As we open into October…
This is a general collective reading of the energy of October. Below is my own interpretation of the cards that appeared before me.
As always take what resonates, and set fire to the rest!
Bullish. That’s the energy we’re giving this month. We just experienced a full Harvest Moon in Aries on September 26, which is an igniting way to end a month about discernment. Aries comes in hot with the force of unprocessed passion. Mars entered Leo the next day.
On October 3, Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio, beginning roughly six weeks of truth unveiled about love, money, desire, and trust.
On October 10, the New Moon in Libra asks for a balancing act, and Venus retrograde makes it a revision rather than a fresh start. In the old alchemical scheme of the zodiac, Libra is sublimation, the lifting of something heavy into something lighter. A few nights ago I dreamed I was minding a shop while the owner was away, and a couple came to my register with a pile of over-ripe bananas. I asked if they were making banana bread. “Yes!” they said, delighted, as if I’d asked whether they planned to enjoy their lives. The image has stayed with me – something on the edge of decay, given a second purpose. It’s the same instinct as moving the chicken from the freezer to the fridge and buying yourself three more days. Nothing is new. It’s just not finished yet.
That brings us to October’s real question. Venus is easy to work with, since we know how to review, revise, and organize ourselves around pleasure. But this is a water month (Scorpio, Venus and Mercury retrograde), and the one fire in the spread is the Knight of Wands reversed, scattered and galloping, still smoldering from the Aries Harvest Moon and in need of some maturing. How do you work with fire when everything around it is water? Probably the way you make banana bread, by giving it a pan.
Not everything on the edge of decay gets a second act, and my dreams seem to know it. Since I’m feeling generous, here’s another one.
The same week as the bananas, I dreamed I was at Disneyland and, toward the end, found the toilet water red. Then came the discovery, that not one tampon but three, tangled together and apparently left in for weeks, had been the culprit. My panic was pure toxic shock. Three is the number of the Empress. She is fertility and abundance, but she is also the ripening that ends in release. Something I’d meant to let go of on time had been subtly retained, and the danger wasn’t the blood. It wasn’t the release. It was the waiting. It was the lack of cutting through.
So consider October’s two-part instruction this: some things can be changed into something new by your own two hands, and some things simply need to come out, also by your own two hands. The skill is telling them apart before either one spoils.
October 23, the Sun enters Scorpio and meets retrograde Venus, the start of a new Venus cycle. The very next day, Mercury stations retrograde in Scorpio, the third and final Mercury retrograde of 2026, and all three have been in water signs. We can expect a lot of friction in our relationships. On October 26 the Full Moon in Taurus, the Hunter’s Moon, rises as the first full moon after the Harvest. The Harvest Moon gathers what grew. The Hunter’s Moon goes out for what will feed you through the winter. Taurus, Venus-ruled and bullishly practical, wants you to consider what you actually own, and what you actually keep.
We begin in the past with The Empress, seated in ripe wheat with a heart-shaped shield at her feet and a crown of stars, nature at full, unhurried bloom. Sallie Nichols reads her as the earth mother, the archetype of abundance that asks nothing of you except that you receive it. On the Tree of Life she is Daleth, the door, the path between Chokmah and Binah where raw force becomes form. So what fed you last month? And did you eat it sitting down, or standing over the sink? The Empress is not the reward at the end of the work. She is available now, and she has been waiting. And what could be MORE Harvest moon coded?
In the present is the Knight of Wands reversed. Upright, he gallops toward the horizon with total conviction. Reversed, the horse has taken over and the rider is holding on for dear life, reminiscent of a less graceful hanging man. This is fire without a vessel, or pan, all charge and no destination, and it reads like the Aries moon’s afterglow. Mercury’s shadow period begins early in October, so even before the retrograde arrives, plans start to wobble. You may have started six things in September and finished a suspicious number of them in your head. It still counts as scattered.
Ahead of us, the Six of Swords. A ferryman poles a small boat toward calmer water, a hooded passenger huddled beside him, six swords standing upright in the hull. Notice that they come along. This is a crossing, not an escape, which suits a Scorpio-water month. Some of what you carry will need to be dealt with on the far shore. Not every bag gets checked. Six is Tiferet, the balancing sephirah, so the movement itself is the mercy. And with Mercury retrograde arriving on the 24th, expect the trip to run a little late. The water is still calmer.
