Storyteller's Night Sky 2025-10-29 (Halloween Skies)

The constellation Capricorn is referred to as the “gateway of the gods” and this week the Moon casts its shadow across this gate when it occults the brightest star in Capricorn, Deneb Algedi. This happens on Thursday, the night before Halloween, when preparations are being made to travel about imitating malignant spirits and fantastical creatures. As a seasonal cross quarter observance, Halloween is a time for releasing mischief. We’re at the halfway point of the autumn at Halloween time, when the darkness quickens and we make ready to honor those who have died. The activity associated with this time is not just a random convenience of the calendar, but is intimately connected to where we are in the cycle of the year. We’ve passed through the equinox point, and now we’re halfway to the solstice. And the Moon is moving through the night, approaching the Capricorn gateway, which is also one of the cardinal signs of the zodiac. Cardinal signs have a mood of taking the lead, of initiating activity ~ each of the seasons starts when the Sun enters one of the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn). The Moon moves through each of these signs every month, and this week, its Capricorn, and this gateway. For me it brings to mind the ancient Greek myth of Endymion, and Selene, the Titan goddess of the Moon, who rises over the hilltop, her light raying down and spilling across the mouth of a cave (I imagine this as the gateway). Here she spies the sleeping shepherd Endymion. Selene falls so desperately in love with him that she begs Zeus to grant him eternal sleep, so she may meet him each night in dream. John Keats immortalized this dramatic myth in his poem Endymion, some of which I’ll share here, especially because Keats was born at Halloween, in 1795. The first stanza of his poem concludes with a reference to the grandeur of the dooms we’ve imagined for the mighty dead, and all lovely tales that we have heard or read, which Keats describes as an endless fountain of immortal drink, pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink. He then goes on: Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast; They always must be with us, or we die. This is high celestial romance, and when the Moon eclipses the celestial gateway of Capricorn this week, just before Halloween, it calls on us with the seasonal mood to not forget there is an end of all earthly things, but not an end of love.