Gibbous Moon: What's in the Glass?

I heard a peal of delight and turned around
-- that's the picture at the top of this post.

Hilary Matfess, a young policy analyst, was jumping
up and down, yelling out details.

"The mandate is constitutional! It was upheld!
Roberts went for the swing vote! Yes! Oh my God!
The individual mandate survives as a tax!"

Did you work on passing the bill? I asked.

"No!" said Matfess. "I just have lupus!"

Gibbous Moon in Scorpio: June 30, 2012

Tomorrow morning the big-bellied Gibbous Moon arrives, pushing toward Full as she makes an edgy square-and-a-half connection with the Sun in her home sign of Cancer.

Something is pending, something is due, and the Scorpio Moon wants to peek behind the curtain and make sure it's ok.

The Sun highlights the ongoing challenges of the Pluto–Uranus square by opposing Pluto and squaring Uranus: a T-square with revolution at the apex.

How are we seeing this energy?

In the US, the Sun highlights transformation with the Supreme Court decision to uphold the individual mandate in the new health care laws, which feels like a blazing, wonderful revolution to some and a terrible tipping point to others.

Some on the right say the US has gone communist and they're leaving for Canada (which already has universal health care and gay marriage to boot) while one GOP leader calls for armed rebellion––not peaceful Occupy-style action, mind you, but armed and dangerous. Scorpio Moon stuff, here.

The Sun connection highlights where the personal and the global meet, illuminating stories of relief as those of us with preexisting conditions, and those summarily dropped from plans, and those who've seen costs rise and coverage shrink feel some hope for the future.

Yes, my sympathies are clear––I support going beyond the current health care changes to universal care. And the astrological point is, the aspects show seismic change and extreme reaction from all sides, with emotional valences based in individual viewpoints.

Meanwhile, the Scorpio Moon forms an out-of-sign opposition to the big, happy group hanging out in Gemini, clustered around the South Node. She's also in an out-of-sign, still-wide conjunction with the North Node.

What does the Moon see behind the curtain here? Are we looking back to the past and missing the present? Are we distracted by the shiny thing of the day and avoiding our life path altogether? The Full Moon arrives soon, and this Scorpio Moon wants to know what's going on.

So, we might be left with that odd feeling we're missing something important. We might take a second look, or third or fourth look, to check what's going on. We might even look over our shoulder, to see what's back there. Not a bad idea, with this Moon.
   

The Intuitive Moon

ice floes along the Kamchatka coastline

Grand Trine in Water: June 29, 2012

The Moon is traveling through some amazing territory these days. As I write, she's void of course in Libra, so we're all holding our breath (not literally, please exhale now).

As soon as she enters Scorpio, she'll form a flowing trine with mystical Neptune, setting the scene for magical messages to arrive.

Some astrologers see intuition as belonging to Uranus and Neptune, outer planets who connect us to the cosmos. In that framework, the Moon would be a trigger only, her connection to Neptune opening the door to our inner, emotional ear.

The Moon has her own intuitive flows and connections, though, offering us information through the body, through our feelings, and through her deep connections with the ancestral past. So when the Moon and Neptune commune, more is happening than an open door. These two connect, exchange, compare notes, and learn from each other.

Soon after the Moon–Neptune trine, the Moon forms a Grand Trine in Water with the Sun and Chiron. This waxing trine between the Sun and Moon buoys us up. Moving toward the realization of the Full Moon to come, we feel a current swell beneath us, carrying us forward. Add in Chiron, the wounded healer, and this current is powerful indeed.

And then we add Pluto.

Sextile both Chiron and the Moon, he turns the Grand Trine into a kite, crowning the flow of intuition, memory, and connection with his alchemically deep transformation.


But wait, there's more.

At the moment of the Grand Water Trine, the Moon is also at the apex of a yod, or Finger of Fate pattern in which revolutionary Uranus and creative Venus, sextile each other, both are inconjunct the Moon. They point to the Moon as the key to balancing revolution and creation.

Anything in our charts at 7, 8 or 9 degrees is powerfully aspected by everyone in the sky grouped in those numbers. Beyond that, we're all invited to tune in to the frequencies of the Water element and listen to the music.
The Scorpio Moon can be wary, paranoid, even. She is also deeply insightful, psychically alive, and prepared to walk in Shadow. The Sun in Cancer knows how to value the deep psyche and ancestral ties. Chiron in Pisces can access the wisdom of the cosmos.

