Saturday, May 26, 2018

The Cosmic Story: Sagittarius Full Moon 2018

The Cosmic Story: Gemini/Sagittarius Full Moon 2018


The Moon likes secrets,”Meran said. “And secret things. She lets mysteries bleed into her shadows and leaves us to ask whether they originated from otherworlds, or from our own imaginations.” The Stone Drum, Charles de Lint.1


This month’s Gemini/Sagittarius Full Moon is a storyteller Moon. It calls us to take a look at how our Mind works. How the words and images we live with every day shape our perceptions of the world. 
 
The Sagittarius Full Moon asks us to go on the quest for the secrets of our deepest truths, often hidden behind our words. So be prepared to have an adventure. The Gemini Sun scouts out the many possibilities and opportunities that are available to us, and our Sagittarius Moon bleeds her shadows on our lives and the world. The opportunity offered is to clear up and let go of old misguided beliefs. Beliefs that no longer serve our new needs. Beliefs that are bleeding us dry of our vitality, hope and vision.

Some perspectives arise out of a mixture of our fears and hopes. Some are rooted in our deepest heart truths. Use the sword of clear Mind to make your choices. It is the voice of our free will. We get to choose. Where do your values lie? What perspective rings the truth of your heart? Follow the pull of your heart to the mystery awaiting you. 
 
The magic of this Full Moon is that we get to explore the inner mysteries of our mind to find the next steps of our new story. As Bilbo Baggins sang,

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say”
2

We’re in it now. That mysterious new story. And because it’s a new story, we need to let go of the small story our society fed us and look to those bigger stories – the archetypal stories – to guide us on our way. (I’m going to begin a series of videos telling archetypal stories. You’ll find them on my blog, The Bard’s Grove, beginning next week.)



It’s time to live with and in magic – the real magic of Mother Earth. When we do, the first thing we encounter on our road into the future is the mysterious forest. All the best fairy tales have them! The place of trials and secret wisdom. A place where our mind needs to support our heart’s instincts.
The forest primeval. Remembered through the collective memory of every tree in the same way that people remembered myth – through the collective unconscious that Jung mapped, the shared mythic resonance that lay buried in every human mind. Legend and myth, all tangled in an alphabet of trees, remembered, not always with understanding, but with wonder. With awe.
Which was why the druidsOgham was also a calendar of trees. Why Merlin was often considered to be a druid. Why Robin (Hood) was the name taken by the leaders of witch covens. Why the Green Man had antlers – because a stag’s tines are like the branches of a tree. Why so many of the early avatars were hung from a tree. Osiris. Balder. Dionysus. Christ.
Charles deLint~ Merlin Dreams in the Mondream Wood1
To create your new story, enter the forest of initiation and discover the mysteries hidden there. Each Tree embodies an individual’s soul life. Forests are ancient collectives of soul lives. They make up the alphabet of life. This next part of your story will take you into the trees. Find a forest and go explore! Listen to what the trees know about life. Ask for their wisdom.

Gemini and Sagittarius: Jupiter and Mercury

This Gemini/Sagittarius Full Moon involves using our Mind in different ways. Using both sides of the brain, paying attention to instincts and feelings, rational thought and intuitive knowing. It’s an opportunity for deep awareness, aided by the Full Moon occurring on two of our sky’s brightest stars: Aldebaran behind the Sun and Antares behind the Moon.
 
So let’s look at the many influences that shape this Full Moon: both the signs involved and their ruling planets, and at the fixed stars illuminating it.

Gemini takes the form that Taurus has shaped with Aries’ fire and tries to categorize it. What is it? Who is it? What can this form do? What does this shape suggest? How is the world changed by this new form? 
 
With Uranus in Taurus now, it’s time to shake things up and create new earth to live in and grow in. This Full Moon’s preceding New Moon was in Taurus and was shocked by Uranus’ entry into Taurus a few hours later. (Our inner lava flow?) What new land is appearing on your horizon? How will you steward it? 


 
The Gemini Twins are sometimes brothers and sometimes lovers. So the two are connected. This mutable sign has come to represent the ability to communicate, to listen and speak to others. To perceive others and the world and try to categorize what information is coming through. Gemini loves information – the Internet is Gemini’s brainchild, a movable library. 
 
Gemini is all about seeing and collecting experiences and information, and then disseminating what they’ve learned so everyone else can see it. Steven Forrest3 says that Gemini must give the universe permission not to make any sense. (Perhaps that’s where our Gemini president gets it from!). Gemini is most comfortable maintaining a wide-open, receptive state of consciousness. And then Gemini quickly makes connections. Everything is open for discussion, and Gemini gets to do what they do best: communicate. 
 
The ruling planet of Gemini is Mercury, the archetype of the Mind – usually understood as the left brain rational mind. Mercury is the planet of communication, business, messages, eloquence, boundaries and travelers. Mercury is known as the trickster. A fitting planet to symbolize the Mind. 


 
But his most important role is as the psychopomp, the guide of souls who traverses many dimensions. Which seems to indicate that the ancients saw the whole Mind – both right and left brains – as belonging to Mercury. Isn’t that what Mercury’s caduceus symbolizes – the duel energies of life which are needed for the Mind to take wing. When the Mind is not caught in up trivial pursuits, it is a wondrous gift. It becomes a tool of the creative imagination. 
 
Mercury takes on many roles in Gemini: communicator, newsperson, traveler, salesperson. But with Sagittarius opening the gates of higher consciousness, Mercury can also take on the role of psychopomp for us this Full Moon, leading us out of our 3D reality into greater realities. 
 
Mercury is in the last degree of Taurus at the Full Moon, grounding our thinking in sensual reality, while incorporating the new revelations it is receiving as Uranus energizes the whole Taurus field. It’s also conjunct the Gemini Sun, repeating the theme of the importance of the right use of the Mind. 
 
