A Dramatic and Curious Full Moon

Wednesday evening's Full Moon in feeling-oriented Cancer comes at the halfway point in the lunation cycle that began two weeks ago. As such, it represents a fulfillment of some of the promise of the visionary impulse that was launched at that time. The startlingly potent New Moon that began this month and year on the 1st had a good solid hit of both optimistic Jupiter and also the forming Uranus-Pluto square that next peaks in mid-April. Over the intervening fourteen days we have had the chance to see at least a bit of how our dreams and schemes for the new year and new stage of life have fared, as they have come up against the realities and the practicalities of the actual situation that we currently find ourselves in. This means that our ideal vision of whatever we have committed to in the first days of January must change in the face of the emotional practicality of changing circumstances; that is a given. The question is how to keep the promise and the optimism of what we started and yet accommodate to the realities on the ground.

The Uranus-Pluto square is also more alive than ever, even though its next cycle of exactitude is still several months away. This is because Mercury is parallel to Pluto and also connects to the Sun in this Full Moon configuration, which consists of the Sun in grounded Capricorn opposed by the Moon in Cancer. Jupiter is likewise a powerful factor in that the adjacent opposition from Jupiter to Pluto that was present in the recent New Moon has grown far closer, now only a little more than 2 degrees of Zodiacal longitude from perfection. It is also of great interest that retrograde Venus has moved closer to conjunction with Pluto, even as it symbolically traverses the underworld, as the ancients mythologized this 2-week period of time preceding her Heliacal Rise on January 17th. Venus will come very close to conjunction with Pluto by month's end as she stations. Meanwhile Mars, the other member of the recent triggering set of planets to Uranus and Pluto, has traveled on in its current sign of Libra, and forms a close square with retrograde Venus.

This latter aspect suggests conflict between the sexes, and indeed the potential for reactivity, very present in the recent First Quarter Moon grand cross configuration from one week past, is still very much with us in this present configuration. We must strive to function at the greater degree of efficiency that is represented by getting along in partnership, rather than by wasting words in fruitless disagreement: that is one lesson of this period of time, collectively, as we attempt to coordinate social efforts in an increasingly complex and divisive world, and individually as well. As we move toward another powerful lunation in the New Moon of January 30th that features an increased intensity of Pluto, we are enjoined to get our act together in a way that corresponds to the urgency of the situation globally and locally. The time may be running out to make important changes that we need to make in our own lives, and in the life of the society that surrounds us.

The Full Moon configuration also makes an exact T-square to Ceres, the asteroid that rules nutrition, and that has recently been promoted to the astronomical category of dwarf planet along with, famously, Pluto. What is fascinating is that Ceres is the Roman equivalent to Demeter, who as the mother of Persephone was also involved in the key myth of Pluto as lord of the underworld, namely his kidnapping of this fair daughter of the goddess of grain and fertility. It is from Ceres that we get the word cereal. Indeed, Ceres is involved in nourishment of all kinds, and her prominence in this Full Moon is an indication of where we might need to focus on our own physical nutrition as well as the needs of the society at large, as we both give and get.

The Sabian Symbols for this Full Moon are provocative; for the Moon "Contentment and happiness in luxury, people reading on Davenports," a perhaps old-fashioned version of being laid back, while for the Sun, by contrast, we have "A Water Sprite." This is a cosmic being, a nature goddess; and such we all are, under the surface. For this last, Dane Rudhyar comments "Water binds all living cells in wholesome interplay. It symbolizes the constant flow of vital energies, the fluidity of a consciousness which finds itself stimulated by change." And this is the state of mental and emotional being that we must strive for, in this decade and this century of great change. Rather than sit back and recline, we must be up and doing in the service of right action, at whatever the cost, because our selves and our very world depends on that.