October 2020 Forecast w/ Astrologer Rick Levine
The theme for the month is “October Surprise” and it’s sure to keep us on our toes as the tension builds towards something unexpected on the rare Blue Moon.
Uranus, the planet of shake-ups and sudden change, plays a starring role in the coming weeks, and with the planets in Capricorn all moving direct and the Sun and Mars making squares to them, there is an intensity in the air as we are called to transform on both a collective and personal level.
While it may not always be easy, October is sure to be a big month for personal liberation if we can learn our lessons and work toward healing. And it certainly won’t be boring!
Read the below interview with astrologer Rick Levine for more of what’s coming in the month ahead and guidance to help you navigate the cosmic tides.
Amanda: Rick, let’s talk about October. What is our major theme for this month?
Rick: I struggled with this one, but I came up with one that I think works. My title for this month is “October Surprise”.
If someone asked you, Amanda, what’s the planet of surprise? What would you say?
Amanda: Uranus?
Rick: Yeah, well done. You get the gold star. Uranus is the planet that I like to call the quantum planet because it defies logic. You can’t understand it.
Niels Bohr, the guy who figured out quantum physics, once said quantum physics isn’t stranger than you think, it’s stranger than you can think.
Uranus is the planet that crosses the boundaries between fate and free will. It’s like lightning.
The lightning is gonna strike, but you don’t know where, and you don’t know when.
October is a Uranian month. Uranus is the weird planet, it’s eccentric. October is a weird month. First of all, because it has two Full Moons.
There’s a saying, you know: once in a Blue Moon. Well, a Blue Moon is actually a very real thing. And a Blue Moon is defined as two Full Moons in the same month. It happens. It doesn’t happen that often.
And so October is a once in a Blue Moon month because we have a Full Moon on October 1st, and we have a Full Moon on Halloween on October 31st.
But here’s the strange thing. The Full Moon on the 1st and the Full Moon on the 31st both have Uranus connected to the lunation.
So we open up the month with this quincunx between the Sun in “let’s find a harmonious relationship” Libra. It is being opposed by the Full Moon in “I want to do it my way” Aries
Except that Full Moon is also conjunct Chiron. Chiron, sometimes called the Wounded Healer, the teacher, the old wounds and pains that we have. And the Full Moon conjunct Chiron in Aries simply says, “Physician, heal thyself.”
In other words, the Full Moon in Aries conjunct Chiron says that, because it is opposite Libra, “If I heal myself, that’s going to heal the people I’m in a relationship with.”
And so we start off the month with this Full Moon in “me, mine” Aries, conjoining Chiron “I have a wound, I have a pain, I am hurting.”
And instead of getting someone else to fix it, instead of projecting it into others and fixing it into them, I am actually addressing my own stuff, finding harmony and balance and creating a more just relationship with me and therefore with others.
But the Sun is quincunx Uranus in Taurus. And in Taurus, Uranus, the planet of shock, lightning striking, and sudden change says, “I ain’t going to change. I don’t want to change. I like the status quo, especially if it feels good.”
And that’s the way the month starts, with Uranian energy.
We have a New Moon in the middle of the month on the 16th. That Moon is square to Pluto. And so there is certainly some real intensity around that New Moon.
So the Blue Moon, the second Full Moon of the month in Taurus, is at the same degree as Uranus.
A Full Moon is the Moon opposite the Sun. What that means is the Sun is in exact opposition to Uranus with the Full Moon lined up with Uranus. And this is volatile, this is explosive, and whether it’s physically volatile or metaphysically volatile, time will tell.
But Uranus conjuncting the Full Moon just has one purpose and that’s to release pent up tension. So now the question becomes, what’s the tension that builds all month? Because the month itself is going to start with a surprise.
This Full Moon also has retrograde Mars squaring stationary Saturn. Saturn is getting ready to turn direct. When they turn from direct to retrograde or retrograde to direct, they just move really slowly.
So we have a retrograde Mars squaring a Saturn that ain’t moving. We have the anger hitting the stone wall. We have the child throwing a temper tantrum and not getting what he wants.
So the stuff that has come out is the opening volley of the month. And then at the end of the month, we get this other Uranus thing.
It’s going to be something deeper, something that’s going to catch us off guard. We can say yes, something unexpected is going to happen toward the end of the month. But until it happens, no one knows what it is.
It’s a surprise. So that’s why October is “October Surprise”.
Now having said that, the thing that fuels lightning is built-up tension. And if there’s no tension, there’s no lightning gonna strike.
So in other words, if you can keep your relationships (for example) totally flowing and honest with no hidden anger or resentment or bad feelings that are buried and based upon something that you experienced when you were three years old or generationally or from past lives or whatever…
If you’re absolutely clear and you have a strong Uranus transit happen, nothing will happen.
We’re in this process of Mars moving through Aries and Mars going retrograde. So it went through Aries and squared Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn. And now Mars is going retrograde and it’s already returned to the square to Saturn. But by October 9th, Mars backs up and squares Pluto.
And Mars and Pluto are a nasty combination because it’s the assertive, aggressive warrior with the Lord of the hell realms. And then Mars continues to retrograde and squares Jupiter on October 11th.
Mars then completely comes all the way back. It turns direct the week after election day (in the United States) and then it will hit these three planets by direct motion in late December, early January.
And then into that, we add the fact that the Sun is going through Libra now. And what that means is on October 11th, the Sun will square Jupiter. And then on October 15th, the Sun will square Pluto. And then, on the 18th, the Sun will square Saturn.
And this is intermingled with Mars squaring all these same planets, which means that the Sun will actually oppose Mars.
The closest that a planet gets to the earth is at the opposition. That’s when Mars will be the brightest. And that occurs on October 13th, incidentally, the same day that Mercury turns retrograde.
