Libra New Moon & Relationship Drama – Oct 10, 2026

The Libra New Moon is at 17 degrees in Libra.

I overheard a conversation yesterday. A girl was on her phone, angry and frustrated, complaining… but more than complaining about her biology partner. This guy unwittingly spent 20 minutes looking through a microscope at nothing- she was furious. He wouldn’t let her look. He wouldn’t let her help. He wouldn’t let her participate. “That guy hates women,” she said. And went on to express her disgust at him looking at a blank plate on a microscope without even realizing it… Looking for something that wasn’t there.

In her mind, he wanted the power. He wanted the glory, and he had little respect for her thoughts and opinions. And more than her disdain for his behaviour towards women, she was upset because this guy was negatively impacting her education.

I’m in Oxford, and the students here mean business!

I could hear it behind everything that she was saying… I could hear her resolve and intent. This man will not stop me from my worth, from my value, and from my education.

As I looked at the chart for today’s New Moon, this conversation stood out! It was a microcosm of the macrocosm of what is going on. The conflict was between two people. Two students. A man and a woman. But it embodied a greater social conflict. And one that this New Moon highlights.

The New Moon is at 17 degrees of Libra, the sign of relationships, balance, fairness, and justice. It is one of the signs that is ruled by Venus, the feminine goddess of love, values, and worth.

Goddess Energy of the New Moon in Libra

Some of the other Goddesses are with this New Moon. It is opposite Vesta in Aries and square Ceres in Cancer. This brings in the energies of being driven by your own inner passions and drives, sometimes to the exclusion of other people, as well as the inability or difficulty in nurturing and meeting our own needs based on what we may have learned from our mothers or our mothers’ mothers. It’s the lineage of women in our families or our culture that impacts how we go about resolving the conflict in relationships right now. If we learned to quietly suffer, we may rebel. If we learned to subversively use our power, we may find ourselves cooking up a witchy spell. But if we learned to be strong and empowered, we may find an opportunity for deeper learning about ourselves: how we get our needs met, how we pursue our passions, and how we operate within relationships.

As mentioned, the New Moon is ruled by Venus, and Venus is currently in Scorpio and retrograde. This on its own is challenging. It makes us prone to jealousy; we may confront hidden desires, rage, and issues of trust and power. And situations will arise that bring these types of feelings to the forefront. Venus is also making a perfect square to Mars in Leo and is also square to Pluto in Aquarius, and this intensifies all of these feelings to a place where we are likely to act unconsciously.

And the weird thing… behind it all might be a sexual tension or a strange attraction that brings out the worst… I distinctly remember a boy in middle school tripping me and giving me titty twisters… apparently because he liked me???? This is the kind of energy that Venus square Mars brings up. Add in Pluto in Aquarius, and not only do we amplify the dynamic, but we also do so at a larger societal level as well.

The personal is the political—our experiences as women, with the feminine, are not just a personal problem, but a larger problem with the power structure.

A collective intervention might steam out of control.

At its heart, the energy highlights the difficulty we feel with the power of our feelings. Attraction, jealousy, sexual power… And it’s not just men… It’s the masculine within us all.

Mars (the masculine) needs an evolution!

The Sabian symbol: Two men placed under arrest. Rudhyar says that this symbol represents “A breakdown in the constructive relationship between the individual and society, and the expectable result.” At the heart of it, the Sabian symbol is about facing consequences.

And that’s where Thereus comes in.

The asteroids involved at this New Moon are Thereus and Hera.

Before I go into the story of Thereus, let me first mention Hera. Hera is the goddess of marriage, but she was constantly jealous and vengeful of her forever-cheating husband, Zeus. Her appearance here with the New Moon solidifies that it is one about relationships, trust, power, and the emotions that come from them.

And now for the story of Thereus and its importance at this New Moon.

Strangely, when I looked up the myths of Thereus, Tereus came up. I wondered what the difference was. One was a centaur, and the other was a king… and though they have no connection to each other in mythology, linguistically, they are cousins: both derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root which means “to hold, keep, watch”. For the centaur Thereus, this was emphasized in hunting—Thereus was a centaur who dragged bears out of their dens and carried them home alive to his cave. For Tereus, the King, it was meant to emphasize guardianship… which is a very forgiving word for this king because his guardianship in the end was obsessive and predatory!

Since Tereus the king was also predatory, I will tell you that story, even though the asteroid is about the bear-hunting centaur… Thereus with the New Moon highlights feelings of being hunted, captured, and silenced.

