For What It's Worth
Updated: Oct 7
New Moon in Libra - New Moon in Scorpio October 10 - November 8
There are times when life works well enough we don't pay too close attention to it. We go to work, love who we love, spend our money, keep our curated routines, answer the texts, make dinner, and pay the bills. It works - it hasn't bothered us enough to stop and ask why we're still doing it.
Then something starts rubbing. It can be ridiculously small. Your partner does the thing they've done thousands of times and suddenly, today, you cannot stand it. You open your closet and wonder why you own half of it. The work you used to feel proud of begins to irritate you. Something you have been saving for loses its shine. Or something you've told yourself you didn't need becomes impossible to stop thinking about.
October begins with that kind of pressure. Conversations can become sharper, frustrations harder to ignore, and something we've managed to tolerate quite nicely may suddenly feel less tolerable. There is a push and pull between wanting movement and running straight into the thing that won't move. And right in the middle of that, Venus stops and turns retrograde in Scorpio.
Why Did I Want This in the First Place?
Venus retrograde in Scorpio has us looking at the underneath of our choices. Why did I love this person? Why did I choose this work? Why did I spend my money here? Why was this beautiful to me? Scorpio isn't interested in the answer you would give at the dinner party. It wants the answer underneath that answer.
Now to be clear, Venus retrograde is not giving the instruction to kick your partner to the curb. Quite the opposite. Maybe you look at the person who's getting on your last nerve and remember something you've forgotten under the twenty years of laundry, appointments, and talking about what is for dinner. Possibly you remember what you loved about your work before it became work. Maybe you try something on you haven't worn in years, catch yourself in the mirror and think, Well, hello. There you are.
And sometimes we look again and realize that the reason we chose something no longer exists. Both are equally honest answers. Scorpio can tolerate both without demanding one be prettier than it is.
A New Moon With Something to Negotiate
As we move toward the October 10th New Moon at 7° Libra, the questions Venus has stirred begin moving into our relationship agreements. Libra naturally brings cooperation, balance, and reciprocity into the conversation, but Venus, the ruler of this New Moon is retrograde in Scorpio and is in a tense square with Mars. This isn't balance achieved by everybody behaving nicely.
We may genuinely value a relationship while wanting different things. We can want peace and still need to say something uncomfortable, or want collaboration without disappearing inside compromise. Family, friendship, work, money, and business all contain agreements, spoken or otherwise, about what each person gives and receives. This New Moon asks whether those agreements still hold the value it had when we first made them.
That's where October starts to get interesting. I can say I value rest while filling every available space in my calendar. I can say my relationship matters while consistently giving it whatever energy remains at the end of the day. I can say financial security is important while spending because I'm bored or insist I want a different life while refusing to change anything that would make a different life possible.
It isn't necessarily hypocrisy. October simply makes it harder to ignore.
What Matters Asks Something of Us
By the middle of the month, some of the pressure begins to find a direction. Wanting something is one thing, deciding what we are prepared to do about it another. We can examine our values all day long, but eventually what matters asks something from us.
It could be time, attention or money. Or a conversation we have been postponing. Maybe we need to stop saying something matters while continually placing it at the bottom of the list. Or simply the moment when I want this becomes this is what I'm willing to do about it.
Venus is still moving backwards through Scorpio and she isn't finished asking questions.
The Difference Between Value and Attachment
As October moves deeper into Scorpio season, the distinction between valuing something and being attached to it becomes harder to avoid. They feel remarkably similar.
We can hold onto something because we love it, but we can also hold onto it because we've already invested so much. We may stay because leaving would bruise our pride, because something gave us status or security, because we don't know who'd we be without it, or it is because changing direction after all this time feels enormous. We protect most fiercely isn't only what we love; it's what has become tangled up with our sense of worth.
This is where Venus retrograde in Scorpio has earned her reputation for going underneath things. Not to mistrust every attachment but to know the difference between the two. Looking underneath all the irritation, and ordinary wear of life, something still matters very much.
What Is Actually Worth Something
Then we arrive at October 25th. The Full Moon at 2° Taurus rises just as Venus retrogrades back into Libra, and Mercury has turned retrograde in Scorpio the day before. After weeks of examining desire, attachment and value, Taurus bring us back down to earth.
