What Heartbreak Leaves Behind
The New Moon in Libra
We had a gorgeous and deeply cathartic experience last Saturday, the 10th of October, when the Moon conjoined the Sun at 17°21’ of Libra at 8:50 AM PT, giving us the New Moon. With its ruler, Venus, retrograde in Scorpio, the emotional and relational healing here runs as deep as we want it to be.
During this New Moon, I was speaking at my aunt’s funeral back East, just as the Moon reached its maximum emptiness, pouring out what concentrated elixir she had left in her cauldron of light. A lesson in becoming the love we usually seek outside ourselves. It was so fitting, as I believe my aunt was a Libra rising. A gift to us all.
My aunt had mutual reception between her Jupiter and Venus placements, just like I do. And our joint proclivity for “if some is good, more is better” is something I’ve always noticed. We’re especially like that when it comes to loving those around us.
Imagine a tsunami of love coming at you. No one automatically knows what to do with that unless they’re a small child or wired to look for an easy target to exploit. So she endured more than her fair share of heartbreak and betrayal. My aunt had more love to give than people to receive it, so it overflowed into flora, fauna, and of course, the Divine.
Personally, my direct experience of love, heartbreak, and grief shaped who I am today. It used to bother me when it wasn’t returned in any form, whether romantic or platonic. The honest truth is that, for those of us with bottomless love and compassion, most people aren’t ready to receive the reality of a love that big.
And if you're one of those people who love wholly, completely with every part of yourself, it's important to know that others’ inability to meet you there doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy of an ocean of love or that you should give up looking for it—only to not expect it in everyone you meet, and let it find you instead.
In my opinion, Libra is one of the best signs to understand love in its many forms, not just the feeling or the act itself, but why we love, and how we love. We all have Libra in our charts, even if we have no placements there. All of us have Libra and its significations within us. And while experiencing the feeling or sensation of love, or the pain of its absence, is a big part of it, one of the things that assists us in moderating its irrationality when we come down from its highest highs or ascend once more from its lowest lows is embodied knowledge that how we experience love is subjective, and yet there are also laws that govern its form and frequency.
I know this because I followed the grief of my unrequited love all the way to its end and back again, which took me four years. Half of a full Venus cycle; it was like one big Venus retrograde. Personally, I had to do it, given what Venus is up to in my chart. Now, I not only know the feeling of love and the acts of love, but I also know that to love deeply is also to understand it logically, mechanically, and lawfully. Which sounds strange, but part of you knows it's true.
One of the surest ways to get there is through heartbreak.
The Libran parts of us also need to know what estrangement from another’s love feels like. And what feels like the complete absence of love has its own terrain in the subtle realm, and like a map, it leads you to the source of love within the self. I experience this source of love through my soul, that spark of the Divine that has descended and married with the flesh and bone of my human form. Only through heartbreak and loss did I find this fountain of love flowing within, and now I have access to it at all times.
So, I don’t think it's a coincidence that the planet of structure, limits, and boundaries, Saturn, is exalted in Libra. So many parts of love aren't rational at all; here, we have one place in the chart that excels at it. A place to make sense or meaning of it.
In addition to all this, the tarot card syncretized with the middle face of Libra, and therefore this New Moon, is the Three of Swords, and is also ruled by Saturn in both the Chaldean and Triplicity ruler systems. Then, on Saturday, right before the Moon conjoined the Sun, she opposed Saturn in Aries, which witnessed this event from across the zodiac, striking the match and lighting the pyre himself.
Saturn’s absolute rulership here demonstrates something any broken heart anywhere would recognize. It shows the limits of what we will endure in our social and romantic relationships, the limits of others' ability to meet our needs, and the need to negotiate the very real terms and conditions of committed partnership in all its forms, even the one within.
A whole subset of Gen X folks have the planet of power, transformation, and rebirth, Pluto, here, and yep, you guessed it, I am one of them. I also have Mercury here, so I have both Hades, the God of the Underworld, and our beloved Psychopomp, which is why I could find my way back and map the terrain for everyone else.
You, too, can descend into the heart and pull out each sword one by one. You may or may not have been the one who put them there, but you choose to leave them or trust that you can heal them. If you can resurrect yourself rather than wait on someone else to do it for you, friend, nothing seems impossible after that.
You’ll also leave with otherworldly, divine connections to the more-than-human realm that can meet you at the depth of your love, taking the pressure off the humans in your life and letting them be.
And instead of waiting for them to meet you, you’re free to walk away. You might be alone, but you’ll never be lonely again. Free to follow the pull of your healed heart wherever it calls you, leaving a trail of extraordinary self-love in your wake for others to follow, if they choose. Let the beauty of your love light the way.
Those who heed the call to join you then are there because they truly want to be in an exalted partnership with you.
This is what this New Moon in Libra is offering those with ears to hear.
How to work with this Libra energy
New Moons are about new beginnings, but because this is happening under retrograde Venus, it suggests we're revisiting or healing something from the past around our values in relationships. Most likely this is a 1:1 committed partnership of some sort. We’re revisiting it in order to compost what no longer serves and start anew. And because Venus retrogrades repeat every eight years, I wonder what echoes you might find if you look back at 2018, 2010, and 2002. Sometimes the patterns aren't obvious until we look at the shape of the past from the present.
Friend, it's time to forgive yourself for what you deemed a poor relationship judgment in the past that is affecting your ability to connect now. The ending of this relationship was devastating to you, and while the pain of its ending was unimaginable, the root of your healing is to let go of thinking you should have seen it coming, or have seen the red flags, or that you could have been different in the relationship to prevent its ending. Forgive yourself.
All of that love you gave was not wasted. It will return to you, just like a boomerang, though in another form.
This experience taught you what you truly value in relationships, and how your values show up in the material reality of your partnerships. You can now clearly see what you couldn't before, and that is something to be grateful for, not to beat yourself up for what you didn’t know.
Think of a small child learning how to walk. When a little one stumbles, we don’t call them stupid or berate them for not walking perfectly from step one. We cheer them on as they try again.
Often, what we value in life and relationships is inherited patterns from our family of origin and our ancestors. They once ensured our survival, but we are living in a different world. This past heartbreak ended the cycle. Mending your heart sets a new pattern in motion not only for you, but for past and future generations.
If it helps, write past you a letter, thank her for her generous love, and forgive her for any mistakes made based on outdated information. Write it, then read it, then safely set it on fire and scatter the ashes.
Even if you are in a loving and fulfilling relationship right now, forgiving yourself again and again helps continually welcome this othered part of self home. You may find your path forward is wider, clearer, and more sure than it's ever been before. The true desire of your heart, the prayer you’ve carried for lifetimes, will be easier to hear.
You are always in a perpetual state of becoming, and you don't have to unravel in isolation. If you find yourself staring at the sword-wounds of the past—know that you don't have to wait for permission to heal.
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