The Cosmic Story: Pisces/Virgo Full Moon 2017

The Cosmic Story: Pisces/Virgo Full Moon, 2017

Demeter and Persephone: Honoring our Harvest

The Day Sky gives us Life.  The Night Sky gives us Meaning.

Leo Total Solar Eclipse

After the big buildup to the Leo Total Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017, don’t feel let down if your life hasn’t changed yet. The solar eclipse was a New Moon, so this new life was conceived in the dark – Secret. New. Unknown. Lots of issues are coming up to be resolved. Everyone is very tired. Just like after a new Birth. So stay quiet and listen within.

Mars has reached the eclipse degree this weekend (September 2-3), so notice what new things come up for you. Also Mercury is retrograde until September 5^th, the day before this Full Moon. He stations on the degree of the solar eclipse, 29* Leo, (A mermaid emerges from the ocean waves ready for rebirth in human form), so he’ll retrieve the message of the eclipse before heading back into Virgo to fine tune it. Let the energy of this important eclipse unfold in its’ own time and own way. Follow your instincts. Trust your Heart. Stay true to your vision.

At this first Full Moon after the Leo Eclipse, we’re blessed with an out-of-sign opposition in the signs of Virgo and Pisces, since the lunar cycle shifted with this 2^nd Leo New Moon. Now for a year or so we’ll have New Moons in one sign and the following Full Moon in completely different signs. We’ll have to stretch ourselves consciously to learn the lessons offered to us. (The usual Moon cycle is for the New Moon in a sign to come before the Full Moon that corresponds to that sign – for example, a Leo New Moon gives rise to an Aquarius/Leo Full Moon. Because our lunar calendar is different from the solar calendar we live by, every few years we either get 2 New Moons in a sign or 2 Full Moons (a Blue Moon) in a sign. Then the energies flip.)

Instead of a big Leo realization about our creative expression and self-confidence, which we hopefully experience at the Aquarius/Leo lunar eclipse on August 7^th, we’re going to dive deep in the Collective Unconscious (Pisces Moon) to see those aspects of life which we’ve neglected and abandoned in favor of our patriarchal need to ‘get ahead’. As we deal with our shadows, we can figure out how we can be of service (Virgo Sun) to our world. But before we can be of service, we have to integrate our own body, soul and spirit. That’s Virgo’s purpose: to integrate all of who we are so we can offer our talents and gifts to the world.

With the Sun now traveling through the sign of Virgo, the Eternal Virgin, it is time to honor the ancient Great Mother of Life and Death, Demeter and Persephone. Long before Jesus the Christ died and was re-born again, the Goddess went through her natural transformations, descending to the Underworld of Renewal to bring back the riches of Life. Virgo is symbolized by a celestial Woman bearing a sheaf of wheat. She is the source of the Harvest. She is also the Virgin Mother, with her Child seated in her lap, symbolic of the life she brings forth. She is both seed and fruit, Mother and Daughter.

This divine Mother and Daughter teach us about soul, about cycles and about belonging to ourselves. Demeter is the Goddess of all things that grow upon the Earth, a goddess of abundance and fertility. Her daughter Persephone is the soulful aspect of that growth, the aspect of life which knows when it’s time to grow and when it’s time to die, knowing that in time, She will be reborn again. While we do not know what the Eleusinian Mysteries entailed, we can guess from the symbolism that it had to do with knowledge of the immortality of the soul and the possibility of its rebirth throughout time.

We have arrived at the harvest season, when we gather in our harvest and save seeds for the future. Nature shows us that we need a time of rest and quiet, a time for the fields to lie fallow, for the seeds to lie in the dark so that they can germinate in time for next year’s new growth. 

Persephone ~ Susan Seddon Boulet

 

At this part of the cycle, Persephone is not the Flower Maiden of Spring but the Medial Woman who knows how to traverse different dimensions of life. She is the harvest who willingly dies so that new life can be regenerated by the healing sleep in the dark. We too have to rejoice in our harvest – the life we’ve lived up until now. Instead of seeing our mistakes, our ‘missed chances’ and our fears, it’s a time to validate the life we’ve been living by honoring it, being nurtured by it and then letting it go.

Because Persephone was willing to go into the Underworld (before patriarchy, She was not ravished by Pluto but went willingly), She can take our life’s harvest and lay it to rest in the underworld. While we do this every year, this year we are called to honor what came before the Leo Solar Eclipse and then lay it to rest. The Pisces Collective Unconscious will gather it in as a part of human experience. This theme is echoed by the opposition between Pluto, the Lord of the Underworld and the asteroid Ceres (Demeter’s Roman counterpart) that has been moving through our skies this past month. We are ready to descend into our own underworld to find those seeds for the future.