We have a bit of a rough spot in October from I’m guessing maybe the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th through the 18th, 19th, in that period of time. I think things smooth out a little for a bit after that.
During that period of time, we have the Sun making the squares to Capricorn, we have the Sun opposing Mars, we have Mars opposing Pluto, and these are 90-degree angles. And the pressure builds.
How does that pressure get released?
And as Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto turn direct, all of a sudden the deepest currents of the river are no longer being dammed up, but they’re the deep currents.
Meanwhile, at the surface, we have Mars, which we noticed because Mars is anger and direction and forward motion, and Mars right now is dammed up because it’s being retrograded, it’s being prevented from moving forward.
And into that, we have Mercury going retrograde on October 13th and it goes direct on November 3rd, the morning of election day. So we’re getting this feeling like things should be moving forward finally, but it’s not.
It feels like we’re ready to go, but things are holding us back and restraining us. What does that do? That adds more anger, more frustration, more resentment. And it builds up more tension.
That Uranus is in the corner going, “I think I’m just going to wait because I don’t want to have to blast my lightning strike every day. I’m just going to wait for that Full Moon on Halloween and I’ll let them have one.”
That’s the lay of the land for October.
There are some really sweet points in October around the 19th, 20th, 21st through the 24th that I think are stabilizing. But they are what I would consider being a pause in the disaster.
Amanda: Okay. All right. For you, in terms of the “October Surprise”, are we anticipating something collective or personal or both?
Rick: Both.
Amanda: So it can show up in our personal lives. So if we are showing up transparently and authentically and honestly and maybe overcoming some internal obstacles and challenges and healing…
Rick: The answer is yes, but. And the but is that there are times when we can have done the inner work, we know where we’re going, and yet we know that if we shout this message in front of the state capitol, we’ll be arrested.
Actions have consequences.
And with these planets squaring the governmental structure, all traditional planets in Capricorn, it can be that we can do what seems to be the right thing with the right motives and the right intentions and we end up being taken out of the battle before the war is won.
Expressing that anger may end up making our goal farther and farther away and expressing our anger actually can be detrimental to our cause.
We can win every battle that we fight and yet we fight so many battles with so many different people that by the time the war is coming to its culmination, we’re exhausted. And so the saying is you can win every battle and still lose the war.
To quote the now deceased Kenny Rogers, “Know when to hold and know when to fold and know when to walk away.”
Amanda: Okay. So a question about Uranus, the surprise, the sudden change. Can that also be a sudden flash of insight, a sudden flash of seeing the world totally differently?
Rick: Yes, absolutely. And there’s another piece of this.
Mercury opposing Uranus on October 7th is it’s the light bulb going on. It is a metaphysical breakthrough, and it’s a change of consciousness, and it’s about revealing,
The word apocalypse comes from the Greek word to uncover or to reveal.
Mercury opposing Uranus on October 7th, which happens once a year. Mercury whizzes by its opposition to Uranus on October 7th, but just a week later, Mercury turns retrograde. And therefore, Mercury is actually opposing Uranus again on October 19th, which means that it’s holding that note.
It’s Mercury in Scorpio. What does Mercury in Scorpio do? Mercury is the intellect. Mercury is curious in Scorpio. It wants to get into the depths and wants to go deep.
And so when Mercury, twice during this month, goes opposite Uranus, there’s going to be stuff coming out that will be apocalyptic or revealed if you will. And that will feed into and set up this larger change.
Amanda: So in summary, the theme for this month is “October Surprise”. This is going to be both collective and personal. It is a Blue Moon. So that means we have two Full Moons, sitting as anchors in the storyline for this month.
Rick: With Saturn points at the start and the stop.
Amanda: Exactly. And they have incredible Uranian energy attached to them and Uranus releases tension. So there’s going to be this mounting tension all month long with the release at the end of it. And that is where the surprise element comes in.
So you said something brief about the New Moon, that there’s going to be a lot of intensity around it because of Pluto being there.
Rick: The New Moon is around 24 degrees of Libra, which is square Pluto and Saturn. And so it is right in that tense area.
And remember, stress is not a bad thing. It’s only a bad thing if we don’t know what to do with it, or if we succumb to the negative ways of expressing it. It’s that line, no pain, no gain.
Stress is the thing that creates the dissonance, that motivates us to make changes and to create things and to do things that are important.
So we certainly get that around this New Moon.
Amanda: I keep thinking of the words, creative tension. You need that buildup of energy and then it propels movement forward.
If there are things that are hidden or things that need to be revealed, essentially, that’s where the big surprise will come in.
Rick: Right. Uranus can bring something out into the open that we thought we’d never have to talk about.
Amanda: And it could be you personally, or it could be someone in your life.
Okay. So we have a rough spot in the month that you identified, which is basically October 10th to the 18th/19th.
Rick: October 9th is tough. On October 10th there are really sweet aspects that come in. But by the 13th, we’re feeling the anger and the restriction, and the 15th more of that up through the 18th.
So it’s not real clear, but part of that lack of clarity is what makes it such a difficult period to negotiate or to navigate.
Amanda: So it’s going to be a really, really interesting month. I mean, just as a part of a really, really interesting year.
Rick: I don’t think it’s going to be an easy month. But then again, what in 2020 has been easy?
Amanda: Yeah. I don’t know that we all came here for easy.
Rick: I don’t think that we all came here for the reasons that we think we came here.
Amanda: That’s probably true. This is where we’ll quote Madeline again:
“Mama, you don’t know. I don’t know. None of us know.”
This interview has been edited for readability, watch the full-length interview here
To learn more from Rick Levine, check out his Astrology Hub courses:
Astrology Foundations and The Astrology of Relationships
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