We are certainly in the whirling, purgative vortices of eclipse season.

Even if this afternoon held the last of four eclipses taking place in 2023, its baleful rays will emanate a couple days — and the full moon, natural peak of any lunation cycle, here holds an amplified potency.

Saturday’s partial lunar eclipse saw the exalted Moon in Taurus, a Hunter’s Moon, in its fullness staring down the Sun in Scorpio.  The sharpness of Mercury and Mars together is manifest, both also in Scorpio conjunct five degrees ahead of the Sun, pressing onward with passion, aggression and an operative nature as covert as it is incisive.

Whereas Aries, the diurnal home of Mars, can be like a visible torch, Scorpio, the nocturnal home of Mars is like a subterranean strike.  The hidden knife; the calculated subterfuge; fixity of emotion; passions and harmonies, grudges and divisions born over long arcs.  The words ‘to cut’, as Mars is known to do, hold sway from theater, to battlefields, to the bedroom and all manner of slang.

With Mars ruling the Sun as Earth casts shadow on the Moon, we see how September’s stagnation gave way to October’s intensity — this climactic lunar eclipse bringing a boiling point that will be processed with even greater momentum across November, during which Mars’ two-year cycle is reborn.

The swift planet and the red planet conjunct in Scorpio also form a direct opposition to Jupiter in Taurus, which the Moon applies to conjunct overnight.  Such ‘yang’ planet oppositions to Jupiter often risk mistaking freedom for growth… yet across a yin axis such as Taurus/Scorpio, the most vicious attachments can go down kicking and screaming, seeing a pull in two or more directions.

“It doesn’t mean you should just because you can
It doesn’t mean you should just because you can
Like Abraham and Ishmael, fighting over sand
It doesn’t mean you should, just because you can…”

— King Crimson, “Facts of Life”

Rather than forging ahead with freedom anew, Mars/Jupiter might see a biting down or resistance to letting go.  As I often say with full moons across the Taurus/Scorpio axis: “Better than to control something apparent, is to be apparently controlled.”

Yet Mercury/Jupiter might afford a re-framing of one’s stance, even if the surrounding circumstances are stubborn or conflict-laden.  Mercury/Jupiter oppositions and aspectual interactions in general suggest idea exchange, polemics, ideological potency, as well as contrast or conflicts between ‘the one way’ and ‘the many ways.’

Jupiter is the idealogue, the zealot — and with the messenger Mercury and warring Mars in direct opposition to it, we need no more direct an archetypal mirror for some of the heated and heartbreaking exchanges presently shaking the world stage.

In the sign of the Scorpion, Mercury and Mars’ blades together can go deep, quick, and even vitriolic… yet the multiplicity of the messenger planet might have it that we see many valid avenues for expressing grief, righteous anger, and willful movement in directions aligned with our innermost values.

For example, it is possible to acknowledge a harrowing genocide in the wake of fateful attacks, make donations, have difficult conversations and so forth without indulging as much of the algo-rhythmically catered outrage, or performing for visibility and reflexive profession of the Perfect Stance™ … on the other hand, when such human rights violations (to put it lightly) are masked by constant novelty extraction from mindless feeds, we see how these same instruments of communication and rallying are also opium dens of distraction and obfuscation by the prevailing control systems.

Just some dynamics to look out for ::

*high passions and obscured muses
*peaks and valleys of inspiration/exhaustion
*the ability to hold or maintain energy/focus at once heightened and beleaguered
*emotional, physical, territorial motivations
*increased vigilance, aggression, intensity
*seesaws of purpose and pleasure
*perhaps some clouding of these
*harmony and severing (Venus and Mars)
*violence and peace
*the manifest, the outwardly idyllic vs. the hidden, the seething inner cauldron
*heated conversations, quick incisions (Mercury/Mars)
*not being afraid to speak up, speaking up against the prevailing idealogues (Mercury/Mars opp. Jupiter)
*heightened dream potency in eclipse portals
*despite eclipse-y confusion, a sense that momentum is gaining
*conflict and separation define any perfect union or harmony

Swim well stargazers… move in alignment with your innermost convictions.  Mars’ path across the coming month will back this with vigor.

—A.B.
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[ art by Eliza Bennett ]