The Lunar Rites of Libra Season (+ lunar horoscopes)
Libra’s Lunations
First Quarter Moon: September 29, 2025, 4:54pm PT - Moon in Gate 58, The Gate of Vitality
Full Moon in Aries: October 6, 2025, 8:54pm PT - Moon in Gate 21, The Gate of the Hunter
Third Quarter Moon: October 13, 2025, 11:24am PT - Moon in Gate 62, The Gate of Details
New Moon in Libra: October 21, 2025, 5:24pm PT - Moon in Gate 50, The Gate of Values
The Scales of Justice, The Mirror of Worth
Libra is the archetype of justice, balance, and relational harmony. Ruled by Venus, the goddess of beauty and desire, Libra seeks not just fairness but aesthetic rightness: a world where things feel as beautiful as they are equitable. Libra is the sign of the scales, the judge, the diplomat. The one who asks: What is fair? What is just? What creates harmony between two opposing forces?
But Libra's medicine goes deeper than conflict resolution or pleasant aesthetics. Libra also teaches us about reciprocity—the give and take that exists in all relationships, all systems, all exchanges of energy. It asks us to examine the invisible contracts we've made with the world, with our work, and with the people we love. It reveals where we've traded our truth for acceptance, our values for external validation, and our sovereignty for the illusion of control.
At its highest expression, Libra is the embodiment of true discernment: the ability to see clearly what serves and what does not, what aligns with our deepest values and what has simply been inherited from culture, family, or fear. Libra season invites us to recalibrate the scales. To weigh what we've been holding. And to ask if the weight we carry is truly ours to bear.
This Cultural Moment: Control, Status, and the Question of Values
We are living in a time when the structures of power, status, and control are being interrogated at every level. As of the time of this writing (10/1/2025), the U.S. government has shut down for who knows how long (the last one set a record of 35 days!). Globally, systems that once felt (somewhat) stable are continously revealing their fragility. Pluto's transit through Aquarius is dismantling outdated hierarchies and collective agreements. Uranus in Gemini is disrupting how we communicate, how we share information, and what we believe to be true.
This is not accidental timing.
Libra season 2025 arrives in the midst of a larger unraveling and a collective reckoning with what we value, how we've defined our worth, and where we've clung to control as a substitute for sovereignty.
Control is the shadow of Libra. When we don't trust our own discernment and center, we try to force equilibrium externally. We people-please. We manipulate outcomes. We perform versions of ourselves that will be accepted, approved of, deemed "worthy" by external validators. We cling to status markers—titles, roles, aesthetic perfection, revenue—as proof that we matter.
But what happens when those markers are stripped away? What happens when the structures we've relied on to tell us who we are begin to crumble?
Libra season asks us to return to our true values—not the ones we inherited, not the ones that make us look good, but the ones that live in the very core of our bones. The ones that guide us when no one is watching. And the ones that remain when everything else falls away.
This is the season to release the need for external validation and anchor into the quiet authority of knowing what matters to you. To let go of relationships, roles, and responsibilities that exist only to maintain an image. To stop performing groundedness and balance and to start actually living it.
The Lunation Cycle: Manifestation and De-Manifestation
The Moon moves through four primary phases, each offering us a threshold for working with the energies of receiving and releasing, creating and emptying.
When the Moon is waxing (from New Moon to Full Moon), we are in a manifestation cycle. This is a time to receive, to build, to call in what aligns with our values.
When the Moon is waning (from Full Moon to New Moon), we are in a de-manifestation cycle. This is a time to release, to empty, to let go of what no longer serves us and our shared futures.
Libra season invites us to work consciously with both cycles—to understand that creation and destruction are not opposites, but partners in the dance of being / becoming.
First Quarter Moon in Gate 58: The Gate of Vitality
September 29, 2025 | 4:54pm PT
Waxing Moon: A Manifestation Cycle
Gate 58 is the Gate of Vitality, the gate of aliveness, joy, and the relentless pulse of life force moving through you. This is not superficial happiness or forced positivity. This lunation shows us the deep, embodied "yes" that comes from living in alignment with what genuinely enlivens you.
The First Quarter Moon is a moment of momentum. The seed planted at the New Moon is beginning to push through the soil. You're meeting the first resistance, the first challenge. Gate 58 asks: Are you willing to move toward what brings you alive, even when it's inconvenient? Even when it disrupts the carefully maintained balance you've been holding?
This is the moment to notice where you've been dampening your vitality for the sake of keeping the peace. Where you've been dimming your energy to make others comfortable. Where you've been choosing "nice" over "true."
Go Deeper:
What are you creating? What would bring more aliveness, more vitality, more genuine joy into your daily existence?
What are you receiving? Where can you say yes to what enlivens you, even if it disrupts the status quo?
