The Cosmic Story: Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon 2019 & Mercury transit to Sun 11.11.19

The Cosmic Story: Taurus Full Moon: Mercury conjunct the Sun

Listening Within For What Fulfills Us

Harvest

This Scorpio season started off with a bang. The Scorpio New Moon on October 27^th was opposed by Uranus in Taurus, breaking down our emotional barriers so something new and interesting can occur. Did the week of Halloween/Samhain bring you unexpected insights? Was your intuition especially strong then? On the Day of the Dead, could you connect with any ancestor spirits hanging around?

Uranus tilts to the side

Uranus is the closest it gets to Earth all year and if you live under a dark sky, you can even see it dimly shining between the constellations of Taurus and Aries. Being close to Earth, Uranus brings us the unexpected and unusual and can make you more rebellious than usual. Since Scorpio stands opposite Taurus, these two signs resonate together, so they'll both be vibrating at high levels for the next 6 years. In fact, all the fixed signs will be vibrating at higher levels.

While the Scorpio New Moon was intense, the energy calms down a bit as we get to this week's Taurus Full Moon. Taurus likes to take things at a leisurely pace. Peace, love and the sensual pleasures make for a happy Taurus Full Moon. The Moon is 'exalted' in Taurus, meaning that its energies are powerful now, so take advantage of its bright light next Monday night. Shut off your technological toys and go out into nature – not matter how cold it is. A Taurus Moon bath will open you up to the pleasures of being alive. 

Frosty Taurus Full Moon

 

How can you find your own inner peace in these tumultuous times? Turn within and dive deep! As you know, the only way to really change the world is to change yourself. With the Taurus Full Moon, we are reminded that it is the quality of the things we want that is more important than the quantity of what we have. Enjoy what you have to the fullest. Open all your senses. Live large!

Scorpio brings us passion and intensity and the ability to dive deeply into our emotional hangups. The Taurus Full Moon wants to release those hangups and replace them with promise. The promise that something new is on the horizon. Taurus is the Builder of the zodiac. So build something new to last.

The Taurus Full Moon occurs on Tuesday, November 12, 2019 at 5:34am PST/ 8:34am EST/ 1:34pm GMT.

 

The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 20* Taurus is: Wisps of clouds, like wings, are streaming across the sky. This is an image of mystical self-expression and awareness. Use the power of the imagination to see the positive future.

The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 20* Scorpio is: A woman flings open dark curtains closing sacred pathways. A mystery revealed. It's time to look at the spiritual legacy you brought into life with you.

The Moon's helpful trine to Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn turns our eyes to the things that really give us peace and pleasure. As we approach the end of the Saturn/Pluto cycle, we prepare ourselves for a new way of living by really getting down to the nitty-gritty truth of what makes for a happy life. By now, we all know that 'things' can't fill up the empty places in us. As the Beatles sang more than 50 years ago “money can't buy you love”.  

The Taurus Moon asks us to take time for ourselves. I am being reminded of its sensual energy by my new kitten. She loves to stretch her little body and delights in my petting. She loves to play and explore. Everything is interesting. She snuggles up against my neck and face and purrs loudly when I go to sleep. She is bringing me back to my own pleasure in my body, stretching and moving and hugging and loving. That's Taurus energy!

On November 8^th, Neptune retrograde in Pisces and Saturn in Capricorn sextile for the 3^rd time. Whenever these two opposing energies sextile, it makes it easier for us to bring Spirit (Neptune) down to Earth (Saturn). Saturn provides a container for all that Neptunian energy and imagination. This is a great time to write, paint, dance, make music. Art as a spiritual discipline! Play with these cosmic energies while you can.

Neptune in Pisces is a big player in this Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon chart. It trines the Scorpio Sun and sextiles the Taurus Moon. What this means is that the imagination, spiritual vision and going with the flow are easily available to us now. What do you do with your imagination? Worry and fear are the negative use of the Imagination. Our task is to stop getting caught up in the collective chaos of politics – let the politicians play. Our task is to ground in Spirit and let its light shine out of each of us.

