New Moon in Pisces

February 22, 2020 / grayastrology / 2 Comments

Edna Andrade (1973) Spring Veils

New Moon in Pisces

The New Moon in Pisces on February 23 arrives not only during a change in season but also demarcates a threshold to cross into an intensification of the catalytic astrology of 2020. In the northern hemisphere, the days are growing longer as green shoots emerge from frozen ground; in the southern hemisphere, the peak glare of fiery Summer has passed as the encroaching darkness of Fall begins to increase. The year began with a potent seeding of vision in Capricorn involving Saturn, Pluto, Jupiter, Ceres, and Mercury that has required incubation and gestation to become more clear about its longterm ramifications. With the entrance of Mars into Capricorn, the Sea Goat stellium has become ignited just as the Pisces New Moon forms a collaborative and harmonizing sextile aspect with all of it.

The New Moon in Pisces is separating from a sextile with Uranus in Taurusand applying toward a sextile with Mars in Capricorn. The New Moon is also waxing toward a sextile with its South Node in Capricorn and a flowing trine with its North Node in Cancer. Thus the Pisces New Moon opens the long range view of a falcon encircling the sea from above, with potential for rapid acceleration of vision sourced from inspiration. Yet as a larger picture of what can take form this year coalesces, so will a stronger sense of all of the necessary work that will be required to bring it fully into being. Mercury retrograde in Pisces mutually applying to a conjunction with the New Moon can be helpful in surveying resources and goals to determine where adjustment or additional support is needed. Some aspects of current plans may need to be shed, while the unorthodox motion of Mercury may also retrieve old ideas or capture unexpected thoughts to integrate into developing projects.

The applying sextile between the Pisces New Moon with Mars in Capricorn is particularly invigorating due to Mars being co-present with the trio of Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn in Capricorn. Before Mars fully activates the Sea Goat trio, however, it must first cross the initiatory threshold of passing through the South Node of the Moon in Capricorn. One one hand, the union of Mars with the South Node also means that it is triggering the eclipse degree of the Solar Eclipse in Capricorn on December 26, 2019 and therefore enflaming collective events that have been simmering and ready to erupt. On the other hand, the conjunction between Mars and the South Node of the Moon will also draw attention toward the deeper motivations underlying our striving. Rather than insisting on continual expansion and progress, take the time to reflect upon the nature of your aspirations with willingness to lay some desires to rest while committing a deeper investment to what emerges as your most essential desire.

The potency of the collaborative sextile between the Pisces New Moon and Mars exalted in Capricorn demands movement, whether toward external goals or toward inner insight. Some additional symbolism describing the richness of the New Moon’s dark soil comes from its conjunction by zodiacal degree with two significant fixed stars: (1) Fomalhaut, the mouth of the Southern Fish swimming beneath the Water Bearer of Aquarius, as well as (2) Deneb Adige, the brilliant white alpha star in the tail of Cygnus the Swan.

Fomalhaut is the mouth of the Southern Fish that Bernadette Brady has linked with the mystical salmon invested with wisdom in Celtic mythology, a point of intake for magically making change through relationship with Nature rather than through control or domination over Nature. Similar to how Ptolemy connected Fomalhaut with Venus and Mercury, Fomalhaut has been described as a poetic, visionary, and mystical star associated with the kind of magical charisma that can seductively influence the course of events. Bernadette Brady further associated Fomalhaut with idealistic visions that necessitate conflict with the dominant culture in order to bring about manifestation. Fomalhaut’s presence near the zodiacal degree of the Pisces New Moon is a warning to be careful for what you wish for, utilizing the purging nature of Mercury retrograde in Pisces to come into deeper relationship with what you truly wish to create with your life.

