This October Full Moon comes to us on a Sunday in the sign of Aries. Themes of self, beginnings, identity, and fiery desire may come up for you around this time: what you want and why you want it — what you want and how you are going to get it. This October Full Moon is sometimes referred to as the Hunter’s Moon, called so by the Algonquin tribes who populated the Northeast to roughly the area near Lake Superior. The Cherokee people called this the Harvest Moon, the Ojibwe called this the Falling Leaves Moon. If you know whose land you are on, you can look that up and see what their name was, and may still be, for this moon.
This Full Moon is definitely in the key of magic. All of October is a bridge month: we stand on the bridge between light and dark. We swim in-between the bridge of the subconscious and conscious mind. We embody the bridge between life and death. We use the dark to vision deep into the future. We go beyond the veil to experience the mysteries within. What better way to honor the shifting season than to create rituals, light candles, meditate, pull tarot cards, and get renewed by the Moon?
The following Tarotscopes were pulled and channeled by meditating on each astrological archetype. They are meant to be read as inspiration. You can read your Sun, your Moon, your Rising, or another archetype that resonates with you. Take what you’d like and leave the rest.
As always, if unsure, consult your doctor or herbalist before using any of the suggested spell ingredients. Everyone’s body is different.
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Aries
Page of Pentacles
Your task for this brilliant, blazing Full Moon is to just be a human being. Aries, it’s time to observe some full-circle moments that may be headed your way: these could include apologies from people you’d never thought could, attention for certain talents you have, or maybe just the ability to stay calm and self-compassionate in situations that previously would have leveled your psyche. All of the watering of your personal, self-esteem-garden is paying off. You can trust yourself more than ever before — and the more you trust yourself, the more openings you will begin to experience externally.
There isn’t anything else to learn. There isn’t any more proof that you need to gather. Your time around this Full Moon, and for the rest of the month, is best spent focusing on moving at the speed of abundance; vibrating at the frequency of self-worth.
Keep everything that affirms your blossoming as fertilizer, as you begin to plant new opportunities in your work and your purpose in this world.
Suggested spell ingredients: naked lady flower essence, crocodile jasper, an altar made up of plants, and a self-guided meditation where you infuse your aura with green light and visualize yourself as the generating garden of your dreams.
Taurus
7 of Cups
This Full Moon may be shining super brightly onto all the various directions your life could go right now. It could feel positively urgent to make a decision right away, but now is not the time for rushing. This is the time for internal reflections. This Full Moon could be highlighting some regrets, potentially around past moves you’ve made that have impacted your emotional self-development and intimate relations. This is a Full Moon for forgiving your past self, and for articulating how you want to feel, more often.
All around you are different enticing decisions. There will always be pluses and minuses for each. A sure thing cannot be your focus at this time, because a sure thing doesn’t exist quite yet. The more you wish for absolutes, the more the absolutes crumble. The only way to move forward in a way that will serve your soul’s calling is to try something you’ve never done before.
Seek the unknown. The biggest risk you could take is being heart-centered. That’s also the quickest path to the outcome you truly seek.
Suggested spell ingredients: amethyst, optical calcite, chamomile tea, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and writing down tiny letters of forgiveness to yourself and watching them dissolve into a bowl of water that you sprinkle with violets.
Gemini
5 of Pentacles Reversed
Gentle Gem, you’ve been getting this card — the 5 of Pentacles, as well as other cards that support themes of work, self-worth, and working through money blocks — so much this year! These Pentacles are showing up because you’ve truly been doing the work of breaking some long-standing curses, and doing some intense, successful uncrossing spells. This could be a wonderful Full Moon to look back on all that has transpired in your life since May, and to truly see how very far you’ve come. You’ve changed so many mindsets and behaviors around scarcity — the fact that your current problems are very different from the ones in the past is a testament to that.
And now, the 5 of Pentacles is showing up here to remind you that you are turning a corner in some other, very important money healing matters. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength. Declaring what you need to make, how you need to be seen, and how you need to feel around work and worth will empower you to seek those scenarios out. More importantly: the more you do both of those things, the more it will begin to normalize them.
It is time to step into a new paradigm of abundance.
Suggested spell ingredients: Rose of Jericho, red roses, cash money that you charge with your energy and spend, and attuning yourself to the key of receiving.
Cancer
8 of Cups
The spiritual path you’ve been on all year will be coming to a culmination over the next few months. Sometimes you’re flooded with concern because your awakenings seem to take so long. Sometimes you feel so alone, because your process is so very much your own. The fact of the matter is, your process is supposed to be different, to feel singular — that’s what makes it beautiful. Walking your own path is what makes you so distinctly you, with teachings and knowledge only you can share. This month finds you in an in-between state: to end it, cut cords.
You’ve got to move on, magical Moonchild. It can feel hard to detach from past behaviors, relationships, or ways of relating because it makes you feel like you are betraying yourself, betraying time, betraying your home.