It is always darkest before the dawn.

Mercury passes over the face of the Sun\

Mercury is making a rare pass (about 13 in a century) over the face of the Sun on Monday, November 11^th in the morning hours in the States. It's exactly in the middle of the Sun at 10:22am EST and 7:22am PST. When the Sun lights up Mercury in this way, we could say that symbolically we need to pay more attention to how we think and talk about ideas and people, about how we process our lives and about how we communicate in general. We need to recognize and see where we aren't speaking out truth. Since this rare event occurs in the water sign of Scorpio, we might want to process what's going on inside through any of the arts. Once again, we see the truth that art is a path to our spirituality and growth. 

Mercury retrograde transiting the Sun

 

The Sabian symbol for Mercury retrograde conjunct the Sun at 19* Scorpio is: A wise old parrot repeats the conversation he overheard. There's a transmission of knowledge available today if you turn within and listen.

And speaking of truth, the planet Jupiter is on the degree of the galactic center on this Full Moon. Jupiter in Sagittarius wants to seek out the truth and live by it. Jupiter is ending his year long stay in his own sign of Sagittarius on December 2, 2019, when it enters Capricorn and proceeds to catch up with Pluto by April 2020 and with Saturn in Aquarius at the end of 2020. Jupiter will either help us create a new forms of collective well-being or make the mess we're in even messier. That's why it's up to us to make sure our inner patriarchy is dead and buried this year. (Look for my special Journey offer to help you understand what you really believe as Jupiter leaves Sagittarius.)

Milky Way in Sagittarius

The Sabian symbol for Jupiter at 26* Sagittarius is: A flag-bearer distinguishes himself in hand -to-hand battle. A flag-bearer doesn't go into battle to fight; he goes into battle without a weapon to hold the standard of his king or lord. It is an honor that is dangerous, since he isn't armed. The image suggests that we have to be ready to stand up for what we believe in, even if we don't feel equipped to do it.

Venus in Sagittarius rules this Taurus Full Moon and she squares Neptune retrograde in Pisces, challenged to find the inspiration she needs to explore and grow. She gives this Full Moon a sense of adventure but also of truth and inspiration. Be inspired and have hope.

The Sabian symbol for Venus at 14* Sagittarius is: The Great Pyramid and the Sphinx. What is more inspiring than that. The Sabian symbol for Neptune at 16* Pisces is: In the quiet of her study, a creative individual experiences a flow of inspiration.

May the beauty and wonder of creation open your hearts and minds.

Cathy

It is Hard to Have Hope ~ Wendall Berry

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,

for hope must not depend on feeling good

and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.

You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality

of the future, which surely will surprise us,

and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction

any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.

The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?

Tell them at least what you say to yourself.

Because we have not made our lives to fit

our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,

the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope

then to belong to your place by your own knowledge

of what it is that no other place is, and by

your caring for it as you care for no other place, this

place that you belong to though it is not yours,

for it was from the beginning and will be to the end.

Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are

your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,

who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,

and the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike

fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing

in the trees in the silence of the fisherman

and the heron, and the trees that keep the land

they stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.

This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power

or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful

when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy

when they ask for your land and your work.

Answer with knowledge of the others who are here

and how to be here with them. By this knowledge

make the sense you need to make. By it stand

in the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.

Speak to your fellow humans as your place

has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.

Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it

before they had heard a radio. Speak

publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.

Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up

from the pages of books and from your own heart.

Be still and listen to the voices that belong

to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.

There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,

by which it speaks for itself and no other.

Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.

Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground

underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls

freely upon it after the darkness of the nights

and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.

Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,

which is the light of imagination. By it you see

the likeness of people in other places to yourself

in your place. It lights invariably the need for care

toward other people, other creatures, in other places

as you would ask them for care toward your place and you.