The story goes that Tereus was the King of Thrace (or Phocis) and husband to Procne. He is infamous for his brutal crime: deceiving her father by claiming Procne had died to win the hand of Procne’s sister, Philomela, whom he then raped and silenced by cutting out her tongue.

I know… to hold, keep, watch – definitely predatory!

Philomela revealed the atrocity to her sister Procne through an embroidered tapestry, leading the sisters to cook up a plan of revenge. They kill Tereus’s son, Itys, and serve him to his father.

Feels very Venus in Scorpio…

When Tereus found out what they did, he pursued them with an axe. But the gods intervened to end the violence by transforming all of them into birds: Tereus into a hoopoe (or hawk), Procne into a nightingale, and Philomela into a swallow. It is said that the hawk symbolized his predatory pursuit, forever chasing the sisters he can never catch. The nightingale’s mournful, nocturnal song ensured the tragedy was never forgotten. The swallow, a voiceless bird, mirrored the tongue Tereus cut out.

The consequences are real. And at this New Moon, there may be outside intervention that imposes those consequences. It’s therefore worth it to think through the consequences to the conclusion before acting.

There are various versions of the tale, and in Ovid’s inversion, Philomela actually becomes the nightingale – and the sister whose speech was stolen is now the bird most celebrated for its beautiful song.

Philomela adds an interesting and useful aspect to the story and the New Moon energies. Philomela could not speak, but she was able to communicate with tapestry. This reminds me of the stories of African American women who used quilts to communicate information to slaves about how to escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad, and other stories of escape routes mapped in braided hair. The New Moon makes a sextile to Jupiter in Leo, which represents opportunities hidden in beauty, play, and creative expression. So while we may feel hunted and captured, within the experience lies a creative opportunity. And incidentally, asteroid Philomela is within 5 degrees of Jupiter in Leo.

Happy New Moon in Libra!

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New Moon at 18°  Virgo – Sept 11, 2026

Mary Magdalene as Cassiopeia – Julius_Schiller

The New Moon is in Virgo at 18°  Virgo –  Paths, Prisons, or Perturbations?

The New Moon is in Virgo at 18° of Virgo. Virgo is the sign of the Virgin Goddess. It represents being detailed and perfectionistic, concerned with cleanliness, orderliness, and details. It is also the sign that serves—in the military, as a nurse, or as a civil servant. Virgo is the one who takes care of others. She is also the Virgin Goddess.

This Virgo New Moon is sextiling Mars, which gives it a tremendous amount of energy for setting new intentions and actually seeing them through. It gives us focus, self-assuredness, and the ability to carry out our actions. As Mars is in Cancer, we’ll feel particularly motivated by our home base and family, and by taking care of our people. Mars in the sign of Cancer, a sign related to the mother, also brings in feminine motivations.

The ruler of this New Moon is Mercury, and Mercury has just moved into Libra and is at 0°, a critical degree. It brings in the element of communication, with a focus on relationships, fairness, and balance. This might be difficult because Mercury is also opposite Neptune. This opposition to Neptune brings confusion, which complicates Mercury in Libra’s already indecisive nature.

Neptune is in Aries. On one hand, Neptune in Aries is spiritual pioneering. It’s bringing in new ways of being spiritual.

That has been my personal quest with my course – The Hidden Architecture of the Cosmos: The TYCHOS 101. I thought I was on my own, but I was surprised to see an entire series on The Astrology Podcast about astrology and its spiritual roots. We cross very similar territory, but our conclusions are vastly different.

Chris Brennan is thorough—one podcast was over six hours—with a lot of Virgoan detail, scholarship, and reliance on texts and the scientific method. He talks about Hermeticism and Gnosticism and their roots in astrology, and he comes to some conclusions. Some of them are profound, but some, in my humble opinion, miss the mark.

Strangely, he touches on the very method where we differ. At one point, he mentions that the information given and written in these texts was often divinely inspired—given by a god, such as Adapa or Thoth, or received directly from the sky.

While I traversed the same texts, my conclusions were inspired by asking and connecting with the divine. I walked a pilgrimage, sat in meditation, connected with the land and sky, and what came to me was the same, but also vastly different.

And this is where confusion and indecisiveness can come in. There is so much information to sift through, organize, and make sense of. One person is saying this and another that… What do we believe?

Mercury at 0° doesn’t help. Expect indecisiveness.