Deneb Adige is the starry white tail of the Swan gliding gracefully across the great watery section of the heavens, the alpha star of Cygnus that Ptolemy also connected with Venus and Mercury, just like Fomalhaut. Water birds are sacred in Celtic traditions due to integrating the elements of earth, air, and water, and Bernadette Brady further connected Deneb Algede with not only the deep spirituality of the Swan but also the aggression and combativeness of swans when defending their territory. There is common ground with Fomalhaut here, in that Brady also connected Deneb Adige with the “journey of actively seeking spiritual awareness” that demands “a deeper step, to feel that one has to walk the less trodden tail.” Indeed, Brady declared Deneb Adige to be the “shaman’s star,” viewed by the ancient Egyptians as “the exit of the birth canal of Nut,” the starry goddess who continually gives birth, rebirth, to the Sun and its illuminating light. Deneb Adige brings the steely inner strength to the lunation also found by the New Moon forming a sextile with Mars in its exaltation of Capricorn.

Felix-Hilaire Buhot (1889-90) The Cliff – Bay of Saint-Malo

Jupiter in Capricorn is the domicile rule of the Pisces New Moon, while the New Moon is also occurring in the exaltation, bounds, and triplicity of Venus in Aries. Venus and Jupiter ruling the New Moon is notable due to the fact that Venus in Aries is applying toward an exact square aspect with Jupiter in Capricorn as Luna and Sol unite in Pisces. This brings a wave of extreme desires to reach a peak, requiring a measure of tempering to avoid the type of overinflation that can bring about a painful fall. While you may feel the stirring of large appetites it must necessarily be set against the constraint and contraction of circumstances signified by Mars, Jupiter, and Pluto being hosted by Saturn in the Capricorn terrain being catalyzed by Venus in the fiery sign of Mars.

Adding immense depth to these aspects, Jupiter also formed an exact sextile with Neptune in Pisces a few days before the lunation on February 20, and is now slowly applying toward a conjunction with Pluto in Capricorn that will be building throughout the next month. Simultaneously, Venus in Aries will also be applying toward a cathartic square aspect with Pluto as the Moon begins to wax in light, forming an exact square with Pluto on February 28. With Venus engaging in a sequence of square aspects with Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn, the realm of relationship will be a source of change where we may receive intimations of new possibilities and potential while also contending with whatever present Saturnine tests we are facing. Any disillusionment felt can be utilized in reconsidering the inner values you feel are truly worthwhile to embody and center choices around. With Mars in Capricorn ruling Venus, we must enter the fray rather than hold back from fear, being willing to shake things up rather than remaining stagnant.

It’s further significant that both benefics, Venus and Jupiter, are occupying challenging signs since Venus is in the sign opposite its home of Libra and Jupiter is in its fall in Capricorn. In contrast, both malefics, Saturn and Mars, are in places of great strength since Saturn is in its nocturnal, earthy home of Capricorn and Mars is in its exaltation of Capricorn. In part this signifies the lunar month ahead is not a time for lazily luxuriating in pleasure but rather gathering strength and resources to strike out resiliently with hard work and effort. While it may be necessary to experience change within relational dynamics and desires, any experiences of separation we must endure can facilitate penetrating more deeply into reconsidering inner ideals, value, and meaning. Even taking small steps in making space for contemplation free from the usual distractions and responsibilities of daily life will help in gaining clarity for where to let go versus where to focus for an influx of growth opportunities.

JMW Turner Ovid Banished from Rome

Crucially, the New Moon in Pisces is mutually applying toward a conjunction with Mercury retrograde and combust under the beams of the Pisces Sun. While the New Moon in Pisces occurs during the most intense phase of purging and putrefaction within Mercury’s retrograde movement in Pisces, two days after the lunation on February 25 Mercury will experience the purification and rebirth of its inferior conjunction with the Sun. Mercury being in the heart of the Sun will be most intense when Mercury is within sixteen arc minutes from the Sun, from roughly 2:30 pm PST until 8:45 pm PST, with the exact solar union occurring around 5:41 pm PST on February 25. This is an ending and beginning, a rebirth moment for Mercury that deserves time set aside for contemplation and consideration, as Mercury becomes revitalized with the creative potency of our solar light.