No place at last is better than the world. The world

is no better than its places. Its places at last

are no better than their people while their people

continue in them. When the people make

dark the light within them, the world darkens.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(This Day: New and Collected Sabbath Poems)

The Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year: Samhain 2019

The Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year

Samhain: Day of the Dead: All Hallows

The Crone and Her Cauldron

The Celtic New Year: Samhain, the Last Harvest

While our culture, and the whole world, has embraced Halloween, most people don't know why we celebrate the way we do. Why do we become someone else, grab all the sweets we can, and wander through the night, sometimes (at least in the old days) wrecking a tiny bit of havoc?

On Samhain, it was believed that the deceased came to Earth in search of food and comfort, while evil spirits, faeries and gods came in search of mischief.

We celebrate the Celtic New Year on October 31^st-November 1^st: it is Samhain, the pagan New Year, it is The Day of the Dead, it is Halloween and All Hallows. This is the time of year when the veils are thin and the beloved Dead come close and wander around for a bit. It is a day to honor the Dead and our ancestors. That's where the costumes come from-- we want to 'try on' another life. And since we want to honor our Dead, we offer them some of the food they loved in life. That's where the sweets come from. And the havoc comes when we don't honor those spirits properly.

Unfortunately, most of us have forgotten this ancient rite. Halloween is just another excuse for a party. But if we don't honor Death, we will be afraid of it. We get a chance, each year (and for women, each month with our bleeding), to release what is dead from our energy bodies, so something new can be born in the New Year. And when we add to this release the honoring of where we've come from, we can go forward into the next year with hope. And perhaps even an ancestor spirit to guide us in the coming darkness.

This is the time to put a layer of protection around yourself – may I only attract energies of the highest vibrations within myself – if you're going to open yourself to the ancestors. Because we know that there are both positive and negative energies, spirits and souls that do get attracted to us, especially when we're open to it. Open yourself to the highest spirits and bless your ancestors.

We are about to descend into the darkest part of the year in the Northern Hemisphere (while in the South, the sunlight will be growing and you'll be celebrating Beltane! Dance the Maypole for me!). What is darker than Death for us? What if we accepted a small death now, so that something new can take its place? One of my friends said, “I sometimes feel like I'm out to pasture.” I know the feeling as an elder, but not really! This is not a time to stand back and let the world flow past you. It is a time to stay centered in a larger vision and hope, while you engage in the world in the best possible way.

Whoever you are – come dance your dance. Whatever you do – it will be perfect since it's you.

What is it like to dance with death? Words can't take the place of experience. Imagination can get you there. Having a power animal along with you to give you strength, cunning and instinct and an ancestor who can give you clarity is one way to do it. Out in the desert, we dance all night at this time around an alchemical fire, We dance a bone dance.

The Celtic witches honor this time as the passing of the king, the death of the green man of summer. Men especially can look to the Green Man archetype to learn how to live, to love and to die at the proper time. Seasonal renewal, ecological awareness, the Green Man, his face masked behind leaves and branches, is a archetypal energy of growth and fertility, who also knows when to let go and die.

There are legends of him (Khidr) in which, like Osiris, he is dismembered and reborn; and prophecies connecting him, like the Green Man, with the end of time. His name means the Green One or Verdant One, he is the voice of inspiration to the aspirant and committed artist. He can come as a white light or the gleam on a blade of grass, but more often as an inner mood. The sign of his presence is the ability to work or experience with tireless enthusiasm beyond one's normal capacities. In this there may be a link across cultures, …one reason for the enthusiasm of the medieval sculptors for the Green Man may be that he was the source of every inspiration.

[William Anderson, Green Man: The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth. San Francisco: Harper Collins, (1990).]

