Grace McGrade is an intuitive astrologer and priestess based in Los Angeles. She is the host of the podcast “Bitchcraft: Spirituality for Bad People.” Her sessions include birth chart readings, tarot, energetic clearings and psychic consultations. For more astrology, read her guide to risings signs and moon signs.

Autumn opens with the Sun shortening within the relationship-oriented sign of Libra, but balance is hardly an expectation as we catapult into eclipse season. As we depart Virgo season and the Sun enters the sign of Libra, our focus turns from our every day improvement to our connections with others, balance and fairness. We’re hoping to search out equilibrium between our outer worlds and inner landscapes, despite the interpersonal chaos that ensues. October incites a six-month window of latest dynamics, with friends, colleagues and lovers.

As we’re halfway through the astrological 12 months, we’re assessing the relationships we would like to renew, and those who desperately have to be broken away from. Venus leaves her summer shadow period and moves into the tidy, practical sign of Virgo on the eighth, while Pluto stations direct on the tenth. It’s time to stop entertaining the familiarly toxic and embrace change. October brings us two eclipses, a solar eclipse in Libra on the 14th and a lunar culmination in Taurus on the twenty eighth. Simply put, what we value and need has modified, and wonder that is simply skin deep is boring. We wish to incite recent relationships which are integral, honest and reciprocal. Transforming the lower expressions of Libra, this October we’re moving away from certain scenes, putting an end to people pleasing and social climbing, while honouring our commitment to search out balance.

The strong pull of the Solar Eclipse in peace-loving Libra increases our desire for partnership, but we’re all encouraged to attract from our own banks of harmony and light-weight. With chatty Mercury moving into Libra on the 4th, we have now the power to see two sides of a conflict, to weigh out options from a spot of neutrality. War God Mars moves into Scorpio on the twelfth, exposing our true motives and deep desires that push us forward. The theatrics of the eclipses incite revelation, and betrayals could also be illuminated, but we’re encouraged to follow the Scorpionic quest for truth.

Mercury moves to Scorpio on the twenty second, followed by the Sun on the twenty third. This infuses our day-to-day with a level of intensity, increasing our appetite for depth. Scorpio rules the waters of the subconscious and turns our focus to the underworld, as we ponder themes of power, loss, sex and transformation. The month culminates with the Taurus Lunar Eclipse on the twenty eighth, keeping Halloween legendary, as we end a two-year cycle of expunging old wishes and needs.