During the same time that Mercury retrograde is conjoining the Sun, Mars in Capricorn will also be passing through a conjunction with the South Node of the Moon in Capricorn. Furthermore, this will all occur just as the waxing crescent light of the Moon forms a conjunction with Chiron in Aries and a square aspect with Mars in Capricorn. There is deep potency here for descent into inner realms of shadow and exploring our relationship with the ideals we use to generate our force of will in the external world. It’s an opportune time to contemplate our relationship with having agency in our life. The etymology of agency involves effectiveness, power, performing, setting things in motion, and driving things forward. We can also become agents of larger forces and institutions as part of going after what we want to possess in life. Who are you serving with your agency, your performance, and your power?

8 of Cups by Pamela Colman Smith

Pisces 1 Decan

The Pisces New Moon falls in the first decan of Pisces associated with the Eight of Cups card illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. The image contains a figure retreating into a watery, island realm of caves and seclusion ideal for contemplation. Their staff planted in earth, their red cape and boots signify the flowing vitality they may contact within a cultivated space of sacred meditation and ritual. The first face of Pisces is ruled by Saturn, which aligns perfectly with the image of a hermit turning away from the accepted and familiar in order to receive new visions of depth and penetrating insight.

Austin Coppock ascribed the image of “The Labyrinth” to the first face of Pisces in his book 36 Faces, noting it signifies “a quest to map invisible walls of reality,” “the subtle structures which guide human life,” as well as the realization that our own unconscious is a primal progenitor of our current reality. Coppock wrote that in the first decan of Pisces we “recognize our imprisonment in our own reality construct” as well as “the possibility of liberation” from moving beyond our former boundaries into “a world as yet uncorrupted by our assumptions.” Coppock concluded the “liberation is achieved through insight alone,” meaning that through acceptance of our capacity for re-creating our maze-like circumstances, we may reframe the sense of imprisonment within our labyrinth as having dominion within our own palace. This meaning of the first face of Pisces fits well with the Pisces New Moon separating from a sextile aspect with Uranus in Taurus.

The link between the primal, fertile potency of the unconscious with the first face of Pisces is interesting considering that the ancient Hellenistic text The 36 Airs linked the first face of Pisces with the titanic sea divinity Okeanos. More of a primal sea divinity than Poseidon, Okeanos was also known as the oceanic field surrounding the world where the Sun rises from at dawn and returns to at sunset. Tim Addey in The Seven Myths of the Soul stated that Okeanos was considered the “God of Separative Intellect” in Orphic theology. In its Orphic Hymn, Okeanos is described as the source of every river, sea, and spring that brings divine purification to our human realm. The nourishing mists from this fertile, oceanic void touch us when adrift upon waves of aquatic life or when staring into the sea. Allow the purifying waters of the New Moon in Pisces to cleanse your vision, fortifying your resolve to embody your most sacred values in relationship with others.

There, see, the new moon, / The King of life blessing her; / Fragrant be every night / Whereon she shall shine!

Be her lustre full / To each one in need; / Be her course complete / To each one beset.

Be her light above / With every one in straits; / Be her guidance below / With every one in need.

May the moon of moons / Be coming through thick clouds / On me and on every one / Coming through dark tears.

May God’s hand on me dwell / In every strait that me befalls, / Now and till the hour of my death, / And till the day of my resurrection.

— Traditional Scottish prayer

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References

Brady, Bernadette. (1998). Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars. Weiser.

Brady, Bernadette. (2008). Star and Planet Combinations. The Wessex Astrologer.

Carmichael, Alexander. (2006). Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations. Floris Books.

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

Mercury retrograde in Pisces & Aquarius

February 17, 2020February 19, 2020 / grayastrology / 15 Comments

Felix-Hilaire Buhot (1860-98) The Seascape Painter

Mercury Stations Retrograde in Pisces

We paused amid the pines that stood / The giants of the waste, / Tortured by storms to shapes as rude / As serpents interlaced, / And soothed by every azure breath / That under Heaven is blown / To harmonies and hues beneath, / As tender as its own; / Now all the tree-tops lay asleep / Like green waves on the sea, / As still as in the silent deep / The Ocean woods may be.