Women can turn to Persephone's myth, the Maiden who is ravished away from her Mother to the Underworld where she claims her name – Persephone – and becomes a queen in her own right, away from her Mother's power. Persephone is the strong one who each year descends into the Underworld and welcomes the Dead, leading the way through the dark to new life. Her work is to abide in the Underworld for a season, with patience and calm, to invoke the next generation, the next phase of life. She is 'brewing beauty in the Underworld'. (Caroline Casey) She is also strong enough to ascend and come back in the springtime to bring that new life with her. 

 

Both the Green Man and Persephone lead us to renewal.

Renew yourself and your soul ancestry as well as your human ancestors by releasing the old story lodged in your DNA. We can make a leap in evolution with our self-awareness and our values. Understand your place in the beauty of creation. Take responsibility for your world. It is time to take our place again the the biosphere of Mother Earth. It is time to reclaim our bodies, our souls and our spirit.

Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio

The Faerie Queen & King at Samhain

As Fate would have it, Mercury is here to help. Our messenger/psychopomp is about to reverse direction on Halloween (11:42am EDT). The Sabian symbol for Mercury turning retrograde at 28* Scorpio is: The King and Queen of Faerie are solemnly welcomed to their realm. Quite perfect, don't you think? When these archetypal energies return to the inner world or other dimensions – in a solemn manner – we are called to follow. Now is the time to turn within and contemplate our inner landscape, our innersphere. 

 

Mercury has spent this year, and will spend next year, retrograding in water signs. I guess the cosmos (the Mercury retrogrades and Cancer North Node) wants us to look at our emotions and heal them. This is Mercury's 3^rd and last retrograde this year, the other two occurring in the signs of Pisces and Cancer. This Scorpio retrograde can help us work on those shadow qualities related to other people in our lives – family, friends, co-workers, strangers. 

Mercury can lead us to see how we choose to hold ourselves apart from intimacy, from sharing ourselves emotionally, from diving deeply into life. What's holding us back? Fear of betrayal, fear of failure, fear of being unloved and unlovable? Terror at being dominated or worse? Fear of the unknown or the stranger? Fear of our desires and passions? Fear of the Dark? 

 

For these 3 weeks, from October 31^st to November 20^th, we can let Mercury lead us back to the source of our wounds, which will become the source of our healing. Take the time and meditate and/or journey with Mercury into the deep inner reservoir of your emotional body. Face your fears, release and thank your shadows, and embrace the joy of emotional freedom. Leave the trauma you learned with in the cauldron of regeneration and claim the gift of your initiation.

Re-member, re-lease, re-deem, re-claim, re-new, re-dedicate, re-enchant and re-turn to your original state of blessing and wholeness. Let the old king die so the divine child of Light can be re-born at the Winter Solstice.

Mercury moving in front of the Sun

[Sky Alert! On the morning of Monday November 11, Mercury will cross the face of the Sun – looking like a tiny black dot! If you still have your glasses from the Great American eclipse, pull 'em out. Also, find an observatory. In Rhode Island, Frosty Drew Observatory is opened from 7am to around 1:30pm.]

The Astrology of Now

Sun at 15* Scorpio Power Gate 

The intense Scorpio New Moon on October 27^th was opposite the planet Uranus in Taurus. Many people found it hard to sleep those nights – the energy was high. A Scorpio New Moon plants the seeds of emotional death and rebirth, embracing an awakened awareness of life because we face death. With the awakener Uranus opposing this New Moon, our psyches are energized and electrified with an awakened body as well. Uranus in Taurus is an awakened Earth – our awareness can align with Earth's awareness now. Our wholeness has to include our bodies, our hearts and minds and our spiritual awareness. This is it! This is what we've been working toward, preparing us for the big upheavals of 2020 and beyond.

If we're going to have an awakened Earth, we have to be the agents of that awakening. The Sabian symbol for the Scorpio New Moon at 5* is: A massive rocky shore unchanged by centuries of storms. We have to remember that there are fundamental principles of life that can sustain us in these stormy times. We have to find our strength, because who knows when a fire, flood, storm or earthquake will demand that strength from us. 

