Prelude to Emergence

The Astrology of October to Mid-November 2024

Welcome to your October to Mid-November astrology highlights! What is this arbitrary timeline, you ask? Because Time, apparently, has no respect for the Gregorian calendar’s metronome and chooses to expand, contract, speed up and stand still as it pleases. And since most of our everyday anxiety is rooted in this dissonance — the fixation on the relentless when-when-when of Chronos time and the gradual fallout with pause, flow, and the pregnant possibilities of Kairos time— I figured I might as well walk the talk, at least in a newsletter dedicated to the qualities of time.

So let’s get right to it. If your relationship with astrology falls anywhere on the casual spectrum, you may be wondering why there’s more than usual excitement now around “portals closing and opening,” “timelines speeding up,” “cycles dissolving,” “epochal changes” and more out-there astrospeak for the current quality of time. Especially if it feels like nothing much is going on in your life and all this talk is only giving you fomo about being left out of another cosmic black-tie event. On the other hand, you may be in the throes of these transits and would gladly trade in your black-tie invite for a boring midweek errand. Either way: ♫ Welcome to wherever you are…♫

As you probably already know, astrologers cannot see your chart without your birth info, so any talk of the astro weather is just that — it’s the weather; it’s in the air so to speak. It may or may not have direct/immediate significance for you. But when the tectonic plates start to shift at a collective level, it affects us all in ripples and by a few degrees of separation, even if we don’t feel them directly. If you know your chart — not only your ‘big three’ but the signs where all your planets, angles and nodes fall, if not the aspects — this should make it a lot more personal. Any planets or points you have in any of the following signs broadly within 8-10° on either side (lesser the distance, higher the impact) are likely to be ‘hit’ by the respective transit.

Okay, this time, let’s really get right to it (the dates are all in IST).

October 3rd 2024: (South Node) Solar Eclipse at 10°Libra conjunct Mercury (Patch of Sky in Focus: Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn)

In the South of India where I live, the autumnal equinox isn’t due for another ten days when the Sun enters Libra in the sidereal zodiac followed by the Vedic system. But even then, autumn has never been a visual experience around here so unless one is either devoutly religious or actively keeping up with the archetypal thread in the festivals of this time, it’s easy to miss the memo. But not this year, with October opening with a particularly purgative eclipse in Libra, amplifying the seasonal call to withdraw, take stock, shed, release, declutter, detox — you get the drift — and basically make room for the newness that needs fertile psychic soil to latch on, gestate and emerge through you.

The problem is, we are much too sentimental about the deadweight we carry around, to face the truth about all the precious psychic space they’re taking up rent-free. Why bother dragging ourselves to the edge, facing the terror of annhilation that precedes every genuine act of creation; when we can just use nostalgia to self-soothe while paying lip-service to rebirth and new beginnings?

What are those things in your life that leave you empty and yearning while feeding on your life force? Why do you keep them around? What is the unconscious bargain? What are those conversations and decisions you’re hiding from? What is this avoidance costing you?

Do you feel heavy, exhausted, stuck and overwhelmed all the time? That’s your body-psyche asking you to make room. Eclipses are the cosmos’ way of assisting our evolution by periodically (approx. every 9 years) grabbing us by the shoulders and shaking us awake. How do you wish to respond? A) I’m terrified but I’ll deal with it now and get out of the hamster wheel B) I’ll postpone it for another decade, thanks. I like the rotting smell of unlived potential.

Song rec:

October 5th: Mars Retrograde Pre-Shadow Begins at 17°Cancer (Patch of Sky in Focus: Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn)

So Mars Retrograde isn’t until December 7th but the pre-shadow period started on October 5th. This basically means that whatever you’re currently deliberating or setting into motion (or on the other hand, resisting and avoiding taking action on), is likely to be significant one way or the other; and will need a three-act play structure to work out the logistics. Ergo, retrograde. There isn’t much you need to/can do with this one as much as keep your eyes open to what’s brewing and what your wilful focus is landing on, or what it’s actively avoiding.

Mars is also the principle of aggression so do pay attention to what your anger and frustration are telling you instead of sweeping it under the rug and letting it seethe and explode in a couple of months. But Mars is a lot of things so you might want to read this primer on mars retrograde I wrote a few years ago to get up to speed. This is particularly relevant if you have 17°- 29°of the cardinal signs and 0°- 6° degrees of the fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius) emphasised in your chart.

October 9th: 2024: Jupiter Retrograde at 21°Gemini (Patch of Sky in Focus: Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces)

Since May 26 2024, Jupiter has been bringing his Greater Benefic magic to one area of our lives (the house ruled by Gemini) — opening doors we had previously mistaken for walls, relaying timely news, orchestrating synchronicities, sparking meaningful connections, creating bridges, facilitating novel approaches to old conundrums, showing us those pockets of our lives still pulsing with possibility. As the planetary symbol of the mythical Zeus — the King of the Gods—it is Jupiter’s archetypal task to swoop in like an eagle (Zeus’ bird), lift us out of our small egoic preoccupations and set us in the heights of Heaven so we can take in the view; see our lives as he sees it — zoomed out, magnified and full of new ground just waiting to be seeded with the divine spark of the creator spirit. In the Christian mythos, this is the Spirit brooding over the waters in the darkness and chaos of the creation story; foreshadowing the shekinah moment when wholehearted receptivity (“Be it unto me”) from an ordinary human vessel would be all it takes to conceive God.

