A Daunting and Yet Optimistic Last Quarter Moon

The late Sunday night / early Monday morning Last Quarter Moon continues the themes that we have been exploring during this entrancing and conflicted lunar cycle, stemming from mid-April, contrasting the reality of the humdrum physical plane wherein we must by force of necessity reside, versus the even greater reality and otherworldly numinousity of that which transcends the physical, a realm that we also inhabit with a highly significant and yet partly hidden portion of our being. This phase also traditionally indicates a shift in perception, what seminal 20th Century astrologer Dane Rudhyar described as a "crisis in consciousness." The question becomes how to integrate the events of the first three weeks of a difficult lunation cycle with our expanding worldview, which must somehow accommodate these new experiences without figuratively exploding — as a cartoon steam geyser erupts from the very tops of our heads.

We have actually had a lot to think about and to assimilate since the beginning of this inspiring late-Aries lunar cycle that has been redolent also of so much of practical Taurus. This cycle, from the timing of the New Moon onward, featured many links from personal planets to Neptune, symbolizing the subtle vibrations of what we cannot feel and see with our physical senses, and yet fully know at an intuitive level is there. Most tellingly, lately, we now find Mercury as it prepares to retrograde during the second half of May, in square alignment, and scheduled to return to the square with Neptune twice more during the five weeks of its upcoming extended retrograde period. The last collision occurs on June 23rd, just as Mercury is days away from completing its escape from its retrograde shadow.

This Last Quarter Moon also features a close quintile between the Sun and Neptune, so that the energy of the beyond remains very much with us as we turn the corner toward the ending week of this powerful cycle. It is equally important to note that Saturn is simultaneously not at all absent from symbolic resonance with our psyches, being at this timing closely inconjunct Venus and opposite Mars, as well as sesquiquadrate to Uranus and closely contraparallel to the declination of the quarter-Moon Sun. We are therefore still suffering, as we have for weeks, from having to acknowledge the power of circumstances to thwart and to frustrate our most optimistic efforts to get things to happen as we desire. We may have had to repeat the attack on a problem several times, at least, to try to get it to come out right. And yet this surge of Saturn encloses its own dire beauty, when we have the faith to look for it.

And indeed, Jupiter, the planet of faith and optimism, is also still very prominent in this quarter Moon configuration, being in opposition to the Moon and in close aspect to Pluto in mid-Capricorn. Jupiter reminds you to look on the bright side, when you have sufficient faith in the cosmos, and in your process, to be able to do so. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel when, bolstered symbolically by Neptune and Jupiter, you lift your gaze in order to be able to see it.

The Sabian Symbols for this Last Quarter Moon as usual have something to contribute. They are, for the Sun, in the 21st degree of Taurus (or 21 plus): "A finger pointing in an open book," which reminds us that the higher meaning of what we are about is right there in front of us, once we have the courage to look inside. Marc Edmund Jones comments on "a sensitiveness to the enduring significance of each special complex in human affairs," and on the "fine discrimination" in achieving this insight. For the Moon, in the same degree of Aquarius, we find a different side of this same idea: "A woman disappointed and disillusioned." For this Jones reflects on "the self's inherent gift for pressing on, with every setback," and as well "the inevitable distress of the human soul whenever it seeks enduring sustainment ... without anchorage in its own nature." This is indeed the trap of Saturn, and of disappointing circumstance, whenever you allow yourself to be blocked from your own higher purpose. We bounce back from disappointment by having the faith to go to inner strength and to keep our eye on the real prize, for then nothing can stop us.