 

Uranus in Taurus is an awakened Earth spirit. Our mother, Earth, will help us survive those hard time is we're open to listening to her wisdom. The body knows! We have moved so far away from living in our own skins that we no longer know how to eat, to sleep, to stay healthy and relaxed. Uranus in Taurus wants us to get back into our bodies. That's when we'll confront the poison in our food, our soils, our atmosphere, our waters. If we don't feel it, how can we heal it?

Mercury joins the Sun the day before the Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon. Always an intense time of year, the Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn trines this Taurus Full Moon and sextiles the Scorpio Sun. Simply put, this energy of release before a new cycle of power and re-structuring starts will push us to go deep and find out what it is we really love and desire.

As Caroline Casey says, while Venus is in Scorpio, we are brewing beauty in the underworld. Then Venus will quickly move into Sagittarius on November 2^nd and into Capricorn the day before the Sagittarius New Moon on November 25^th.   Mars is challenged to work for peace and harmony rather than self-aggrandizement at the Samhain power gate.  Mars leaves Libra on November 19^th for Scorpio, settling in to transform the Libra lessons into passion and power.  

 

December starts with Jupiter finishing up his time in his home sign of Sagittarius (where does time go?) and moving into Capricorn, where he'll meet up with Saturn and Pluto later in 2020. 

 

And it's a big year for eclipses. Including the late December 2019 Capricorn solar eclipse, in 2020 we have a total of 7 (6+1) eclipses in Cancer/Capricorn and Gemini/Sagittarius coming up in the New Year, along with the much anticipated Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn on January 12, 2020 – to be joined throughout the year by Jupiter and Mars. Big energies for transformation and rebirth are due in 2020. 

 

So. Prepare Yourselves. Open the Way.

Samhain Blessings,

Cathy

It Is Hard To Have Hope – Wendell Berry

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,

for hope must not depend on feeling good

and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.

You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality

of the future, which surely will surprise us,

and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction

any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.

The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?

Tell them at least what you say to yourself.

Because we have not made our lives to fit

our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,

the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope

then to belong to your place by your own knowledge

of what it is that no other place is, and by

your caring for it as you care for no other place, this

place that you belong to though it is not yours,

for it was from the beginning and will be to the end.

Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are

your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,

who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,

and the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike

fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing

in the trees in the silence of the fisherman

and the heron, and the trees that keep the land

they stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.

This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power

or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful

when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy

when they ask for your land and your work.

Answer with knowledge of the others who are here

and how to be here with them. By this knowledge

make the sense you need to make. By it stand

in the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.

Speak to your fellow humans as your place

has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.

Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it

before they had heard a radio. Speak

publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.

Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up

from the pages of books and from your own heart.

Be still and listen to the voices that belong

to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.

There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,

by which it speaks for itself and no other.

Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.

Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground

underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls

freely upon it after the darkness of the nights

and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.

Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,

which is the light of imagination. By it you see

the likeness of people in other places to yourself

in your place. It lights invariably the need for care

toward other people, other creatures, in other places

as you would ask them for care toward your place and you.

No place at last is better than the world. The world

is no better than its places. Its places at last

are no better than their people while their people

continue in them. When the people make

dark the light within them, the world darkens.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(This Day: New and Collected Sabbath Poems)

The Cosmic Story: Aries/Libra Full Moon 2019

The Cosmic Story: The Aries/Libra Full Moon, October, 2019

Only Strength Can Cooperate!

"None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful." – Mother Teresa 

As we head into the big conjunction of Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn next January 12, 2020, we might be feeling that we have to get our own house in order. This big conjunction is already showing up in the intense political infighting we’re seeing in the U.S., Britain, the Middle East and Hong Kong. The conjunction deals with the death pangs and restructuring of our consumer, capitalist global society, and the old order is not going down easy.