The only hitch is that Jupiter is in Gemini, the sign that opposes Sagittarius, his home. Astrologically, this is ‘detriment,’ when a planet feels like a foreigner because it’s so far from home. Psychologically, it may be experienced as scattered potential. Jupiter’s natural ability to zoom out and see the big picture is compromised in Gemini, where it may be overwhelmed by shiny object syndrome and run dangerously close to complete burnout.

Enter Jupiter Retrograde.

Retrogrades are periods of introversion when the energy that a planet represents, starts to pull us inwards. It is one thing to say yes to the grand vision of life that Jupiter gave you a peek into; but do you really have what it takes to carry God? Because if you’re asking for a thousand gallon blessing but you’re standing there with your 900 ml Tupperware bottle, guess what? Manifestation is so trendy these days because we’re hungry for a different life but also unwilling to yield; to the excruciating process of having our container melted, stretched out, remade and solidified to hold the life we say we’re ready for. The retrograde is our invitation to not only examine where we’re leaking energy by saying yes to everything; but also decide if we are willing to do what it takes to have what we want. This time, we’ve also had Saturn squaring Jupiter from Pisces; making things far less exciting but that much more rewarding. Saturn tempers Jupiter’s impulse to fall in love with the potential without factoring in the logistics; Jupiter, meanwhile, offsets Saturn’s reality-testing with a good dose of faith, hope, inspiration and divine timing.

What do you want in every area of your life going forward? What part of you resists this vision, this expansion? What would it take to get out of your own way? Where do you feel inspired to take action? What do you need to consider before you do? If you could get yourself to yield to the process, what would your life look like on the other side of these four months? Are you ready to birth God?

Song rec:

October 12th: Pluto Direct at 29° Capricorn (Patch of Sky in Focus: Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn)

Pluto, the principle of regeneration has been retrograde since early May and will turn direct in Capricorn for one final time in our lifetime. If you have emphasis anywhere in the cardinal signs, you’ve died a few deaths in one area of your life since 2008. Savour this period of grace between October 12th and November 19th when Pluto remains on the last degree of Capricorn, never to return to this sign in our lifetime. See if you can take in the full extent of your transformation in the last 16 years; the nine-headed hydras you’ve faced, the poison you’ve transmuted, the pain you’ve metabolised into wisdom and medicine. Allow yourself to appreciate the claws you’ve grown and the price you’ve had to pay for this newfound intimacy with yourself. Can you bring gratitude to the suffering that has brought you here? Are you ready to take the empowered steps you need to take in the outer world, now that you’ve served your time in the underworld, drinking of the cup of silence?

For more on Pluto, read this post I wrote recently.

November 15th 2024: Saturn Direct at 12°Pisces (Patch of Sky in Focus: Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces)

The mutable signs have been answering to Saturn since March 2023 when he entered Pisces. And with Jupiter in the mix, Neptune getting ready to complete his trek through Pisces and the Virgo-Pisces eclipse cycle just beginning, I think it’s safe to say that there are some major structural changes underway for the mutable signs. And as the planet in charge of the material world and actualising our Jupiter-inspired visions, Saturn runs a tight ship. But it’s in the retrograde phase that we typically feel those textbook experiences associated with Saturn transits: an intensification of pressure which is essential for all those Puer/Puella avoidant, childish bits of us to cook; feeling heavy and weighed down by responsibility so we can test our endurance and pull up our socks as needed; feeling downright depressive as the reality of our situation sinks in, so we can make necessary changes in service of the future we get lost in fantasies about; and of course plenty of delays, denials and frustrations to teach us humility, perseverance and other virtues we never signed up for.

Saturn is the lord of time and one of his favourite ways to let you never forget that, is by making you painfully aware of the passage of time, while simultaneously frustrating your efforts to compensate by speeding up the process. So on the one hand you feel like you’re terribly late but you’re also going to get stuck at every traffic signal because it’s Saturn’s way of sending you to a corner to reflect on what you’ve done. But there is an end to the retrograde period and we’re very close to it.

So when Saturn turns direct, typically the lights turn green; the paradox being that we no longer feel the need to rush and compensate because we’ve been tempered into acceptance, and the reward is clarity and solid foundations. By that, I mean we are now ready to start laying the bricks and taking decisive steps towards some very concrete goals that were crystallised through the retrograde. Unlike the other planets, Saturn concretises what he touches so the results are often tangible and uniquely rewarding; something you get to point at and say “I poured myself into this, swallowed my pride as needed, I showed up with patience, diligence, made necessary course corrections, and it’s way more gratifying than those things that just landed in my lap because I earned this.”

With Jupiter and Saturn engaged in a square through this transit, we have the classic image of Jupiter leading the donkey with a carrot, and Saturn driving it with a stick.

November 19th 2024: Pluto exits Capricorn, never to return in our lifetime (Patch of Sky in Focus: Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn)

This is truly the end of an era (2008-2024). By this time, we would have all hopefully buried and mourned our dead, so we can meet the new life ready to greet us in the emergence.