Oct 2016
Keeping Us on Our Toes
Don’t get comfortable. We aren’t supposed to be settling in, right now. The transits upon us are not about complacency, they’re about mass destabilization; and the more on-board we are with them, the more creative we will be.
Things are rocking and shifting. Our goal should be to align ourselves with the tumult, and let it inspire us.
Edges melting
This year has been dominated by the Saturn-Neptune square,(1) still within orb this month. Saturn governs the edges of things: barriers and perimeters. Neptune governs melting. Everywhere we look we see the edges of things melting. Edges that were always presumed to be fixed; like those of polar glaciers, that are now 
crumbling into the sea.
In last month’s SkyWatch we talked about how these dramas in the world at large are echoed by developments in our personal lives. It can deepen our understanding tremendously when we identify these parallels.
The pressure upon us, from Saturn, to firm up our own personal ideologies (Sagittarius(2)) — to locate their edges — is being complicated by Neptune. Our moral certainties are flailing. And the more we invest in them as eternal and unassailable truths, the more suffering we create for ourselves.
Also in this category are political beliefs, a form of secular religion. The meltdown of predictable party alliances in the American presidential campaign is a testament to the transit. Correspondingly, many of our own beliefs may be unraveling at the edges. The degree to which this makes us feel threatened, righteous and insistent tells us whether we are resisting or aligning with the transit.
The Cardinal Cross
As it has for the past several years around the solstices and equinoxes, the Cardinal Cross is rearing its head.
This month Pluto and Uranus and are six degrees away from an exact square (Pluto is 14-15 Capricorn, and Uranus, moving retrograde, is 23 – 21.) So the Sun provokes Pluto first, on Oct. 7th, and then hits Uranus a week later on the 15th.(3)
What houses of your chart do Uranus and Pluto occupy? This is the first thing to know, in order to get a bead on what these provocations will mean for you, personally. Transit trackers will probably be all too familiar with the issues likely to arise. For eight years now, each of us has been experiencing the forces of 
breakdown (Pluto) and radical change (Uranus) at work in the same general areas of our lives.
A few days later, Mars, now in Capricorn, takes over from the Sun as provocateur. It reaches Pluto on Oct 19th, and Uranus on the 28th-30th.
Mars’s impact is likely to be more obvious than the Sun’s. A burst of vigor and assertiveness push to the fore whatever explosive (Uranus) and compulsive (Pluto) impulses have been festering in the background of our lives.
The 19th-30th is therefore a good time to watch your ego like a hawk. If you feel the urge to control and overpower someone or something, the best outlet is a makeover project. Strip the old paint off a chair. Hit your studies with particular concentration.
Holistic reading
The most useful way to understand these transits is not singly, but as a series. Rather than trying to figure out the meaning of the Sun, and then put it together with the meaning of Pluto, and then Uranus, look at the hits on the 7th and the 15th as bookends.
Consider the Mars hits on the 19th and 28th similarly, as a pair.
Each transit pair comprises the latest iteration of the Cardinal Cross, which has been destabilizing us, individually and globally, since 2008. Each of October’s transits is designed to keep us on our toes.
They’re cosmic mnemonics, keeping us from forgetting the need to change. This month’s new developments are tailor-made for each of us, to get us to open up even further.
Notes
1 The Saturn-Neptune square came to exactitude last month and is still within orb.
2 Saturn first dipped into Sagittarius in September 2015 and will stay there until December 2017.
3 Mercury in Libra will reinforce the series mid-month, bringing it out in people’s communication. After squaring Mars on the 13th, Mercury squares Pluto on the 15th -16th.