— from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s To Jane. The Recollection

Mercury is at home in the liminal, in between thought and expression, in threshold experiences of leaving one state to enter another. Mercury is the only planet that defies definitions fixing it to a singular category, as it can be benefic or malefic, nocturnal or diurnal, masculine or feminine, depending upon whatever surrounding influences it is mixing with. Mercury delights in transitions within storylines, the unexpected twist or turn, and the loss that catches you off guard and brings awareness to a necessary lesson. Just as Mercury corresponds with stones of many colors, so does it rejoice in the changing hues of sunrise and sunset where it fleetingly shares its light with us. It’s thus ironic that so many hold a rigidly negative judgment against Mercury when retrograde.

When Mercury stations retrograde on February 16, it will twinkle in the sky one last time as the sun sets. After Mercury follows the sun into the darkness of night it will enter its invisible retrograde phase, taking on the role of psychopomp guiding us into the underworld of our unconscious. Mercury shifting retrograde is not an abhorrent aberration, but rather a natural phase of dissolution, purification, and regeneration that is essential to the meaning and function of Mercury. Perhaps it is the cultural emphasis on progress, future goals, and linear processes that leads people to complain about the nonlinear, magical reality Mercury activates when retrograde.

Mercury when retrograde possesses the logic of symbols and poetry more so than instruction manuals, especially when in its fall in Pisces. Mercury retrograde in its fall will compel awareness into incubatory darkness and places of low lying depth rather than exalted heights, especially since it is also under rulership of Jupiter in its fall in Capricorn. Mercury is ready to take us on a deep dive into boundless oceanic depths where we may excavate long lost fragments of ancient secrets harbored in sunken treasure. Mercury stations retrograde on February 16 at 12º53′ Pisces near Neptune at 17º37′ Pisces, with Jupiter at 17º02′ Capricorn and applying to a harmonious sextile with Neptune.

The visible, evening star phase of Mercury that will end after it stations retrograde was seeded on January 10 during a Lunar Eclipse in Cancer and a new cycle beginning between Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn. The retrograde movement of Mercury will test and temper aspirations that arose in correspondence with the potent Capricorn seeding in January, loosening our control so as to reveal any unstable elements in need of shedding or shoring up. Furthermore, since Jupiter in Capricorn is receiving Neptune through a waning sextile aspect, we will be called to reorient our beliefs and perspective with the deep, underlying changes that have started to take shape. The disintegration and breakdowns brought forth by Mercury retrograde will incite a shedding of illusions that have accumulated, purging and purifying understanding.

As Jupiter will complete its sextile with Neptune on February 20 and then eventually move within three degrees of its first conjunction with Pluto by the end of Mercury’s retrograde passage, the amorphous perception of Mercury retrograde in Pisces can dissolve the culturally conditioned boundaries that will become volatilized through the catharsis of Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto coming together. If we can fluidly engage with Mercury’s capacity for dislodging stuck, habitual patterns we can gain increased flexibility in responding to the wider societal changes that will be happening. Yet since Pisces is the inwardly directed home of Jupiter, Mercury’s sleight of hand within its watery landscape can blur distinctions and cause confusion through focusing on larger visions rather than practical details.

Mercury’s retrograde journey will not take place entirely within the ocean of Pisces, however, as Mercury will backtrack into Aquarius on March 4, station direct in Aquarius on March 9, and remain inside the fixed sign of air until March 16 when it returns to Pisces. Since Aquarius is the intellectually oriented, airy home of Saturn, the creative chaos stirred up by Mercury in its first seventeen days of being retrograde will give rise to clarifying insight once Mercury climbs out of the waves of Pisces in order to contemplate and distill wisdom within the sign of the Water Bearer. Until then, Mercury will need to utilize the extrasensory perception of Pisces and the divinatory tools at its disposal to chart our course along a deep sea expedition.

Baro Urbigerus (1705)

“Mercury . . . has such power over the animal spirit that he is said both to put minds to sleep and to wake them up with his caduceus, that is to say, by any aspect of his, disposed this way or that, he can miraculously either blunt the wits or sharpen them, weaken or strengthen them, agitate or calm them.”