What has substance? What sustains me? What makes my life better to live in? What is worth my time, money, attention, love and effort? The stripped down answers will find some things remain valuable and others may not.
There is a quiet current of breakthrough running beneath this Full Moon. Something we thought was fixed may not be a immovable as we thought. And with Mercury retracing Scorpio territory, we can begin to recognize the stories we have been telling ourselves, that we have repeated for so long, have begun to sound like facts.
At the same time Venus slips back into Libra, she is changing the conversation. Scorpio asked what something is worth to me. Libra asks how what matters to me can live along side what matters to you.
We Don't Need an Answer Yet
October doesn't give a tidy resolution after the Full Moon. There is still pressure in the final week, old conversations may come up and touching on something tender. With both Venus and Mercury in retrograde, an ending cannot be forced because we'd prefer to have one.
Sometimes we look again and remember exactly why we chose something. Sometimes we find its value has changed. And sometimes we find the much more complicated answer: I still want this, but I cannot keep doing it this way.
For what it's worth, that's quite a lot to know.
Card of the Month: Five of Wands
Saturn in Leo
Each month before I write these letters, I pull one tarot card to hold the feeling of this cycle as a companion for the weeks ahead.
This month, the Five of Wands appeared.
At first glance, the traditional Five of Wands looks like nobody can agree on anything. Five people, five wands, five different directions, and apparently not one person thought to call a meeting first. It is easy to see why this card is reduced to conflict, competition and too many people trying to be heard at once.
Everyone in this card is holding a wand. Everyone has something to contribute. The problem isn't a lack of energy, talent or ideas. There may be too much of all three without enough structure to hold them, which makes the traditional correspondence of Saturn in Leo especially interesting.
Leo wants to create, express, play and put something out into the world. It wants to say, This is mine. I made this. Saturn asks what happens after the spark? Can you practice it? Can you give it form? Can you stay with it when it becomes work? And can you stand beside people who are every bit as invested in what they bring as you without needing to become smaller - or louder?
Competition isn't always the enemy of creativity. Sometimes another person's talent makes us better. We sharpen the idea, learn the skill or distinctly ours because somebody beside us is doing something wonderful too. The trouble begins when we become so concerned with proving the value of our contribution that we stop noticing what might be possible with everyone else's.
Look again at the five wands in the card. If those five people stopped swinging them at one another and worked together, they could arrange them into a pentacle. They already have everything they need. Nobody has to throw away their wand, and nobody has to win. They just need to decide what they are building.
That may be one of the more interesting lessons of Saturn in Leo. Discipline doesn't have to extinguish the creative fire; it can give that fire somewhere to go. It could be learning the craft or staying with it after the exciting beginning. It could be the realization that being part of something doesn't make what you bring any less special.
The Five of Wands may not be asking who wins at all. It is asking what all this energy is for. If everyone is waving a wand around to prove they have one, we make a lot of noise. Give those same wands a shared purpose and they might make something beautiful.
The Sky This Cycle
October 2 - Mercury square Mars
Think before you throw the match.
October 2 - Mercury square Pluto
Some conversations have an undertow.
October 2 - Mars trine Neptune
Give the dream somewhere to go.
October 3 - Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio
What is this really worth to you?
October 3 - Mars opposite Pluto
Force isn't the same thing as power.
October 4 - Sun opposite Saturn
The wall may be showing you where the work is
October 6 - Mercury conjunct Venus
Say what matters, not just what sounds good.
October 7 - Mars sextile Uranus
Try the door you haven't tried yet.
October 10 - New Moon in Libra 17°
Peace and honesty belong at the same table.
October 10 - Venus square Mars
Wanting it and making room for it are two different things.
October 15 - Sun sextile Jupiter
There is more room here than you thought.
October 15 - Pluto stations direct
What has been moving underneath begins to turn around.
October 16 - Mars trine Saturn
Put some muscle behind what matters.
October 19 - Venus square Pluto
Love, value or attachment? Look underneath.