This Full Moon will remind you that when you carry your home in your heart, everything real will stay. Don’t look back.
In all of this transformation, don’t forget to be around your friends. Your friends are the sky, the closest cat, books, and your journals. Your friends are people who look you in the eye and aren’t afraid to peer in deeper, aren’t afraid to hug you just because. Your friends are all the different people you’ve been that got here, and all the gorgeous mysteries you are on your way to becoming. There’s much more waiting out there in the unknown than there is in old, dusty, played out situations. Under this Full October Moon, cast a spell to let the universe know that you are more ready for your deepest wishes than ever before.
Suggested spell ingredients: open bedroom windows with moonstone charging on the windowsill, a membership or class at a place you’ve never been, a spiritual modality you’ve never tried, moonlight hikes, and motherwort tea.
Leo
Ace of Swords
Leo, the more serious you can get right now, the better. This Full Moon will bring you clarity through sparks of affirmations of your alignment: downloads, intriguing conversations, signs all around. Or, perhaps challenging circumstances may be forcing you to really get discerning around what is most important. Once you hone in on that, you can be your most powerful. When you are operating from your most powerful place, some real insights about where you are headed reflect back to you loud and clear.
This Full Moon will help you touch base with what is most true for you right now. The truth is not absolute, it changes as you do. The things you are concerned with now are more intangible than in the past, and much more spiritual. Goals that are easily reached from the inside — through healing, through connecting your own intellect, through be at one with your own source — are much more sustainable, once mastered.
You are heading to a higher level. Let your Full Moon magic surround the messages you are accessing, the messages you are speaking, and all the ways you use language to facilitate your empowered movement.
Suggested spell ingredients: breathing, chanting, optic calcite, red clover tincture, invisible ink spells, and bold new asks.
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Virgo
Judgement
Even if someone says they don’t believe in God, there are many Gods that they obey. Gods can be things like greed, the past, expectations, honesty, money, addiction, wanting to be liked, virtue, security, passion. These Gods are forged out of deep beliefs and the systems that shape our world. These Gods are potent when they are healthy, then they act as our compass and North Star. But when we let our old stories control us, these Gods become monsters keeping us from accessing the magic of the present moment.
This is a Full Moon for getting serious about who you are really answering to; the Gods you have truly built your life around. (Not the ones you *think* you’ve built your life around!) Your Gods will be very specific to you. Some can stay, some will have to go. The ancients worshipped all kinds of different Gods; their devotion to many did not make the quality of their belief erode. Take a cue from them and do not limit all that you are planning on worshipping. Adoring and thanking and worshipping and listening to all kinds of Gods, Goddesses, and Goddexxes will only make your overall belief system stronger.
At this Full Moon, write down all the mechanisms you’ve subscribed to that have influenced you and no longer have a place in your psyche. Then, cast a spell for all the new Gods you choose to answer to. Once you do this, even more awakenings will follow.
Suggested spell ingredients: a beautiful new broom to sweep away all the cobwebs in your house and subconscious, at least two different altars to your new beliefs, orange chrysanthemums, lapis lazuli, and a tiny, morning gratitude practice where you name everything you are grateful for from the minute your beautiful eyes open.
Libra
The High Priestess Reversed
While much of the world begins their hibernation this month, you are emerging in different ways. Yes, this is because you are a witch, and October-November can be the time that witches feel like blooming. This could be because September-October are your birth months, the time you feel most at home. Also, you feel confident coming out into the world now because all the inner work you have been doing has paid off: you now feel brighter, more able to offer your services in all senses of the world. No doubt you will be busy around this Full Moon and beyond. Please remember to enjoy this time as much as you can. The fruits of your labor demand appreciation by way of pleasure.
When the High Priestess reversed comes up, it is a cue to trust the rearrangement process your psyche is undergoing. Your intuition is changing. Your spiritual practice might be changing as well. Be active around this change. Charge it with fluidity, not fear. If you want to learn something, teach a class; if you wish to speak, listen instead.
The doors of your own underworld — your particular pain, suffering, or shadow — might need to be left alone as you venture into daylight. Embrace the warmth of other enlightened perspectives. Ask for help and guidance if you need to.
Suggested spell ingredients: onyx, pomegranates, sage tea, a dance class, a spell for collective consciousness, and a favorite poem by Mary Oliver.
Scorpio
The Chariot
Buckle up, Scorpio, because this Full Moon wants you to take off! There’s a lot of forward movement in your life around the Really Big Things: your identity, your work in the world, who you are now, who you are becoming, and the messages you are receiving from Spirit and your intuition about your journey. If you start to feel a little anxious, a little overwhelmed, that is understandable. A lot of culminations have been happening this year for you. Let this Full Moon remind you that you were born for this.
