The ability to be right and the risk of being wrong is a distraction within conflict. Conflict can’t be won.

October is the month of the Martian Moons. Both lunations, the full moon and the eclipse, are ruled by Mars. And Mars? It retrogrades at the tail end of the month. Before that, it is already in the place where it knows it will have to face imminent retreat.

In my zine that I sent to my subscription communities, The Astro-Kats and Star Kids Club, I was writing about the incoming Mars retrograde and about how the reactions and defenses against conflict can often look very similar to the reactions and defenses that we have against love. Do we tend to look away and prefer to do something else when someone names conflict with us? Do we tend to try to get a response out of that person and make them see things our way? We might find ourselves acting the same in love.

Now, I’d like to write a bit about how the ways we accept or reject conflict can also mimic the ways in which we accept or reject change.

The problem of conflict, I think, has been with almost everyone who has tried to create a movement for social change. I call it a problem even though conflict is not a problem because it is often experienced as a problem. Mao Zedong, when he writes comparing what he calls vulgar evolutionism and material dialectics that:

“The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development. Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes.”

However, instead of accepting contradiction as a driver of change, Mao concludes his essay by stating that there are some contradictions that are legitimate and others that are not. He writes later that vigilance is required if contradiction does not turn into antagonism and that the strong state which is representative of its “people” (whose inclusion and exclusion he does not define explicitly) is needed to guard itself against conflict. He also writes that the conflict between the Communist party and the Nationalist party will resolve itself with the Communists having defeated the Nationalists and eating them piece by piece.

Isn’t that familiar? Some powerful guy who thinks that he has the power to decide what is a legitimate contradiction and what is erroneous thinking? Some guy who only accepts the conflicts that he knows he can win? Who likes to ruminate over the conflicts that he knows he already won?

The ability to be right and the risk of being wrong is a distraction within conflict. Conflict can’t be won. Its purpose is not defeat or victory but transformation.

Mars will retrograde. It will retreat and we may see this as a defeat when it happens. Yet, Mars knows what it is doing. It’s done this before.

Conflict’s purpose is transformation. We all have internal contradictions not because we are hypocritical or because we lie to ourselves but because we are produced by a world and by families and through an aliveness that survives, learns, and expresses itself in conflict. We all have ancestors who tried to kill other ancestors.

So, Mars knows it will retreat. It rules the sign of the eclipse and the full moon. The Sun and Venus slip into Scorpio and also become very Martian. Jupiter returns to Pisces after having tasted Mars’s wine. And Mercury is finished with its retrograde. 

It’s a very Martian time and we have a clear head. Remember this if you feel that you must fight, if you fear fighting, and if you remember that your duty is to fight: there are parts of you that will try to kill other parts of you. And, yet, you have found a way to teach them how to survive together.

Libra

The great thing about you is that you never pretend to know more about what you want than you actually do. Your struggle is about protecting this space of not knowing from the things that believe themselves to be more important than you.

This is why you will never be motivated only by money. Oh, survival? Sure. The ability to give back to your parents? Fine foods that you can share with all of your friends or the intellectual freedom to dream of anything? Of course. Of course, you are motivated by these things. Not money, though—money is something that acts, in the world, as though it is more important than life. You take it upon yourself to discredit such a stance whenever something adopts such a pose.

And, so, this is why you’ll never solve the problem of not knowing yet what you want by trying to make more money. You’ll never figure out if you want to stay at a job by asking for a raise. This is because not knowing what you want is not really a problem.

Scorpio

Try this as an exercise: find an old jar and bring it over to a friend. Tell them that you’d like to save money together for some larger purpose. Discuss together what you’d like to save together for. Try to choose something with low stakes. You’re not saving for a baby or dog together for an exercise here. Choose something like a small road trip, a pair of roller skates, or a big homemade weekend dinner.

Now, start saving together. Try this over the winter. You might notice that you have feelings about putting money in, that you have feelings if you need to take money out, and that you have feelings if the friend puts money in or needs to take it out. You might notice that there are words that feel safer when it comes to discussing a shared responsibility. There might be phrases or actions that provoke.

The point in doing this exercise is not to introduce you to the ways of sharing. You already do that, obviously, in more ways than one. The point of the exercise is to explore sharing with stakes that are much lower than real life responsibilities tend to be.

Sagittarius

You have a crush on the strangest people. You have crushes on people who you’ll never see again, on people who aren’t even gay, and on people who despise to smile for the simple shape of their laugh. All of these crushes, your drive to know people from every corner and in, is what creates contradiction in you. You know very well, Sagittarius, that you love the problematic, that you yearn to shower them in attention.

I’m not telling you to not have a crush on the person your significant other hates to be in a room with. I’m not telling you to stop stanning the musician who said the very shocking thing. I’m telling you to be with desire without needing consequence right away. I want you to get curious about what your desire might want from you.

Give the part of you that your desire wants to put into focus the attention that it wants. Then, learn to practice discernment by knowing what distraction you need and what distraction you no longer need.

Capricorn

It’s like you’ve been cut from all of your restraints and, now, you’re being told that you can love whoever you want. You can do whatever you want to do. You can be who it is that you want to be. You’re bewildered by this, often elated and sometimes anxious that you will not get the chance to do it all before the time ends.

Don’t worry. You’re the most productive person around these days. You will get the things that you need to do done. Trust yourself on this.

As you do all of the things that you have ever wanted to do, you may find yourself getting lost with the intricacies and the passions of your craft. This is where your heart really lives, doesn’t it, Capricorn? You’ll find that your love of the world and yourself elongates time and expands your capacity for life.

