New Moon in Libra: Back in Balance

Tonight and tomorrow, September 23-24, we have a New Moon in the air sign of Libra, sign of the Balancing Scales. All New Moons ask us to start again, and this is a special lunation in that we are literally turning over a new leaf with the Fall Equinox upon us as well. The season is changing within and without. It is time to ask, what do we need to bring into our lives, our lifestyles, and our relationships in order to get back into balance?

Libra is a cardinal sign, signifying initiative energy, and the Moon falls on the first degree – two more clues that we’re due for a fresh start. Not only that: Pluto, the Great Transformer, has just turned Direct on September 22 after a six-month retrograde in which his powerful energy was restricted. Whew. Now we can at least get on with the show when it comes to making utter and total changes, rebirths large and small which will impact our lives to the core. So if you need surgery, a home renovation, a healing cleanse, a tax overhaul, a new psychotherapist – this fall is the time to let it in, or out, as the case may be.

Now, let’s turn to the New Moon in the sign of the Scales, and find out what we’re being asked to contemplate, integrate, and commit to (for lover Libra loves commitments!).

THE DANCE OF RELATIONSHIP

Libra wants us to cultivate harmonious surroundings and relationships in order to feel good. Libra thrives off relationship, whether we’re talking a spouse, a business partner, a date, or a family member, and requires equilibrium. The challenge for us during this New Moon is to NOT look for the balance and fairness in the externals of our relationships. Trying to find ultimate feel-good pleasantness between two people can be effective, but improving communication techniques goes so far. Absolute equipoise is an ideal; we need to allow for humans being, well, human. Like an airplane flying to Hawaii over the Pacific, you may be off exact course 99% of the time, with tiny or big wavering depending on air stream, weather, equipment, etc. But you will get there.

Eventually, the peace we are looking for MUST come from our own inner nature. Libra teaches us we much balance head with heart. This can be difficult to learn and integrate. Often, men are challenged, through genes and conditioning, to drop swiftly into their heart center. Conversely, women are typically more comfortable and conditioned to thrive in their feeling nature. Yes, this makes women often appear “hyper-sensitive,” and men come across as “insensitive” or arrogant when they are rationalizing. Can the twain ever meet? Regardless of gender, there is a gap to bridge in order to come back into balance. Perhaps both parties can become nimbler at shifting between head and heart to facilitate inner and outer harmony.

You may ask yourself, do you become emotionally distraught when harmony is disrupted? Do you lean so much toward approval, pleasantness and feeling good that you get caught off-guard, creating issues in your relationships? Are you swayed toward favoring one way of seeing, thinking, behaving, perceiving, feeling versus the other? There’s your balance bugaboo, every time! This is not inquiry for the meek of heart. The New Moon in Libra asks us to both face our orientation conditioning and detach from it. Absolute harmony is, ultimately, an inside job.

BODILY HARMONY

Tree pose in Thailand

For some of us, coming back into balance could literally mean just that: upping our yoga, dance or movement classes in order to facilitate bodily harmony. Tai Chi, Qi Gong, dynamic meditation techniques – any physical practice that integrates mind and body will do – even breathing consciously while working in the garden or raking leaves! Inner equipoise translates quickly into outer grace.

Even if you’re not a big yogi, one very simple pose that you can practice this autumn is tree pose (vriksasana) – fitting for fall, honoring the changing colors of our foliage friends outside. See how your balance improves with practice; eventually, you’ll be able to stand in tree pose, arms overhead, with your eyes closed. Start by gradually looking up at the ceiling more while you’re in the posture. Once you’ve stabilized in tree pose, effortlessly move into dancer’s pose (natarajasana) without dropping your foot to the floor first. Natarajasana, honoring Shiva performing his eternal dance of creation and destruction as well as beauty, poise, grace.

Perfect for Libra.

Practicing yoga at home. India, 2010

With a wealth of modern expertise in the ancient arts of Astrology and the Tarot, Erin Reese is an intuitive consultant uniquely positioned to answer your questions via Skype, phone or email. Please email or call Erin to make an appointment for a reading.