We'll feel these patterns forming overnight, so be open to amazing dreams. Tomorrow (Friday), keep your inner ears open to the many messages carried in the complex currents surrounding us.
    

First Quarter Moon: The Personal is Political

First Quarter Moon: June 26, 2012

In about twelve hours, the Moon will reach her waxing square with the Sun, the First Quarter Moon. This is the monthly challenge between the two luminaries, the core energies of our individual selves.

We started something with the New Moon––are we ready to see it clearly, accept it, work for it? This is a personal decision, based on our own feelings, understandings, commitment.

This First Quarter Moon bumps the personal up against the global, the universal, and the cosmic. This Moon–Sun square joins the Uranus–Pluto square to create a Grand Cross in which the game-changing pattern of our time intersects with individual motivation and action.

In 1969, Carol Hanisch wrote the essay, The Personal is Political, to challenge the idea that women's consciousness raising groups were "just therapy" and "just personal." The "just" label came from people wanting to dismiss the emerging feminist movement as nothing more than gals with not enough to do, sitting around––and from politically active feminists who saw the groups as a sideline and waste of time.

Hanisch says "One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems." In other words, the things we experience in our lives as obstacles, as threats, as issues all have systemic causes. In today's terms, foreclosures are not caused solely, or even primarily, by individual spending habits.

Her very next sentences are "There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution." Full stop. Really? Wow.

Today's First Quarter Moon brings us face to face with this issue, in the form of a Grand Cross. In our lives right now, where are we looking to personal solutions when collective ones are needed? Where collective action is called for, are we participating or waiting for some group somewhere else to fix it?

Today we're placed squarely in front of ideas from an earlier time: No man is an island, everybody look what's goin' down, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Where is the line we won't cross, the place we take a stand? Where are we ready to say, we shall not be moved? Think about it.

    

Crescent Moon: The Bud Unfurls

tight in the bud

Crescent Moon: June 23, 2012

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ––Anais Nin

Today is the day. The Sun and Moon form their waxing semisquare. Something in us pushes to open. In some way, small perhaps but finally palpable, we are no longer who we were.

The Sun moves into opposition with alchemical Pluto. The tectonic plates of tradition, ancestry, the deep past push up against each other, looking for release. Revolutionary Uranus squares them both, ready for anything.

Meanwhile, Neptune and Chiron, vision and healing (and also lies and wounding) are squaring the Nodes of the Moon, and Jupiter, and Venus. Good fortune is allied with the path of fate––do we choose the Gate of Horn or the Gate of Ivory? Apocalyptic despair or visions of hope and beauty?

The Moon's only other aspect today is a creative, quirky quintile with Jupiter the Great Good Thing: With the Moon in Leo and Jupiter in Gemini, this quintile can expand infinitely in an amazing burst of creative fire.

Saturn remains at the apex of his Finger of the World: A square-and-a-half against Chiron and Venus, who square each other.

What breaks free now? When healing and balance, wisdom and love, challenge each other, what becomes real?

The Moon is visible in the sky again, her gentle curve showing the emerging path of growth. Where are we becoming, now?
    

Summer Solstice: Diving into the Moon

Sailing into the Solstice

Summer Solstice: June 20, 2012

What a difference a day makes!

The astrological Solstice arrives this evening (EDT) as the Sun shifts into Cancer, sign of the Moon.

The Moon herself is already there, having moved back home not long after the Gemini New Moon.

With Mercury already in Cancer, and visionary Neptune trining the Sun, we dive from the bright, buzzy heights of Gemini into the cooler depths of Cancerian waters.

This hinge of the year is a good time for making New Moon wishes. Those wishes will be most powerful if aligned with the New Moon's special energies (see yesterday's post). Our wishes are most meaningful when aligned with our deepest feelings––this is where today's Cancerian mood comes in.

When forming a wish or intention, the content, the words, the phrasing need to feel right, resonating with something inside us that says "yes." Will-based affirmations can have their place, but there's evidence saying things we truly don't believe works against, rather than with, the changes we long for. (Kelly McGonigal, PhD, explores this and other willpower topics.)

