The Cosmic Story:
Gemini/Sagittarius Full Moon 2016
Truth or Dare?
Where to start? This will be
an 'end of the year' astrological look at the energies at play in the
cosmos during this most intense, chaotic, antagonistic year. Let's
look at these big aspects that set the stage for this Full Moon and
the New Year.
Evolution &
Revolution
That old Pluto/Uranus square
that rocked our world from 2012-2015 is again being resonated now and
next year by Jupiter's journey through Libra, mirroring the effects
of its transit through Cancer in 2013-14. (These energies are
especially affecting the United States because of our 4th
of July Cancer birthchart, with Jupiter as our ruling planet.)
Originating in the 60s, this Pluto/Uranus first quarter square
brought together a clash of the titans.
Look at the economic chaos
that's taken place here in America and around the world since Pluto
entered Capricorn in 2008. Pluto rules all those things that need to
accept death. (Accept
is the right word – patriarchy
refuses to accept its death and instead creates death all over the
world.) Pluto
is the ruler of the underworld,
that
part of human experience which we tend to ignore, repress and fear.
Since patriarchy hasn't accepted its death yet—in fact, it came
back stronger than ever during the US elections—it gets to exhibit,
in front of the whole world, those shadow values and qualities that
have taken root in this social paradigm: domination,
greed, competition, misogyny, cruelty, death, hypocrisy and terror.
Patriarchy's shadow thrives on terror. It appears we've voted for a
close encounter with the zombie
apocalypse
'coming soon to a neighborhood near you'.
Now
look at all the social upheaval that's occurred since 2012, when
Uranus entered Aries to awaken us to our archetypal identities and a
new sense of ourselves as having an impact on the world. Uranus
rules the upper
world of the heavens,
the immense possibilities of life, which naturally want to break free
of old, constricting attitudes and stereotypes that no longer express
their true archetypal meanings. Uranus in Aries gives us a sense of
future possibilities of who we can be. We all get a chance to see
ourselves in a new light as we realize how far we've come from the
myth of America as 'the
land of the free and the home of the brave'.
Now we get to see out in
the open
how the top 1% controls all aspects of our collective life—especially
under a Trump presidency. We got to see prejudice and racism in the
highest levels of our government under President Obama. We get to
see the prevalent misogyny of American culture, with Christianity
offering the excuse, just as Islam does, for its need to control
women's bodies. We get to see a complete disregard for the Earth as
our only home, which is being polluted
for profit.
And the cosmos asks each
one of us, 'what are you going to do about it?'
Pluto killed us as
consumers and Uranus awakened us as citizens.
Our cosmic instructions
concern how we are relating to our collective culture (Pluto in
Capricorn)—our economics, our social structures, the 'rules of
engagement' that have shaped our collective purpose for quite some
time now. What parts of this collective mindset no longer serve the
goals of humanity and freedom? What parts do we need to preserve and
expand on? Let
your part of this old story go! The fabric is rotten and the weave
unravels.
What does the future demand of
us? How can we keep harvesting the gifts and treasures of Mother
Earth without a thought of what future generations might need? How
can we stop the train wreck of continual progress and find new ways to
create a better life? To do this, the patriarchal mindset has to
crumble. Once it does, it can be replaced by a partnership model of
culture that values feelings as well as thinking, intuition as well
as sensation, women as well as men, the Earth and all of nature as
well as humans. It's up to each of us to go
out and make the new story happen.
This is the energy Jupiter in
Libra is bringing into this powerful engine of change. A sense of
balance, of fairness and justice, of courtesy and honor, beauty and
art. It's offering each of us (Uranus) a way to engage in the
transformation of the culture (Pluto). We can begin to create this
possible future with our art and our actions. Our actions, like what
happened at Standing Rock with the Water Protectors, now will have
more affect since we'll do it as a group (very Aquarian of us). We
show our Aries courage in standing up to the wrong use of power, to
the stupidity of self-destruction. Life
is what matters.
Uranus
is energizing our pioneering spirit again, though this time let's
seek the unknown for the good of all, rather than personal
aggrandizement.
Artists have a big part to
play now too. The Arts used to be healing tools for the collective
psyche, unlike how they are seen today as a commodity. When we
return the Arts to their archetypal purpose—to teach, to heal, to
create, to enliven, to imagine, to share, to learn—they will lead
the revolution just as John Lennon and the Beatles opened up the
world to a new paradigm. (written on December 8th-RIP
John) Artists
can bring the message
home to the
heart.
