Your October Horoscopes Are Here!

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Libra season, or, as Libras might like to call it, Impeachment season. The Sun shining high and noble on our constellation of beauty and justice revels in this moment when, amongst so much discord, there are glimmers of hope and accountability.

Under the new moon in Libra, climate strikes swept across the world, led by youth leaders who echoed the calls that came before them from Standing Rock, from Flint, and from Syria. Venus and Mercury are in Libra the first week of October, and the vibe is very much: All right, stop, collaborate, and listen. Pluto going direct eases tensions off our Cardinal signs (Libra, Cancer, Capricorn, and Aries) while picking up where it left off, dismantling our shoddy institutions and pointing out the shoddy workmanship.

If there's a song called "Structural reform and Restorative Justice," you can sing it to a Libra instead of that regular old "Happy Birthday." They're suckers for a unique gift. While most of the personal planets move, slow like honey and heavy with mood, into Scorpio by the end of the month, Mars in Libra endures. For the codependents among us, this only makes it that much harder to make choices in our own best interest without anxiety over how it might affect the dynamics of the "group."

It's a good time to remember that the best recipe for avoiding resentment and keeping your friendships healthy and strong (a vital necessity for maintaining a powerful Resistance) is only saying yes when you mean it. Honor your boundaries, and your "no," since the only person that owes you devotion and primacy is you. Besides, Mercury Rx is just around the corner, the shadow of it is creeping, and time management is of the essence! Prioritize what is precious and time-sensitive. Put your own mask on and check for air before assisting others.

October is a powerful month for you, Aries, because Libra season has a lot to teach you. Libra, and the house it rules, governs relationships—their value and their influence—and how we sustain them. Aries is Libra's polarity, the opposite point on the Zodiac wheel, known for the development and expansion of the self. The full moon in Aries mid-month offers you a concentrated moment to reflect on the ways that your self-hood exists in relation those you build your life with.

A ritual as simple as a gratitude list can help you really hold and offer attention to the relationships you have with others (romantic, familial, creative, etc.) that sustain your relationship to yourself. Who reminds you that you are powerful? Who challenges you? Who inspires you? Whose energy gives you permission to be the most genuine version of yourself?

If, in writing this list, you find that there are relationships you've neglected, ask yourself why that is, and if it has served you to neglect them. Or, conversely, if you are reminded that there are relationships you long to strengthen because they have a restorative power for you—try reaching out to those people and letting them know that you value them.

Truth is, although the full moon might be a great time to really meditate on intimacy and companionship, this whole month will offer you the chance to prioritize connection and collaboration. Your ruling planet, Mars, in Libra revels in imagining how our personal relationships change the shape of our politic—Libra wants to make the world a better place for us together, not apart. Aries, with your big heart and your wild irreverent imagination, you can do more than change the shape. You can create new worlds for us to love each other in.

It takes a while for change to set in, doesn't it, Taurus? First, things sort of just "happen," like you "happen" to bring someone new into your life, or you "happen" to move, or nothing "happens" on the outside, but you're waking up with new questions about who you are and who you want to be in the world. If you're a little nervous or you don't feel like you've got your feet squarely on the ground, the next part might look something like being emotionally checked-out layered with intense socializing and some aspirational shopping (this is that Venus energy!) mixed in. Or, it might just appear as inactivity mixed with gentle brooding. There's a good chance that the Sun moving into Libra inspired a lot of this in you. The good news, for you and your bank account, is that the next step is coming up right around the corner and that step is Transformation with a capital T.

Transformation? Damn. I bet you like how grand and big that word sounds, and I bet you don't like what it asks of you one little bit. Taurus, it's only natural that while you crave the intensity of change, you also avoid it as much as humanly possible. Humans are creatures of habit, after all, and that's because we were taught at some point that habits keep us safe.

So, here's an exercise for you: Ask yourself which habits you're actively choosing and which feel like old instincts that kick in unconsciously. Rather than chastising yourself for not being "strong" enough to take scary steps and slipping into a defensive self-abandonment spiral, practice naming what you are up to: I would like to _____. I am not doing ____ because____. When I don't do something that I feel I should do, I feel bad and I distract myself with _______. Naming the cycle gives you power over it. Naming is habit-forming, and the more you do it, the more present you are. Being more present allows you to see and feel yourself more clearly. It allows you to recognize all the ways you're ready to face what's been facing you.

Geminis aren't known for being quiet. In fact, it's not unusual to see a meme or a write-up that describes your twin-kin as interminable talkers, contrarians, and extroverts. Of course, we all know that Geminis come in all kinds of packages and there are, amongst us, the quiet Gemini and the ones who practice a great deal of reserve. There are twin stars who are both these things, and there are twin stars who are neither. Whichever kind of Gemini you are, reader, this month supports the quiet you are capable of and the magic that happens in that quiet.