–Marsilio Ficino, Book III, Chapter XI of Three Books on Life

Our astrological ancestors such as Marsilio Ficino and William Lilly viewed Mercury as ruling the animal spirit, a term we can connect in modern terminology with the interplay between our nervous system responses and our emotional sensations. Although the planet Mercury is not classically viewed as having dignity in the astrological element of water, William Lilly linked Mercury with the element of water through its watery role in alchemy in which it is the fluid mediator between spirit and matter. As Mercury pauses in stillness to shift retrograde, it signals that we are crossing a threshold into a passage of putrefaction and dissolution in which matters will need to be broken apart in order to bring about a process of purifying reassembly.

Mercury retrograde in the water triplicity will be one of the key astrological themes of 2020, for the next two subsequent Mercury retrograde periods this year will also be in water signs. Mercury will be retrograde in Cancer from June 17 through July 12, and then will be retrograde in Scorpio from October 13 until October 27 when it will move backwards into Libra, stationing direct in Libra on November 3. The water signs are traditionally known as being mute, places where Mercury’s caduceus transmits feelings, the deeper meaning behind language, and the indescribable significance of visual images and symbols. Pay attention to the three houses of your natal chart ruled by water signs and the sequence of topical significations that will unfold as Mercury moves retrograde through each one this year. Although the astrology of 2020 has a lot of emphasis on the elements of earth, wind, and fire, Mercury through its retrograde motion in water signs will be calling for us to purify and regenerate our emotional presence and ability to share and receive feelings with others.

Mercury is known for its dissolving and blending capacities which mediate polarities such as between conscious and unconscious, day and night, solar and lunar, the sacred and mundane, and so on. Yet Pisces is known to be challenging terrain for Mercury where emotional receptivity and extrasensory perceptions are accentuated more so than skill in clear articulation of ideas through linear language and logic. Being a mutable sign ruled by Jupiter where Venus is exalted, Pisces is a watery landscape of fishponds, rivers, and springs that inspires us to daydream, unifying elements of thought through synthesis and harmony. Due to its exceptional sensitivity, however, Mercury in Pisces is at risk when emotional flooding disrupts its capacity for discernment and clarity.

Thus when the trickster role of Mercury retrograde rears its head to pull the proverbial rug out from under you, find ways to recover and restore your nerves such as through a hot bath soaked in calming herbs and salts. Rather than cursing the fate of being gripped by the cunning Hermes, it is advisable to keep an open and curious mind regarding whatever unplanned changes occur, as Mercury retrograde is known for making changes in plot that will lead to unforeseen fruit in the future. It’s also wise to use Mercury retrograde in Pisces for what it is good for: being receptive to omens within nature, listening to and exploring the meaning of your dreams, and utilizing whatever forms of divination you can access for guidance.

William Lilly in Christian Astrology, Book Three declared that Mercury in Pisces “makes [wo]men given to Magic, either in hope or dissemblingly.” There is a compelling asteroid connection with not only the capacity of Mercury in Pisces for magic, but also Neptune’s co-presence in Pisces looming over the retrograde journey of Mercury: the Circe asteroid is applying within one and a half degrees to a conjunction with Mercury as it stations retrograde in Pisces, forming an exact conjunction on February 19. We can therefore integrate the mythopoetic meaning of Circe into the opening phase of Mercury retrograde in Pisces.

Circe is a magical solar goddess who is the daughter of Helios and plays a pivotal role in the ancient tale of the mercurial hero Odysseus enduring the retribution of Poseidon/Neptune. In fact, Hermes mediates the enchantment of Odysseus by Circe through precise instruction for how Odysseus may successfully navigate through this rather retrograde episode of his journey. Crucially, Circe ultimately advises Odysseus regarding his destiny, similar to the ancient tradition across numerous cultures in which a hero descends into the underworld in order for the destiny they need to claim to be illuminated by the Goddess. Indeed, Circe not only tells Odysseus that he needs to descend into the underworld, she tells him how to do so as well as how to successfully reascend. Similarly, there will be a deeper layer of our destiny to discover, claim, and embody during the underworld journey of Mercury moving retrograde.