When the North Node leaves
Virgo and goes into Leo next year at Beltane, our cosmic destiny is
to express ourselves, especially through the arts. The Broadway show
Hamilton
is doing it—bringing history alive again so we understand what
moment in history we're at and how we've changed but stayed the same.
When America has its first Pluto return in 2023 (yes, we still have
a few years to go of this rot) the revolution will happen.
If we play our parts in truth, it will be a peaceful revolution,
because it will be the right thing to do.
And now we turn to the whole
issue of truth vs. illusion, fake news, strong beliefs and the end of
the world.
Truth or Delusion
Wow!
What a year! It's been all about our beliefs, whether they reflect
the Truth or not. With Saturn journeying through Sagittarius, all of
our beliefs, our tenuous connection to the cosmic laws of life, are
being scrutinized. We like to think that our scrutiny reveled
deep-seated beliefs that reflect our overt religious beliefs and
spiritual aspirations. And yet, with Neptune in Pisces throwing his
glamour over everything, we had to work hard (Saturn) to discern what
was true from what was illusion. Instead of revealing our integrity,
our honor, our sense of unity, the US presidential race revealed
something else about our country. It revealed America's shadow: our
misogyny, lies, tax evasions, racism, competition, bullying and
hypocrisy. Instead of truth and imagination (which is a very
conscious option of these energies) we got sex, lies and videotapes
(the dumbed-down version).
What can we believe? Saturn
is a taskmaster but he only sets us tasks that our soul requires us
to learn. Instead of being afraid, feeling limited and wanting to
hide under the covers, Saturn can help us focus on finding our cosmic
rhythm – he does rule Time and Space, our 3-D reality. He's the
Reality Check who grounds us in who we really are or trips us up when
we pretend we're someone we're not. Truth or Dare? What will it be?
Saturn
is connected to the archetypal Father, the energy that guides us into
the world, the bridge between self and other. When we have a hard
time creating our lives, perhaps we have a poor relationship with the
Father/Saturn. Or maybe, we just never fit into the Father's agenda
and so stayed limited on the edge of things. Either way, Saturn
trained us. We probably are more disciplined, more organized, more
grounded knowing our limits and filling them out. Now if we've
embodied our Saturn, what happens next? With Saturn in Sagittarius,
we stand up for our beliefs—whether they're bullying, racist,
dominator beliefs; morally, enlightened religious beliefs; or
compassionate, fierce protective beliefs.
Enter
Neptune, swimming with both dolphins (to lead us on) and sharks (to
devour the dead). Neptune entered his own sign of Pisces in February
2012, just after Uranus entered Aries. Neptune in Pisces awakens our
longing for spirit and for a better world, a unified world, a healthy
world. And it rules mob psychology and delusion—we saw a lot of
that during the campaigns. Neptune deludes us with the illusions
that feed our ego needs (delusion
is a belief that, though false, has been surrendered to and accepted
by the whole mind as a truth)
rather than our soul's needs.
Conscious Neptune enchants us with the magic of the imagination.
Neptune sends us dreams from the
collective unconscious, where
the hopes and fears of humanity lie. Neptune only deludes us if we
are can't find our center. That's Saturn. If our Saturn is too
rigid and fearful, we can't stay centered in ourselves, so we are
easy victims of delusions. The need for control arises from our
fears. Let them go.
Pisces
is also our collective heart and Neptune has us listening to
different dreams, dreams not controlled by collective consciousness
but by our heart's desire.
Patriarchy fears that most of all, so it seeks to control our
imaginations through its use of the media, overwhelming our
collective psyche with images of their choosing, not ours or the
Earth's. But if we pull back and listen in the silence, Neptune's
mystical voice tells us that it is our heart which knows our true
desire and it is our imaginations which will show us new
possibilities for life. Not the corporate media.
All
year long, these archetypal opposites challenged each other.
Neptune's energy enhances our receptivity, our feelings, our
imaginative visions and probably multi-dimensional wormholes. Saturn
is form and structure, time and space, limits and responsibility.
Very opposite energies. The argument about Fake
News
is an aspect of these conflicting energies. What's real or just
illusion? With a president-elect who can't seem to tell the
difference, we'll have to find out for ourselves. The challenge of a
square is that we have to see which
energy has to give and where
and see what we come up with.
