Starcodes Oct 23, 2020 Heather Roan Robbins

The light shifts towards autumn, the Sun just entered deep and focused Scorpio creating the time of year when we face our fears for the long winter, and for the tough election, ahead. It’s time to look deep within our souls and our culture, investigate our suspicions and look for concrete truths underneath.

Investigation is essential now because it’s hard to figure out what’s really going on as Mercury retrogrades until election day and Mars retrogrades until mid-November. These two planets can complicate our lives as they appear to back up against the zodiac. Mars retrograde in fiery Aries can help us get going, but when a fire starts, whether real or metaphorical, it can burn hot.

These retrograde planets ask us to review everything we’ve done, thought, learned, or fought over this last year. Pluto, now direct, recently retrograded back to where it was last January as Covid-19 built momentum and the impeachment trial conflagrated. These planets ask us to go back and remember, what we have learned since then, and how can we make good use of that knowledge before we go forward. That doesn’t mean to fight the same fight, though we may, but more likely we still have to hold steady from outside pressure. A new chapter begins in the new year, but right now we’re reviewing that last chapter to squeeze every bit of knowledge, understanding, consequence, and karma out of it.

Continue to practice basic Mercury retrograde survival skills. Keep an eye open for technical glitches. Pay extra attention to follow through, actually get that letter or ballot in the mail, the paper sent. Sometimes we can have the intention to do so and it feels done, but may never actually manifest, much to our surprise. Look for items and people that return from the past, a lost ring that rolled under a dresser, the beginning of a story on an old file. Think carefully what you want to bring into the future rather than leave where it was.

The mood is friendly but stubborn, cooperative but not necessarily open-minded as Friday begins under a sociable Aquarius Moon that squares both the Sun and Uranus. We can expect to hear a lot of noise between now and the election as Mars in feisty Aries squares the Covid cluster, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto all in Capricorn. But because the mood is so stubborn right now, it is unlikely that these conflicts will change any minds until we get an opening the middle of next week.