This is Kathy Biehl of EmpowermentUnlimited.net with Astro-Insight for the week of October 16th, 2023. We’re in the gauntlet between eclipses, between the Libra Solar eclipse of October 14th and the Taurus lunar eclipse on October 28th. The time between eclipses is always highly volatile, and this particular gauntlet is not straightforward in the least. Whatever you start out with at the beginning of the week, you’re going to tweak and twist and change, and by the end of the week you will have deepened perceptions. But, oh, what a journey to get you there.
The first half of the week is a series of adjustments, and the first one of those comes from a lightning bolt, surprising information, shocking information, a turn of events that upends the way you’ve been looking at something, a message news, maybe simply an awakening. These shakeups come from an inconjunct or adjustment aspect between Mercury and Uranus, the agent of unpredictable change, and it’s appropriate that this is what is setting off the week because Mercury is our guide through the eclipse gauntlet.
Most of the activity this week involves him. He is the ruler of what goes in and out of our mouths and minds, our communication channels, the sorts of things we talk about, the nature of our information sources, and also our relationship to technology, which could be playing a role in the Uranian adjustment. The adjustment could involve your shaking off a particular type of technology or changing the role it plays in your life, or changing the role that a particular online information stream plays in your life.
So after we’re shaken up and awakened and to an extent liberated, we then grapple with fog. On the 18th and the 19th, the Sun and Mercury are both making adjustment aspects to Neptune. This could involve inspiration, creativity, forgiveness, compassion, recognizing how connected you are to a greater consciousness. This could involve deciding to tweak or alter your relationship to escapism, not spending so much time watching streaming services or videos or hanging out on Instagram or TikTok. Putting the bottle down, modulating your relationship to substances that alter your perception of reality. And very likely for all of us coming to grips with deception, lies, gaslighting.
And the upshot of these three aspects is great mental clarity coming into congruence on an internal level. The Sun and Mercury are meeting in the sign of Libra on the 20th. This holds the probability of your getting really clear on specific relationships, on changes in your relationship ground rules, on understanding the personal meaning and impact of the Libra solar eclipse on you, in your life, on your connections. And then we all come butt up against hard truths. I’ve already mentioned in earlier weeks that every time a planet gets near the end of a sign, it has a contact with Pluto, the lord of death and rebirth, the ruler of all the scary stuff that lies deep within us, the planet that rules power, the cosmic agent of unavoidable change and transformation. On the 20th and 21st, Mercury and the Sun have a square, a challenge to Pluto. This forces really candid conversations. It forces truths that maybe you haven’t wanted to deal with. It forces things to come at least into your thinking, and probably between you and someone else that have been building for a long time. The kind of conversation that you know and back of your mind you need to address, and you just keep putting it off. And then suddenly some force just sets the circumstances up so that you have basically no choice but to face something. These two squares bring laser focus. They act as a scalpel that slivers something off from you, from your thinking. This could lead to terminating a particular relationship, terminating a line of conversation, terminating an information stream, cutting something out of your life and going really deeply and intensely into into what remains.
This is not necessarily an unpleasant day because the two rulers of indulgence are in a very happy relationship at the same time, Venus and Jupiter, Venus rules everything we value: our relationships, creativity; she’s the social director of the skies, and she is in Virgo, which is Earth Mother mode. It’s protecting boundaries, making healthy choices, looking at everything yourself, what you want, your money, your relationships from the perspective of how can this be improved. And Jupiter planet of expansion is in her home base of Taurus, which deals with money, physicality, creature comforts, also creativity, sensuality. Their collaboration is a recipe for inviting things into your life, basically requiring situations that are healthy for you, that are good for you, unapologetically. This could take some of the sting out. This could take some of the sting out of the cutting away that occurs in the Mercury and Sun squares to Pluto. It’s kind of an antiseptic, and then conversations, thoughts, lines of inquiry go really deep. Communication becomes much more unspoken. What isn’t said is much more important than what is said. Mercury on the 22nd enters the sign of Scorpio where Mars has already been for 10 days. So our mental processes, our information channels, the way we communicate and our actions are all in stealth mode. We’re dealing with power. We’re going deep, we’re dealing in secrets, and we’re not tipping our hand as to what we’re doing. Mercury and Mars are heading for the territory where the lunar eclipse is gonna take place on the 28th. So we have a gear shift, unnoticeable atmospheric shift at the weekend, at the middle point of this eclipse gauntlet, a noticeable atmospheric shift from dealing with the resets in relationships and moving toward whatever revelations and chapter closings are coming with the lunar eclipse.
Do not worry about what might happen if you go really deeply into something because this shift of Mercury into Scorpio has a guideline that is tied to the boat, tied to the dock, tied to the shore. Mercury is making an immediate easy flow of a, trine to the most stabilizing influence in the sky, Saturn, planet of adulting, planet of accountability and consequences and order and structure, which is basically parked at the very first degree of Pisces well through November. Just as Pluto is the gatekeeper for the exit door of every sign, Saturn is the gatekeeper at the entrance of every sign, since it’s the outer planet of earliest degree. Every time something changes sign, the first thing it does is link up with the planet of adulting. Trust your hunches. They are probably very solid thanks to this trine and do take a moment to ground because we have another week to come within the eclipse gauntlet.
Homing thought of the week: Sharpen my perceptions.
Song of the Week: I See Right Through You by Alanis Morissette and
Image of the Week: I’ve got two — Cutting a path through a Jungle and X-ray goggles.
You’ll learn more about this in my forecast for the month of October, and also in my Aries/Libra eclipse talk, both of which are up at my site, EmpowermentUunlimited.net, where you can sign up for my mailing list and book a session with me. I’m Kathy Biehl, a professional astrologer with more than 30 years experience. I host the show Celestial Compass on OMTimes Radio on the first and third Monday of every month at 5:00 PM Eastern, and this week I’m talking about the history and lore and traditions of Halloween. I also host lively conversation on Facebook at Empowerment Unlimited and in the group, the Astro-Insight Lounge. I have lots of bonus content at patreon.com/kathybiehl, and I’m really grateful to the people who support my work there. I’m on Instagram and Threads at @kabiehl and on YouTube at the Professional Aquarian channel. Talk to you next week.