October's Full Moon Will Inspire You To Change Your Life

It can be difficult, in the depths of one energy, to think about that energy's opposite. Every month, we watch a full moon light up our darkness and every month that full moon is a sign opposite the sign of the Sun. This month, in the depths of Libra season, we welcome a full moon in Aries. While Libra is a sign that represents relation, diplomacy, and communication, Aries thrives in the realms of self-actualization, competition, and assertion. Both signs are cardinal, they initiate change, but their elemental qualities make a big difference. Libra negotiates change in the air through the realm of ideas and the power of suggestion, while Aries sparks change through dynamic drive and impulsive action. Under the auspices of the Libra Sun, relationships are negotiated, reinforced, or dissolved. Empowered by the full moon in Aries, we are filled with a yearning to define our singularity and honor our personal beliefs. Under one sky, we are called to navigate our sense and understanding of ourselves in relation to others.

On the ground, all this can seem impossible to accomplish in one night and, truth be told, it is. That's why it's important to note that while the full moon's transit under one sign lasts approximately two days, the moon's cycle is almost a month long. And, if you want to get real generous with yourself and your timeline, it's not out of the question to regard the moon's cycles in relationship to each other. It would do some of us good to consider this spring, when the moon was full in Libra twice, once in the very beginning of the Sun's transit through Aries and once at the very end. We work up to a full moon, both cognitively and experientially, and we work our way down from it. In the sky, its shape is un-shadowed, bit by bit, until we see its total circumference. It can be tempting to imagine that this moon is just like all the others, and you are the same under each one.

During an Aries full moon, while the Earth around us shifts seasons, we are reminded that to be alive is to be changing. Change is growth, not away from who you are, but into who you were always meant to be. If you let yourself feel the eros of yourself—your aliveness—if you listen very closely to the voice inside you that sounds like no one else, you will encounter what has grown inside you cycle by cycle since those Libra moons past. An emphasis on feeling into and through what binds us to others and why. What understandings, what new ways of seeing yourself in relation, came to you since that time? Have those understandings been reinforced or challenged? Have the seasons that followed given you lessons when you thought all your lessons were done?

Lessons are a key term here, with our full moon making hard aspects to both Saturn and Pluto, planets that seek to strengthen our sense of purpose by dissembling faulty structures and collective illusions. At the same time, Mercury retrograde casts its shadow, stationing in Scorpio with Venus. When the full moon rises, Venus in Scorpio will be making a direct opposition to Uranus in Taurus. The interpersonal power of the Sun in Libra vs. the singular drive of the Moon in Aries; the obsessive, secretive, nature of Mercury and Venus in Scorpio vs. the bold public figure of Uranus in Taurus. It would be wise to remember that oppositions exist precisely because they are in relation. That to understand yourself as singular and to honor your own needs is to show up fully for all commitments and communities. That to honor Scorpio's desire for transformation, one must reckon with what Taurus believes they have earned the right to hold on to. And, when we are dealing with the shadow of Mercury retrograde, we are dealing with information that is compromised. We can only take stock of ourselves, we can only be sure of ourselves, we are our most perceptive witnesses in our own growth and that must be enough.