Felix-Hilaire Buhot (1865-98) The Night Prowlers

Into the Black

“Wisdom’s beginning is to give up on the endless fuss of looking hopefully into the future for some final solution to our ignorance, some perfect correction to the mess we’ve made so far.

It starts the same way it ends– with looking back, exactly as Jung recommended, and into oneself. Instead of stepping forwards we have to walk backwards into the place inside us all where the answers already lie and have always been waiting.”

— Peter Kingsley, Catafalque

There will be a jolt of inspiration when Mercury stations retrograde on February 16, as the Moon will be at 11º38′ Sagittarius and applying to a superior square aspect with Mercury as well as Neptune, signifying that the irrational side of rationality may take prominence. From sunset on February 16 when Mercury disappears from view until February 25 when Mercury is regenerated through its conjunction with the Pisces Sun, you can align with Mercury’s solar phase by letting go and breaking things down, releasing old patterns and storylines ready to be composted. Since the Moon will be waning in light until forming a New Moon in Pisces on February 23, the lunar cycle during the first week of Mercury retrograde will accentuate the putrefaction of Mercury getting closer each day to being burned up in the Sun.

Mars will enter its exaltation in Capricorn on the same day that Mercury stations retrograde in Pisces, demarcating February 16 as a critical turning point in the year. Mars will generate an intense, catalytic force as it transits through Capricorn at the same time as the South Node of the Moon, Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn are co-present in the sign of the Sea Goat. Mars in Capricorn will immediately begin applying toward a flowing trine with Uranus in Taurus followed by a conjunction with the South Node of the Moon, amplifying the volatility already being stirred up by Mercury stationing retrograde. While an exalted Mars in Capricorn brings increased drive in working hard to achieve aspirations, as it approaches its union with the South Node of the Moon while Mercury simultaneously deepens into its retrograde, we will be invited to peel back the surface layers of our ambitions to explore the undersoil feeding the roots of our striving.

The days between February 18 through February 20 will be particularly potent as the waning Moon in Capricorn will pass through conjunctions with Mars, its own South Node, Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn as well as forming sextile aspects with Mercury retrograde and Neptune in Pisces. Pay attention to whatever emotions become activated by your experiences on these days, as key insight may be received regarding what you have been desiring to achieve, why you have been desiring it, and whether or not the way you have been using your time and energy has been serving your higher purpose.

The New Moon on February 23 will occur at 4°28′ Pisces, two days before Mercury will be reseeded through its conjunction with the Sun. Within the darkness of the Pisces New Moon, Mercury retrograde will be in close proximity with the Sun and therefore will be embodying solar qualities that can burn off whatever is ready to be purged. Since Venus in Aries will be forming a square aspect with Jupiter in Capricorn during the Pisces New Moon, making space to explore our own inner darkness can lead to the realization of old relationship patterns we are ready to release, while regenerating our desires for creating what we want to receive in relationship.

Felix-Hilaire Buhot Midnight Revel

Chthonic Cazimi

Gie me ae spark o’ Nature’s fire, / That’s a’ the learning I desire; / Then, tho’ I drudge thro’ dub an’ mire / At pleugh or cart, / My Muse, tho’ hamely in attire, / May touch the heart.

— Robert Burns (from Epistle to J. Lapraik: an Old Scottish Bard, April 1, 1785

On February 25, Mercury retrograde will unite with the Sun at 6°55′ Pisces during its inferior conjunction. This is an ending and beginning, a rebirth moment for Mercury that deserves time set aside for contemplation and consideration, as Mercury will align in between our orbit with the Sun as close to our Earth as it is possible for Mercury to be. Astrologers have named the union between Sol with the wandering planets cazimi, or being in the heart of the Sun: the moment in which Mercury is revitalized with the creative potency of our solar light. During its solar re-seeding, Mercury will be regenerated and purified within a place Demetra George has described as the “protected space at the heart of the Sun . . . the innermost holy chamber of the mystery initiations.” We can imagine Mercury reverent in ritual, enclosed in a grotto moistened by sweet spring water, ready to cleanse us with the holy water of Pisces.