There are times when you can coast and there are times when you must race. The rest of the month may have the emphasis on the race, so be sure to consciously create rituals of slowness and rest for yourself. Through all of the shifts that are happening for you, be sure to carve out spaces of protection and refuge. Be sure to continue to take care of your health. Your Full Moon ritual could be spending the weekend buying items for your travel altar, and collecting tiny luxuries to pepper your days with comfort. Get as much in order for your mind/body/spirit as you can.
You are going much farther than you can even imagine. Take the reins and remember that you are the driver of your destiny.
Suggested spell ingredients: carnelian, lemons, grounding items, a jade roller, yarrow, plane tickets, and fire cider.
Sagittarius
The Queen of Swords
If this Full Moon finds you putting together a zine, a book proposal, or a new blog post: you are on the right track. If you are preparing for your first workshop or creating your thousandth public speech: you are right where you need to be. It could be art, it could be a hard conversation, it could be a hypnotherapy session—whatever it is that you are communicating, it is something that others need to hear. Put expressing your natural intelligence very high on your magical to-do list.
The Queen of Swords brings us a message about, well, messages. Are they getting lost in delivery? Are they mixed messages? How can you further hone what it is you are telling yourself and others? What is based on your true beliefs? Which need refining? This is a Full Moon around manifestation for you by way of communication. Your words have real power. Your knowledge needs to reach people.
Let the language you are speaking be one with what you are healing in yourself.
Suggested spell ingredients: blue vervain, celestite, angel aura quartz, feathers, owls and owl hoots, wide open spaces, and a custom haiku you write for the rest of your month under the Full Moon.
Capricorn
2 of Pentacles
Capricorn, here you go again: taking risks, keeping it moving, flowing through some high highs and low lows more effortlessly than ever. As a result, you could be enjoying the dance of life more and more. Improvising more, saying yes more, and gaining adaptability and flexibility are all qualities to lean into at this time. The more you can surprise yourself, the better.
This Full Moon brings an opportunity for you to innovate in your own particular world of work. The next two weeks — the Full Moon time into the Last Quarter Moon — will be about some very important movement around the next phase of your work. The dance of life is one of balance and focus, holding tight and letting go. Relaxing and releasing. When we do too much of one thing, and ignore the others, we trap ourselves into thinking that things will never shift. If you find yourself getting disheartened in one realm, focus your awareness on another that brings you excitement. You can have everything you want, just not all at the same time. The more you can accept that it is actually all happening, the more fulfilling your entire world will become.
Suggested spell ingredients: malachite, passionflower tincture, petrified lava, a choreographed dance, and time spent meditating on flow by a rushing river.
Aquarius
The Moon
A lot of traditional Tarot keywords about the Moon card are negative: confusion, gossip, delusion, danger, and fear. But you know, and I know, gentle Aquarius, that is merely because for a very long time, and even now, mankind feared womxn, femininity, and all things magical and intuitive. All things unknown and all things intangible were not able to be controlled and sold, and therefore, they became dangerous.
I’m mentioning all this right now for you, Aquarius, because this is a Full Moon for the books. Expect parts of yourself that you once thought dangerous now surfacing as divine. One of the earliest Tarot decks created, the Visconti, depicted this card with an image of the Goddess Artemis: the Crescent Moon as her bow, allowing her to chase whatever stirred deep within her. During this Full Moon, make like Artemis and summon the energy you will need for your healing process. Use the energy of this Full Moon to capture the last vestiges of your power that have been held hostage by shame.
Suggested spell ingredients: black moonstone, selenite, datura tincture, a bath full of white rose petals and jasmine, and a full on howling session preferably conducted outside, naked.
Pisces
The Sun
This Full Moon finds you shining bright, precious Pisces; this is a time of recovery. All throughout the last few months, you’ve been realizing what makes you feel alive, what gives you hope. If a lot of this process has been behind the scenes, let this fiery Full Moon in Aries activate an external beginning.
Sometimes you can fall into defense mechanisms of isolation, self-imposed victimhood, or only showing folks the shadowy bits of yourself. No one gains anything from you hiding your glow. You’ve got gifts to share and rooms to light up. There is nothing shameful about wanting love, about wanting to be adored, about letting your true self be fully seen and recognized. Let this Full Moon spell be one around following the light. Boldly shine your vibrance out so much that folks can’t help but give you back all the warmth that is emanating out of your universe of gold.
Suggested spell ingredients: sunlight, yellow leaves that have fallen, honey calcite, mustard-colored chrysanthemums, mustard seeds, yellow nail polish, and lots of laughter.
Written by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener
To sign up for Sarah’s newsletter—where you’ll receive Tarot spreads, Tarotscopes, and other free offerings & insights—click here.
To pre-order Sarah’s 2020 Lunar Planner, go here.
Sarah Faith Gottesdiener lives and works in Los Angeles. Sarah is an artist, designer, writer, teacher and Tarot Reader. Sarah’s artwork and designs are based in the spiritual, feminist, and mystical. You can shop her intersectional feminist line of clothing, accessories, art and paper goods through her store, Modern Women or on the HausWitch site here.