A key to crafting strong intentions is to focus on what we believe and build from there––and what we believe is tied to what we feel. There are lots of conflicting messages around about feelings: We need to control them, release them, ignore them, embrace the "good" ones and get rid of the "bad" ones. Emotions are inconvenient, poorly timed, and awkward––can't we meditate through this?

Yet emotions are ever-present survival mechanisms filled with messages. Some of those messages are mixed, it's true, and modern culture provides little help in learning how to understand and work with these body-based messengers.

So, today I'd like to offer three resources on emotions I find valuable. I'd love to hear these three writers in a roundtable, sharing their skills and insights.

All three recognize our feelings as natural, essential, and valuable. All three offer approaches for staying with emotions––especially difficult ones––to learn what they need to tell us. All three return again and again to the body, that place of the Moon, well of deep memory, and source of meaning.

Peter Levine's work fascinated me when I discovered his book Waking the Tiger years ago. His work with traumatized clients, and then research in animal behavior, suggested we often approach trauma 180 degrees wrong: Clamping down when we need to tremble, Shushing when we need to let someone cry, and sedating when the body needs to process.

Levine has developed his work into Somatic Experiencing, an approach to trauma based in awareness of the body––of what bodies typically do, and of what each of us individually experiences during trauma. His insights changed my understanding of my own responses in powerful ways.

Karla McLaren focuses on the messages of emotion, and everything we miss when we don't listen. She challenges the idea that we should stop being angry, sad, lonely or fearful, and the idea that we can stop simply by changing our thoughts.

McLaren presents compelling evidence that emotions are as vital as they are inevitable, and offers ways we can connect to the flow of emotion, understand its information, and channel that information into productive, life-enhancing behaviors.

Raphael Cushnir is my latest discovery. I'm reading his book The One Thing Holding You Back now, after listening to his interview with Tami Simon on Sounds True last week. Like Levine and McLaren, Cushnir invites us to connect with our emotions instead of ignoring or repressing them.

What I like about Cushnir's approach is the gentleness of his process, and the recognition of the many subtle ways we turn away from whatever is arising within us in the present moment. He talks about surfing emotions as a way to stay present without analysis or judgement, and I'm finding this enlightening if also unsettling.

On this day of the Solstice, as the Sun dances at the Moon's doorway, the Moon relaxes inside, and Neptune sends dreams through the windows, I invite you to explore these pathfinders in the emotional forest. Authentic, steady, compassionate connection with emotion leads to deep and powerful wishing.
    

New Moon in Gemini: Airborne!

A Walk to Paradise Garden – W. Eugene Smith

New Moon in Gemini: June 19, 2012

The New Moon in Gemini is about to arrive, shifting energy from the dark of the waning Moon into the dark of the waxing Moon––yes, the Moon is still shadowed and still, we can feel the shift.

Imagine you're in a cave, dark, close, with the sound of water dripping nearby. You came down here for an important reason, and now it's time to find the surface again ... but where is it? Which of these passages did we climb down?

We step into the entrance of each passage. Does it feel right? How will we know? Ahhhh! This one has a breeze. There's a slight push of air against our cheeks, and a fresher scent. Air is moving here. This is the way.

So it is with today's New Moon: Head toward where the air is moving. This is likely to be wherever Gemini and Mercury are focused in your chart, which could be a bit more complicated than it sounds, Mercury being a trickster and all.

Look where 28 Gemini falls in your chart. In my chart, this is the Eleventh House, suggesting this New Moon can shift, energize, reinvigorate my networks, organizational links, and groups of friends and acquintences––or possibly turn them upside down in some lighthearted but effective way.

Which planets in your chart are touched by this New Moon? Look at anything in the final degrees or early degrees of any sign, and focus on the strongest aspect patterns.

This New Moon squares my Sun, trines my Mercury–Neptune conjunction, sextiles my Pluto_Moon conjunction, semisextiles my Uranus–Jupiter conjunction, and is widely inconjunct Chiron. Gulp. I am anticipating a complete reset in how, when and where I think and communicate. A new me, just when I thought I was figuring out the old one.

Now look at your Mercury, who rules this New Moon. He will also be energized in some way, if even he's not aspected directly (as mine is).

