Cancer represents the waters from which we emerged, the waters of the maternal body, the ancestors, our tribe. How do we feel our ways back to the formative places, where we have known care, where we were nurtured, where we felt safe and protected? How do we journey into our bodies as archives of ancestral care where we feel the tidal pulse and rhythms of the Moon above? I think of the words of Alexis Pauline Gumbs: “I cannot be separated from that love that has generated me. You know. I’m connected to that. And: that’s what has generated me and also what’s being generated.” How can we carry those resources with us, and draw on the love and support of our ancestors as we cultivate spaces of safety and support with and for one another?
 
Jupiter has been in Scorpio since October 2017. Jupiter is the planet of expansion, abundance, growth, and belief—the recognition that we are part of something that is much bigger than any one of us. In Scorpio, Jupiter has been asking us to uncover what is hidden in the depths, in the darkness, bringing to the surface the secret or forgotten traumas and desires that reside at the bottom of our personal and collective emotional waters. It’s like bringing a shipwreck from the ocean floor back up to the surface, and as we bring up all this intensity, we recognize that we are part of something bigger, that our hidden feelings and experiences connect us to one another in ways we could not have known. It reminds me of Tarana Burke describing the #MeToo movement: “What actually happened on October 15 [2017] was people raised their hands to say, ‘Me too’ … They opened up and said, ‘Yeah this happened to me.’ And it was millions of people from all walks of life, every stripe, and I really feel like those people still have their hands up.” This is the work of Jupiter in Scorpio, discovering that what has been in the darkness also connects us.
 
Chiron is a minor planet—sometimes called an asteroid or comet—orbiting the Sun at the outer edges of the solar system, between Saturn and Uranus. Chiron signifies the primal wound and the wounded healer. It shows us our formative suffering, the wound with which we are constituted, a place in our charts that demands healing. And as we do the ongoing work of healing with Chiron, we learn that what we are healing within ourselves is also what we are here to heal within the world. I think of Chiron as our part of collective trauma, those formative injuries that we carry that are symptomatic of systemic struggle and injustice. Pisces is the third water sign, the sign of the collective, profound empathy and compassion, where we are in service to the whole. It is the sign where we experience the healing capacities of connection and union. Chiron in Pisces recognizes that my pain is our pain, and so my own healing requires that we heal together.
 
This Grand Water Trine happens just before Venus—the planet of love and relationships, which is retrograde in Scorpio—applies an opposition to Uranus, the planet of disruption and upheaval, currently retrograde in Taurus. On Samhain, October 31, the Witches’ New Year, this opposition between Venus and Uranus propels us toward breakthroughs and breakdowns. As Venus has moved retrograde back through Scorpio, we’ve been asked to review and reflect on how we form relationships, how we honor that which we value, and the place of the feminine in our lives. Venus opposed Uranus takes this reflection and review and demands that the structures change. How will you allow what you now know to change you? What are the relationships and values that it’s time to center, and what are the relationships and processes that it’s time to bring to an end?
 
How these placements and aspects show up in each of our charts and lives will be different, but collectively, this is a week with a strong emphasis on connecting to our ancestors and the resources they offer to our hearts, for recognizing that we are not alone in our suffering, and for healing our wounded places together. As we truly examine the relationships in our lives, we know that there are things that must change, and as we move through the cycle, we know that each ending becomes the beginning.

Lately, I’ve been doing work with myself around grief, despair, and loss.
As some folks know, my father died this summer, and that has led to layer upon layer of grief and mourning.
But of course we are also living in a world and a nation that is built on injustice and careening toward its own collapse. The latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change report warns of catastrophic conditions if we continue in the same global warming trajectories. We are living within the Sixth Great Extinction event. Kavanaugh was confirmed as a justice of the supreme court as lawmakers ignored multiple charges of sexual assault.
ongoingness can feel insurmountable.
 
But we aren’t in this alone.
We have each other.
And we have wisdom from the Earth and from wise-folks who continue to support us in our survival and flourishing. I’m really grateful to Dori Midnight, Asali Earthwork, and How to Survive the End of the World for the resources they continue to share (links below).

I’ve also been working with more-than-human allies, and in particular, this orthoceras fossil that came into my life this summer.
Orthoceras is an extinct species of cephalopod that lived approximately 400 million years ago. They are some of the earliest animal life recognizable in fossil records.
When I sit with this stone, I sit with the traces of ancient life as well as the loss of the species. 
I sit with the endurance of earth and the life of ancient waters. 
I commune with letting go and also holding on. 
I cry. 
I sit with the immensity of deep time and the minerals of my own body that have persisted for millions of years.
I time-travel.
I connect to the parts of myself that swam in watery depths before this continent surfaced.
being in connection is healing.
I remember that we are not the first species to face extinction and I am not the first person to experience immense loss.
I cry.
I sit with the materiality of memory, the nonlinearity of time, and intimacies that form across countless ages.
None of this makes loss or grief or despair go away. rather, it’s a way of being with it, getting close to it, holding it, and caring for it.
As you face your own despair or grief or loss, I hope that you reach out for connections with more-than-human and human allies. You are not in this alone.
 
RESOURCES:

-Asali Earthwork, "Herbal Allies for Grief": https://littleredtarot.com/ritual-honey-herbs-for-grief/

-Dori Midnight, “Rituals & Remedies for Hard Times & Political Despair”: https://kpfa.org/episode/the-herbal-highway-october-18-2018/

-adrienne maree brown, "Spell for Grief or Letting Go": adriennemareebrown.net/2014/10/09/spell-for-grief-or-letting-go/

-How to Survive the End of the World podcast, "learning from the apocalypse with grace, rigor and curiosity": https://www.endoftheworldshow.org