Lying low, we know, does not mean lying idle and it's true that, no matter whether you're the kind of Gemini who lights up the party or the kind who stays behind the scenes, idleness is not something that comes naturally to you. In fact, while the world has been burning on, and your friends have been busy elsewhere, you have steadily taken steps and made commitments toward changing your life.

I don't mean to pull a Rilke on you. When I note that you have made steps to change your life, I do not mean a dramatic break or wild veer of the paths you know. I mean, Gemini, that through both private introspection and interpersonal exploration, you have been called to shift toward a more authentic, more fulfilling version of yourself. And, despite numerous obstacles and, in some instances, heartbreak, you have answered that call diligently and with great faith. If you have done this work in the shadows, if you feel unnoticed in your growth or uncelebrated in your courage, it is only because there are moments in our lives when we must celebrate ourselves. In this way, we teach those we love how we want to be celebrated.

This month the urge to put yourself out there and take some bold leaps of faith, especially when it comes to the work you do in the world, will come on quite strong. This urge is right on time, Cancer, and you shouldn't ignore it. Admittedly, it can be extremely hard to share yourself with people if you don't quite know who you are and what is that you're about. I don't mean to suggest that you haven't got a sense of self. It's a fact that your singular, creative light is strong. There are many people who are drawn to and sustained by the unique energy you bring to a room. There are many people who look to you to learn how to express their own genuine selves. What I mean is, you've changed and, for a long time, in response to varying circumstances, you've kept your burgeoning self to yourself. Or, you allowed those around you to assume that you were still the same.

Perhaps you felt protective of that new self, ideas and approaches that were still in their incubation state. You, more than most, know how easy it is for criticism, encountered at the wrong time, to stunt growth. Or, perhaps you just hadn't found the right people to share that self with. New selves are soft, not yet hardened by time and experience, and that can feel like a vulnerability.

Acting like you haven't changed, can feel a lot like losing grasp of your present self. It can feel like dishonoring all the integrative work you've done. Cancer, don't you think it's time to step out of the protective incubator and into that crisp open air? Trust that no matter how the world reads you or your work, you have done due diligence in building a lasting and ever-growing relationship with the person you're becoming. You are strong enough to sustain criticism now, you are knowledgeable enough to know whose opinions serve you and whose opinions are none of your concern.

This October, I encourage you to think about what your fellow fire signs can teach you about tending to your own fire in this world. Sometimes, when you are a fixed sign, you can get a little stuck on doing things one way—seeing things one way. After all, lots of fixed signs have been walking and talking the same way since they were born. I exaggerate, of course, since people grow and evolve, but it's not so far from the truth. In fact, it's more than likely that throughout your life, you have been treated as a consistent energy source for those around you: a fire that stays put and never goes out. This could have manifested in many ways, depending on your natal star aspects, but it generally points to a person who—whether they were asked to or not—assumed the responsibility of keeping those they love warm.

For some of you, this has meant being a life source for those who rely on your energy, your creativity, or your generosity. And, for others, it has meant embodying and sustaining the hopes and dreams of those you love. Whatever the form, burnout is inevitable.

When you're tired, dear Leo, when you start to feel like the fire within you is in danger of extinguishing, it's time to remember that there are other ways to burn. With the Sun in Libra your ninth house, it's a good time to examine your philosophy. Offer other people the same complexity you know yourself to have—recognize that there are things you cannot know about the hearts of others—and in doing so, spark new ways of relating with the present moment (Sagittarius). Acknowledge that most of what we take personally and most of what we fear are stories we are carrying, not truths. And, since the only thing you can control is your own attitude, and since our attitudes can deeply affect our experience, it would serve you well to take a little inspiration from Aries. Treat your energy, your vision, your heart, like a sacred flame that is first and foremost for you to take care of. To tend to, to build, and to guard against cold.

For somebody that's been hustling all their life, it can be challenging to recognize the moment when what you do to survive becomes the life you're choosing. When you begin to have power over how you spend your time and your money. It hasn't been the smoothest sail for you, has it, Virgo? It's more than likely that these last few years have offered you no reprieve and no sense of fiscal freedom. And, while it might be true that the recession, and the treacherous job market it spawned, hasn't exactly been kind to any of us, Virgos faced a particularly bad time of it. Bolstered and enlivened by your work and service, a sign like yours takes job insecurity and the threat of scarcity hard. Which is not to say that there haven't been high points! A hard worker like you, surely, you've attracted attention and opportunities. Surely, you've got your finger in several pots/projects that excite you. But, if despite all that, you can't shake the feeling that a second shoe will drop any moment—you are not alone.