Overarching all of it, the Four of Swords reversed. Upright, a figure lies in stone repose, blades hung on the wall, the mind finally allowed to stop. Reversed, the rest is postponed, shortened, or skipped in favor of one more push. Four is Chesed, mercy, and this is the mercy you keep declining. In the Golden Dawn’s attributions this card is Jupiter in Libra, luck, diplomacy, fulfilling relationships in a Libra New Moon month where we’ll be focusing on reciprocity. Lay the swords down before you start weighing anything.
In the shadow, the Seven of Pentacles reversed. Upright, the gardener leans on his hoe and studies the vine, patient, assessing. Reversed, he’s digging up the root to see if anything’s happening down there. This is the audit compulsion, the urge to convert every ounce of growth into return on investment before it’s had a chance to ripen, to cross the threshold into banana bread. Seven is Netzach, the sphere of desire and victory, and it’s the same Netzach that keeps feeding us glamorous impatience. This is the mother refused, her gifts turned into metrics. The yang overcoming the yin, an imbalance of fire. You cannot hurry a harvest by staring at it harder.
We’re headed somewhere in October, and the energy is not saying we’ll cross alone. Quite the opposite.
Numerology of the month: 21
Keywords: successful completion of a cycle, the crown of the magi, reward after struggle, the dancer at the center, performing depth, focused energy, blocked harmony.
This month’s number is 21 and I felt it was too on the nose to follow last month’s 20 with the next logical number, however I pulled 21 twice and then added up the numbers of the first of the month: October 1, 2026 gives us 10 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 6. So, here we are!
In Hebrew numerology, Gematria, 21 is the value of Ehyeh, the divine name given to Moses at the burning bush, usually rendered “I am” or “I will be.” It’s tied to Kether, the crown, the root of everything. It’s also Aleph (1) plus Kaf (20), the beginning added to last month’s open palm. October will not negotiate the level of patience that is within your capacity…
In Chaldean numerology, 21 is the Crown of the Magi and the Universe, the number of reward after long struggle, of advancement earned rather than handed over. It’s the World card, the last of the Major Arcana.
Twenty-one reduces to three, the Empress. I did not arrange this. The cards did, and I’m choosing to be smug about it anyway. Three is expression, fertility, pleasure, and joy as a legitimate way of being useful.
In the I-Ching, Hexagram 21 is Shi He, Biting Through. Lightning above, thunder below. Clarity meeting movement. Somewhere between where you are and where the harmony is supposed to be, there’s a tangle, a half-truth, a convenient omission, an arrangement everyone agreed not to bring to the surface. It’s the thing you’ve been tonguing at for weeks, pretending not to notice, mentioning to no one, and hoping will simply dissolve if you’re polite enough about it. It won’t.
Whatever is stuck this month, an unsent message, an unclear agreement, a truth you’ve been chewing around instead of through, is not going to loosen on its own. Eventually you have to bite down.
Clarity arrives before the noise, the lightening before the crack. The teeth work best with steady, even pressure, the way you’d bite through an apple, not a doorknob. A firm, fair response will do more than a dramatic one. Mercury retrograde in Scorpio will offer plenty of drama, and you may pass on it. No really, I’m giving you permission!
In the gap between reaping and sowing, don’t rush to plant the next thing. Let the field lie fallow for a moment. Rest is not the opposite of work. It’s the part of the cycle that makes the next yield possible. So whether you’re mashing bananas and waiting for the batter to bake, or finally pulling the string on whatever has been blocking your creative flow, trust that both are the same work. Libra’s harmony isn’t the absence of effort. It’s knowing which hands-on task belongs to which moment.
In a world that moves quickly, choosing to pause, to reflect, to go internally, is no small thing. Whether you read every word slowly or skim what calls to you, I’m grateful you are here.
A Few Questions to Sit With
For those beholden of pen, the journalers…some questions to help guide you into the month.
- If the danger was never the release but the waiting, where am I still waiting?
- Where am I performing joy in a place where I’d rather be honest?
- Who is “minding the shop” in my life right now, and am I running it as if it were mine?
- What am I harvesting right now, and am I letting myself actually eat it?
- Am I actually resting, or just scrolling in a horizontal position?
- Where am I digging up the root to check whether it’s growing?
- What would it look like to trust a slow yield instead of stalking it (pun intended) daily?
- What is Venus retrograde asking me to revisit about what I say I value versus what I spend my time and money on?
- If the crossing runs late (hello, Mercury retrograde), what would it take to stay calm in the boat?
- What is wedged in the jaws right now, and what would it take to bite through it?
- If I rested first, stopped counting, and let something else steer for a while, what might be ripe by the Hunter’s Moon?
“See” you next month!