The Sabian symbol for Mercury at 30* Taurus is: A Peacock parading on the terrace of an old castle. The symbol indicates that it’s time to display our inherited gifts – inherited from our DNA ancestors as well as our past life ancestors. So think of your gifts and talents during your Full Moon meditation. Then give them to the Moon and see what you discover.

Our task is to travel through this forest-like landscape, and see it as a place of initiation. Your Mercury is standing by to guide you.
Sagittarius is the opposite of Gemini – opposite but complementary. Whereas Gemini is open to everything, giving it all equal value – it’s information about life – Sagittarius takes a wider view of things and out of that greater perspective, gleans the Truth. Or at least his truth. Sagittarius looks and asks the big questions. Why am I here? Who made me? What does it all mean? What is my purpose? Sagittarius is the sign of the Quest – the Quest for Truth, for Love, for Wisdom, for Meaning
 
The Truth–Seeker and Truth–Speaker, Sagittarius takes aim and sights in on his goal. We have stepped into the realm of archetypal truths, the cosmic laws of life. The deeper patterns of life that run through our lives. We get to ask at this Full Moon, What patterns are still at play in our psyches that no longer serve a new and deeper Truth?
Sagittarius is what happens when we go through our Scorpionic death and rebirth into a higher state of consciousness. The Phoenix arises within the fires of Sagittarius. 

 
Jupiter, the Lord of the Heavens, rules Sagittarius and is now traveling backward through Scorpio. Jupiter is an energy of expansion, hope, acceleration, luck, curiosity, and law. Most of all, Jupiter is the energy of faith, faith in ourselves and in a higher power. So the question is: what have we poured our faith into? And is it well-placed or misplaced there now?

This Sagittarius Full Moon is open to diving deeply into the subconscious to confront the Shadows that still remain. Jupiter is accelerating the release of old emotional traumas that have stopped us from stepping into our role as a change agents. Perhaps in the past you have paid dearly for being a change-maker. Perhaps being one brought on your death. Or perhaps you failed to bring about the change and despaired. All these patterns are locked away in our DNA. We’ve been working on releasing them. Jupiter is on the power gate of Scorpio, its nexus of power. See if there’s still a complex buried deep down that’s eluded you so far.

In ancient myth, Mercury was the messenger of Jupiter. So ground in the message by taking time to walk in Nature, meditate (in Nature), dance, sing, draw, journey. 
 
The Sabian symbol for Jupiter at 16* Scorpio is: A girl’s face breaking into a smile. That smile is one of a heart-felt delight at a subtle recognition of kinship, a sensual attraction or an imaginative leap. It might be that smile that discovers the mystery you’re searching for. A sense of wholeness and home.

The Full Moon falls on two fixed stars – two of the four ancient royal stars of Persia. The Sagittarius Moon joins Antares, the red heart of the Scorpion. The Gemini Sun joins another royal star, Aldebaran, the Eye of the Bull. The heart of the Scorpion is a warrior. The eye of the Bull is the 3rd Eye of the Incarnate Spirit. These stars illuminate this Full Moon. Use their energies well. 
 
This is a great Full Moon to tell stories, to yourself or others. Communicate with beauty, joy and imagination!

The Sagittarius Full Moon

The Gemini/Sagittarius Full Moon occurs on May 29, 2018 at 7:19am PDT/ 10:19am EDT/ 2:19pm GMT.




The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 9* Gemini is: A quiver filled with arrows. What a great image for this Full Moon. Sagittarius arrows, Sagittarius goals. Aim for what you desire most.

The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 9* Sagittarius is: A mother leads her small child step by step up a steep stairway. This is a sign that our Great Mother is there to lead us in this journey to higher consciousness and evolutionary change. There is guidance if we just look for it. 
 
The Gemini Sun trines Mars and the South Node in Aquarius while the Sagittarius Moon sextiles them. These aspects can help us release old desires from the past. A new story needs new desires to drive it. With Mars in the shadow of his upcoming retrograde (June 26 – August 27) let’s get rid of old politically correct ideas of how to talk about our collective life and look at the truth of the situation.

The Sagittarius Moon forms part of a fire grand trine with the North Node in Leo and Chiron in Aries. There’s a lot of creativity available to forge a new identity based on our truth. Isn’t that what we’ve all been working toward?

There’s also a grand water trine activated at this Full Moon between Jupiter in Scorpio, Neptune in Pisces and Venus in Cancer. What a loving energy to heal our wounds! 
 
Both grand trines form a 6-pointed star, a Solomon’s Seal of fire and water. The union of the emotional and spiritual bodies is a symbol of the heart chakra.  As Rumi says, Love is the Water of Life.  And a Lover is a soul of Fire.  The Universe turns differently when Fire Loves Water.  

  
 So even though this is a very mental Full Moon, we have to start with the Heart and then use the Mind to discover what blockages we have to following the Heart. This will be our journey in the forest of initiation.

Saturn and Vesta retrograde in Capricorn oppose Venus and Pallas in Cancer and they both square Juno in Aries. Our sacred contract is to rebirth our culture through a loving, nourishing strategy that springs from new concepts of relationship. 
 
So this Full Moon, listen within to the Voice of Spirit. Don’t let the small, rational mind get in your way. The higher Mind is the vehicle for Spirit’s messages.

Walk in the forest of delight,
Cathy

1. The Very Best of Charles De Lint. (2010: Tachyon Publications, San Francisco)
2. R.J.J. Tolkien, The Hobbit.
3. Steven Forrest, The Inner Sky. (1989: ACS Publications, Inc.)
4. Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala.

Copyright 2018 Cathy Pagano

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The Journey -- Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Dream Work)





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