Full Moon in Aquarius

As a sign of Saturn, Aquarius has much to do with our experience of time. In contrast to earthy Capricorn, Aquarius is the airy side of Saturn that turns away from the past toward the future, extending into the farthest reaches of society and peripheries far removed from the mainstream. The Aquarian landscape illuminated by the lunation will involve borderlines beyond familiar boundaries, as Saturn governs the planetary sphere at the threshold between the visible realm of our familiar solar system and the starry realm of alien star systems beyond. Saturn’s connection with Aquarius points to how we can become bound within consensus conceptions of reality, yet the contraction and negation of Saturn’s influence can also open realization of eternal elements of reality that lie beyond the dogmas of mainstream thought. Due to the Aquarius Full Moon forming a catalytic square aspect with Uranus in Taurus, there will be an amplified electrical wattage surrounding the lunation that can become suddenly discharged like lightning into far ranging vision of future potential. While the surrounding mix of astrological influences is incredibly volatile and turbulent, at the center of the Aquarius Full Moon’s storm is an opportunity for profound self-realization regarding your path and purpose in the years ahead.

The Aquarius Full Moon is extraordinarily potent with unusually large long-term implications, considering that it is not an eclipse. In fact, it is the most powerful full moon of 2024. The visionary power involved in the square aspect formed between the Aquarius Full Moon and Uranus is especially significant due to Mercury retrograde in Leo opposing the lunation along with the Sun in Leo. Due to Mercury being reanimated by the creative potency of the Sun on the day before the lunation, while also forming a liberating square aspect with Uranus, the Aquarius Full Moon will spotlight any areas of your life and work that are misaligned with the authentic core of your vocational desires. Like the Hermes of myth, Mercury in its retrograde phase can lull us to sleep or awaken us with his golden wand. Though the dreams received in sleep may be particularly meaningful in the light of the Aquarius Full Moon, the tricks and guidance that Mercury will deliver will be in the forms of a massive wake-up call. First and foremost, the Aquarius Full Moon will serve as a call to action and committing to making the changes you know you have been needing to make but have been putting off for whatever reason.

Saturn in Pisces is the lord of the lunation and is involved in an titanic configuration with Mars, Jupiter, and Venus that could feel disorienting to some, but will ultimately force change and jettison us through a liminal passage of leaving old forms of security behind in order to enter a dynamic period of transition and untapped potential. As the Moon is waxing into fullness, Venus in Virgo will complete a square aspect with Jupiter in Gemini and a tense opposition with Saturn retrograde in Pisces. Venus will then apply toward another change inducing square aspect with Mars in Gemini that she will complete a few days after the lunation on August 22. There will be no hiding from the mutable t-square between Saturn in Pisces, Venus in Virgo, and the combination of Mars and Jupiter in Gemini, as the timing of its formation with the Aquarius Full Moon clashing with Uranus will force matters to a head and demand responses and action.

The strong activation of mutable signs is the part of the t-square configuration that makes it potentially confusing, as it indicates the likelihood of having multiple projects and needs to tend which will make it difficult to concentrate on one point of focus for an extended period of time. Instead we will need to shift back and forth between tasks, focusing on one thing for a period of time and then needing to shift focus to another. Though events could arise suddenly that feel distracting or frustrating, the fortuitousness of Mercury retrograde occurring at the same time points to the potential to find meaning in the detours you would not have discovered from taking a straight path. The harshest and most difficult aspect of the configuration was the agitating square aspect between Mars and Saturn that was exact on August 15, and though Mars is separating from Saturn and Jupiter during the Aquarius Full Moon the imprint of its fear inducing and anxiety provoking impact may still be felt. However, while the presence of Jupiter and Venus within the mutable t-square does not whisk all the troubles away, they do signify the potential for generating meaningful growth out of whatever tests you have been facing, even if you temporarily must persist through some growing pains in the weeks ahead. Ultimately, the propulsive force of the Aquarius Full Moon will support the shedding of fears and courageously moving toward the excitement of new yet unknown creative directions.

In the bigger picture of time, the reason the Aquarius Full Moon is unusually important is due to it marking a critical stage of growth in the Jupiter and Saturn cycle that has its roots in the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn at 00°29′ Aquarius that happened on 21 December 2020. The great conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius announced a new chapter in the story of our world, binding us to an era of elemental air. The synodic cycle between Jupiter and Saturn lasts for twenty years, yet sits within larger triplicity cycles of forming conjunctions in the same element (fire, earth, air, water) that last for over two centuries each. After their 2020 solstice union, there will only be conjunctions between Jupiter and Saturn in tropical air signs until December 21, 2159 when they will unite in Scorpio, followed by two more grand conjunctions in tropical air signs in 2179 and 2199 (resulting in 2219 marking full entrance into the next era of water).