Fascinatingly, Mercury will unite with the Sun on February 25 during roughly the same time that Mars in Capricorn will be forming a conjunction with the South Node of the Moon in Capricorn. Furthermore, the inferior conjunction of Mercury will form an exact sextile aspect with Mars and the South Node of the Moon in Capricorn, as well as a sextile aspect with Uranus in Taurus. There is deep potency here for descent into inner realms of shadow and exploring our relationship with the ideals we use to generate our force of will in the external world. Turning away from the force exerted on the present by the future, turning toward the light in the darkness of the living dead, abandoning ambition to lay down low, within our incubation a healing insight may emerge from our subconscious.

There is resonant living symbolism for this sacred opportunity being offered by the star of Hermes that can be found in the ancient tale of Odysseus. As previously mentioned, Mercury stations retrograde while conjoining the asteroid Circe, the solar goddess who directed Odysseus to descend into the underworld. Thus it is fitting that in the greatest depths of its underworld journey, in between life and death as it melts into the fires of the Sun, Mercury retrograde will be mutually applying to a conjunction with the Odysseus asteroid at 2º08′ Pisces. After the mercurial hero Odysseus follows the advice of the Goddess and descends into the living underworld, he encounters not only blood ancestors such as his mother but also the collective realm of mythic heroes and heroines in the forms of Heracles, Orion, Minos, Sisyphus, Tantalus, Agamemnon, Leda, Ariadne, and Achilles among others. While Odysseus also learns from a blind prophet the degree to which he has been subject to treachery from Poseidon, a plot line within astrology we could connect to our present relationship with Neptune, the great mystery of what he received from the collective realm of ancestors was the deeper wisdom.

We know that astrology has its roots in philosophies that bind our inner nature with the outer radiance of the stars that shine above us. That we wish upon stars, search to know and realize our guiding star or guardian angel, and that most commonly this deeper process is reflected in the way we use celebrities from the present and heroic figures from the past to serve as our role models and sources of inspiration. The days surrounding the chthonic cazimi of Mercury retrograde in Pisces will be fruitful for exploring the ideals and values under sourcing the role models we have been mentored and guided by. As we deepen into our relationship with the ideals we have clung to in the past, so may we better regenerate a sense of meaning to guide us into the unknown future.

Alexei Savrasov (1875) Monastery Gates

Mercury Stations Direct in Aquarius

Under the self same bough, and heard as there / The birds, the fountains and the Ocean hold / Sweet talk in music through the enamored air. / And then a Vision on my brain was rolled . . .

— from Percy Bysshe Shelly’s The Triumph of Life

After passing through its purifying conjunction with the Sun on February 25, Mercury will continue to move retrograde through Pisces until it enters Aquarius on March 4. Mercury’s backward movement into Aquarius also marks its return to visibility as a Morning Star heralding the rise of the Sun each morning. Pay close attention to the days following March 4 for important messages, signs, and omens as the re-emergence of Mercury into visibility is an oracular moment in which Mercury delivers significant messages as well as insight into the meaning we can gather from its recent underworld phase of invisibility.

Amazingly, Mercury will station direct on March 9 at 28°12′ Aquarius during a Full Moon in Virgo in which the Sun will be conjoining Neptune in Pisces. Making the surrounding lunation even more catalytic, Venus will also be conjoining Uranus in Taurus while Chiron in Aries will be forming a square to the transiting lunar nodes. This means that Mercury stationing direct as well as the Virgo Full Moon will occur one day after Neptune’s solar cycle will be regenerated through a conjunction with the Pisces Sun. To say that Neptune’s influence in astrology is multivalent is an understatement, and it’s influence over the stationing of Mercury direct will be seen in many ways. Most simply, it is likely that the full light of the lunation combined with Mercury stationing will simultaneously coalesce imaginal insight that can be directed into creative expression as well as will reveal illusions that have been clouding our perception.