If
we let Neptune dissolve
some
of Saturn's formative beliefs, we can realize that some of our
beliefs are childish, outworn or just not true. These
are the beliefs that don't hold true for our grown-up experience of
cosmic laws.
They need to be taken back into the collective unconscious and
dissolved back into their essence. If we let Saturn give
some form and structure
to our visions and feelings, we can build our new life story. So the
gift of this square is to see through our limiting beliefs and choose
to create a new ground of being for ourselves based on our soul's
purpose. What would our life look like if we lived with empowering
beliefs rather than limiting ones?
We create a whole different story, don't we? It does involve
standing up for our beliefs, but without the rigidity of needing to
be self-righteous. Instead,
we can let our imagination enchant someone awake instead of insisting
that they wake up.
Now
that Saturn is moving a bit beyond its square to Neptune, the
asteroid Chiron becomes Saturn's Neptunian partner in this portion
of the Cosmic Dance. What can Chiron teach us about the needs of
humanity at this evolutionary moment? Chiron in Pisces teaches us we
are here for everyone else and that we need to know who we are and
what we value to succeed in our individual quest. Perhaps next year
we'll get a chance to heal the divisions within ourselves and within
society. Wouldn't that be the best outcome for our current situation?
I think once we see what kind of government our corporate leaders
give us, the middle will become more radicalized and we will unite
and find our common interests aren't so different. In part, we will
recognize that our religious beliefs no longer suit the
multi-dimensional world we live in. The hope of the Aquarian Age is
that each of us gets to live out our soul's purpose with creativity,
respect and integrity, and that our lives will benefit the whole
without taking away our uniqueness and freedom.
The
Moon in Gemini now becomes part of this truth-seeking mix, so let's
turn to the Gemini-Sagittarius Full Moon.
Gemini-Sagittarius Full
Moon 2016
The Gemini-Sagittarius Full
Moon occurs on Tuesday, December 13, 2016 at 4:05pm PST/ 7:05pm EST
and on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at 12:05am GMT.
The
Sabian symbol for the Sun at 23* Sagittarius is: The
torch and spiked crown of the Statue of Liberty.
(This image comes from Steve Eardley's Revised
Sabian Symbols.)
This symbol speaks to “promethean man—urging humankind to attain
their full statue'. It speaks to a freedom of spirit which
encourages us to fight for political, social and religious freedom
and makes us vigilant in protecting democracy from dictators and the
rule of force. We are being called to stand up for our freedoms in
this image. I love synchronicity! While Dane Rudhyar's An
Astrological Mandala
gives this image: A
group of immigrants as they fulfill the requirements of entrance into
the new country.
This image speaks not only to our current immigration issues but
also on an inner level to the need to consciously accept the new ways
of being that a new life demands.
The
Sabian symbol for the Moon at 23* Gemini is: Three
fledglings look out from their high nest.
(This is the same image in both systems.) This symbol speaks to the
process (3 is the number of process) of creatively integrating this
new reality into our personality. It calls us to step back and look
at things from a spiritual perspective, rather than from our fears
and anxiety. This attitude can help us share our point of view in a
calm and considerate manner instead of needing to 'fight' those we
oppose.
A
Full Moon asks us to bring together complimentary ideas: Sagittarius
wants us to see the Truth of the matter while Gemini wants to
communicate the information that can help us see more clearly what
our truth is. A Full Moon makes us aware of what we've been
unconscious of. So step back and take a look at your core beliefs
then look at what you're thinking. What ideas and information and
knowledge no longer fit the truth? Are these beliefs the result of
old psychological wounds (Chiron in Pisces challenging this Full
Moon)? How have we been distracting ourselves with information
overload when the truth can be found in our hearts? What thoughts,
words and information need to be refined and which need to be let go
of?
Saturn
joins the Sun during this Full Moon, helping us set up filters for
discerning what information is true and what is false. Saturn wants
us to take responsibility for our beliefs and because Saturn
symbolizes authority, we need to understand that the word authority
confronts us with the question, 'who is the author of my story'. The
word author means 'one who makes or creates'. We can give away our
authority and let someone else write our story or we can take back
control and become the authors of our own lives.