But Mercury also forms a kite. It makes sextiles to Pluto and Uranus, and so this brings in new ways of communicating and new ways of seeing the world. It brings in originality and ideas that may be ahead of their time. It brings in a probing mind and an ability to research and get to the depths beneath the superficiality.

If we can get past the confusion, the kite formation can send us flying. And to do that, my suggestion is to stay curious. Organize your information into yeses, nos, but mostly maybes.

Staying in the noncommittal state of curiosity gives you more time to see what’s true, what’s true for you, and what you might have to add that isn’t already there.

One more thing: Mercury is conjunct the asteroid Magdalena.

Virgo as St James the Lesser

Magdalena brings in the Divine Feminine energy. And she really touches on this confusion of thought because, ultimately, I believe we are struggling to understand the Divine Feminine and her role.

It was recorded in the Bible that Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary, and that devolved into the idea that she was a prostitute. At this point in history, most of us have cleared up that Mary was never a prostitute. But when we go a layer deeper, we discover another interpretation—that those seven demons were seven archons. And here’s the Magdalene confusion.

In early spiritual thought, the daimon—which later became the demon—descends with the soul and guides it. It is the soul’s ally. Later, in Gnosticism, it becomes the archon, which descends before the soul and sets up the prison. It is the soul’s adversary that we are meant to break free of.

Both are “of” the planetary realm, but one is a supportive psychopomp that guides the soul through the spheres, while the other is an imprisoner.

But for me, there is a deeper layer. These two ways of connecting with the spirituality of the cosmos fall short. In Gnosticism, the cause of the fall is Sophia—a woman. In Hermeticism, the guide to the heavens is a man—Hermes.

But Virgo reminds us that the Divine Feminine goes further back.

Seshat was the female counterpart of Hermes/Egyptian Thoth, and to me, she embodies something lost, hidden, and forgotten. She is the Lady of the Library. She counted the notches of life on her palm. She created letters, measured and aligned temples to the cosmos. She is the lost and forgotten Virgo.

And I think she holds the knowledge of the path through the seven spheres that will honour the feminine.

Magdalena connected to Mercury, brings in all of these elements. Because, in truth, her name was not Magdalena—she was a Magdalene, which means “tower.” She was a priestess in the mysteries of Inanna → Ishtar → Isis → Magdalene—the path of Venus.

Exactly conjunct the New Moon are several asteroids. These asteroids remind us of the power of our words and the power of the unseen, Mercurial world. They are Askapaphus, Circe, and Chiminigagua.

Askapaphus represents themes of discretion and the consequences of revealing secrets. In mythology, he informed Hades that Persephone ate pomegranate seeds, which led to her spending part of the year in the underworld. This resulted in punishment from Demeter, Persephone’s mother, who turned him into an owl.

The energy reminds us of the consequences of revealing information—that it can lead to fallout or things that we don’t expect. It reminds us to think ahead before we speak, or to at least reveal information to the initiated—those ready to receive.

The other asteroid connected with this New Moon is Circe. She was the goddess of witchcraft, and she was skilled in transforming things into different forms. She transformed the crew who found themselves on her island in the great epic of Odysseus, turning them into swine.

And so this brings in another aspect of Mercury: the magician, the conjurer, the sorcerer—the one who uses magic or words to transform or create. It also reminds us of the responsibility of words and of their manifestations.

The final planetary body connected to the New Moon is Chiminigagua. This is a primordial god, a creator god of the Muisca people of South America. But maybe I should say goddess, because she is feminine.

And this brings us back to the forgotten Goddess/Priestess energy of the New Moon. The one who communicated through the unseen… DNA on one hand and the akashic records and the like on the other…

This New Moon, sift through and organize your understanding of who the Goddess is to you and within you. Does she exist? Is she good or bad? What do you believe, and how do your beliefs inform your manifestations?

Are you creating paths, prisons, or perturbations?

Happy New Moon in Virgo.

 

July 29, 2026 – Full Moon at 6 Degrees Aquarius

Breaking the Relationship Recession with  Spiritual Compatibility

The Full Moon is at 6 degrees of Aquarius. Aquarius is the sign of humanity—enlightened, progressive, and intellectual. It is symbolized by the figure pouring water from a jar, with the water representing spirit. In this way, it is a deeply spiritual sign. As the sign associated with astrology, it is connected with cosmic knowledge and gnosis.