Then look at your Third House, which Mercury and Gemini rule. Third House stuff like thinking, communicating, close neighbors, siblings, cousins, early learning experiences and trips close to home can all receive energy from this Moon.

I've got a loaded Third House myself––my Mercury–Neptune conjunction is there along with Saturn, Ceres and Venus.

Yesterday afternoon, I finished moving into a new apartment just a few miles from my last one. Lots of short trips and a new beginning today.

With everything in my chart lighting up like sparklers, I'm awaiting many breaths of fresh air in the weeks to come. This particular New Moon opens the door to a tremendous shift in energy:

• the Summer Solstice June 20 (astrologically, when the Sun enters Cancer, and Winter Solstice down south)
• first of seven exact Pluto–Uranus squares on June 24 ... revolutionary change at fundamental levels
• Saturn stations direct on June 25, moving forward and finally leaving Libra after a loooong time
• Venus stations direct on June 27, shifting into outward relating again

We live in active, some might say hyperactive, times. We're all standing in the dark sniffing the air to figure out which way the wind is blowing. At this New Moon, we're invited to stick our noses in as many directions as we like, testing the air, comparing, contrasting, communicating and playing.

This is a time for wishes and intentions that are lighthearted, youthful, and fun, not only about getting and sending the messages we need. It's a time to ask for curiosity, discernment, and new perspectives.

Speaking of new perspectives, Eric Francis at Planet Waves chronicles the amazing energies surrounding this New Moon while Dana Gerhardt at MoonCircles reminds us that intentional silence is also part of Gemini, and a wonderful way to connect with inner messages.

Our world is filled with an amazing interplay of the miraculous that is entrancing, exciting, exhilarating, frightening and never boring... perfect for a Gemini New Moon!
    

Balsamic Moon: The Gentle Dark

time passes, things change

Balsamic Moon in Taurus: June 15, 2012

The Balsamic Moon is the last bit of the lunar cycle. We're moving into the darkness now, feeling the approach of the Dark Moon. This is a time of nostalgia, a word that means "yearning for the past" but at its root means feeling homesick.

The Balsamic Moon, in steady, peaceful Taurus, is keeping company with Pluto in Capricorn, Chiron in Pisces and Mercury in Cancer, offering a sense of calm acceptance of necessary change, even as we feel the sadness of loss.

Every lunar month, we're offered this time of letting go, which is good, because it's something most of us are not very good at.

Couldn't we just have the things we long for––peace, prosperity, love, health––without losing something else in the process? And this whole aging thing: Are decay and decline really necessary?

Well, no ... and yes. Our world is physical; matter doesn't maintain its form indefinitely. Change is the only constant, and while we know this intellectually, it can be hard to embrace fully.

The Moon helps us practice. As the Moon reaches this darkening time, we find ourselves once again feeling our way into what we want (or need) to let go of.

We look ahead to the promise of the New Moon, but to get there, we have to go through this first. What is getting in the way? Can we manage, this time, to loosen our grip on it?

Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal studies how we change right down to the neuroscience. It turns out that most efforts to change behavior fail, which is not really a surprise and brings on a bit more balsamic melancholy.

But the cravings we know are bad for us, are hard-wired into our ancient brains, the ones that developed in times of scarcity. Advertisers know exactly how to push those primitive buttons, too.

Are we doomed, then? No, we're not. Change is possible.

As this Taurean Moon makes an edgy semisquare to the energetic Gemini Sun, with the support of Pluto, Chiron and Mercury in embodied Cancer, we're invited to let go of thoughts, habits and behaviors that no longer serve us ... slowly, with understanding, and with compassion.

Kelly McGonigal's work shows that hard-and-fast rules (No more sugar, ever!) and harsh self criticism (I suck at self control) are ineffective, and in fact counterproductive, in making lasting changes. Approaching our lives with gentle, calm, compassion works better.

Yes, our first tries at changing an unhealthy habit are likely to fail. So are our second, third, fourth and fifth tries. And yet, if we watch what happens each time, approaching our lives with curiosity and awareness, we gain insight and also strength. Each small adjustment leads to more change, and changes approached in this way are far more likely to become permanent.

