Sun enters Libra at 19h19 UTC+1 Autumn Equinox Mars enters Scorpio at 08h55 UTC + 1

In the Northern hemisphere, Summer is officially over and the portal to the underworld opens. The scales now tip us towards darkness and the beginning of a time of quiet, of incubation, reflection and often of waiting.

This year, just before the Sun shifts, Mars moves from ‘let’s try and find a compromise’ Libra, to ‘F..k you’ Scorpio. Our fighting spirit is less detached, and much more invested. More prepared to wait it out, to brood, and to seek eventual revenge – to fight back.

In the Equinox chart, which carries us through to the Winter Solstice, Mars and Pluto square off in a dangerous confrontation between social and individual power that has more than a whiff of a struggle for survival. This applies to us all.

This Equinox is about bravery, transformation, flexibility, compromise and truth. There may be a need to transform our expectations in the face of new paradigms – in this world that we never thought we would see (blind and naïve as we are).

As Churchill put it “…fear already darkens the sunlight to hundreds of millions of men (and women).”

The Libra Sun creates a grand kite formation with the outer planets. It seeks balance, justice, compromise, alliances and relationship. And it asks for outside help to achieve its aims through the grand trine in Air.

This pattern in the intellectual, thinking, sociable element favours talking and ideas, but the dreams or what we want require effort and may have to be modified.

The Mars/Pluto contribution is unyielding determination, fighting to the death – using every last resource – to create the change it wants to see.

The persuasive Libra stellium is analysing everything and looking for new ideas. We may go back over old ground in search of new ways forward. There may be new alliances made and old ones that break down.

If we dig deep and we speak to enough people, there may yet be a way through.

Equinox ruler, Venus, planet of relationships and values, sits in Virgo, traditionally in her detriment. She may find her joy in skillful competance. In Virgo, she excels at crafts and management generally. She will try and make sense of the chaos, but anxiety is possible.

We may be itchy and unsettled from unexpected challenges in the realm of business finance or our physical bodies. Disputes over land and territory are also symbolised here. (Uranus in Taurus square Venus). We are trying hard to organise and manage everything that is thrown at us.

A change of mindset may be the only way.

During this autumn, we are called upon to put our own house in order, to be helpful, kind and practical, to organise our own space and tend to others of all species, in whatever ways we can. We are asked to juggle our alliances with care, to be flexible in our mindset and to dig deep in search of resources to carry us through.

Reflection and careful management are important. Patience is essential.

We must manage what we can and keep hold of our underlying conviction that the transformation will happen.

If only we wait and keep our goals in sight.