Full Moon in Taurus: Beautiful Mother

the feast of life

Full Moon in Taurus
October 29, 2012

Tomorrow brings the Full Moon in Taurus, our yearly northern hemisphere reminder, as nights grow long and winds sharp, that the Earth is a place of abundance.

It's time to prepare for the lean season, so the cosmos sends a message––our bodies need feeding, homes need heat, children need warm coats, people need safety in winter storms, and the Earth will provide with our help.

Taurus is the sign of patience, perseverance, and nurturing; the sign that loves the precious physicality of life. Taurus also understands how the world works––systems have cycles and some include loss, so each of us needs to step up for all of us to enjoy the good things of life.

The loaves and the fishes may have appeared miraculously, but they came in answer to a recognized need––someone who noticed, then said out loud, wow, there's a lot of people here who haven't eaten. And all that plenty didn't distribute itself––people came forward to carry, hand out, make sure everyone got some, and collect the leftovers. Pot luck supper where everybody helps, not the miracle drive-thru where someone hands you a bag and you're gone.

Taurus sticks around.

Across from the Taurus Moon, we find the Sun and Saturn in that other sign of great staying power, Scorpio. Here we experience the deeper reverberations of our physical life.

In one framework, we could see Scorpio (especially with Saturn right there), as the big stick behind the carrot, the hellfire consequence of failures of virtue. Scorpio as darkness with a capital "D," as the things we run from.

In another, Scorpio becomes the messenger of the unseen, the one who knows what is not obvious, the one who understands the deeper meanings of our simplest actions. At this Full Moon, the unseen but deeply felt is especially strong:

The Grand Trine in Water still flows, as the Sun and Saturn together trine Neptune and Chiron in Pisces, and Ceres in Cancer. This pattern connects strong energies of dreaming, manifesting, healing and abundance, bringing them all closer to our conscious awareness.

With the Moon opposite the Sun (as always at a Full Moon), this Taurus Moon becomes the apex of a wide kite, receiving sextiles from Neptune and Chiron, and from Ceres. Pluto the Alchemist trines the Full Moon, and sextile the Sun and Chiron.

Meanwhile, Venus has entered her home sign of Libra, and sextiles Mercury in generous, optimistic Sagittarius. Mars is also in open-handed Sagittarius, opposite Sag's ruler, Jupiter the Sage, still reflectively retrograde in Gemini. Uranus, too, is part of the picture, as he semisextiles the Moon and forms an inconjunct to the Sun, edgy as always.

Much can be illuminated at this Full Moon. Look at your birth chart to see where the Full Moon will fall, as issues related to this part of your chart will be in the spotlight. For all of us, the Full Moon in Taurus will ask:

• Where am I feeling well provided for in my life? Where am I feeling deprived or left out? What actions do I need to take, to feel and experience more abundance?

• What deeper motives support (or interfere with) my actions? Where do I need to look below the surface at what's really going on in my life?

• How am I connecting with intuition or guidance in its many forms? Am I listening to compassionate voices seeking my highest good? How can I deepen my most positive, life-enhancing connections?

• Am I a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty kind of person? What are the consequences of that? If I am less happy than I would like to be, where can I invite conscious, deliberate optimism into my life, and express that to others?

You'll notice that each of these areas end with "what can I do?" kinds of questions ... Saturn is strongly present in this Full Moon, and he doesn't like to see anyone sitting around, wasting time and resources. On the other hand, this is the Taurus Full Moon, and appreciating the wonderful things of life becomes a responsibility too, one we embrace now.

So, sitting around worrying about what's going wrong? Not so much. Resting in the abundance of our Earth Mother, savoring the good things of our lives and sharing them with others––that's a responsible, as well as responsive, way to live this Full Moon.
     

Gibbous Moon: It Was a Dark and Stormy Night ...

into the woods ...

Gibbous Moon in Pisces
October 25, 2012

"Gibbous" is an odd word, don't you think? It makes me think of gibbons ... gibbering gibbons.

Its origins are equally odd. Gibbous means something convex or bulging, but comes from the Latin gibbus, a hump or hunch. In the fifteenth century, "gibbous" meant hunchbacked.

This Moon phase, which peaks as the Sun and Moon form a square-and-a-half (a sesquiquadrate), is like hitting a bump in the road. We've met the First Quarter square challenge, we can see the Full Moon reward looking ahead, and––wait ... what? I just fell over something.

This Gibbous Moon is the log you trip over on a foggy night in the woods when you've made a wrong turn, the compass needle spins crazily, the matches are wet, and the flashlight battery's low.

The Grand Trine in Water I've written about earlier in this lunar cycle is still with us, emphasized by a Sun–Saturn conjunction in Scorpio, trine Neptune and Chiron in Pisces and Ceres in Cancer. With the Moon also in Pisces, we're going to have a tough time getting our bearings. These energies are filled with glorious spiritual connection, and the cruelest of illusions. Healing and wounding, clarity and confusion, innocence and decadence, light and shadow.

At times like these, rational logic goes out the window. It just doesn't work. The choice point is, are we driven by fear? Or do we tune in to intuition?

Let's not dismiss the fear option out of hand. When I look at the world, our situations politically and ecologically, the treatment of all people in any way disadvantaged, I am afraid. Fear feels like a realistic assessment.

