The Fall Equinox, also known as the First Day of Fall, balances the hours of day and night. Already in Metro-Detroit we’ve lost an hour of daylight since September started. We’ll lose another 3 hours until the Winter Solstice offers a scant 9 hours to catch the weakened sunshine. Looking backward at the recent long, hot days as well as forward to joys of cooler weather and longer nights is a natural part of seeking balance. Now is the time to treasure the last warm days of the year and to hunt up rakes and new apples. Explore what made the lighter months good and plan for ways to brighten the darker months.
Astrologically, the Fall Equinox marks the line between Virgo and Libra. This ends our time of detailed Virgo preparations like the squirrels storing nuts in anticipation of leaner times that practical Earthy Virgo knows is coming. During our Virgo New Moon in mid-September, Mercury Retrograde joined the Sun and Moon in Virgo. Virgo is well suited to tasks involving hard work and careful accounting and Mercury’s Retrograde pushes us to review the results of recent efforts.
While planning remains strong as we enter intellectual Libra, our perspective widens from the details to larger issues of leadership. We are called to find balance on the scales of justice, the symbol of Libra’s reign. Libra energy ripens us for objective judgements when turned outward. Beware that your efforts to weigh your many options don’t lead to indecision, a common flaw of Libras when faced with choices that strongly affect themselves. With our first Libra Solar Eclipse in 18 years, we may find surprising shifts in how we balance our relationships.
Fall 2023 also brings a period when all of the outer planets are retrograde. Because of their years long orbit around the Sun, the planets from Jupiter to Pluto spend from 4 to 6 months every year appearing to move backward. With such a long and common period of retrograde, the impact of their path is much less intense than the closer planets, Mercury, Venus and Mars. By the Winter Solstice only Jupiter and Uranus will still be retrograde and Mercury will appear to moving backwards for the forth time this year.