Check out Erin's yoga page with articles and Sun Salutation demo video here.

Full Moon in Pisces: Emotional Sensitivity

Chiron the Wounded Healer

Tonight and tomorrow, September 8 and 9, we have a Full Moon in the mutable water sign of Pisces, non-dual sign of the Fishes. Full Moons shed light and potency in order to bring conscious awareness to a part of our life that we need to look at more closely. Full Moons are often emotional, and this week’s lunation is particularly so. We may feel delicate, touchy, hypersensitive. It is not the time to push the river. It is time to lay off and go easy on people, including family, friends, housemates, lovers, coworkers and especially ourselves.

It is a good time to practice restraint of pen and tongue, as words may act as swords now. Mercury, the communicator planet, is in a challenging square aspect to Pluto, ruler of the depths and underworld. Expressing what we feel and think in a useful manner might not come easily at this time. Whatever is hidden in the dark corners of our minds may be clamoring to come forth, but we may not know how to bring it out gracefully. Mercury is in Libra, the Scales of Justice, so diplomacy is strove for; yet, Pluto is in authoritarian Capricorn, challenging our sense of equality and harmony. Further turning up the heat is Uranus in fiery Aries, opposing Mercury and squaring Pluto. Volatility and surprise, rash outbursts are possible so it will help much if we can cool our jets and wait for the emotional wave to pass before lashing out. Also, we can try to forgive others for being upsetting or defensive, too.

Venus is traveling through Virgo right now, opposing dreamy, non-committal Neptune in Pisces. Venus, goddess of love, art, and wealth, in the sign of Virgo can be – well – picky and pick on her loved ones, even if she means well and is only trying to offer helpful fixes. Are we trying to improve our family members, our partners, ourselves ad nauseam? Perhaps this is a good time to let things go, let others do it their own funny-to-us way. Does it matter how the toilet paper is placed on the roll? Can’t the dishes sit in the sink once in a while? Can the article be published even if it's not a Pulitzer prizewinner? Who cares, really?

Perfectly Imperfect

Why are we so sensitive right now? Perhaps it is because, when it comes to heart and soul, we need to feel it to heal it. This Pisces Full Moon is tightly conjunct the asteroid Chiron, known as the Wounded Healer. When Chiron is involved, we may find old wounds reopened, and get easily hurt. In mythology, Chiron was a centaur who suffered a wound that never totally healed, but his persistent search for a remedy motivated Chiron his whole life. He taught and assisted so many other gods and humans and creatures along the journey.  Chiron reminds us that although a complete solution may not be possible, we still must do something about it. It’s not going to be perfect, it just has to be good enough.

Creative, unstructured Full Moon in Pisces can be a messy time within and without – and sometimes being disheveled is a part of the mysterious process of life. Just look at Nature: we find glory and grace in the incongruous, random swaths of color and vitality everywhere. Can we find the beauty in our own pain and imperfection in the same way?


Chiron and the Moon in Pisces are receiving help in a trine aspect from the planet Saturn in Scorpio at this time. Saturn asks us to try and build worldly structures to support the spirit now, as well as our sensitive homes and bodies. It may not be perfect, and we may never entirely get our needs and wants met. But, does an unattainable ideal of perfection need to get in the way of our happiness in the present moment? Absolutely not.

Look at the possibilities of what you can do, what you can make happen in your given situation. Remember to not fight the inevitable. Accepting the things we cannot change frees us to focus on the things we can. Also, Pisces rules the dream time, so we may find guidance and solace in our nightly journeys. What symbols are passing through your dream life? Are you sensing a theme? What are you processing?  Look for clues bubbling up from the unconscious.

Let the Pisces Moon show us how we can accept others, ourselves and situations as they are - a little disheveled, a little wounded, and a whole lot of beautiful. Revel in the enormity of life: just perfect – even when it’s not.

With a wealth of modern expertise in the ancient arts of Astrology and the Tarot, Erin Reese is an intuitive consultant uniquely positioned to answer your questions via Skype, phone or email. Please email or call Erin to make an appointment for a reading.