The truth is, it has to happen within each of us to make it happen in the outer world. Or at least a tipping point percentage of us have to do this. It’s time for us to look within ourselves to see where we continue the old patriarchal patterns of competition, greed and domination that are the hallmarks of our society.

This Aries/Libra Full Moon asks us to look at where these old patterns exist in our relationships. It’s time to divest ourselves of the inequalities, injustices, jealousy and competition that are such a big part of patriarchal relationships.

Relationships come in many colors and flavors. These include same sex love, different sex love, polyamory love as well as family and friendship love. And on a global scale, it’s time to develop our Agape Love, which is the spiritual love we can feel for others, the Earth and all of Nature. If the Celtic tribes could do it 5,000 years ago, we can certainly give it chance. (As a matter of fact, the last time we had next year’s astrological patterns in the sky was in 3838BC – Jupiter, Saturn & Pluto in Capricorn with Uranus in Taurus.)

With the nodal axis in the sign of Cancer/Capricorn, we’re being asked to let go of the Capricorn ‘rules’ of love we’ve been subject to and open to the warmth and openness of the mothering Cancer kinds of love. A good mother is happy to see love blossom wherever it will. Because love makes us want to be our most excellent selves.

Love is beyond our ability to contain or control and we have to accept that as a fact of life. Poor Aphrodite, the great goddess of Love! She’s been the most subjugated of all the ancient goddesses, because patriarchy couldn’t get rid of her and so they bound her in chastity belts and bondage to suit men’s need to control. Happily it didn’t work. But it did twist us into shapes that we need to get out of.

Now it’s time to restructure how we relate to lovers, to friends, to family and to the world.

Aries/Libra Full Moon 2019

The Aries Full Moon occurs on Sunday, October 13^th at 2:08pm PDT/ 5:08pm EDT and 10:08pm GMT.

Looking first at the ruling planets of both Aries and Libra, we see that they are ‘visiting’ each other’s homes – Venus is in Mars-ruled Scorpio and Mars is in Venus-ruled Libra. That means that they’re ‘talking’ with each other – or at least listening to what the other is up to. Don’t forget, Venus and Mars met in the underworld (or were invisible behind the Sun when they came together) on August 24^th. So they’ve already started their new dance.

Now, Venus in Scorpio wants to get down to business. Like the Sumerian goddess Inanna, Venus in Scorpio isn’t afraid to go down into the underworld to be renewed. First she’ll have to face that part of her which has been rejected and is raging, like Inanna’s sister Ereshkigal. What part of you is raging, wanting, longing? And what are you willing to do about it? Venus is opposite Uranus retrograde in Taurus, so she’ll likely do something wild and unexpected to break free of old patterns. Have fun with her this weekend – we are meant to have joy in life.

Mar is in Libra so he’s already changing his ways, since Libra asks him to pay attention to the ‘other’. It’s no longer ‘all about him’. While some people might find this frustrating, a true warrior like Mars can accept the challenge. Life is better when we learn to cooperate, especially if we get hugs and kisses as our reward.

Mars is also connected to Uranus in Taurus, except in a harder struggle than Venus. While Venus wants to put on her independence and wild side, Mars is challenged by an inconjunct with a disruption in the ways he usually wants us to operate. Too much assertion or too little initiative can be the problem our Mars faces. It’s time to face the root causes of our relationship dysfunctions, rather than just treating the symptions – usually by leaving! This is where we’re being asked to face our aggressive impulses, try not to inhibit our sexuality, and stop always having ‘to be on top’! Watch out for rashness and impulsiveness because it will only trip you up.

But these two energies can also give rise to new and original ways of dealing with relationships. You know, I think it’s been my generation’s Neptune in Libra that has us all looking for our soul mates and then destroying those mates who don’t measure up. Something has to be done with how we handle our breakups and divorces. We don’t need to be angry that we’re no longer compatible. Sometimes one person grows more than the other, and we need to find kind ways to let each other go.

