Exciting and Challenging First Quarter Moon

Wednesday morning's First Quarter Moon brings several interesting factors to the cosmic table, as we continue our process that began with the dynamic New Moon of a week earlier. Traditionally this phase represents that moment of time when what suddenly becomes apparent are the snags and the practical considerations that make the working out of our initial impulse more complex, and perhaps compromised. When we see the difference between our idealized picture of possibility and the actuality, we are tempted to struggle with and adjust the emerging reality, when we do better to adjust our original picture. Compromise can save the day, as we find a third way beyond the original right versus wrong parameters of what we thought we saw happening.

This particular quarter Moon is rendered more exacerbating by the fact that this lunation cycle partakes of the planetary archetypes of cranky Saturn and nebulous Neptune in peaceful trine but still in relative energetic conflict. Again, the ideal must somehow meet and come to terms with the completely real. This applies most especially to interpersonal issues that could easily arise at this time, since the Sun and Moon, representing the male and female parts of ourselves, are in dynamic, or difficult, aspect. When opinions clash, and are seemingly unsolvable, a third way must somehow be discovered, through creativity. As the poet Rumi postulated back in the thirteenth century: "Beyond ideas of right and wrong there is a field; I will meet you there."

The other juicy line-up in this difficult yet hopeful First Quarter Moon is another chime of the potent energy for evolutionary change represented by the ever-present Uranus-Pluto square, coming up for yet another exact hit in the fall. This was also echoed in the very powerful New Moon configuration from last Tuesday. Now Jupiter has moved on, to the eleventh degree of Cancer, and is coming up toward square with Uranus while still remaining in opposition to Pluto, creating an even more intense triggering of their forming energetic strike. As we come into the fall time frame, we therefore travel farther down the road of our transformational journey. Think of it as another striking of a very large bell, already many times struck, so that the sounding of this bell grows louder with each succeeding strike. Like the chiming of the bell we are coming into greater and greater recognition of what it is that we have to do.

Uranus with Jupiter represents revolutionary breakthrough vision, and vision must precede action. Then Pluto, the wrecking ball, comes along to make a place within the chaos of your former life for new life to begin again, in closer alignment with what you have been wanting all along to create for yourself.

Mary Oliver's poem The Journey begins with the words "One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice..." It's like that. Only you know the secret of your true dharma. And you do know it, even though some part of yourself might be trying to get you to deny it. The only thing to do is to move ahead, one step at a time, one foot and then the other, with all the courage you can muster, and with the guiding compass of your deepest convictions that you hold inside.