Astrologers from the eighth/ninth century such as Masha’allah and Abu Ma’shar made famous the theory that while each twenty year cycle between Jupiter and Saturn signified important changes in political rulership, larger shifts in dynasties and other cultural orders such as religious movements occurred during the transmutation between triplicity elements. Just like the war between Zeus and the Olympians against Cronus and the Titans in myth tells the story of a new order overcoming an old order, so have the conjunctions between the star of Zeus and the star of Cronus signaled the toppling of old ruling orders by the ascension of new powers. Since the world today is no longer arranged into the same kind of royal dynasties as it was in the courts of empire that ancient astrologers served, the changes wrought by Jupiter and Saturn initiating us into an era of air needs to be applied to our current cultures and power dynamics. Similar to the first quarter lunar phase of half darkness and increasing light, the waxing square aspect forming between Jupiter and Saturn during the Aquarius Full Moon marks a critical phase of development in this cycle that carries enormous collective and personal weight. While the world collectively has undergone extraordinary change since 2020, you have your own unique personal story of change that has now reached the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next. It’s a chapter that promises many new plot twists and unexpected events during the next year, but within the liminal mutations taking shape now there will be opportunities to make significant change in your life.

Keep in mind that whatever changes are beginning to take shape in correspondence with Jupiter forming a square aspect with Saturn have a long period ahead to develop within. Indeed, there will be two more waxing square aspects between Jupiter and Saturn: one on 24 December 2024 with Jupiter retrograde and Saturn direct, and the final on 15 June 2025 with Jupiter in Cancer and Saturn in Aries. This means that it isn’t necessary to have everything figured out right now because there will be many more changes to come in the next year. The extraordinary change of the next year will not only be due to the square aspect between Jupiter and Saturn, but because all of the planets will be changing signs: Jupiter will move into Cancer, Saturn into Aries, Uranus into Gemini, Neptune into Aries, and Pluto into Aquarius. The main thing for now will be staying true to the integrity of your intentions and laying the foundations of whatever you are working on building and creating, realizing that it will be necessary to maintain flexibility and alter plans due to collective volatility that will be out of your control.

Toward the end of the previous era of earth conjunctions between Jupiter and Saturn, James Hillman published the book Kinds of Power: A Guide to its Intelligent Uses in which he wrote about a list of ideas he associated with the kinds of growth he believed correlated with the changes happening at the end of the 20th Century. Though the book was published almost thirty years ago, Hillman’s linkage of growth with the terms “deepening,” “intensification,” “shedding,” “repetition,” and “emptying” are highly relevant to the personal and collective growth patterns that will be set off by the Aquarius Full Moon. To Hillman, deepening is a “growth of soul” that “brings ugly, twisted things out of the soil,” an idea of staying power that is about “staying in the mess,” cleaning up the mess, and staying “planted,” with “no avoidance and no escape.” In comparison, intensification to Hillman is about “a devotional focus to what you are doing- an intensive concentration that seems like obsession,” like “the love brought to the art of your work and the love in which the work is done.”

Furthermore, Hillman’s conception of shedding is well-suited to the limits of time and space we are often tested with through Saturn’s cycle and times of crisis carrying extraordinary challenge with the potential for profound transcendence if we can face them despite our fears. To Hillman, “radical shedding happens in those crises that move in on the soul and cannot be easily fixed,” that come “unannounced” with “a specific and immediate cause . . . or no apparent cause at all.” The importance to Hillman is that “the crisis which forces shedding also forces a philosophical re-visioning, as if the crisis were demanding a discrimination between what must be held and what can be let go.” Hillman’s advice is to use imagination in the process of facing the fears of shedding crises: he suggests imagining as realistically as possible the consequences of catastrophe scenarios and to let go “of all security structures, comforting identities, realized achievements, forward planning. See what remains, for only what remains can truly be relied on for growth.”

Most importantly, Hillman’s intention to deconstruct consensus conceptualizations of words like “power” and “growth” is powerful medicine for the combination of the Aquarius Full Moon with Mercury retrograde in Leo and the mutable t-square that involves the waxing square between Jupiter and Saturn. Through deconstruction we can become more aware of how we can potentially conform and condition ourselves to outdated ideas that do not resonate with our ever changing reality, feeling into how we can shift and mutate through the turbulent times ahead into a more authentic and self-empowered expression. More waves of change will be on the way during the waning half of the lunar cycle, as Mercury will station direct on August 28 followed by Pluto returning to Capricorn and Uranus stationing retrograde on September 1. The simultaneous stationing of Uranus and ingress of Pluto on September 1 will take place during the dark of the Moon, one day before the New Moon in Virgo on September 2. The activation of Pluto and especially Uranus at the end of the lunar cycle means the movements of change underway during the Aquarius Full Moon will be more important than normal to pay attention to, as they will only be deepening further in the weeks ahead.