Aquarius

Wouldn’t it be great if pleasure were about knowing what you want, realizing it through some kind of action or consequence of action, and then walking away satisfied until the next great thing? That’s how products work and the makers of products wish that is how our desires work. It would make things easier if desire worked this way.

But instead, desire heightens when it is denied. We find enjoyment from self denial. We don’t know what we want until we find ourselves in it. We don’t know what we want until we lose it. Regret is the thing that points its head to desire. We hesitate not because we know that something isn’t what we want but when we suspect that it is exactly what we want.

Rejoice in this complexity of yours. No will never be just no and yes will never be just yes. Consent is about being with all of that. True consent recognizes regret and also recognizes that something was more dangerous or safer than your body made it out to be.

Pisces

Recently, you may have noticed that there are some dreams that you used to love to entertain, rejoicing whenever they flood over into your house, and tempting them to stay with bread and cheese, that you’ve simply over. These dreams might now seem tacky or impossible or tedious to you. You may even dismiss the person who once loved to entertain them.

This is not a bad thing, to not always dream of one thing. As this decline of the dream occurred within you, you may have also noticed that there are old responsibilities, old yearnings, old needs that you thought you were done with because you got so fed up with them that you left, that have returned back into your time and life.

You will always keep changing. You may assure yourself of this fact. You may face old fears as yourself now, in the present, stronger in some ways and weakened in others. You may love the self that held the old fears now and you might remember that there will be a time when it comes time to love the self that once loved the dream.

Aries

You don’t want to be around anyone these days! Oh god, not other people with their impulses towards fun and creativity and their texts asking for you to come meet them at the park where you can lay down and enjoy the breeze. Not other people with their movie recommendations and their propensity to be in your space at the wrong time!

You’re sick of fighting people and you’re sick of getting along too. This isn’t because you’ve suddenly become a lonesome bug. It’s because there is something inside you that only you can give love to.

Find a daily errand that you like to do by yourself. Always do that errand on your own. Talk to yourself out loud when you do it. Fumble in privacy. Close the door. I know that you’re around too many people these days and that there is vulnerability you aren’t ready for. Don’t force yourself. Let yourself live.

Taurus

Remember that, when you ask for something, it becomes more possible that you will receive it. Your abundance is not measured by the things that you own. Your abundance is measured by your capacity to ask, to dream, and to answer.

You get to rejoice with Jupiter once more. I know that there is a piece of not having enough for the time being, or remembering what it’s like to not have enough growing up, or of sensing scarcity and feeling weary. But, you get to rejoice with Jupiter once more. You get to ask and receive.

Ask whenever it feels okay to do so. Ask your friend for a ride. Ask your aunt for a pumpkin if they grow in her garden. Ask the librarian to excuse your late fee. Ask around for a new job. Ask out loud and often until you rejoice whenever you hear your own yearning voice.

Gemini

Your body is not the rebel that you make it out to be. You are. Take that into consideration, into responsibility, and into spirit. 

You may have noticed that things, as of late, have been feeling chaotic. You may have noticed that things that used to be under your thumb no longer seem so willing to be controlled. You might have noticed that you have had no choice but to change, sometimes with delayed purpose or reason.

Park Jimin recently tattooed on his neck the title “tailor of chaos.” I like to think that this title is in reference to you, sweet Gemini. It’s not your life that is ungovernable. It’s you. You’ll never be governable. You’ll never be adequately represented. You’ll never be anyone but yourself and you won’t even have the apathy required to pretend otherwise. Think about that the next time you run late to a thing or sleep past your alarm and try to remember to love yourself for it.

Cancer

If you don’t get your sleep, then you’re going to be very, very cranky. This is just the way it is.

All of the people who want your attention, all of the people who deliver their attention to you, cannot act as a replacement for the attention that only you can give yourself. This is why bedtimes are so important. We think, sometimes, that we can ride high on life on other people's love, on the affirmation that other people might give to us, that we’d be happy as long as we are happy together.

Then, we run into the bedtime. Setting a bedtime, sticking to it, and going to pleasurable and enjoyable sleep willingly is something that only we can do for ourselves. No one else can make us go to sleep. It’s so elementary and yet so tricky. It’s something that we do everyday and, yet, it’s still hard. We must find it within ourselves to love ourselves enough to put us gently into bed, quiet and comfortable enough to do nothing but stay still for an entire stretch of the night.

Leo

Within every conflict is always a choice—am I going to dig my heels in and protect the person who I already am or am I going to allow this person with a different perspective and life to impact my process of becoming?

It’s a very simple choice. There are no easy answers. You may find that pride, fear, rage, guilt, or grief tries to pull you in either which way. These feelings might be so loud that you forget that you have this choice at all.

There are no correct answers to this choice. You will have very good reasons for advocating for the person you have already become. It took a lot of time and choice to become this person. You love this person and you strive to protect them. You will have very good reasons for changing yourself because of disagreement. You may be willing to allow the person you have entered into disagreement with to shape you. It may be easier to do this or harder. These things don’t matter. What matters is that this choice is always your own to make.

Virgo

There’s so much power in being able to move on, so much power in being able to move out of a collapsed state and into an alive one. You know this power because you have walked yourself through it many times across many lives. You know what it’s like to enjoy something despite your grief and what it’s like to voice something despite fear.

Remember this in October. A recovered life is not a life that is devoid of contradiction or conflict. You never get to earn yourself a life without conflict. Instead, you get to experience what it’s like to enjoy the parts of conflict that once felt too daunting to take.

You get to look into the world and see different people who are in conflict with you and become interested in why. You get to be with people with common interests and know that you will never agree on everything. You get to find your humor. You get to act and you get to feel alive in conflict instead of dead. That’s incredible, Virgo.