Full Moon in Aries, Gate 21: The Gate of the Hunter
October 6, 2025 | 8:54pm PT
Waning Moon Begins: A De-Manifestation Cycle
The Full Moon illuminates everything. In Aries, it blazes with fierce clarity, asking us to see where we've been compromising our will, our agency, our right to take up space. Gate 21—the Gate of the Hunter, the gate of control and authority—brings this question into sharp focus.
Gate 21 is not about domination. It's about knowing when to act decisively and when to release the need to control outcomes. It's about leading from the front without gripping, without forcing, without needing to micromanage every detail to feel safe.
The Full Moon in this gate asks: Where have you been grasping for control because you don't trust the natural intelligence of life? Where have you been trying to force outcomes because you're afraid of what might happen if you let go?
This is the peak of the lunation cycle—the moment of greatest visibility. What has your pursuit of control cost you? Your relationships? Your health? Your capacity to trust yourself?
Go Deeper:
What are you releasing? What patterns of control, manipulation, or people-pleasing are you ready to metabolize and compost? Where have you been holding on so tightly that you've squeezed the life out of what you love?
What are you letting go of? The identities, roles, and performances that have kept you "safe" but small. The need to be seen as perfect, as balanced, as having it all together.
Third Quarter Moon in Gate 62: The Gate of Details
October 13, 2025 | 11:24am PT
Waning Moon: A De-Manifestation Cycle
Gate 62 is the Gate of Details, the gate of precision, articulation, and naming things clearly. This is the energy of the scribe, the one who can see the small but essential facts that others miss. It's the gate of expressing truth in its most grounded, specific form.
The Third Quarter Moon is the final release before the next cycle begins. It's the moment of surrender, of composting, of allowing what has completed to fall away naturally. Gate 62 asks you to name what is true—not the story you've been telling yourself, not the narrative that makes you look good, but the precise, unglamorous facts of where you are and what you've been carrying.
This is not about judgment. It's about clarity. When you can name something specifically, you can release it specifically. Vague intentions create vague outcomes. Precise language creates spaciousness.
Go Deeper:
What are you releasing? What specific beliefs, patterns, or obligations are you ready to name and let go of? Get granular. Get honest.
What are you letting go of? The need to sugarcoat, spiritually bypass, or make your truth more palatable for others. The stories you've been telling yourself about why things have to be a certain way.
New Moon in Libra, Gate 50: The Gate of Values
October 21, 2025 | 5:24pm PT
Waxing Moon Begins: A Manifestation Cycle
The New Moon in Gate 50 is the sacred cauldron, the container that holds and nourishes what matters most. Gate 50 is the Gate of Values—the gate that asks, What do you stand for? What principles guide your choices when no one is watching? What are you willing to protect, to tend, to resource, even when it's difficult?
This is not about abstract ideals or inherited belief systems. Gate 50 is deeply embodied. It's about the values that live in your bones, the ones you can't compromise on without betraying yourself. It's about knowing what's sacred to you and organizing your life around that knowing.
The New Moon is the fertile dark, the moment of seeding. In Gate 50, we are planting the values we want to live by. We are asking: What do I want to build my life around? What deserves my energy, my attention, my devotion?
This lunation asks you to anchor into your true values, not the ones you think you should have, not the ones that will make you look enlightened or evolved, but the ones that pulse with life when you speak them out loud.
Go Deeper:
What are you creating? What new structures, relationships, or ways of being do you want to seed that are rooted in your deepest values? What deserves your care and protection?
What are you receiving? The clarity of knowing what matters. The courage to build your life around it, even when it's countercultural. The spaciousness that comes from releasing everything that doesn't align.
The Invitation
Libra season is not asking you to appear more beautiful, balanced, grounded, and fair. It's asking you to stop performing balance and start living from your center.
It's asking you to release the illusion of control and trust the intelligence of your own becoming.
It's asking you to stop trading your truth for approval and anchor into the quiet authority of your values.
The Moon's cycles will guide you. The waxing Moon will show you what wants to be born. The waning Moon will show you what's ready to die. Your only task is to meet yourself at each threshold with presence, honesty, and grace.
What are you releasing?
What are you receiving?
Let the scales recalibrate. Let the cauldron of your values hold what's sacred. Let yourself become the living embodiment of your deepest ethics, not just because it looks good and makes you more admirable, but because it's true to the depths of your soul.
Lunar Horoscopes by Rising / Sun Sign
A Note on Lunar Horoscopes vs. Solar Horoscopes
If you’re new to astrology, most horoscopes you read are solar horoscopes—they're based on where the Sun is transiting through the zodiac and how that activates different areas of life based on your Sun sign. Lunar horoscopes, like the ones in the Lunar Rites series, track the Moon's movement through the zodiac and the specific Human Design gates the Moon activates during each lunation.