So maybe the question is, what's the purpose of fear? And, beyond that, what do I do with fear? Where does it lead me? Are there healthy ways I can experience and work with fear?

Karla McLaren describes fear as the mood state evoked by change, novelty, and the possibility of physical danger. Oh, snap. "Novelty" seems like a weak word indeed for the level of change coming at us––even "change" doesn't evoke the speed-of-light flows of information, innovation, and transformation swirling around.

Karla sees emotions as moving, calling us to action. Fear, she says, leads us into our instincts and intuitions, the ways we know, outside of logic, what to do right now to stay safe––sometimes by freezing or running away, but often by orienting to the coming changes and flowing with them.

Fear and intuition are not opposite choices. When experienced well, fear connects us to intuition.

Today, intuition is often glossed as "inner knowing." We think of tuition as teaching, and in as inside, so, intuition is an inner guide who tells you stuff.

The origin of intuition leads back to the Latin teuri, a word so old its origins are lost, which means not teacher, but guardian and protector.

Intuition is the guidance within that keeps us safe, activated when we feel the emotion we know as fear. Nature intended this to work seamlessly––the inner alarm bell goes off, we correct our course of action, the alarm bell goes quiet.

This is not a case of "feel the fear and do it anyway" when the action we're choosing makes the alarm bells get insanely loud. Neither is it a call to stick our heads in the sand because this momentarily reduces panic. This is about learning how to respond in ways that make us safer, by accepting, understanding and responding accurately and effectively to our circumstances.

This is the beauty of a trine, especially a Grand one: Trines flow easily.

Even as this part of the lunar phase leads us into the dark, misty forest and lays a log in our path, the energies out there are standing by to offer powerful, easily accessible experiences of how well intuition can work.

Seriously, with a Grand Trine like this one, plus Mercury conjunct the North Node in Scorpio, if we can't get in touch with our inner guidance now, when can we?

OK, that was a bit Scorpionic and snarky. How these transits affect you will depend a lot on your birth chart and how your life's been going lately. At the same time, we really are offered a chance to experience intuition at work (and at play) this week.

Watch for synchronicities. Remember your dreams. Dust off the runes, I Ching tiles, Tarot cards. Watch flights of birds. Listen to the wind.

Important safety tip: Choose ways of working with intuition that keep you safe and in contact with trusted guides who have your best interest at heart. Plan for invocations, prayers, or blessings.

If fear comes up, try not to immediately shy away. Look for a calm space within. Watch where the fear leads you. Listen to what the message is. Take effective action that increases safety.

Blessings for all of us.
    

First Quarter Moon: On the Edge

First Quarter Moon in Capricorn
October 21, 2012

As the Sun and Saturn reach toward their conjunction, the Sun and Moon square each other in the final degrees of Libra (Sun) and Capricorn (Moon). This last degree is called the anaretic degree, and is an especially fraught point in any sign.

One way of approaching the transition between signs is to think of them as blending––we gradually move from Libra, say, into Scorpio and the energy is a little this, a little that, the two smooshed together. This is where the term "cuspy" comes from ... if you've got a planet in that in-between territory, some astrologers will call it "cuspy" and say it's a blend of both.

I have problems with "cuspy."

My Sun's at 0 Libra and my Moon's at 0 Virgo, so I know from cusps. And I can tell you, I've never felt blended at all. More jagged, actually. Edgy.

Look at any two adjacent signs––do they feel like they'd blend easily? Seriously, Libra and Scorpio, Scorpio and Sagittarius, Pisces and Aries ... pick any two and tell me these are flavors that blend.

As we move around the zodiac, each sign answers a need created by the energy of its predecessor, offering an antidote to whatever has been overemphasized. It's about movement, growth, progression, and challenge, not blending gradually from red to yellow with all that lovely peach in the middle.

So, I felt a sense of satisfaction when I discovered another approach that recognizes the difficult shift from one sign to the other, reflected in part in the final, anaretic degree.

When we reach 29, we're really, really into the energy of that sign. Committed, fully immersed. But we've also taken it as far as it will go. Maybe we're sensing its limitations and excesses. But still, we're in it, all the way.

But wait ... here's a horizon. A new energy right here. We need to jump there, into the new. But can we? Maybe we stick a toe in, pull back. Maybe we make the jump and then the place we just left looks much better and we jump back.

The Sun in Libra is all about beauty, peace, harmony, clear thought, planning, and balance. The Moon in Capricorn is all about rolling our sleeves up and working hard, never mind the muck if we get to the goal.

The Sun is looking at a darker place, the shadowy realms of Scorpio where Saturn the Taskmaster sits waiting, tapping his foot. The Moon sees the grand visions of Aquarius ahead, airy-fairy stuff for hard working Cap.

Meanwhile, Venus in Virgo forms a wide trine to the Moon while sextiling Mercury and the North Node in Scorpio, who are poised between the Sun and Moon. Does Venus help us, or does Virgo increase our anxiety about all this?

The question at this Fist Quarter is, do we embrace challenge as a way forward, or sit on the fence? He who hesitates is lost ... or is it, look before you leap?

The lovely Libran New Moon has sowed her seeds. We're about to leave her beautiful visions behind. If we can hold our dreams clearly in our hearts, we won't need to look back over our shoulders. We can boldly go into the new territories before us. We can step off the edge.

Hey, Felix Baumgartner did it! We can too.