At this Balsamic Moon, we're aware of how massive some of the changes we need to make in ourselves and our world really are (Pluto in Capricorn). We're aware of how damaging some situations are, even as we're offered healing (Chiron in Pisces). Thoughts and emotions are connected, allowing us to explore left and right brain, mind and body, thought and feeling (Mercury in Cancer). The Taurus Moon is slow and steady, willing to wait for natural unfolding, all in good time.

It's time to let go, release, and prepare the way for new things. And if we don't get it quite right this time, that's OK. The Moon moves gently through her phases; another chance will come.
    

Last Quarter Moon: Making the Cut

pruning ... where to cut?

Last Quarter Moon in Pisces: June 11, 2012

Last Quarter Moons can be relaxing––the deep exhale before the next round––or shadowy––stepping into the darkest time of the lunar cycle––or nostalgic––looking back at was has been and is no more.

This Last Quarter Moon is none of those things.

This Last Quarter Moon is filled with challenge, a time of contest and striving. And this Last Quarter Moon is in Pisces, whose default setting is to sacrifice everything.

Luckily, one of the key challenges to this Piscean Last Quarter is Mars in Virgo who says, "Really? Can we talk about this?"

Virgoan Mars serves to keep both Sun and Moon in check, in a Last Quarter T-square. All three are mutable signs, flexible enough to find a solution. Neither Gemini nor Pisces are especially good at staying focused; Mars in Virgo makes sure someone is keeping an eye on the ball.

Another T-square brings home the fierce energies rocking our world. The first Uranus–Pluto square is very close to exact, and is now in a T-square with Mercury in Cancer. This interesting pattern links two of the most traditional signs in the zodiac––Capricorn the Father and Cancer the Mother––with Uranus in Aries, the ultimate revolutionary.

The news is full of ideological and political conflicts about what it means to be a woman in this world.

What rights do we have? What health care are we entitled to? How do commentators view us when we advocate for our needs? Why are those commentators predominantly male? Can religious women speak the truth as they see it and explore scholarly topics without sanction?

Gender as a whole is more fluid today––or maybe not, depending on your point of view.

Are we what our anatomy shows? Are we what we feel? Does anatomy define who we can feel attracted to, who we're allowed to love, who we can partner with to build a life?

Pluto and Uranus are prepared to keep presenting us with those questions until each of us individually, and society as a whole, explore every corner and move into a new paradigm. With Uranus and Pluto, change is certain, and may well be swift and sweeping.

The presence of Mercury brings this issue to our conscious attention.  Mercury in Cancer brings in emotions and ancestry. If key information from the past can help in our journey to the future, now's the time for it to come forward.

Neptune in Pisces, now retrograde, continues to square the Nodes of the Moon. Neptune's presence here calls for a deepening of our life path, an opening to spirituality, and a certain fogginess about exactly how to accomplish this. Neptune's fog facilitates deception of all kinds, including self-deception. Perhaps only the intensity of Uranus and Pluto can strip away lies and leave us face to face with truth.

At the Last Quarter Moon, we turn the corner toward the Dark Moon. Questions arise at this time about whether we're ready to move on, to let go of what's finished, and release what we no longer need.

In the garden, pruning is my least favorite task. It's difficult for me to cut away healthy wood just because it's growing at the wrong angle, or in the wrong place, or there's too much, too close together. Isn't abundant growth a good thing?

Yet the Last Quarter is a time for pruning. Which branches are strong, healthy, and placed so they can support future growth? Which branches need to be trimmed, to make room for the best and strongest? But ... what if I cut the wrong ones? What if I do a bad job?

It's tough, but needs to be done to create strong foundations for the future. This lunar phase calls for a good plan, clear vision, sharp tools, and skillful action. What shapes and structures are we trying to create? Which ideas, values, commitments, paradigms, will support that vision? Which need to go? It's time to make the cut.
         

Disseminating Moon: Who Will Listen?

good listeners wanted!

Disseminating Moon in Aquarius: June 7, 2012

The Full Moon has passed and the Moon now wanes. At this time, we wants to share with the world, recount our experiences, tell our stories. At the Disseminating Moon, the Moon and Sun challenge each other in a sesquiquadrate, a square and a half, and we wonder if anyone's paying any attention at all.

