Dear all,

Sometimes, when there’s a big crisis event in the world, the senselessness and surprise of it makes all the survivors go — wow, how am I not living (LIVING) my life?

I have that in my story. September 11th happens to be my birthday, and in 2001 I was working in an office downtown. I had taken the day off to eat a cupcake and read my astrology books, so I wasn’t nearby when the towers went down.

At that point in my life, astrology was my semi-secret obsession. I was starting to do consultations, but still stuck to the so-called security of my corporate job. Like many other people on and after that day, I realized that, actually, there is no security. You can go to work on a perfectly normal Tuesday and get killed.

It’s important that we make the most of the time that we have. It’s important not to waste time, hedging your bets.

This week’s Full Moon is all about not hedging bets. There’s tremendous cosmic pressure, on all of us, to transform. Make the choice. Be the person that you are.

Pluto, the dark god of alchemy, is sitting exactly on the Ascendant of the Washington, DC, chart for Thursday’s Full Moon (which, as we know, governs the whole of the United States, since the nation’s capital is there).

We astrologers call it a conjunction whenever one planet or point is within 6 to 10 degrees of another. When the Full Moon perfects at 2:40 PM Eastern US time on Thursday, October 5th, Pluto will be at 16 degrees, 51 minutes Capricorn, and the Washington Ascendant will be at 16 degrees, 46 minutes Capricorn — just a tiny fraction of a degree away. Five little minutes. Out of 21,600 minutes in the Zodiac.

The tighter the conjunction, the more intense the energy. So if you feel like the Lord of the Underworld is “in your face” this week, that’s because he is!

“Darth Vader” is full of vim and vigor these days, too. Last Thursday, September 28th, Pluto stationed after a five-month-long retrograde, pivoted, and then went direct. When the outer planets stop, we feel their rumblings echo through the galaxy for about five days on either side.

Pluto, of course, rules the Scorpio stuff: sex, death, taxes, the occult, the mysteries of life and of power. October 1st, the day of the new worst mass shooting in US history, was well within the Pluto station’s orb. Hurricane Maria’s landfall in the Caribbean (on September 20th) was not; but Donald Trump’s cruel taunting of the Puerto Rican victims was and is, as well as his accidental declaration of war with North Korea.

Pluto is especially powerful now, not only because of his recent station, or because of his position in the Full Moon chart, but ALSO because he’s currently aspecting Mars. Their Earth trine in Capricorn and Virgo perfected on the evening of Sunday, October 1st (less than three hours before the massacre in Las Vegas) and it, too, is currently still in orb.

Mars, the God of War, is a natural ally for the Lord of the Underworld, and these days they’re getting along just fine. Combined, they make an effective machine of violence, a negative kind of “helpful” aspect. (See: nearly 600 people injured with a semiautomatic weapon.)

What can we do? What needs to be done. Harness the Mars-Venus-Pluto energy in a positive way. Give. Give blood, give money. Call Congress. Speak truth to power. Take responsibility for your mistakes. Turn back to your unfinished to-do’s and get them out to door.

Because you don’t know how much time you have to do them: you could show up for a concert on a perfectly lovely Sunday, and get killed.

We’ll be tempted, under this Full Moon, to sit back and complain about the way things are going, rather than acting to fix it. The ruler of the Sun in Libra (i.e. Venus) is conjunct the ruler of the Moon in Aries (Mars), and both are in persnickety, passive-aggressive, crabby Virgo.

The image I get for this chart, is that it’s like a bad marriage, where both partners are extremely cranky with each other, but they stay because they don’t want to be alone. Complaining away their lives.

The Universe, like a good masseuse or a therapist, is pressing on our sore spots. Yeah, it hurts. But it’s also helping us identify the underlying issue. If you’re going to go, go. If you’re going to stay, work to accept the situation as it is now, and take it forward. Either way, no whining.

Keep moving on, and keep the faith.

Love,

Anne

P.S. Jupiter goes into Scorpio next week, after a year-long journey in Libra. This Sunday evening, I’m teaching a webinar about Jupiter in Scorpio and what we can look for in the months ahead. Details below! I hope to see you there.