Existential Joy

Adam Sommer
3 min readOct 11, 2023

…On the Pluto station and Chiron/Sun opposition

It’s not an easy task to keep our center when the world feels the way it does. With the sense of another world war fomenting and the dread we can feel around any subject we find ourselves focused on, it sure does seem like there are dragons afoot — or, in flight. This is why it’s essential we do our best not to lose our center. It’s also an existential threat to our joy.

Welcome to eclipse season: Fall 23’!

Pluto also stations direct today, beginning its third pass of the late Capricorn degrees (Oct 11th; 27º53’ Cap). When it happened earlier in the year, we were in phase one of the banking crisis; many are calling for phase two, and a recession on the horizon. Coupled with the maelstrom of everything else, these slow yet colossal moves by Pluto can exacerbate one’s natural existential angst. Death feels closer. Entropy seems to quicken, causing immense anxiety in those of us sensitive to what is floating around the breeze. We must wait until late January for the next (yet not final) ingress into Aquarius — and that’s not to say it’s the release valve to the pressure, just that it’s a novel shift in collective power dynamics.

Chiron is also at the peak of its synodic cycle today (opposite Sun; 17º Aries/Libra). Even though Chiron is hidden from the unaided eye, the mighty bloom of healing themes can still be felt. Often within the Sun/Chiron complex, we find ourselves giving away our light. If born with a tough aspect between the two, we can often spot how easy it is to assist others as a distraction to our own shine; we can catch ourselves giving away power to teachers, role models, or subtle dreams we have for ourselves. It’s a way of distracting ourselves from our own soul shine. And it can build resentment. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, “comparison is the thief of joy.” Or as Kerouac put it, “comparisons are odious.” If you find yourself in a vicious cycle of such self-harming, it may be time for a social media fast.

And then…tomorrow Mars enters home turf (Scorpio) and by Saturday, the eclipses begin. The energy is high and chaotic. The clashes of ideologies are at a fever pitch — the Middle East seems to have this effect. The coming days are a rescuing of the light situation, not an abandoning of it. So, if you find your head running hot, condemning one side or the other, again, it may be a great time for a social media fast. Also, gawking at the eclipse may be a terrible idea. Practice, cold running water (mountain streams being the best), and a blindfold might be a nice way to balance the scales and rescue the light.

Our joy is experiencing an existential threat. It is our job to be hawks on the wire for anything trying to mess with our right to be joyful — no matter what is happening in the world. That is what we mean by our center.

…the old centaur draws a circle in the dirt

touches his heart

points to yours

and begins to laugh

catches himself

then seethes

due to the pain in his leg

and laughs again…

*to find all these happenings in your chart, you can pull it up for free on astro.com

Oct 14th: Total Solar Eclipse; 21º Libra

Oct 28th; Partial Lunar Eclipse: 5º Taurus

  • If you’d like to have a reading around these eclipses, I have a few openings still; you can sign up below

Eudaimonia,

Adam

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Adam Sommer

Dedicated to Kosmos, Mythos, and Psyche. “Great stories are worthy of constellations.” Substack: https://kosmognosis.substack.com/