November: Another Powerful Month of Change

The Astrology of November features Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and two eclipses. The Solar Eclipse of mid-November is quite potent, triggering Uranus and Pluto yet again, with their attendant pressure toward personal transformation, and for the discovery of life-changing intuitional information emanating directly from the heart of the universe. Mercury is also retrograde for most of November, beginning with its station on the 6th, which is (perhaps) coincidentally also Election Day in the U.S. Since Mercury does not escape its retrograde shadow until December 14th, for most of this month and into the next we can expect the usual symptoms of missed communications and mechanical breakdown, with also the opportunity to turn to the inside in meditative reflection. Mercury aspects Uranus as it stations this month, potentially inspiring further and even more profound epiphanies.

The Solar Eclipse and New Moon of Tuesday, November 13th, takes place in the third decant of Scorpio, the Moon's decant. As a culture, we are looking for new ways to nurture ourselves, while still dealing with the massive changes represented by the ongoing Uranus-Pluto square that lasts throughout this decade of the "Turbulent Teens." Their square is highlighted by the configurations of this month and heats up once again in the spring for the third of seven exact hits, becoming closest by the middle of May. In this current month, a few days after the American Thanksgiving, the Lunar Eclipse of Wednesday, November 28th, makes yet another chime with these powerful outer planet energies, while Mars exactly conjuncts Pluto, making for a potentially very intense holiday season.

Chiron, stationing to direct motion this mid-month period, and therefore emphasized, has been a part of the configurations all summer long, and into this fall period. Chiron represents the places where we are wounded and might yet begin to heal, and so the emphasis is particularly apt in these fraught times. The recognition of our essentially wounded nature has been pronounced, with the summer aspects from Uranus and Mars, and in the current month, from Mercury and Saturn. This also reflects upon the poignant feeling of dislocation between our ideals and the hard reality that we face as a culture, and as individuals. At this vital juncture, if we want to move on with our lives we need to accept ourselves at the deepest levels and turn to truly face our pain. Chiron also represents the Shamanic path of inner realization. This movement runs orthogonal to the media blitz of advertising and thought formation. We win when we refuse to take the superficially easy but in the end costly route of going along in blind acceptance of consensus thinking.

Saturn, now in Scorpio, and coming into forming inconjunct aspect with Uranus, remains the elephant in the room, by its nature unmoving, yet caught in the crosshairs of radical transformation. Saturn represents the structure of society, a structure that is rapidly evolving as we near the end of 2012 and look ahead to the unknown future that lies beyond December. The more conservative elements of society are symbolized by dour and conservative Saturn, as well as each of our individual tendencies to hold back and preserve the status quo. This part of ourselves is undergoing quite a shake-up all throughout this turbulent decade. Painful as it is to leave the past behind, we might as well get on with it, leaping ahead with that immense step forward. We must somehow allow our ideals to triumph over our fears. Where we are headed as a global society there is no room for outmoded values that no longer work for the sake of everyone and for the sake of future generations.