Gibbous Moon: Citrinitas

golden light

Gibbous Moon in Aries
November 24, 2012

Today's Gibbous Moon, which arrived first thing this morning, shines light on where we are in the alchemical soup. The waxing Moon is brighter in the sky, leading into the Full Moon and lunar eclipse. This eclipse will complete the two-week intensity from eclipse to eclipse we're now in, the last eclipse of this calendar year.

What do we see now we didn't see before?

Alchemy continues to be an apt framework for this magically mysterious Scorpio New Moon cycle. In the ancient system, the next stage is the citrinitas, the yellow or golden stage. New light dawns, the solar light within. Something inside lights up; we see things in new ways.

A few days ago, the Sun moved from Scorpio's depths into the optimistic glow of Sagittarius. Today's Gibbous Moon shows the Sun trining the flames of Uranus in Aries, while sesquiquadrate (a square and a half) the Moon also in Aries. A lot of Fire!

During eclipse times, information flows––messages from the outer world, secrets uncovered, inner realizations are all heightened now. The Fire of this Gibbous Moon pushes us to look at where we are. Is there something we need to embrace? Is there something we need to face up to?

Later alchemical texts often omit the citrinitas, moving directly from black to white to red. Jung, however, associated citrinitas with the archetype of the senex, the wise elder. This Gibbous Moon, our citrinitas, focuses our attention on the senex who in astrology is Saturn.

The Grand Trine in Water still flows. At this Moon, we see Ceres in Cancer trining Neptune and Chiron in Pisces, trining Saturn in Scorpio who now is joined by Venus. Underneath the solar brightness of Sun, Moon and Uranus in Fire, the depths of emotional, ancestral and intuitive knowledge sustains us.

So, another question asked at this time is, how's our relationship with the wise elder, both within and without? Where have we become fixed, sedentary, pedantic, or heavy handed? Or, where are we encountering maturity, wisdom, the voice of experience, the awareness of time ... and are we listening?

If we need an additional reminder (or push) to look at our relationship to wisdom and authority, the asteroid goddesses form another pattern: While Ceres participates in the Grand Water Trine, we see Juno, Athena and Vesta in a T-square.

Juno, who stands for the strength of family bonds and commitments, is in philosophical Sagittarius. She opposes Vesta, keeper of the hearth at the center of each home, in Gemini. Both are squared by Athena, who raises the standard for learning, tradition and the rule of law, now in visionary Pisces.

Each of these three goddesses embodies a certain kind of relating, a way to understand who we are in society (Athena), in our extended family (Juno) and in the center of our homes (Vesta). Venus conjunct Saturn in Scorpio hold up a mirror, asking us to look at our relationships, how we define them, and whether they're working well.

This exploration of alchemy and archetypes might seem esoteric and theoretical. It sounds nicely mysterious, but what does it mean? Here's an example:

I'm living with Saturn in a serious way. My second Saturn return arrives in two weeks, which means, among other things, that my Saturn is in Scorpio and has been receiving aspects from everyone else moving through Scorpio these last weeks.

Living alone for the last several years, I've been working with Pema Chödrön's approach of staying with discomfort to learn from the very things we normally try to ignore. I don't do this every day, mind you, but I do give it a try.

For a variety of reasons, I've been feeling very alone lately. Not lonely, exactly, but alone. I like to think I'm mostly OK with this. I am, after all, introverted and generally happy in my own company. This morning, I realized (while doing my morning tai chi, so, out of nowhere, more or less) that I am most uncomfortable being alone as I fall asleep at night, and as I wake in the morning. This explains, in a new and interesting way, why I often feel compelled to get online first thing in the morning, even when I know I have other priorities and Facebook is a great evaporator of time.

Not an earth-shattering insight, and perhaps even a "duh" moment––but it tells me something about myself I didn't know before, that illuminates my behavior and opens a space for change. This is about my relationship to Saturn as senex, the hermit living alone. For what it's worth, I'm here blogging this morning, but haven't yet checked any of my other online accounts.

The Full Moon is on her way. Illuminations now, major or minor, comfortable or un, help us prepare for the greater illumination to come.