This is the potential of this Full Moon. Finding kind, just ways to deal with each other.

The question is: How do you ask for what you need with kindness and truth? And how do you listen to things that might ‘break your heart’ without wanting revenge?

Now for the Full Moon itself.

With the Aries Moon, we get to look at where our shadow keeps us self-involved, angry, controlling and too independent to make a strong commitment to another person. The Libra Sun asks us for justice, fairness and a balanced, diplomatic understanding of each other. Venus helps us see our true desires while Mars helps us meet the challenges that each relationship faces, since we all have our own soul purpose as well as our own wounds around trust and commitment.

This Full Moon is intense because added to the push-pull of the needs of our Aries self and Libra other, it is challenged by a square from the Saturn, South Node and Pluto conjunction in Capricorn. There’s an exact square to Pluto by degree and minute! That’s intense. Pluto wants to be a part in our conception of how we want to be in relationship to others. If we’re holding on to the old story, we want to use Pluto power to dominate and intimidate others. If we step into a new story of our own empowerment, Pluto will help us transform any relationship we’re in.

Here’s the deal: how deep can we go to heal ourselves, because that’s how deep we have to go to heal our society. If we can’t heal ourselves of our prejudices, our entitlements, our unconscious feelings of unworthiness, we won’t heal our families, our communities and our world.

If we use these energies in the right way, we will be empowered to be our truest Self in all areas of our lives.

The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 20*40’ Libra is: Hot Sunday crowds delight in the cool sea breeze. We all share in the trials and joys of life. This Libra Sun wants us to delight in what is good and true and let others do it too.

The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 20*40’ Aries is: A boxer, flushed with strength, enters the ring. This is a symbol of intense assertiveness, wouldn’t you say? This is the attitude we need to look at, the cultural shadow we need to face. Do we have to smash our opponents? Or dominate the ‘other’? Personally, I’d rather go to a dance, which in a way what boxers do (Muhammad Ali) but without punching anyone.

The Sabian symbol for Pluto at 20*40’ Capricorn is: A relay race, each runner springs eagerly into place. Here’s the answer to this Full Moon question of the right balance between Self and Other. Are we the boxer or are we totally chilling at the beach? This symbols says that the answer is total cooperation and give and take between us. We are all in this together – Republicans (even if they don’t realize it) Democrats (even if they feel they have the answers), independents and libertarians. Native peoples and the Earth. Easterners and Westerners. Men and women. Elders and children. Our world is One. When will we really believe it?

Pluto provides the way out of our dilemma. It is up to each of us to take up the baton.

The other energy at work during this Full Moon is the square between Jupiter in Sagittarius and Neptune in Pisces, each planet in the sign of its rulership. We need to know what our truth is and not get caught up in the chaotic collective delusions that have been created by the idea of ‘fake news’. Only you can know what your heart knows as truth. Doesn’t that excite you? To know and live your truth. It does me!

And because these energies deal with our beliefs and spiritual aspirations, we need to turn within for the answers. It’s not a time to look outside yourself for someone else to give you the answer. There is no one answer until we find that answer which fills us with light and hope and joy. Then we’ll know. Until then, we are given longings to follow, dreams to guide us, symbols to work with. Watch for the signposts, which show that you’ve arrived.

Learn how to listen within. Mercury is in Scorpio as well as Venus. He is the psychopomp, the traveler who leads the way between dimensions and worlds. Let him guide Venus to the truth of her heart and take her where she belongs. It’s time to do some journeying.

Learn to base your relationships on respect and cooperation. And most of all, Kindness.

And take the time and this opportunity to find balance within yourself – a balance of play and work, self and other, masculine and feminine, inner and outer, doing and being.

Blessed Be!

Cathy

A Gift

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.

~ Denise Levertov ~

 

(Sands of the Well)