Aquarius 3 Decan

The Full Moon in Aquarius is in the third decan of Aquarius associated with the Seven of Swords arcanum illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. An image of subterfuge, strategy, and deception, the figure sneaking away on tip-toes is leaving the known of one realm for the unknown of another. T. Susan Chang in 36 Secrets described the Seven of Swords as “the exceptionally resourceful card of Odysseus,” representing the many arts of deception utilized by the complicated Odysseus on his epic journey and “the many turnings of his wily mind.” Like the cunning wisdom of Odysseus, the resourcefulness found in the third decan of Aquarius can facilitate the problem solving necessary to move from the known to the unknown.

Austin Coppock in 36 Faces ascribed the image of “The Knot” to the third face of Aquarius, utilizing the symbol of a knot to reveal the karmic binds that keep us stuck in the known and familiar rather than liberating ourselves to enter the unknown. Coppock described the stealthy figure in the image of the Seven of Swords as not only having decided to leave a frustrating situation, but also having already contemplated what is worth taking and saving versus what is better left behind. The third face of Aquarius involves the risk that comes from exile and the uncertainty of no longer having the stability of the structures being left behind, but the figure in the Seven of Swords card has determinedly chosen the unknown over the known.

Many ancient texts describe human figures for this face, which fits well with Aquarius being a human sign, but they are often portrayed as angry. Coppock linked the fact that many old images for this decan are wrathful to the third decan of Aquarius involving the “slowly growing disgust and frustration with the state of things” that ultimately leads to change. Yet while Coppock described this face as being about the forsaking of the known, he also emphasized the simultaneous complexity and difficulty of embracing the unknown and leaving what has been secure and familiar behind. Coppock wrote that it is a face of frustration, anger, resentment and critiques, but also “illuminates karmic entanglements and oversees liberation from them.”

The third decan of Aquarius is the face of the Moon, and so the meaning of this decan will be brought to life with the Moon being fully illuminated here. Austin Coppock wrote that the Moon in the third decan of Aquarius “has the power to make the exile comfortable, the alien feel at home,” and that people born with the Moon in this face “are emotionally independent, capable of finding comforts where none seem to exist.” The Full Moon in its own face of Aquarius forming a square aspect with Uranus will bring revelations concerning whatever threshold of transition you are facing. While some may have already broken free from the past during this period of accelerated astrological change, others may still be contemplating which direction to follow at the crossroads, oscillating back and forth between options. The Aquarius Full Moon calls for a deepening into coming to terms with what old aspects of the familiar need to be shed in order to embrace a more vital presence in the world.

Fittingly for a face favoring the unknown over the known, the Hellenistic text the 36 Airs ascribed Osiris, Egyptian lord of the dead and the otherworld, to the third face of Aquarius. The presence of Osiris with the lunation brings themes of fertility and regeneration, mystery and becoming to the forefront. Osiris calls us to find resources and enrichment within the depth of our unconscious so we may nurture our own metamorphosis, rather than seeking external forms of validation that could condition the change underway. Osiris possess a sacred quality of surrender to the process of regeneration, surrendering to all of the suffering that must be endured in order to fully nurture and realize our own creative potential. 

The fact that the 36 Airs linked Osiris to the third face of Aquarius is even more interesting due to the 36 Airs also linking Isis, the partner of Osiris, to the second face of Leo where the previous New Moon in Leo occurred. The courageous journey of Isis to search for her deceased and dismembered Osiris, her capacity for retrieving, remembering, and reanimating him back to life, may mirror our own ability within the present lunar cycle to place fears aside so we may embark upon a new orientation to life that brings us more fully alive and creatively actualized. Rather than regressing backwards, pulling away from the fires of transformation, allow the eternally wise presence of Osiris to guide you through whatever trials by fire you are experiencing so that you may become who you need to become on the other side.

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References

Chang, T. Susan. (2021). 36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot. Anima Mundi Press.

Coppock, Austin. (2014). 36 Faces: The History, Astrology and Magic of the Decans. Three Hands Press.

Hillman, James. (1995). Kinds of Power: a guide to its intelligent uses. Doubleday.