In my last post, I discussed the “relationship recession” we are currently experiencing. People are opting out of relationships. They are “lying flat,” rejecting the social expectations tied to relationships—marriage, the white picket fence, and traditional responsibilities. This is reflected in the Pluto–Juno conjunction, which has been part of the basket (or “cradle”) configuration that influenced us throughout July. This Full Moon brings a culmination to that relationship recession, supported by a deeply mythological relationship story reflected in the asteroids.

The Moon is conjunct Pluto and the asteroids Juno and Arawn. At a Full Moon, the Sun is always opposite the Moon, and here the Sun is joined by Jupiter and the asteroids Psyche, Aphrodite, and Hygiea.
Pluto and Juno have been travelling together, transforming relationships. From my last post:

“If you look closely at the myth of Juno, she was long-suffering—defined by constant jealousy and anger at her unfaithful husband, Jupiter, and by deep insecurity about her beauty and worth. For too long, relationships have been modelled on this insecurity and co-dependence. Yet there is a hopeful angle to the relationship recession… a deep transformation is happening in how we relate. ‘Wildflowering’ is an approach that allows relationships to develop without labels or pressure—an approach once simply called friendship. In the context of modern relationships, it is revolutionary and very Aquarian. We also see ‘nun girl summers,’ where women step back from dating to focus on themselves.

Within the relationship recession lies the potential for deep relational transformation. It’s very Pluto conjunct Juno—it holds the promise of greater emotional clarity and, ultimately, more balanced and egalitarian partnerships.”
Asteroid Arawn, named after the Welsh underworld god and king of Annwn. The name means “ploughing the field.” It represents preparation—getting the ground ready for what comes next.

At the heart of “nun girl summers” and wildflowering is this process of preparing the landscape. It mirrors the journey of Psyche—a process of overcoming seemingly impossible tasks….

And this brings us to the story of Jupiter, Psyche, Aphrodite, and Hygiea opposite the Moon!

In mythology, Jupiter (Zeus), Psyche, and Aphrodite are linked through a powerful story. Aphrodite grew jealous of Psyche because mortals began to worship Psyche for her beauty more than Aphrodite. Out of jealousy, Aphrodite instructed her son Eros to make Psyche fall in love with a monster. However, Eros accidentally wounded himself with his own arrow and fell in love with Psyche instead.

Because Psyche was mortal and Eros a god, he made her promise never to look at him. She agreed, but her sisters planted doubt in her mind. Eventually, she lit a candle to see him and discovered his divine beauty. But a drop of wax woke him, and he fled.

Desperate to win him back, Psyche appealed to Aphrodite, who agreed—but only if Psyche completed four impossible tasks. The final task required her to journey to the underworld and retrieve a jar of Persephone’s beauty cream. With help from ants, reeds, an eagle, and a talking tower, she succeeded. However, tempted by the promise of beauty, she opened the jar and fell into a deathlike sleep.

Eros, still in love with her, sought Jupiter’s help. Jupiter revived Psyche by giving her ambrosia—the divine nectar—making her immortal and resolving the imbalance between them.

The core conflict in this myth is that mortals and gods are unequally yoked. This doesn’t refer to differences in background, belief systems, or status—it speaks to spiritual imbalance. Their incompatibility was spiritual.
A “god” represents someone who has done the inner work—someone with agency, power, and self-mastery. This kind of spiritual liberation comes from facing life’s challenges, doing the work, and growing through experience, often with the support of nature.

This is where the asteroid Hygiea comes in. Hygiea represents healing—here, the cure comes through ambrosia. But ambrosia is not just a drink; it is a transformation. And you do not receive it without first doing the work.
In relationships, spiritual incompatibility often means that only one person has done that work. This Full Moon asks us to do the work necessary to bring balance and co-creation into our relationships. You don’t have to be perfect—Jupiter, aligned with the Sun during this Full Moon, offers blessings to those who have at least made the effort. Jupiter offers that symbolic cup of ambrosia.

Traditionally, Aquarius is ruled by Saturn, which has just gone retrograde, asking us to review lessons around courage and responsibility. In modern astrology, Aquarius is ruled by Uranus, now in Gemini, forming a mini grand trine with Pluto and Neptune. This suggests that your personal transformation contributes to broader societal evolution.

The Sabian symbol for this degree is “A child being born out of an eggshell.” This symbol suggests the birth of a new human—emerging not just from lineage, but from the cosmic egg itself. It points to a consciousness that can transcend inherited patterns and karmic history.

Full moons are a great time for ceremony, release, and integration.

Happy Full Moon in Aquarius!

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