The Mighty Equinox

by Eric Francis Coppolino, August 27, 2010

Many people are wondering what just happened over the past six months. What, exactly, you went through, what it meant. and where it’s left you. You may be wondering how, with every passing day, life seems to be more intense, less certain, and a few shades more dangerous. This is a good time to reassess. Mercury is retrograde through September 12, and one of the most natural uses for that particular condition is to review—particularly when Mercury is in Virgo.

Yet the Libra equinox is also about to arrive, which is a turning point in the year—a moment to gather energy, release the old season, and move forward. So, first let’s review, and then let’s consider the equinox chart.
I think we’re all noticing the level of insanity in the world, the sense of pressure, and, perhaps most challenging, not knowing how far from the edge we really are as we sprint along that edge or toward it, into the future or the abyss or whatever it is. All summer long, a planetary alignment has come in and out of focus (currently, it’s taking a little breather). This is a grand cross on the four cardinal points—those four anchors into physical reality that connect individuals with the collective and bring collective experiences into our living rooms. These are Jupiter and Uranus dancing back and forth between Pisces and Aries; the lunar South Node (and therefore) eclipses in Cancer; Saturn shifting between Virgo and Libra (now in Libra till October 2012); and Pluto solidly in early Capricorn, along with the lunar North Node (and eclipses).

The four signs I mentioned—Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn—are the cardinal signs. They have one thing in common, which is when the Sun enters one of them, a season changes. They have another thing in common, which is that when any other planets are gathered there, existence takes on a larger-than-life, at times overwhelming, sensation.

Slow-moving planets are orchestrated such that we keep shifting into energy surges that flare up and then settle down, only to bubble up again. The slow-moving bodies in the arrangement (the ones I just named) keep realigning in new ways, which is in part responsible for the ebb-and-flow effect. Then, fast-moving bodies (Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Mercury) jump into the fray for a little while and the feelings both reach a new level of intensity and are all the more personal and emotional.