A First Quarter Moon to Slow Down and Pay Attention

Saturday's First Quarter Moon in the last degree of Scorpio, conjunct Saturn just one degree away, takes place just as the Sun is getting ready to enter the sign of Virgo, on Sunday, and also coincides with an important stage in the Sun-Venus cycle. Like the Moon, Venus goes through her cycle with the Sun, only instead of the thirty-day synodic cycle of Sun and Moon, we have a far more complex 584-day cycle that results in a new sign for each new beginning point, considered to be her first rise as the Morning Star. This moment of the Heliacal Rise of Venus has just arrived, on August 21st, and we have a brand-new cycle of Venus now coming into the picture. This is very much in line with the current Venus Retrograde period, due to end with Venus' station to direct motion coming up in two more weeks, on September 6th. During this 40-day period, thus extending from late July through the current month of August and into the first weekend of September, Labor Day weekend in the United States, we are involved at the deeper layers of our psyches with the planet of relationship, commerce, and beauty. Because delving into our own unconscious depths, as indicted by the current astrological symbolism, we are looking far more closely into our finances and our aesthetics, as well as our partnering motivation and patterning.

Venus rises on the 21st as the Morning Star, just before dawn, and gets more and more visible, for a longer span of minutes and finally hours, as these last days of summer continue to wane. Because she is rising now in Leo, there is an implication that the global Feminine — also rising in these years of our fractious decade of the "turbulent teens" — will have a resurgence of vitality and of rampant individualism over the remainder of this year and the next. You might want to think back to what you were doing eight years ago, the last time the rising Venus was in Leo. Also, since the next Democratic presidential candidate will likely be a woman, this next year of 2016 may be an especially memorable passage. So too, with each one of us, men and women alike; we will be letting our freak flag fly in the ways that make the most sense for global concepts of tribal interaction, freedom, and fairness, that many of us currently support. Indeed, as we are all beginning to recognize, if we truly espouse these values, it is beyond time to really get busy.

For the remainder of the current month, as indicated by Saturn's strong presence in the recent lunation configurations, and as we have all been well-aware situationally, because of our difficulty navigating and managing the details of our daily lives, we have quite a lot to deal with. There are unexpected restrictions and limitations at nearly every turn. This might feel to you like Mercury Retrograde before its time, since what you need to accomplish takes so much more effort. The three of four repetitions seem to take care of the task, and yet all the while the frustration mounts, as what was expected in terms of timing becomes bit-by-bit extended, and schedules are dramatically adjusted to longer. The very relevant and important upside to this powerful presence of Saturn has been the long-term lessons that are also implied. As astrologer Caroline Casey is fond of reminding us, the water in the irrigation ditch is allowed to move more slowly so that it might more readily sink in; this concept applies quite succinctly to this quarter Moon configuration, when we will be encountering great difficulties in forging our dreams into practical reality, and when we will learn important lessons from the experience of trying.

The Sabian Symbols for this First Quarter Moon are suggestive. For the Sun, in the 30th or final degree of Leo, we have: "An unsealed letter" which could be seen as an obvious reference to occult information coming to light. Marc Edmund Jones references "the spiritual integrity of all things in and of themselves," and "trust ... in spite of frequent disillusionments." One idea here is that communication and sharing must win out over the urge to own or conceal. For the Moon, in the same degree of Scorpio, we find a reference to the Scorpio holiday, and as well to the strong presence now of trickster Uranus in: "The Halloween Jester." Jones related this symbol to "proper informality in the release of the buoyant energies through which an individual gains refreshment [and displays his or her] gift for making the desires and ambitions of self ... of actual value to others." The practicality of Saturn is also thus invoked. For the neighboring degree, the 29th, which Saturn currently occupies, we have: "An Indian squaw pleading with the chief for the lives of her children." We might find in this symbol an echo of our own plea that our leaders and all of us consider, with proper feminine courage and concern for the whole, that we indeed spare the lives of the children coming up, and of those generations remaining to be born, by the sanctity and generosity of sharing indicated by our present-day actions, as we can find the strength of character to be able to display them.

A First Quarter Moon to Slow Down and Pay Attention

What is in store for you in the next few months?

Chart for the First Quarter Moon on August 22, 2015

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