In recognition of the recent epidemic of upheavals, I am offering special “We’re in this together” reading rates.

Ready for a gear shift? Fall officially starts Friday, and this means more than a change of season (though given how topsy-turvy the weather has been, the season has felt meaningless lately). This week brings astrological energies that expand our field of vision from our individual sagas to our connections with other people. 

Addressing our own lives is still in priority position, mind you. Each of us still has plenty to deal with in that arena; we’re all, in some way, immersed in inward and outward remodeling projects that will continue for the foreseeable future. Now we’re adding a second major task, involving our relationships and agreements.

It’s a balancing act, appropriate for the emphasis in Libra that is building -- handling our own renovations while managing and rearranging all our connections  That’s the imperative we’ll be increasingly feeling, and it lasts for more than this week. It will be ongoing for the next three months, because the skies at the equinox set the tone for the entire season. (Bookmark this page and come back to it through December.)

The cardinal energies are locking back into place this week, the energies that have been fundamentally reshaping and rebirthing our psyches, lives and relationships for the past two years.  This time around is different, with our hearts are actively and eagerly participating in and, yes, steering and stabilizing the process.

That’s a welcome break from feeling the ground beneath our feet split open, or being squeezed through an extruder and shot into who knows where, or withstanding pressure that would turn carbon to diamond. If any of those sensations do manage to overtake you this week, pay attention. Is an alarm shrieking that something isn’t good for you?  Are you jettisoning out of a sorely outdated situation, or preparing intensely for a new way of living? Look for how you are in control -- because on a deep level, you are and have asked for this.

We’re deep enough into our personal remodeling to have a more refined, conscious understanding of who we are now, what we want now and what is appropriate for us now.  We’re becoming aware of who’s standing with us, who’s a couple of universes away, whose values harmonize with ours and whose are unsupportive-to-toxic. 

Each of us has already undergone a profound change individually, and now it’s appropriate to update everything in our life to suit who we have become, as well as the new direction into which we are moving. Longevity is not reason enough for any situation to stay in its current form, or even to stay, period. Everything is ripe for reconsideration, reworking, renegotiation and/or release -- from our identity and the face we show to the world to our relationships, our attitudes about possessions, money and how we earn them and our values, to the role that we play in the world at large. 

Your heart hold the measuring stick. Venus, ruler of the heart and what it values, is bivouacked in her Libra home, a place of flourishing for social graces, visual and verbal beauty and harmony in both atmosphere and relationships. She’s closing in on the stability and commitment of Saturn, which she’ll meet at month’s end. She’s welcoming in the Sun, arriving Friday, and cosmic messenger Mercury, who’ll show up after the equinox, on Sunday.  

This combo has every potential of aligning our hearts and desires with our minds and concept of ourselves -- yet another uniting of the masculine and the feminine -- and inspiring us to commit to what our hearts and minds most value and want.  Follow-through is well within our grasp, too, thanks to a cooperative link to Mars, the ruler of our drive and ambition.

Acknowledge to yourself what you want, then give yourself permission to ask for it (Mercury says: speak it!) and to have it. No more tolerating, or putting up with, or suffering because you were brought up to be “nice.” Your future flourishing depends on your being brutally honest with yourself, then proceeding with the knowledge that gives you, unapologetically. You don’t have to be mean. You don’t have to be nasty. You do have to be honest and unwavering.

Venus’ house party is the counterweight to the other players in the dynamic configuration that is moving into place at the equinox (and coloring the entire fall). This is yet another cardinal T-square, a push for deep, radical change that we have experienced time and again over the past two years. The two cosmic change agents are at the other points in the configuration, with rebel/awakener/trickster Uranus in free agent Aries opposing the Libra pile-up and, in the middle, Pluto in Capricorn, who is precipitating the tearing down and rebuilding of every structure.

Pluto is the focal point of the pressure, which will dump out in the part of your chart where the first half of Cancer falls. What’s being renovated is where and how we feel safe, at home and part of a family.  That is updating to match current time conditions.

Healthy, mutually supportive connections are going to come through this stronger and more cherished than ever. Alliances are locking in that will be valuable to all participants over the long haul. Heart groups are assembling that will explore their new lives together.  We’re building our traveling parties, and some of us are finding or firming up the partnership that will be closest to our heart.

The quality of the connections promises to be markedly different from what most of us have experienced before. When each component has a heightened awareness, appreciation and love for itself, relationships -- and ultimately groups and communities -- will proceed from that starting point.

Yeah, we’ll all still be human. But we’ll be more inclined to set up our relationships more honestly and fairly. Start test driving that concept this week. It’ll take you through the fall and beyond.

For a shorter take on this week’s events, listen to my 5-minute-ish podcast.

Monday:  As you find your footing -- and you will -- circumstances will pressure you to speak your truth. Holding your tongue is the hard way to respond. The relationship review begins. Look up from your saga. Who’s around you? How do you feel around them? About them?

Tuesday:  Processing, processing, processing. Some of what you’re seeing isn’t sitting comfortably. What fits; what doesn’t? What’s giving way, no matter what you do? What do you feel compelled to cling to, regardless? Ask for guidance (and a compassionate stance toward the folks that are making you feel weird).

Wednesday: Hmmm. Why exactly are you wanting to rant? Are you making like an adolescent and railing against the latest authority figure who’s triggering all your unresolved parental issues? Or are you getting a clear look at last at intolerable limitations that have been holding you back? Perhaps your inner guidance has insight to contribute. I’m guessing.

Thursday: Okay, so even with that higher guidance it’s becoming clear that some part of you really has hit the breaking point. Time to crack out of the shell and live on a bigger, grander scale. Indulge yourself in some small but satisfying way or desires could mushroom way beyond your immediate ability to meet them. Direct the nervousness that’s erupting in you to run through your mind rather than out of your mouth. You’re still figuring out so much that words are not going to be able to convey much of use at this point.

Friday: Happy Fall Equinox! The Sun enters Libra before dawn in the Western Hemisphere.  Something’s in the air that encourages opening the windows, kicking out some walls, blowing out the carbon and taking dramatic risks. Have fun with it.  Relationship review continues. Conversations are extraordinarily revealing. Mind the details. They’re clues of where different alliances are heading.

Saturday: The predawn hours run us through our paces, then the skies go quiet for half the day.  Pay attention to what’s floating through your mind when you wake up. New perspectives erupted overnight. Who fits? Who doesn’t? Who unnerves/maddens/tantalizes you? What feels like the future; what is old business? Sit with the images and feelings. The evening hours may deliver a bigger-picture perspective on much of it .... or simply invite you to escape. No permanent damage, either way.

Sunday: Mercury enters Libra. The need for certain changes are becoming more and more obvious. Situations that stifle us or refuse to allow us to be ourselves are coming into clearer focus and making us increasingly uncomfortable. Yet, somehow, it’s not quite time to act. A day and a half of contemplation are at hand, as the Moon goes void of course at 3:48 PM EDT until just after midnight Tuesday. Yup, next week begins with no major Moon activity all day Monday. No pushing; no shoving. Prepare to float, to go within, to simply be.

© Kathy Biehl 2011. All Rights Reserved. You may forward this article as long as the copyright notice is intact. No part may be used or reprinted without my prior written permission. Karma, ya know.

Podcast for the week                                                                  Pisces full moon article