​Tomorrow is also Samhain, the witches’ new year. This is the midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. It is the final harvest, the end of a cycle of life and growth and gathering the fruits of our labor. Now we move deeper into the autumn months, the longer nights, and the colder weather. Every ending is also a beginning, and as the wheel of the year turns and this cycle is complete, we enter the dormant period that is also the start of a cycle of new life to come. Samhain is also a time for honoring our ancestors, for communing with the dead. It is said to be the time of the year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest. It is a time for celebration and also introspection. Today or tomorrow, you might create an altar to your ancestors—those who make your life possible whether related by blood or other forms of kinship—and offer gratitude for the lives they lived. For me, this includes my father, my grandparents, and my family line as well as the transcestors, the mighty and beloved queer dead who are not my kin by blood but by possibility. The lives they lived make my life possible. You might take time to be quiet and still, and listen to what your ancestors are saying. To say that the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest also suggests that this is a time for visioning toward worlds to come. What will justice in worlds to come require? What resources do ancestors past, present, and future offer to creating justice for all, for life on this planet other than ourselves? If we allow today to mark both endings and beginnings, what can you let go of or surrender that is no longer serving you, and how can you orient yourself toward being in service to that which you love in the year ahead?

​Today Venus makes a conjunction to Mercury in Scorpio just before Mercury stations retrograde tomorrow. Venus is coming to the end of its time in Scorpio, but we may not yet have words for all that we have been uncovering about ourselves and our relationships to love, desire, and pleasure. Even as we begin to integrate different approaches to what it means to love and be loved, we are just beginning to find how to translate these experiences and perspectives to others in our lives. This conjunction is part of Mercury’s assignment for this retrograde: Mercury is preparing for several weeks of reviewing, reflecting, and remembering its way through the part of our charts occupied by Scorpio. Venus conjunct Mercury today reminds us to also ask ourselves how this process of review and reflection relates to our experiences of our own lovability and how we express love for others. This is emphasized further by Mars—the ruler of Scorpio—in Libra, the sign of Venus. The Moon in Sagittarius makes a square to Neptune in Pisces, and we may lose track of the focus of our journey. Why you are moving in the direction in which you are moving may feel diffuse or disoriented. In these moments of disorientation, notice what else comes into view. Neptune can derail our pursuit of linear progress, but in so doing, we may also encounter unexpected inspiration or invitations into different states of reality. 

​At the very start of the day, the Moon in Scorpio makes a sextile to Pluto in Capricorn. This is the final aspect in a story that has been unfolding over since the beginning of October describing our embodied and felt relationship to power. There may be a measure of ease as we recognize and integrate the lessons of this cycle, particularly in the area of our charts occupied by Capricorn. The Moon then makes a conjunction to Venus in Scorpio. Venus is moving towards the end of its journey through Scorpio, a period demanding that we bring more of our hidden selves into our relationships in order to experience the depths of intimacy and care that are possible. This conjunction marks the beginning of a process of more fully embodying those lessons. The Moon then makes a conjunction to Mercury in Scorpio, just days before Mercury stations retrograde. What are the stories that you tell yourself about your place in this world? Where did those stories come from? What are the deep patterns of thinking or feeling that need examination? Finally, the Moon ingresses into Sagittarius where it is co-present with and has reception from Jupiter. Coming up from the deep waters of Scorpio, Sagittarius invites us into wide open spaces, expansive perspectives, and experiencing what it feels like to situate ourselves within bigger and broader contexts. What kind of belonging becomes available to you if you see yourself as part of a world that is larger than your immediate surroundings? If you look beyond yourself and your own horizons, seeking out new and unfamiliar terrain, you will find the affirmation that there is a place for you here.