October 21 - Sun opposite Chiron
The tender spot has something to say.
October 23 - Sun enters Scorpio
We are done skimming the surface.
October 23 - Sun conjunct Venus
Something becomes clearer about what you value.
October 24 - Mercury stations retrograde in Scorpio
The conversation isn't finished.
October 25 - Full Moon in Taurus 2°
What has real value can stand in the light.
October 25 - Venus retrograde enters Libra
Bring what you've learned back to the table.
October 26 - Sun square Pluto
Notice where holding on has become a power struggle.
October 28 - Venus opposite Chiron
What matters can touch a tender place.
October 30 - Mercury square Mars
We've had this argument before. Listen differently this time.
The Five of Wands Tarot Spread
Select five cards and lay them out like the points of a pentacle.
My Wand
What am I bringing to this?
The Friction
Where is my energy meeting resistance?
The Challenge
What is asking me to grow, practice or get better?
The Adjustment
Where could I work differently without making myself smaller?
The Pentacle
What could be built if I gave this energy purpose?
The cards don't need to agree with each other. Notice where they rub against each other, where one seems to challenge the other and what does it look like when you read them together as a whole? What are you creating with all of this energy?
Journal Prompts
October asks us to look more closely as what we value, what we're holding onto and what needs to change (even when we aren't ready to throw the whole thing away). Choose the one that makes you stop for a second.
What do I still value, even though my relationship with it has become complicated?
Why did I chose this in the first place? Is that reason still true?
What do I say matters to me, and does the way I spend my time reflect that?
Where am I keeping the peace at the expense of saying what I actually need?
What feels different when I ask, "Does this need to end?" versus "Does this need to change?"
What in my life has quietly become more valuable to me than I realized?
Where could I make an adjustment instead of making a dramatic decision?
What am I willing to work for because it really worth the trouble?
New Moon in Libra Ritual: Choose Again
Libra New Moon - October 10
For this Libra New Moon, you'll need a candle, two small stones and a piece of ribbon or string.
Light the candle and place one stone in each hand. In your left hand, let the stone represent an old pattern you are ready to change. You don't have to explain it or write it down. You can name it quietly to yourself.
In your right hand, let the second stone represent what you want to choose instead.
Place the stones beside each other and loosely tie the ribbon around them. As you tie them, say:
I honor what brought me here.
I choose differently.
I begin again.
Sit with them for a moment, and blow out your candle.
Untie the ribbon. Leave the first stone somewhere outside or return it to the earth. Keep the second stone as a reminder of the choice you are making.
Full Moon Ritual: What Is True
Taurus Full Moon - October 25
For this Taurus Full Moon, find a small stone that feels good an solid in your hand. You'll also need a candle and a bowl of water.
Light the candle and hold your stone in both hands. Think of one thing you've been telling yourself that you suspect may no longer be true. You don't need to write it down or explain it. Just name it quietly to yourself.
Place the stone in the bowl of water and say:
Show me what is true.
Sit for a few quiet moments. Let whatever comes up come up. Don't chase the answer.
Take the stone out of the water, dry it off and hold it again. Feel its weight in your hand and say:
I trust what is solid.
I trust what I know.
Blow out your candle.
Keep the stone somewhere meaningful. Let it remind you that changing your mind doesn't make the ground disappear beneath you. It means you've finally found firmer ground.
Before You Go
October has some weight to it. There are squares, oppositions, two personal planets turning retrograde and enough Scorpio to make avoiding the deeper questions considerably harder than usual. Conversations may need another round. You may not fit as neatly with what someone else wants as you hoped.
Friction shows us what needs our attention. Going backwards helps us to see what we missed the first time. Sometimes asking why we loved or chose something reminds us that beneath all the complications, it still matters very much.
Let October show you what has substance, what has become a habit instead of a choice, and what you are finally ready to see differently. Some things may change and some may surprise you by holding steady.
For what it's worth, you know more now than you did when you made some of those old choices. You get to bring that version of yourself to the table too.
From me to you,
Patty
Aries Moon Shoppe
If you are wondering how this story unfolds in your birth chart or through the tarot cards, let's sit down and explore this together.
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