A First Quarter Moon of Tension Seeking its Resolution

The First Quarter Moon in Capricorn taking place Saturday evening (or early Sunday morning, depending on location) is a strong one, because the Moon is closely conjunct Pluto with Mars nearby, aspected as well by Jupiter and Neptune, and because Venus in mid-Scorpio, the sign of the rulership of Mars and Pluto, is also highlighted in this interesting and somewhat intense configuration. The Sun and Moon in their square (90 degree) aspect with each other and triggering the presence of Venus, Mars and Pluto, bring a flavor of underlying conflict to the astrological atmosphere. This lunar phase always suggests that some factor of difficulty inherent in our flow is requiring our acknowledgment. You could encounter differences from expectations; new requirements that unexpectedly must be worked out. This naturally leads to necessary adjustments and attempted breakthrough in the form of experimental course corrections, which serve to help you to step back from the conflict itself to a higher perspective. We win when we manage to stay as conscious as possible and avoid knee-jerk reactions that can exacerbate problems rather than seeking creative resolution of them.

With Venus, Mars, and Pluto so prominent, there is a likelihood that issues of interpersonal relationship will arise, with the potential as well for reactivity to surface. If so, you will want to pay attention to the factor of patterns based on early childhood wounding, that shift your attention away from proximate but superficial causes, or the blame game, where someone else is seen as responsible for your own anger. Neptune is highlighted in this quarter Moon configuration, and in this month’s astrology as well, and can act in ways that either cloud the real issues or else take your thoughts about your situation to a higher perspective where details cease to matter as much as the realizations that come through the recognition of natural law at work.

Chiron, the Wounded Healer, in the same sign that Neptune currently occupies, and also rules, is prominent as well in this month’s astrology. This indicates that internal wounding, never far from the subject matter of our personal evolution, is more fully available to our awareness during the present month. When we look deep inside ourselves for the hurt child that still resides there, we might come to greater conscious understanding of the real motivating factors for our upset or anger, and become enabled to achieve a better eventual result.

The symbolism of Pluto, strongly emphasized in this First Quarter Moon, speaks to the evolutionary transformation of our entire society, and that of all of us individuals operating within it. This reminder of the real purpose behind interpersonal struggle is very important. When we can recognize what is going on for us in a big-picture way we can put aside superficial differences in approach in favor of a more inclusive agenda that allows us to view as primary our own deep intentions for our personal evolution. We might want to ask ourselves what we need to let go of in order that we advance a more profound agenda for our lives, and for the lives of others around us, because Pluto and the metamorphosis that he represents is always about letting go. We are then at least better prepared to accept our condition in the midst of major change, and can feel the necessity to move beyond outmoded parts of ourselves or a worldview that no longer serves us.

The Sabian Symbols for this First Quarter Moon configuration may also speak to us of where we can make a move to greater consciousness concerning our situation, and our changes. They are, for the Sun in the seventeenth degree of Libra, “A retired sea captain.” We get the image of a person who successfully steered their ship through the manifest difficulties of life at sea, and who has now moved on to other pursuits, perhaps of a more metaphysical nature. Marc Edmund Jones references, “a completeness of self-consummation through a gift for bringing all prior factors of realization to focus in the present moment,” and goes on to state that the degree represents, “utter fidelity to the lessons learned from experience.” For the Moon, in the same degree of Capricorn, we find the unlikely symbol of, “A girl surreptitiously bathing in the nude,” which Jones likens to a celebration of the “potentials of self” and “the desire of all life to strip back to its essentials and to gain self-renewal by immediate and close intimacy with the accepted roots of all being… the human body as a temple of the spirit …. [a form of] psychological renunciation in order to achieve a new dimension of conscious reality.” It is when we step out of our normative roles and dare to take a fresh look at our earthly experience in a spiritual way that we may indeed be able to more fully come to terms with the difficulties that we encounter in the course of daily living. Perspective is everything.