And then, we await the birth of our new story, our new life, our new purpose. This new life is one of service (Virgo) to our collective well-being and oneness (Pisces). The first thing to do is step away from the patriarchal paradigm of spirit and belief (which has devolved into the Protestant Work Ethic belief that if we have money we’re saved and if we’re poor we’re sinners), then away from its rules and categories, and finally get back into our bodies and realign ourselves with our original blueprint for our life. The purpose we reincarnated to manifest after we worked through the pain and insecurity of coming up against our society’s twisted expectations. Once we are free of these patriarchal strictures, we can be free to create our own life, the life of our spirit.

The first step in this new life is to release and honor what has come before – the life-giving and life-denying experiences we went through to get to this point. To honor the person we have become now. If we can’t love this self, how can we love our higher Self?

Persephone voluntarily goes into the underworld to gather in the dead and honor them. We need to do the same if we’re going to change our society and re-make it into one where we are all equal, where life doesn’t revolve around how much money we have but how much we contribute to our communities and each other. A society that is based on all living beings – including Mother Earth – having a healthy, creative, fulfilled life. We are at that point in our human evolution where we have the power to change our collective destiny if we have the will.

We have a US president we need (yes, believe it or not) at the moment. He’s constellating the people of the US to take up our responsibility as citizens, not consumers (the Leo solar eclipse opposed the Sibly Aquarius Moon – which represents the people). To rise up to our responsibilities. We are seeing our collective Shadow: the insecurity, the adolescent need to be exceptional, the relience on ‘big daddy’ to take care of things, the predominance of an out-of-balance masculine view of life that is hierarchical, competitive and domineering. This is what’s been keeping us from being truly free. But we have opportunities and choices to make in these coming years to contribute to the collective so we can make this transition into the future.

Now is the time of the Dragon of Revelation – this old patriarchal paradigm that refuses to die a natural death. The power structure goes to war on us, especially because women have reclaimed our freedom and we’re giving birth to the new age of freedom. While the ‘prophecy’ of the Book of Revelations has been used by corporate Christianity to create the inequality in our lives and the destruction of the Earth, the one image they never dwell on is that of ‘The Woman clothed with the Sun, standing on the Moon, crowned with Stars, in labor giving birth to the Savior’. This is an image of Conscious Woman and she is alive and well and ready to roar! Now that the royal star, Regulus, has moved into Virgo, the Heart of the Lion is feminine and she is symbolized by the great goddess Sekhmet, Lioness of Egypt and possibly of ancient Atlantis. So don’t be afraid to roar when necessary!

Sekhmet

It’s becoming clearer every day that we are the change we’re waiting for. In these next decades we must go out and create a new society, where you can offer the gift you alone know how to give. That’s the Virgo part – mastery of your gift. The Pisces part is taking in what you, as part of the Collective Unconscious, intuit and envision so you can manifest it in the world.

There were many choices we all made that went toward creating the life we’ve been living. Perhaps your choices didn’t give you the fulfillment you expected. Perhaps because your whole heart wasn’t in it? Perhaps because you need a bigger imagination, a bigger category then those patriarchy allows? What more do you thirst for, with an unquenchable thirst?

Who are you really? A healer, priestess, shaman, bard, magician, sorceress, wise woman, sage, judge, teacher, artist, mother, father, steward of the Earth? What is your purpose? To awaken, to envision, to inspire, to create, to save, to grow, to pass on ancient wisdom?

“If you would enter the Kingdom of Heaven, you have to become as a little child!” We have to go back to our days of wonder and magic. To those times when the world was open and new and we could name things, if only our parents and our society would stop telling us what things were. Now we can explore those mysteries with fresh eyes when we allow Persephone to take our harvests and bless them. 
 

Something new will soon arise. But now we celebrate the harvest. And give ourselves credit where it’s due.

The Great Spirit of life calls to us, Come Home! Come Home! It is time for all of us to come home to our hearts. The Divine Feminine is that Heart and she is Home.

The Pisces/Virgo Full Moon

The Pisces Full Moon occurs on September 6, 2017 at 12:02am PDT/ 3:02am EDT/ 7:02am GMT. 

 

This Pisces Full Moon is conjunct Neptune, helping us access our deep compassion, our sense of one-ness with our world and our imagination. While Neptune can delude us when we refuse to also use our intelligence and stay true to our values, his great gift to us is to open our abilities to see the unseen, to travel in many dimensions and to access our past lives and creative imagination.

