A New Moon in the final degree of a sign feels like a last chance, a threshold moment. Yet, a New Moon is a beginning… As always, we’ll need to let some things go in order to move forwards and begin afresh.

This New Moon stands close to the South Node, and so the Moon stands between the Sun and the Earth, blocking some of the light and creating a partial eclipse. What is it that we cannot see? Time may feel speeded up now as events begin to move more quickly.  

Virgo’s symbolism turns us toward service, healing, organisation, books and gardens, the harvest gathered in before the season shifts and the storms come.

This eclipse is Mercury-ruled. Mercury, messenger and psychopomp, walks with us at endings. Here he stands in Libra, seeking justice, peace, and balance within relationship. Thus, the need to speak with grace and to listen for truth, become part of this eclipse signature.

Mercury and Venus are in each other’s signs which creates understanding in communication and relationship. Our values and our thought processes are connected. What we desire may involve precision, detail, contracts, skill and understanding. This is now understood and may be enacted with with balance and justice. 

The Sun and Moon in methodical Virgo have just moved across Saturn retrograde in Pisces. They have confronted Saturn’s coldness, lack of compassion and spiritual thirst, and see that this may be a reaction to fear. Saturn is testing what structures can hold in a realm of tides and waves.

At the bottom of the ocean, there is stillness and waiting but even in the realm of water there are rocks — immovable facts, limits, and boundaries. The eclipse may be confronting us with a harsh reality , an emotional truth or physical fact that asks, “This is could be it. Can we do it this time?”

Our river is moving slowly now, scattered with crisp autumn leaves. The window is brief, already the first storms of the season stir, though summer’s warmth still lingers at the edges.

During this eclipse, Mars prepares to leave Libra for Scorpio, exchanging diplomacy for depth. In Libra, Mars has been negotiating. In Scorpio, he is more determined. Here Mars is powerful, even vengeful, willing to wait and strike at the right moment. Things may be partially hidden, but Mars in Scorpio will dig until they are unearthed.

Pluto and Neptune are out of sign causing the kite shape in the sky to lose its wings. All the outer planets are retrograde — Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn too, — calling us to pause, review, and reckon. The collective story is circling backwards. It’s not quite time yet.

Jupiter makes sympathetic noises to Saturn, but they do not yet meet. The great planetary conversations — Jupiter with Saturn, Saturn with Neptune, Uranus with Pluto — must wait until 2026. Their delay reminds us that the larger arcs of change are not yet clear. We remain in a liminal space, trying to make choices without full knowledge, holding faith in the dark.

This eclipse may be less about clarity than about patience. It suggests that what seems like the last chance may not be finality, but letting go and the ‘composting’ of what can no longer thrive, so that something lasting can be planted in its place, to be nurtured and released when the outer planets turn direct once more.

We stand in a moment, harvest gathered, storms approaching, Mercury guiding us through the shadows.  And we are asked to choose carefully, with discernment and with thought for relationship and peace. For ourselves, the good of our planet and all that lives upon it.

Copyright Alison Boulton, all rights reserved.