Virgo, there's nothing wrong with wanting to shore up and barricade. For those of us who have no safety net, no inheritance, making the net ourselves is our best option. And, even if we have had the privilege of being cared for, it's hard not to imagine worst-case scenarios in a political climate like this one and respond with over-caution. Yet the net is not simply made of material resources and long hours. What holds it together is what we feel we deserve and the hopes we have for our futures—guaranteed or not.

To weave a strong net for yourself, you've got to understand knots, bonds, and what they signify. You've got to reckon with the intentions you have for this net and who it's meant to catch. Is it for you alone or is it for you and those you yearn to support? To build a strong net, you've got to be able to step back from it, see it from a distance or from a different angle. You've got to let yourself enjoy your life, really enjoy it. You've got to let yourself feel transformed by joy, rich with it, so that you bring that joy with you when you work, and you weave it into the net, and you give yourself something to have faith in.

For many people, the month that holds their birthday can feel like a super charge. The Sun is in your corner, after all, and the Sun is energy. However, while energy is always powerful, it's not always a joy ride. Energy can overcome a person and, for many a Libra, the crisp pleasure of fall can swiftly succumb to an abiding leather-clad anxiety. The pressure to celebrate yourself can really give your self-doubt legs to run with! Have you been feeling a great deal of self-doubt coming on, dear Libra? Has the Sun's energy, coupled with the transiting influence of Mercury and Venus, and the arrival of Mars, left you feeling powerful or overpowered? Or, is it everything all at once? A sense that you are being asked to step into the role that you yourself have crafted, and that, to do so, you will have to relinquish the illusion that you are not ready or able or strong enough.

You might know this already, Libra, but I'll tell you anyway. Holding on, however secretly and gently, to the belief that we are not capable of being our best or our most aspired-to selves is a practice born out of fear and the desire for control.

You can't lose what you don't risk, so why risk and wind up losing? Well, for starters, because you never lose. That's right, you, sweet Libra, are always a winner. Not just in my book but in the book of Life! Seriously, you love to learn, to grow, and you're remarkably good at finding the lesson in every mistake. There's no Libra on this Earth that doesn't know how to turn a bad night over and make it into a parable or at least a very funny story. These qualities help make you a supportive friend, the kind that is generous with encouragement and a compassionate confidante. People come to you all the time hoping to feel validated in their efforts and right about their instincts. This month, save some of that judgment-free affirmation for your own self! When you feel the heat of the Sun, or the quiet pull of the full moon, let yourself stretch into your fullest size and then, a little further.

Scorpios are not famed for their softness, and that might be a blessing. While it can be tiring to encounter comment after comment about Scorpio's sharp tail, it can serve as a kind of protection. Scorpios who love other Scorpios know that their sisters rarely strike, preferring to conserve their energy for those who are of consequence to them. In fact, it is rare for a Scorpio to act on the offense and, sometimes, even in defense. Scorpios know that reacting makes them vulnerable, and they avoid vulnerability at all costs. Truth is, unless the situation is unusual (i.e.: the people involved are in a bad way), Scorpio strikes out only after being hurt—usually multiple times—by a person they trusted and cared for. In other words, when they feel betrayed.

So, you see, it can be a kind of blessing to be known for one's sharpness when one is afraid of being vulnerable, when one is much softer than they're willing to admit. This month, the shadow of your tail will not be enough, dear Scorpio, to counter the vulnerability you feel, and maybe that's a good thing. It's time to stop relying on other people to define you, and one good way to define yourself is to strip yourself of definition.

What happens when you let down your walls and let yourself be flooded with energy that is bigger and wider than your personal story? Waves of emotion, rising in you and over you, not in relation to one person or event but, rather, in response to a collective grief. It can be unbearable, especially for someone who is guarded, someone who prides themselves on knowing what an emotion is here to teach them. What if, this month, your connection to collective grief—and hopefully collective joy—is not here to teach you anything? It is only meant to be experienced. What if experiencing softness, permeability, a higher lover, is your medicine? Are you capable, Scorpio, of surrendering to those waves? Do you trust you'll know how to separate what is and isn't yours when the waves subside?

It can't be stressed enough, Sagittarius, how important it is for the way you live your life to reflect your values and beliefs. Not that anyone's keeping track, of course. No, in fact, your commitment to an integrated understanding of yourself and the world around you is entirely yours to uphold and primarily for your own benefit. There are no points to lose, no material rewards, and no scoreboards. Instead, there is a pervading sense that those of us who are conscious enough to sense the state of world, are racked by what we observe, and incensed by what is outside our power to change. Sagittarius, you, who have spent your life coming into consciousness, are racked more than most by the injustice you witness.

