tarot reading for the new moon in libra
A collective reading for the moon cycle ahead.
The October new moon is in Libra, the sign of balance, beauty.
Of relationship and justice and reciprocity.
This moon asks us to remember that balance always occupies a space of tension. It invites us to grow our capacity to hold complexity, and to meet things as they actually are, rather than what we think they should be.
Can we love what is beautiful, what inspires awe and wonder, without forgetting the rot and death that feeds the flowers?
Libra lives in this space, between the juicy color of late summer and the darkness of the season ahead. She lives in the amber autumn light setting trees aglow. She lives in the poetic melancholia of the last flowers blooming, in the crystals of the first frost.
In earlier times, it was understood that surviving the winter ahead required relationship and cooperation. Right now, alongside Venus retrograde in Scorpio, she is reminding us that we have never stopped needing each other, and the balance of our relationships need tending. This is not news to us at a macro level: the current paradigm and power structures are failing, and most of us are feeling the consequences and struggling to get our basic needs met… But we also are being invited to zoom in and examine our personal and community relationships, and our relationship to self. Where do things feel unbalanced? Where do things need tending and repair? What habits are no longer helping us, or anyone else? Libra demands sharp honesty, but never cruelty. She calls us into tension and compassionate conflict, because she knows the only way out, is through.
Our reading ahead echos these themes of truth, discernment, balance, and staying with the tension of the process while both recognizing we have yet to go and we have come so far.
from the Wild Unknown Tarot
The theme for this lunation is The Two of Wands.
The twos in the tarot speak of balance and tension, of choice and discernment. The Two of Wands brings in the energy, movement and spirit of fire. It lets us know that something is simmering, we are being invited invited to begin a journey and it is up to us to make the first steps.
This card represents potential and our personal power. Start where you can. Start where you must.
This is going to look differently for everyone on an individual level. Perhaps you are literally going on a journey— traveling or moving to a new place— and it’s time to make a road map, an itinerary, or a list of what you are hoping for from a change of scenery. Maybe you are beginning a new project— personal or professional or creative— and it’s time to begin sketching the plans, however that looks. Perhaps you know you are entering a new phase of healing, of growth, of relationship with another.
For all of us, our path is going to be on it’s own terrain and at our own pace. No one can choose the correct road for us but our self. Trust that something is simmering for you. Trust in your own timing.
by Pamela Coleman Smith
We start at The Seven of Pentacles
The Seven of Pentacles tells us, the fruit is not yet ripe, but look at how the garden has grown around us, through our work and devotion.
Take moments to pause and remember how far you have come, how much progress has been made. You are still in the process, yes. The work is not done, but “instant gratification” is ultimately unsatisfying, isn’t it?
Beautiful and important and nourishing things always take time.
color pencil on paper, 2022.
A message from the universe, mystery, source:
The King of Swords.
Kings in the tarot point to social responsibility, or how we show up in the world. They are the masculine expressions of elemental maturity. It doesn’t matter what our gender is, we all embody both the masculine and the feminine, in different ways at different times.
The King of Swords embodies wisdom which through learning and experience, we come to remember we carried all along. They know that we cannot reason away our emotions and feelings, and shouldn’t, because they carry important information. Even if we have painful thoughts or feelings that aren’t “true”, they should be taken out and examined with compassionate curiosity.
The truly mature King of Swords knows that stoicism is a dam, and truth is a river that needs to flow freely. Stewarding a better world requires wisdom gathered through curiously paying attention, learning from each other, the world and cosmos that hold us, and the depths of our own inner truth.
Write, create, delve into the truth in your heart and share it.
The King of Swords invites us to sing our soul’s song to the moon.
