on the libra eclipse and who the rules serve

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I’ve been lesson planning for next week, when my memoir class will be entirely devoted to breaking down the publishing industry with a focused deep dive on book proposals. Since I’m very much thinking about that right now (and am also going out on submission with another book project… hopefully soon), I figured it would be a good time to do a general overview and Q&A of the traditional publishing process — how you get an agent, how books are acquired, and more.

You can register now for “WTF is traditional publishing?”, which is this Saturday, October 5th at 12pm Central. Payment is separate over Venmo, and is $15 for paid subscribers and $25 for everyone else.

The eclipse arrives at 10* of Libra at 2:49pm Eastern tomorrow, October 2nd.

While it is a New Moon, which often signifies beginnings and initiations, it is also occurring on the south node, the dragon’s tail, where we are devoured and digested. There is a profound transformation to new moon eclipses that come up on the south node: here, beginnings emerge through great release. In order to fully embrace a new path, we must let die the lingering vestiges of old.

While any new beginning requires a release, a new moon on the south node tends to amplify this to 100. Sirens screaming; the big flashing lights of a scoreboard. If it is not especially obvious what is beginning, it is almost certainly obvious what must be released in order to move forward.

Bear in mind that, on an individual level, some eclipse cycles are louder than others. If you are an Aries or Libra rising — even a Cancer or Capricorn rising — then this eclipse cycle has probably been on the louder side for you. If you’re in a Libra profection year, then this is also likely quite loud.

Collectively, all hell is breaking loose. Typical for eclipse season, but this round is especially painful. The devastation of Hurricane Helene in the Southeastern United States, especially in the mountain communities of Appalachia. The web of Diddy scandals (which I’ll get into a little bit in my next Call Your Coven episode on eclipses). The massive strike from East Coast dock workers that is about to halt half the nation’s shipping. Israel literally invading Lebanon. If using the Sibley chart, this eclipse lands in the United States’ 11th house of community, networks, organizations, hopes, and dreams, close to the infrastructure and governance of the nation’s natal Saturn. And Israel is a Libra rising, with this eclipse in their first house really highlighting their sense of national identity vis a vis their purpose (and, on their Neptune, the idealized delusion of self that can occur). 

Libra is, often, associated with justice. In the Call Your Coven October forecast, I spoke at length about how harmony is a key to understanding Libra. However, as every Libra person knows, it is the only sign whose symbol is inanimate, being represented by the scales of justice. Other signs are represented by humans (the Aquarian water bearer; Virgo’s virgin), animals (the Aries ram; the Cancer crab), or even hybrid beings of mythology (the Sagittarius archer-centaur; the Capricorn sea goat). Libra sits alone in its purported objectivity. This is especially notable given that the other air signs are both represented by humans: the twins of Gemini, and the aforementioned water bearer of Aquarius.

There can be an impersonality, a rigidity to Libra when it insists on the appearance of harmony over the presence of harmony, on maintaining the polite fiction over the unfiltered, difficult truth. This is especially visible on the national stage right now. The Diddy case really highlights the prevalence of “open secrets” in industries, and how everyone knowing but no one doing anything, or making an attempt toward justice, allows those in power to perpetuate abuse. Also consider the United States and Israel — both nations being quite potently eclipsed right now. Just because Israel is our “ally,” does this mean we have to keep sending them weapons?

Libra invites us to consider the canyon-like gap between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. And also: who the law is for in the first place.

As I told my memoir students today, we have to question who the rules serve. Laws are not inherently moral. Rules are not inherently good. Who are the rules meant to protect? So much of US law was not made with people of color, especially Black Americans, in mind; it was, in fact, designed to continue their oppression. Similarly consider other under-protected groups: queer folks, trans folks, disabled folks, immigrants, undocumented folks, children.

Consider the police “protecting” grocery stores in North Carolina from “looting” in the wake of Helene — so many people have lost everything, the food in grocery stores will go bad, the electric is down (so how are you supposed to pay with a credit card), and the roads and bridges are wiped out. Is it really “robbery,” to feed a hungry and devastated populace food that is available? To give baby formula to parents with newborns whose home is underwater? Who are the police really protecting? (Corporations. They are protecting corporations. Also, I straight up told my students that colleges are a business that only care about liability and want to avoid getting sued so, you know, I anticipate hearing from administration anytime now.)

Speaking as a rule follower in remission, the rules only works in the long term when they are rules that work for everyone. And the vast majority of rules in this country… don’t.

Laws and rules whose primary impact is to protect the privileged few (and corporations, and the surveillance state) at the expense of the many are not rules that create justice or harmony or community. They are not Libran scales of justice. They are rules that are meant to divide and conquer, to pit us against each other. As Brennan Lee Mulligan says in the above clip from a Fantasy High season of Dimension20,

Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army. You know what I mean?

And as Finnick (played by Sam Claflin) tells Katniss in The Hunger Games,

I am especially watching news outlets and journalists in this moment, both in the southeast and in Palestine, as this lunation sits within one degree of Mercury, which indicates that communication plays a major role in this eclipse story. Not only what we write, but what we read, what kind of news and information we disseminate, what kinds of stories we have access to. This eclipse asks us whose stories are highlighted, whose are suppressed, and why.

Moving into a square with Mars in Cancer, the Moon-Mercury conjunction also asks us how we are communicating feelings in a way that is honest and authentic while still being respectful of others’ perspectives. As I discussed with my memoir students this morning, where is the line between being honest and being deliberately hurtful? While we cannot control for others’ hurt, we can represent ourselves or communicate in ways that are true while still acknowledging that ours is not a universal perspective.

While this is the last eclipse of fall 2024, eclipse season will continue until the next lunation on October 17th, when we have a Full Moon in Aries (that is, to be clear, not an eclipse). And so, for these first few weeks of October, let’s be extra mindful, extra considerate, extra gentle, not only with others but also with ourselves. Be attentive to the body. Be attentive to your emotions. And remember that we are, all, going through this intense astro-weather together.

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