Storyteller's Night Sky 2025-09-17 (Potent Opportunity on the Path to Equinox)

We’re approaching autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere, one of the “balance points” in the year, a time when it’s appropriate to consider, even through ceremony, what it is to keep steady in an endlessly turning world. Just prior to equinox, the moon will come to new phase, aligning with the Sun and causing a partial solar eclipse, with both Sun and Moon opposite the planet Saturn in the sky. Given that it’s equinox, it fits to imagine this like a game of teeter totter with the equinoctial axis of the zodiac: Saturn on the spring equinox side in Pisces, with Sun and Moon on the autumn equinox side, in Virgo. The question is, which side bears the heavier weight? The Sun is central in our planetary system, the Moon is closest to Earth, and Saturn is the furthest distance away from us among naked-eye planets. Center, proximity, perspective ~ and we are called upon to find balanced engagement between them, between what we hold as most dear in our day-to-day while not losing our sense of the long-term, and what we may have to forego to get there. The Sun is our vital source, Moon weaves through the feeling life, and Saturn brings a deepening sense of our commitments by supporting the soul memory of what we intended. On the way to equinox, Venus and the Moon will have a spectacular encounter at the star Regulus, the heart of the lion. This will be Friday morning, the 19th, looking east an hour before sunrise. Venus at the heart of the lion sends a bold message: have courage to love; love fiercely; love fully. The Moon will be there as a waning crescent, like a chalice gathering all of this up, and just after it meets Venus, it enters its “dark phase.” The Moon’s dark phase is when the Moon does “double time,” because each month, or each cycle from new phase to new phase, it crosses through one region of the zodiac twice. It starts out in a particular place, then it completes the circle by returning to that place before it gets to New Phase again. In this last leg of its monthly journey it travels unseen by us, bringing to mind the events of the last month, and this happens every month, and just knowing about it can have a steadying effect. Now this week, while the Moon is moving through its dark phase, just at the eve of coming New, it opposes Saturn. The very next day it catches up with the Sun, causing a partial solar eclipse, and the very next day, Monday, September 22nd, it’s equinox. So first it’s Moon and Venus at Regulus on Friday, Venus’ day; Moon at dark phase opposing Saturn on Saturday, Saturn’s day; Moon partially eclipsing Sun on Sunday, Sun’s day; then Equinox, on Monday, Moonday. This is a potent, harmonizing, and activating celestial signature, and though the Moon meets Venus every month, and opposes Saturn every month, and comes to New Phase every month, it doesn’t always do these things during its dark phase while causing an eclipse just as equinox is occurring. Love, self awareness before we begin again, remembering our higher tasks, releasing unresolved blockages, choosing that which you can truly engage with to bring steadiness into the world….It can feel a bit like balls being ceaselessly thrown at you from every direction while you work to catch them and keep them in motion. The Calendar of the Soul verse from Rudolf Steiner for this week offers a steadying contemplation for this: Unceasingly itself creating, soul life becomes aware of self, the cosmic spirit, striving on, renews itself by self-cognition, and from the darkness of the soul, creates the fruit of self-engendered will.