A Fraught and Startling First Quarter Moon

Thursday afternoon's First Quarter Moon has something for everyone, and represents quite an interesting time, when anything can happen, with all the feelings of anticipation and excitement for the new thing that this idea implies. This is also a time when our fears for a less predictable future are simultaneously stirred, so that we also might experience some degree of negative feelings associated with loss of constancy and structure. This phase in any case represents running into curve balls that we did not expect as we set out, full of confidence, at the time of the New Moon, one week past. The shift in the energy right now is palpable, because Mercury has also come to a virtual standstill in early Cancer, preparing to station retrograde early on Saturday morning.

The New Moon, in the exact middle degree of Virgo, makes a very close inconjunct aspect to Uranus in the same degree of Aries, with the Sun in sextile. Mars in Libra is also coming into opposition once again with Uranus, growing closer and closer to exact over the next two weeks. This is therefore a time when surprise is in the air, together with the startling enlightenment brought about by new ways of looking at the world around us, the intoxication of new wine in old bottles. The Sun and Moon are both ruled by mischievous Mercury. The messenger planet is more out there, even, than usual. Mercury's unfamiliar placement in the sign of Cancer is definitely a bit odd, and together with its current uncharacteristic lack of forward motion, plus the symbolism associated with a highlighted Uranus, make for a difficult passage for those who like to keep their feet firmly planted on terra firma. These astrological indications hint that strange and untoward events this week are more likely than not.

Chiron, the Wounded Healer, is also highlighted in this First Quarter Moon configuration, being squared by the Sun and opposed by the Moon in Virgo. There is a forming trine to Chiron in Pisces as well from a retrograding Saturn in Scorpio. This latter aspect indicates that authority figures could seem to be trouble rather than helpers, at least to our inner gaze, and that the fear of structure, or of losing it, could come to the forefront of our consciousness. Then, too, as Mars moves closer to his opposition with Uranus, along the way he makes a perfect square with Pluto, just about a week from now. Then, a week later, at the time of the Last Quarter Moon of June, he simultaneously squares Pluto and opposes Uranus, within a couple of degrees of each. In other words, this month brings back a touch of the cardinal cross energy from April, although this time without the strong Jupiter chime, and with Mercury in the reflective mode signaled by its retrograde. This month is therefore an excellent period for mulling over what we have been going through in these first six months of 2014, on a more conscious level. Perhaps that is why Chiron is so activated now.

The Sabian Symbols for this First Quarter Moon are, as almost always, illuminating. For the Sun, in the sixteenth degree of Gemini: "A woman suffragette, advocating her cause," for which Marc Edmund Jones adds "unswerving determination to expand every potential of being." For the Moon in the same degree of Virgo: "An orangutan." For this image of primitive human-like functionality Jones adds that the symbol represents "[one's] ability to strip himself [or herself] to fundamentals, and there stand proudly, on [one's] own." We can indeed take courage from these symbols, that as much as we might be up against the wall, as long as we can look deeply within ourselves, and decide that our cause is just, thereby resting assured that we are in our essential hearts correct, why then, we can just go ahead.