Your world, in its ordinariness, can often feel suffused with evidence of violence. From the tacit permission bureaucracy affords autocrats and institutions, to the histories that are routinely erased, and the stories that are silenced the moment they are born. The relationships between these mechanisms of suppression impact you and inform your understanding of humanity. They make it hard for you to feel like you are living into your authentic self. They make it hard for you to believe that building long-lasting relationships is worth your time and effort, since so much of this life seems built to break down. So, it is imperative that you work within your power, to heal what you can in this world, Sagittarius, even if it's something small. Even if no one sees. It's imperative so that you might protect what you hold dear about this world—your faith and belief in other people.

When I asked you what you wanted, you told me to remind you to be kind to yourself. Here I am, Capricorn, reminding you to be kind to yourself because I like to give people what they ask for whenever it is within my means. You like to give people what they ask for too, don't you Capricorn? What is the price of your offering, and is gratitude, in turn, enough? Imagine that you were to ask yourself for something. This could be conceived of as a goal or an aspiration, sure. Or, it could be a very real and tangible desire. An object that is available at a store or by the virtue of some elbow grease. Would you go out of the way for yourself, Capricorn? Would you give yourself the thing you wanted simply because you could, and not because you felt that you had earned it somehow or achieved it through countless hours of drudgery and self-denial?

This month, Capricorn, consider the heavy sweetness you guard within yourself. The overflowing honey pot you yearn to pour out for others. Consider the possibility that you were meant to give yourself that sweetness. That the secret bees who worried over luscious flowers labored all day so that they might fill you up with honey. And, here, this whole time, you've been acting like the gift was for someone else. You know how it happens, Capricorn—joy. You can't give it to others, you can allow your own joy to be witnessed. When you revel in who you are and what you offer others, people open like flowers around you. And then, there is more honey, more pleasure. There are many things about being alive that make it hard, you don't have to make it harder.

In fact, since you're such a hard worker, so ardent and sure, you can think of it this way: A world that wants us to feel separate from each other and without power will try to convince us that our singular core selves have no value outside of our labor. The challenge, the real work, is in proving them wrong.

What was it that Sappho wrote? What cannot be said will be wept? Well, if not exactly that, then something like that. Do you wonder, Aquarius, if what was unsaid then, in antiquity, is the same as what is unsaid now? And, if what remains unspoken inside you is a fragment of that very silence, a piece of a much older poem—the sum whole of which will never be read? O wind heavy with water, O wave. There are some people who forget that the ocean—its turbulence—is water and air; I hope that you are not one of them. The force of emotion, when communicated, takes on a new form, a new element. In transformation, like in translation, there is always something that gets lost.

If you have found yourself more and more distressed by what gets lost between what you feel and what you're able to communicate, this is a good time to remind yourself that you are a wave and no one questions which waters a wave crests and which waters she rides over. If you have found yourself troubled between elements, or dispersed, remember that waves have a rhythm. They are mathematical and, therefore, they are a source of ratios, or rational, or logos or—bear with me—that which is sayable.

What I mean is: What is irrational about you, what is alogos or unsayable, exists in perfect relationship and concert with the golden ratio of you, the thing that makes perfect sense. Aquarius, allow yourself to be both because both is your power. What you say and what you hold back, that's a formula you're working on, and you have a right to take your time. Those around you who don't want to understand the math of you aren't equipped to be in the water with you and, if they choose to get in, the risk is theirs—not yours.

This month, more than anything else I can wish for you, dear Pisces, I wish you play. I wish you play because the days are getting shorter and the nights longer. Because autumn can feel like a short slippery slide into winter, and winter is long and cold. Winter creates distances and highlights feelings of isolation. Winter begs sweet fishes like you to get your resources sorted and stored so that you might make it safely and softly over its snowbanks, and past the last frost, into the month of March when you are celebrated and restored. While canning peaches and making apple butter proves a reliable way to keep sweetness near, its play and the buoyancy it gives you will get you through.

That is why, while warm temperatures still linger on the Northern Sea board, I encourage you to re-animate your relationship to play, to re-ignite your eagerness to engage for engagement's sake, to let yourself feel loose with yourself and free.

I know how to play, you might be telling yourself now, I don't need to be reminded to be free. If that's true, then let me try to frame it some other way for you. Within you is a boundless power and that power is creative. This creative power has been with you since you were born and, depending on how you were raised, it has either been given space to thrive or it has been guarded and kept private. In this world, people who revel in their creative power without bending it to create capital—the people who play—are regarded as wasteful.

And, even if, somewhere deep inside of you, you know that you are most alive when you are being playful, and feeling alive is never wasteful, it is hard to tune out the voice that maintains what is not accounted is not of value. Pisces, don't let anything convince you that play, its creativity, is not inherently valuable. Play is what we are here to do, not work, and you are here to show us how it's done.