​The Moon moves into Cancer, the sign of its domicile, and encourages us to return to our own sources of safety, nurturing, and care. What are the restorative conditions that allow you take off your armor, to soften, to be vulnerable, and to be held in the certainty that you are supported? Asking these questions may draw you back into your own memories, your own childhood; you may find yourself returning to the love and care you that received that continues to nourish your adult self. You may also find that there were ways in which you did not know this kind of care early in life. Allow yourself to feel whatever arises from the waters of your own origins, and know that you can create the kinds of stable attachments that you need in your life now even if they were not available to you early on. As the Moon moves through a sextile to Uranus, we may feel shaken, but it is a disruption that is allowing us to open up a new story and a new way of being in relation to our bodies and most basic needs. Mercury in Scorpio, now in the shadow of its retrograde, makes a sextile to Pluto in Capricorn—an aspect which Mercury will make twice more during its retrograde cycle. We are finding the words to speak truth to power, and it is through this process of coming to voice that we are moving into the final chapters of a cycle of transforming how we communicate that began January 18, 2019, when Mercury was conjunct Pluto. As Mercury moves through this upcoming retrograde, these are words or messages that we will continue to revisit and develop. We are diving into the shadows, encountering our own experiences of harm or powerlessness, and finding how to share those experiences—and in doing so, rewriting our own stories.

Today is the Full Moon in Aries, and this is not a simple lunation. Early in the day, the Moon moves through a square to Saturn in Capricorn. Fear, pressure, or scarcity may intrude into the final degrees of the Moon’s gibbous phase. Something is coming to fruition and visibility, but we may have to push through a rigid sense of limitation and regulation in order to experience the fullness of what is coming. Jupiter casts a sextile ray back to the Sun in Libra, a blessing of abundance for this Full Moon. In fairly rapid succession, the Moon receives a superior trine from Jupiter and moves into opposition to the Sun, just as both the Sun and the Moon move into squares to Pluto in Capricorn. Detailed geometry aside, this is a Full Moon in supportive aspects to Jupiter and challenging aspects to Pluto.
 
Aries is the cardinal fire sign. It is combustible, initiatory, impulsive and brave. Aries puts us in touch with our passions and drives, and pushes us to take action. With the Moon in Aries, our systems may feel amped up with the need to do something, anything. Receiving a supportive trine from Jupiter in Sagittarius, this could be the conditions for grand gestures, making moves in pursuit of big ideas, blazing beyond familiar territory in courageous pursuit of adventure and freedom. However, with the Sun and Moon in a T-square to Pluto in Capricorn, do not be surprised if the under-worldly challenges your way. Pluto demands transformation, particularly of those parts of our lives that we repress, the destructive and traumatic experiences that we push into the shadows and beneath the ground. The Moon, Sun, and Pluto are all in cardinal signs, and Jupiter is in its domicile in mutable Sagittarius. This is the time for something new, but it requires addressing our own darkness. The fires of Aries and Sagittarius stoke our longing for freedom, but Pluto would seem to remind us what Angela Davis has written: “Freedom is a constant struggle”—a teaching from a freedom song that was “repeatedly sung in the southern United States during the twentieth-century freedom movement.” I take from these teachings that struggle—against systems of oppression, repression, domination, and exploitation, struggle against systems that afford us privilege at the cost of others’ suffering, struggle against violence, struggle against shame—struggle itself is perhaps the experience of freedom. Freedom is not the unhindered, uninhibited autonomy to do whatever we please; if we are not in struggle, it is very likely that we are intentionally or unintentionally complicit within systems of oppression that require our compliance, and in feeling no resistance as we live our lives in line with such systems, we imagine this absence of struggle to be freedom. But as Fannie Lou Hamer said, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” and any look around our world with open eyes will see the we are not all free.
 
So today, as this fiery Aries Full Moon reaches its climax, as Jupiter gives us immense support to charge after expansive adventures, let these squares from Pluto remind us that freedom is a constant struggle—with the systems outside and inside ourselves that are built on suffering. What must you struggle against in order to be free? If you feel free, in what ways are your freedoms dependent on the oppressions of others? These are questions we must ask, because this Full Moon reminds us that in order to be free, we must face and transform those buried shadows that we would rather repress and ignore.