With Mercury turning direct, this Pisces Full Moon can send us dreams that can direct our lives toward our soul’s goals. So pay attention to your dreams this week. I’ll be holding a free FaceBook Live session next Sunday to discuss some of your dreams. Send them to me beforehand if you want me to work on them.

The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 14* Virgo is: An aristocratic family tree. This symbol speaks to the power that comes from awakening to our soul’s past lives and the values and gifts we’re shaped by. While it can mean your physical ancestry, at this time in our history, our soul’s history becomes more important. With the Leo Solar Eclipse, we are called to remember that we are all kings and queens if we take responsibility for our own lives and for the world. That’s a true aristocrat!

The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 14* Pisces is: A Lady wrapped in a large stole of fox fur. While PETA might object to this image, symbolically it refers to using our ‘foxy’ instinctive cunning and intelligence to adapt to what life brings to us. The divine Feminine connects us to our instincts and Fox is good at protection and camouflage.

The Sabian symbol for Neptune at 13* Pisces is: An ancient sword,used in many battles, is displayed in a museum. Swords symbolize the use of our Will to direct our life and meet the many ‘battles’ we are faced with. Like Arthur’s Excalibur, this sword can be used to protect and defend against those forces which would abuse their power. Don’t be afraid to take up your sword when needed. We’ve all been warriors at some point in our past lives and courageously facing our coming challenges is a given if we use our WILL to make it so.

This Full Moon and the September 19-20^th Virgo New Moon are cradled once again by the ongoing T-square between the Uranus/Eris in Aries opposition to Jupiter in Libra squaring Pluto in Capricorn. Jupiter has reached the degree where it went retrograde on February 5-6^th, and as it moves forward, it opposes the asteroid Eris, Goddess of Discord (Dis-against, cor – heart),who like the Greek Furies, hounded those who went against the Feminine Heart, not for personal vengeance, but to protect the disenfranchised, especially against those perpetrators who were not made to pay for their crimes. Eris has made her presence known in the power of the Native Grandmothers and Water-Keepers in South Dakota, in the character of Wonder Woman and in all those women who stand up against patriarchal domination, like Alex Wubbels, the Utah nurse who was manhandled by a cop for not drawing blood from an unconscious patient.  

Jupiter in Libra opposes Eris in Aries on September 9^th, so be aware of how fair and just your are, especially in affairs of the heart. Then Jupiter goes on to make its third and final opposition to Uranus on September 27-28^th, when we might challenge the status quo to be more fair and just. Pluto in Capricorn is breaking down our society’s old views, beliefs and rules and we can hasten the demise of patriarchy by standing up with courage to the injustices of our world.

The Virgo Sun forms a grand trine with Pallas Athene in Taurus and Pluto in Capricorn, giving us the grounding we need in the midst of these wild times. Be wise to what you can manifest and make sure it can be of service to the world.

Black Moon Lilith in Sagittarius squares Vesta in Virgo and Chiron retrograde in Pisces, offering us a chance to stand up for our truth, for the oppressed and for those aspects of ourselves that need healing. Black Moon Lilith is a point in space that signifies where we need to get down to our soul’s passion, past the shoulds and oughts of our lives to the deep truth of our souls. Aligned with Vesta, the sacred flame of life, and Chiron, the mentor of heroes and wounded healer, this Lilith breaks through the chains that keep us bound to our pain. She’s another image of the fierce feminine warrior.

The Autumn Equinox occurs on September 22^nd, when the Sun enters Libra. May the blessings of the Harvest stay with you all through this coming Winter.

Blessed Be!

Cathy

Last Night

Last night as I was sleeping I dreamt a marvelous illusion
that there was a spring breaking out in my heart.
I said, "Along what secret aqueduct are you coming to me
Oh water, water of a new life that I have never drunk."

Last night as I was sleeping I dreamt a marvelous illusion
that there was a beehive here in my heart.
And the golden bees were making white combs
and sweet honey from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping I dreamt a marvelous illusion
that there was a fiery sun here in my heart.
It was fiery because it gave warmth as if from a hearth
And it was sun because it gave light and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I was sleeping I dreamt a marvelous illusion
that there was God here in my heart.
God, is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives who labor by night stopped, and
the water wheel of thought, is it dry?
The cup's empty, wheeling out carrying only shadows?
No! My soul is not asleep! My soul is not asleep!
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches, its clear eyes open,
far off things, and listens, and listens
at the shores of the great silence.
It listens at the shores of the great silence.

~ Antonio Machado ~

(The Winged Energy of Delight, translations by Robert Bly)