The Moon moves much faster than the Sun (cycling through all 12 signs in about 28 days versus the Sun's 365-day cycle), which means lunar horoscopes capture the subtle, embodied, emotional rhythms of your experience—the undercurrents beneath the more visible solar themes.
Aries Rising / Sun This season asks you to examine your closest partnerships and how you've been trading your autonomy for harmony. The question isn't whether you can compromise—it's whether you've been compromising yourself out of existence in your relationships. Use this lunation cycle to reclaim your sovereignty in partnership and discover what true reciprocity actually feels like when both people remain whole.
Taurus Rising / Sun Libra season activates your daily routines, your health, and your capacity to be of service without martyring yourself. You're being asked to release the patterns of overgiving, over-functioning, and organizing your life around everyone else's needs while your own values go untended. What would it mean to build a daily life that actually serves you while you serve others?
Gemini Rising / Sun Your creative expression, pleasure, and capacity for joy are under examination this season. You've been performing creativity, performing fun, performing the version of yourself that's "supposed to" be lighthearted and playful. This lunation cycle asks: What actually brings you alive? What do you create when you stop trying to impress anyone and start creating from your genuine desire?
Cancer Rising / Sun Libra season lands in your home, your foundations, your sense of belonging and rootedness. The question is whether you've been building a life that looks stable from the outside while feeling hollow within, organized around inherited values rather than your own truth. Use these lunations to release what's keeping you trapped in structures that were never truly yours and plant seeds for a home—internal and external—that reflects your actual values.
Leo Rising / Sun Your communication, your daily interactions, and how you move through your immediate environment are being recalibrated. You've been saying what people want to hear, keeping things smooth, managing perceptions—but this season asks what happens when you start speaking your actual truth, even when it disrupts the carefully maintained harmony. The vitality you're seeking lives on the other side of authentic expression.
Virgo Rising / Sun Libra season activates your relationship to money, resources, and self-worth, asking you to examine where you've confused your value with your productivity or what you can control. You've been trying to earn your worthiness through perfection, through getting it right, through managing every detail—but your true values have nothing to do with performance. What do you actually value, and are you resourcing it?
Libra Rising / Sun This is your season, landing directly in your first house of identity and self-expression, which means you're being asked to stop performing a persona and start being yourself. You've spent so long trying to be what others need, to create harmony, to make everyone comfortable—but who are you when you're not performing for approval? Use these lunations to shed the identities that were never truly yours and step into the person you've been waiting for permission to become.
Scorpio Rising / Sun Libra season activates your twelfth house—the realm of the unconscious, what's hidden, what you've been avoiding. The control patterns you've been examining aren't just in your external life; they're in the stories you tell yourself in the dark, the fears you won't name, the parts of yourself you've exiled. This season asks you to bring those shadows into the light, not to fix them, but to see them clearly and release what's ready to be composted.
Sagittarius Rising / Sun Your friendships, your community, and your sense of belonging in the collective are being restructured. You've been performing a version of yourself that fits in, that's accepted by your circles, but this season asks whether those communities actually reflect your values or if you've been contorting yourself to belong. What would it mean to find your people by being fully yourself rather than by being what you think they want?
Capricorn Rising / Sun Libra season lands in your career, your public role, and how you're seen in the world, asking you to examine whether you've been building toward someone else's definition of success. You've been controlling your image, performing competence, climbing toward goals that looked good on paper but don't align with your actual values. What professional path would you choose if you stopped trying to prove your worth and started trusting it?
Aquarius Rising / Sun Your beliefs, your sense of meaning, and your relationship to truth are being interrogated this season. You've been performing a certain philosophical stance, a particular way of seeing the world that looks evolved or detached, but what do you actually believe when you strip away the performance? This lunation cycle asks you to get honest about what you value, what you stand for, and whether your actions actually reflect the principles you claim to hold.
Pisces Rising / Sun Libra season activates your eighth house, the realm of shared resources, intimacy, transformation, and what you've merged with that's no longer yours to carry. You've been giving your power away in relationships, in collaborations, in the spaces where you've become enmeshed with others' values and lost track of your own. This season asks: What needs to die so you can reclaim your sovereignty? What transformation are you ready for that requires releasing control over outcomes?
Horoscope didn’t resonate? That’s okay.
Why Horoscopes Only Resonate Part of the Time
If you've ever read a horoscope and thought "this doesn't resonate at all," there's a good reason: horoscopes are written for your Sun or Rising sign, but your full chart has 10+ planetary placements that all matter. A horoscope can only speak to one piece of your astrological makeup.
For a deeper understanding of why some horoscopes land and others don't—and how to read horoscopes through the three layers that actually make them relevant to your life—read this article / listen to this podcast.
The horoscopes below are written for your Rising sign first (which is your most accurate entry point), with Sun sign as a secondary option if you don't know your birth time. If you know your Rising sign, read that one. If you only know your Sun sign, that works too—just know it's not the full picture.
