It's Libra season, and though this astrologer's long-held opinion is that you should never trust a Libra because they're too friendly, the scales do bring some good tidings. Most importantly, after a hectic month of retrograding all over the place, Mercury righted itself on October 2, which means at least some of your trains will run on something resembling a schedule. Exciting!
Toward the end of the month, Libra season rolls right into Scorpio season, known among the marketing companies as Spooky season. You know what this means: blow-up brownstone ghosts and spiders, haunted dolls on every stoop, Spirit Halloween stores, a corpse on the subway that confuses you for a minute until you realize it's a living person in a costume, and small children flooding your local bar in search of candy.
Other highlights: a full moon in Aries on October 9 and an end to both the Pluto and Saturn retrogrades that have been plaguing us for months—that's right, Pluto is still a planet, even if the Hayden Planetarium has removed him from his place of honor. Of course, lest you think the ensuing months will be retrograde-free, Mars will start moving backwards on October 30. What does that mean? We have no idea. We'll put that one off until next month.
Here’s what else is coming:
LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Happy Libra season, pal! Your birthday month is a time of personal growth and learning to stand up for yourself. This month, that means you'll finally confront the person who is watching a video of a children's tuba concert at top volume in your train car. It doesn't go well for you, but points for trying! You only need one eye, anyway.
SCORPIO (October 23-November 22)
Your season awaits, Scorpio, bringing with it all the supernatural spooky stuff your little scorpion brains can handle. The bodega gets a black cat who throws you a death stare every time you come in to buy a six-pack of White Claw. Your radiator is definitely possessed. You could have sworn you heard a train pulling into the Hoyt-Schermerhorn ghost platform. The pigeons on the eaves right outside your window are growing in number and looking more and more ominous as they peer into your living room and wait for you to fall asleep. You are delighted.
SAGITTARIUS (November 23-December 21)
October is a good month for you to improve your personal style. You buy a Hell Gate subscription that entitles you to a spiffy hat. Everyone thinks you look awesome. Nothing else happens, really. You have a pretty good time.
CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Libra season opens up space for you to pick up new hobbies, and though sports have never really been your thing, you decide now is the time to support every new New Yorker's favorite team, the New York Mets. You've been hearing so much about how this is their year, and that a World Series berth is on the horizon, so there's no time like the present to put your whole heart and soul into supporting their success. You gear up for an exciting playoff season—in which they somehow play only one single game, losing at the top of the 9th with bases loaded and a big hitter at the plate. This is the hell your life is now. You're doing it all over again next year.
AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18)
The stars have finally aligned for you to take a trip overseas, so you book a flight across the Atlantic to see what the Brits have going on now that the Queen is dead and the pound is worth like 35 cents. On your flight back to JFK, you end up sitting next to Andy Byford, the beloved MTA chief who quit in 2020 after dealing with three years of Andrew Cuomo's bullshit. When you exit the gate, you are trampled to death by members of the local press as they fling themselves at Byford and scream, “WELCOME BACK, TRAIN DADDY.”
PISCES (February 19-March 20)
The bedbugs have formed a tenants union. The conditions in your bedroom are fair, but could use improvement. They want you to stop vacuuming.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
The end of Mercury retrograde will give you an extra burst of energy this month, so you join a gym in your neighborhood. It’s $100/month, but classes are included, and if you go twice a week you'll more than recoup your investment. You buy a whole new gym outfit, a gym bag, and a water bottle. This is when your life begins. You are about to become a whole new you. You buy crop tops in anticipation of abs. You go to the gym once, see a cockroach in the sauna, and never return. It will take you six months to cancel the membership.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Plans to pick apples upstate are foiled when you arrive at the farm and discover all the apples have already been picked, the apple cider all drunk, the corn maze trampled. The autumn Instagrammers must be stopped, for they have killed the vibe, and are sure to kill again.
GEMINI (May 21-June 21)
You attend a Yankees playoff game and Aaron Judge accidentally hits you with a baseball. You die, but it's still the coolest thing that's ever happened to you.
CANCER (June 22-July 22)
No, your landlord is not going to turn the heat on this year.
LEO (July 23-August 22)
This month, you'll be gripped with a desire to speak truth to power, so you'll stage a sit-in at your favorite restaurant's outdoor dining shed in protest over news reports that the City is considering taking them down. One morning, you handcuff yourself to a support beam and prepare to stay there for the long haul, elements be damned. Unfortunately, you neglect to take into account that the dining sheds are still being used, and end up spending three hours listening to a man explain Ethereum to his date during dinner service.
VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
This is your month for professional advancement, and indeed, sometime after the full moon, the mayor calls and offers you a newly created position in his administration as Chief of Staying Up All Night. Your duties mainly consist of polishing the magic crystals in the secret cavern Robert Moses built under Gracie Mansion before going to Zero Bond at 3 a.m. To make room in the budget for your $360,000 annual salary, the City fires 30 teachers and replaces them with a single DVD box set of "Boston Public" that can be checked out at the NYPL. There is already a five-month wait.