The
Sabian symbol (Rudhyar) for Saturn at 19* Sagittarius is: Pelicans
menaced by the behavior and refuse of men seek safer areas for
bringing up their young.
If we are concerned for the future, of our planet and of humanity,
we have to find new ways of living that protect the environment and
connect us with Nature. Ancient traditions about the pelican imply
that they are so protective of their young that they will pierce
their own hearts to feed and protect them. Are we willing to
sacrifice our entitled way of life to stand up for the future?
The Sagittarius Sun and Saturn opposite the Gemini Moon and Uranus in Aries opposite Jupiter in Libra form what is known as a 'mystic rectangle', an aspect of two oppositions whose ends both trine and sextile to each other--positively supporting the energy generated. Its highest potential is self-recognition and awareness, which can give rise to practical mysticism. (Dane Rudyhar)
The Sagittarius Sun and Saturn opposite the Gemini Moon and Uranus in Aries opposite Jupiter in Libra form what is known as a 'mystic rectangle', an aspect of two oppositions whose ends both trine and sextile to each other--positively supporting the energy generated. Its highest potential is self-recognition and awareness, which can give rise to practical mysticism. (Dane Rudyhar)
Interesting
fact: Donald Trump was born on a lunar eclipse—his Sun is at 23*
Gemini and his Moon is at 23* Sagittarius. This Full Moon's
Sagittarius Sun sits on his Moon and the Gemini Moon sits on his Sun.
It will affect him in ways we cannot foresee. Will he be willing to
look in these cosmic mirrors? Will he finally see himself clearly?
Will he continue his delusions and his cons? Will he decide reality
TV is all he can handle? Stay tuned!
The
ruler of the Gemini Moon is Mercury, which is connecting with Pluto
in Capricorn just as it's slowing down to turn retrograde on Monday
December 19, 2016—the
day of the Electoral College vote.
Pluto
deepens the Mind (Mercury) and strips it of everything that is
non-essential.
This
should be interesting. Will enough electors desert Trump to make the
election invalid? Will the vote be challenged and changed? We have
all experienced how Mercury retrograde can put a stop to our plans.
Mercury is also square Jupiter in Libra and Uranus in Aries.
Curiouser
and curiouser.
The
Sabian symbol (Eardley) for Mercury retrograde at 16* Capricorn is:
An
earthen cave crowded with uniformed men.
This image implies that when we're grounded by Mother Earth, within
our own psyches, we can find the discipline and focus we need to
effect social change. This small group represents the critical mass
needed to change things, if we volunteer to take action. Will the
electors
see what is needed and change the script? The ruler of the
Sagittarius Sun is Jupiter in Libra, expanding our vision of fairness
and justice. The Sabian symbol (Eardley) for Jupiter at 19* Libra
speaks to group protests against unbalanced social injustice.
Robbers
hiding in a starlit forest, ready to attack a caravan laden with
precious cargo. How
do the dispossessed find justice?
Upcoming Astrological
Events
December
19, 2016:
Mercury
goes retrograde at
16* Capricorn conjunct Pluto, square both Jupiter in Libra and Uranus
in Aries. We have to take ourselves and our world seriously.
Mercury is retrograde until January 8, 2017.
December
21, 2016:
WINTER
SOLSTICE—the
rebirth of the Sun in the northern hemisphere.
December
24, 2016:
Saturn
trine Uranus.
There's more flow now and new forms can be created. Responsible
changes might be on their way.
December
26, 2016: Jupiter opposes Uranus.
It's time to do things differently.
December
28, 2016: Capricorn New Moon.
December
29, 2016: Uranus goes direct.
Watch out for wild energies and abrupt changes.
This
will be my last Cosmic Story newsletter for a while. I'm taking a
break while I travel in December-January and while I contemplate my
next writing project. I'm still available for private consultations,
so email me at cathy@wisdom-of-astrology.com
to set up an appointment. Thank you all for your support for the
Cosmic Story these past 12 years. I hope I'll return to it once
things settle down.
Wishing you a wild and
wacky and wonderful holiday season. And may the New Year bring us
all the energy we need to help the world through the dark times
ahead.
Solstice Blessings,
Cathy
All The Hemispheres ~
Hafiz
Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.
("The Subject Tonight is Love" - versions by Daniel Ladinsky)
Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.
("The Subject Tonight is Love" - versions by Daniel Ladinsky)
