An Angst-Ridden and Redemptive Full Moon

Thursday morning's Full Moon is a powerful configuration, strongly aspecting Uranus and Pluto in the month that they come to the final perfection of their difficult square. This week we therefore get another taste of what we have already been experiencing and are most decidedly in the midst for the early going of this climactic year. This is nothing less than a revolution of ideas and values, and of structure, that is taking place in our personal lives, and within the surrounding collective also, ultimately indicative of irrevocable changes. In this Full Moon configuration, not only the Sun and Moon, but also Venus and Jupiter trigger Uranus and Pluto in their square, making for a fairly angst-ridden time, as the transformational pressure mounts and as we experience our resistance. We are truly up against it now and might well fear that we will be shaken loose from all of our previous moorings.

Chiron, the Wounded Healer, is greatly emphasized in this Full Moon configuration, being conjuncted by the Sun and opposed by the Moon, with the cosmic support of Jupiter making an inconjunct to Chiron from Leo. This reminds us that while we can have optimistic attitudes about our situation, all the pressure upon us now could feel daunting. We have nothing to lose but our dysfunction; and yet, entering into the unknown is understandably fearful. One mythological touchstone for Chiron is the dark cavern, symbolic of the unknown and hidden parts of the psyche, where demons could lurk. It is like the dragon guarding the cave wherein lies buried treasure. First we must confront the dragon, before we can take advantage of the treasure.

Feeling our moment in history, and with Chiron thus invoked, we can see both the angst and the potential reward that is available to us, once we work through facing up to what is going on deep inside ourselves. You may feel that you have difficulty in attempting to better know yourself deep down and all through, of accepting yourself at these profound levels, with all of your drawbacks and imperfections. And yet this could be something of an illusion. In any case what is available to you once you make these difficult and significant first steps is the richer life that is ahead of you. This is your reward if you can squarely face the sources of your pain.

Saturn represents structure, and remains in square with numinous Neptune, an aspect that was highlighted in the timing of the New Moon two weeks past. This constitutes another potent symbol for this month's astrology, indicating that things are in a somewhat nebulous state, with confusion about the way that the very structure of our lives could be morphing with reckless abandon, versus our diminishing capability to keep holding on.

The Sabian Symbols for this powerful Full Moon may have something to teach us about what we are currently up to. For the Moon, in the fifteenth degree of Virgo, we find: "An ornamental handkerchief." Marc Edmund Jones relates this old-fashioned symbol to a grace note of refinement and charm, representing uniqueness, calling it "a symbol of [a person's] self-quickening desire for allegiance to a reality higher or finer than [oneself] ... a reminder of his [or her] better impulses." For the Sun in the same degree of Pisces, we have: "An officer preparing to drill his men," and Jones comments that this represents "man's self-betraying desire for a hierarchy of allegiances in which he can lose himself ... on the side of the superficial life of everyday." He also calls for "[the] challenge to make the best of the situations from which there is no immediate extrication ... with a determination to participate in some reality of a more enduring importance." The trick of course is to find that guiding principle, by means of which we can have the courage to rise above and make it through, when the cultural symbols of the past have largely lost their meaning for us. We must discover this guiding principle in a way that is uniquely our own, in the only place that it can indeed be found, deep inside our very own minds and hearts.