The Sun is still in talkative Gemini, and the Moon has just moved into community-oriented Aquarius. Venus remains in Gemini, and Mercury has just slipped into visionary Pisces: With this particular Disseminating Moon, the urge to share, show and tell might be especially strong. "Listen," we say, a little louder than we intended, "I've got something to tell you about."

The Full Moon Eclipse, Neptune stationing, and the Venus transit combine to bring forth some fascinating images and experiences. Strong dreams, intuitive 'aha' moments, psychic connections––a leap forward in some way. Now we want to get the word out.

And yet, in the swirl of images and messages, which are true? Which are real? Among the voices interpreting these tumultuous times, to whom do we listen? Is this apocalypse or the edge of paradise? Who's right?

Is Queen Elizabeth II a vision of Venus triumphant, or symbol of traditional authority? In this time of Neptunian-influenced communication, I was more entranced by the students of the Royal College of Music Chamber Choir who, thoroughly drenched in a cold rain, kept singing right to the end.

Disseminating Moon

The Aquarius Moon challenges us to clarify our vision and commit to core values––our own, not anyone else's.

The Moon is at the apex of a Finger of the World as she makes a sesquiquadrate to Mars as well as the Sun, and the Sun and Mars square off. At this time, what we think and say (Sun in Gemini) and how we act (Mars in Virgo) resolve differences by sorting out what we truly believe (Moon in Aquarius).

The Moon is trining the South Node and sextiling the North, flowing energy into forward motion on our life path, which is good, as confusing, nebulous Neptune and revolutionary Uranus both aspect the Nodes. Clear thinking does help.

Venus has completed her transit across the face of the Sun, and remains hidden until June 13, when she is reborn as the Morning Star. As the Moon is New when conjunct the Sun, this is a kind of "New Venus" when we look within.

With Venus in Gemini, we rethink our relationships, creative connections, and values––all the relational areas that Venus rules. What, where, and with whom are our core connections? What gives meaning, color, and joy to our lives? During this time of Venusian darkness, we're invited to muse on these issues.

Gemini is sometimes known for speaking first, thinking afterwards. Something interesting can happen when we talk, though––sometimes as we hear what we say, we realize what we really think and feel. Sometimes, in the act of telling the story, the meaning of the story (or dream, or intuitive experience) suddenly shines through.

If we're telling the same old story, in the same old way, this generally doesn't happen. But when we tell a new story, about something that just happened and still has us in its grip, the telling becomes an event with its own power.

So maybe what's important at this Disseminating Moon is that we tell our newest, craziest stories whether anyone listens or not. And maybe that's because our most important listener is ourselves.
   

Full Moon Eclipse: Foolish Wisdom and Wise Fools

Lunar Eclipse

Full Moon in Sagittarius with Partial Lunar Eclipse: June 4, 2012

The Full Moon is on her way, visible tonight (where skies are clear) and including a partial lunar eclipse. EarthSky describes the science of what's happening and where the eclipse will be visible.

A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth lines up between the Sun and Moon, so, during the eclipse we pass between the two luminaries, the lights in our sky, lining up directly with those energies.

This alignment gives an extra boost to the energies flowing at this time, strengthening the natural polarity of any Full Moon.

This is the Full Moon in Sagittarius, sign of the journey. Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter, is the traveling sage, the benevolent philosopher, the exuberant explorer of many lands, the delver into great mysteries. With Sagittarius, we go farther than we have before, stepping outside the familiar to extend our knowledge and experience in many directions and dimensions.

This particular Sagittarean Full Moon points directly at the Great Attractor, the powerful and not-fully-known place in the cosmos toward which our galaxy, and the galaxies around us, inexorably moves.

Which means, since Moon, Earth and Sun are aligned at this Full Moon, we're all pointing like a Sagittarean arrow at the Great Attractor.

One question illuminated for us at this Moon, then, might be: What is the Great Attractor in our lives? What are we drawn to, always, steadily, almost without our realizing we're pointing that way? What mysteries and questions do we come back to again and again, bringing more understanding each time without ever quite working it all out?

The answer is likely related to where this Full Moon falls in our birth charts, and what is touched. Look to where the midpoint of Sagittarius and Gemini fall, and to any planets and points you have in the middle degrees of any sign.

