Today is Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011. The Moon starts the day in the cardinal sign Cancer, transitioning to Leo at 9:54 pm EDT. This transition could feel energizing, like a dose of courage and desire chased down with your favorite energy drink. This is also the last day before the Sun moves into Libra at the equinox, and planets about to change signs often come with significant tension. It will pay to be awake, alert and composed.
The fall equinox (also known as the Libra equinox; it heralds spring in the Southern Hemisphere) is a kind of celestial crossroads, and one of the more important ones. In my article on the ‘Honey Moon’ of June (this link takes you to premium subscriber content), I talked about how intersections like this are a big deal in astrology. They form a kind of crossroads, which have the potential for a lot more action than other, quieter stretches of the celestial highways.
Humans being the creatures of habit they are, often this action translates into some kind of conflict, which jolts us out of our ‘automatic pilot’ mode of consciousness. So, the function of this conflict is to wake us up and to help us learn. However, as spiritual texts like the Tao frequently point out, this is not the only way to learn. The awakened Sage can learn as much from contemplation as from conflict. From this point of view, it could be useful to contemplate the nature of the autumnal equinox.
Astronomically speaking, the autumnal equinox is the point where the path of the Sun crosses the equator going south, toward the tropic of Capricorn. Here, as at the vernal or spring equinox, the Sun’s crossings of the horizon as it is rising and setting become aligned again with the east/west compass points. This means that the days and nights are of equal length. This is reflected in the very word equinox, which comes from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night), denoting a time of equal length night and day — a time of balance. This idea of balance is reflected in the symbol for the sign Libra, the seventh sign of the tropical zodiac. Tropical probably arrives from Greek tropos — meaning to spin or turn. So, the entire tropical zodiac is a fixed geo-centric (Earth-centered) coordinate system based on the seasonal solar ‘turning points’.