With the Moon in Sagittarius, this places the Sun in Gemini, its polar opposite.

Where Sagittarius is old and wise, Gemini is young and foolish. Where Sagittarius loves deep exploration of the faraway, Gemini scintillates with connecting many aspects of what is right at hand. Where Sagittarius respects ancient traditions and seeks to understand their systems, Gemini spills everything out on the floor of the now to see how this and that might fit together in new ways.

These opposite archetypes potentiate each other. Like yin and yang, the more we have of one, the more the other pushes in. With an eclipse Full Moon at hand, we're placed right between––an excellent opportunity to explore this balance in ourselves.

We're in a strong Gemini time. The last New Moon came with an eclipse of its own, and a powerful jolt of Gemini trickster power. Gemini rules communications, among other things, and some folks are still struggling to get their computer systems back in working order!

Because the last New Moon happened at 0 Gemini, the next New Moon will also fall in Gemini, surrounding this Full Moon.

Gemini is the young student ready to question everything; the crafter, maker of handy, clever, usable things; the innovative problem solver; the irreverent trickster who sees the Emperor clearly and can't stop himself from asking why he's parading around naked.

Sagittarius can find Gemini exasperating, disrespectful, exhausting, and shallow. Gemini can find Sagittarius slow, stodgy, narrow minded, heavy handed, and too ready to accept traditional authority.

Another question illuminated for us at this Moon is where we find the balance between these archetypes in our own lives. Imagine yourself on a line between Sagittarius and Gemini. Are you at the thumb-your-nose-at-all-authority, let's-party, end? Or are you at the life-is-serious, tradition-is-important, end? How comfortable are you with where you are?

Of course we need both archetypes in our lives. We can't avoid it, really, as they call each other out. If we've become too entrenched at one end of this spectrum, chances are we're meeting the other end in people and situations coming into our lives.

The strongest way to work with this, as with other polarities, is recognizing the strengths and weakness of each end and finding our way to integrate them within us. Both are present, both need to be honored, and each of us can find a unique path.

Finding this path is, perhaps, the true illumination of this Full Moon. Venus, retrograde in Gemini, is conjunct the Sun at this Full Moon as she prepares to transit across the Sun's face. Venus draws our attention to our relationships, which includes relationships within ourselves.

Neptune is poised to turn retrograde a few hours after the Full Moon, so her energy is strong as she slows and turns. What is the big picture here? How can we integrate Sagittarius and Gemini, and then take things to a new level, transcending our old understanding and bringing in something new?

This Full Moon is in a wide T-square with Chiron, the wounded healer. Chiron, as a centaur, is also associated with Sagittarius and certainly partakes of the "wise elder" archetype. He challenges us to heal any splits we have along this particular divide, releasing old, wounding ideas and seeking integration.

The Full Moon is in a tight T-square with Mars in Virgo, a sign also associated with healing, and also with analysis and organization. Mars pushes us to act, and to do so in an informed and careful way.

And so we come to the archetype of the Wise Fool, in all its complexities. Sometimes the Wise Fool is seen as an oblivious, inadvertent carrier of wisdom––the "out of the mouths of babes" phenomenon.

There is a deeper aspect to the Wise Fool, though, that stays in touch with the roots of wisdom. The Fool in King Lear, the only one who speaks truth to this deeply disturbed elder, is one. Another is Nasreddin, the tricksterish figure found throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, about whom many stories are told.

At this Full Moon, we're invited to embrace the Wise Fool, holding on to youth and laughter and irreverence, and at the same time, respect for learning and tradition. Each of us will find our own best way, as Nasreddin says:

Nasreddin was walking in the bazaar with a large group of followers. Whatever Nasreddin did, his followers immediately copied. Every few steps Nasreddin would stop and shake his hands in the air, touch his feet and jump up yelling "Hu Hu Hu!" So his followers would also stop and do exactly the same thing.

One of the merchants, who knew Nasreddin, quietly asked him: "What are you doing my old friend? Why are these people imitating you?"

"I have become a Sufi Sheikh," replied Nasreddin. "These are my spiritual seekers; I am helping them reach enlightenment!"

"How do you know when they reach enlightenment?"

"That’s the easy part! Every morning I count them. The ones who have left – have reached enlightenment!"