Following the Full Moon in Virgo, Mercury will slowly begin moving forward and will remain in Aquarius until March 16. Pay attention to what whole sign houses in your natal chart are signified by Pisces and Aquarius in order to reflect upon the associated life topics and how they may become activated and then reactivated as Mercury moves back and forth in between Pisces and Aquarius in the first couple of weeks in March.

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Maximum Morning Star in Pisces

After Mercury returns to Pisces on March 16, Mercury will reach maximum elongation as a Morning Star on March 23 at seven degrees of Pisces. This demarcates the point in which Mercury will have picked up enough speed to match the steady course of the Sun again. From this day forward, Mercury will move increasingly faster as it proceeds through its Morning Star phase. Gary Caton described this solar phase of Mercury as being similar to the rubedo phase within alchemy in his book Hermetica Tryptycha. As we work to integrate the insights and changes in perspective realized during Mercury’s retrograde journey, Caton noted that we should expect to endure a phase of chaotic volatility as we make a commitment to embody a new presence of being.

Just days before Mercury will reach its maximum elongation as a Morning Star, there will be an incredibly powerful Aries equinox (on March 19 or 20, depending upon time zone) seeding themes for the year ahead. As the Sun ingresses into its exaltation of Aries, Mars will be forming an exact conjunction with Jupiter and applying toward a conjunction with Pluto in Capricorn. Meanwhile, Saturn will be at the very end of Capricorn preparing to make its grand entrance into its airy home of Aquarius two days later on March 21 or 22, depending upon your time zone. Mars exalted in Capricorn mixing it up with Jupiter and Pluto will inject the full force of Spring erupting from the underworld into Mercury reaching maximum elongation as a Morning Star. Combining this with the enormity of Saturn entering a new sign for the first time will create an atmosphere of immense change for Mercury to mediate.

Mercury will finally return to the same place it originally stationed retrograde at on March 29 at the same time that Jupiter and Pluto are on the cusp of finally completing their first exact conjunction of the year in Capricorn, while Mars is simultaneously applying toward an exact conjunction with Saturn in Aquarius. At this point the magnitude of immense change promised by the astrology of 2020 will be fully set in motion, with Mercury fully activated as a Morning Star and lending us its light in the liminal shade before sunrise. The more we work with the internal processes Mercury seeks to guide us toward during its retrograde motion, the more fully awake we will be to creatively engage with the great collective changes taking shape at the end of March.

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References

Burns, Robert. (1897). The Complete Poetical Works. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.

Caton, Gary. (2017). Hermetica Triptycha: The Mercury Elemental Year. Rubedo Press.

Ficino, Marsilio. (1998 edition). Three Books on Life. A Critical Edition and Translation with Introduction and Notes by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies.

George, Demetra. (2019). Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice: a Manual of Traditional Techniques. Rubedo Press.

Lilly, William. (2004 edition). Christian Astrology. Astrology Classics.

Kingsley, Peter. (2018). Catafalque. Catafalque Press.

Shelley, P.B. (2002). Shelley’s Poetry and Prose. WW Norton & Company.

Full Moon in Pisces: Flow into Fomalhaut

August 26, 2018August 26, 2018 / grayastrology / 4 Comments

from the book of Lamspring (1607) kept in the library of Salzburg

Full Moon in Pisces

The Full Moon in Pisces on August 26 illuminates the lunar cycle that began with the partial Solar Eclipse in Leo on August 11, facilitating the finding of one’s place within all of the volatile changes that have been stirred up since June by Mars retrograde, Mercury retrograde, and a series of three eclipses in a row. Eclipse season has now ended, Mercury retrograde is over with Mercury firmly direct, and Mars is finally stationing direct as the Full Moon forms. The changes stirred up by the eclipses and Mars retrograde will be continuing to take shape in the next couple of months, but the Pisces Full Moon contains many supportive aspects that makes it an ideal time to recenter and revision plans in accord with recent shifts in storylines.

There is a stabilizing, flowing earth triangle formed at the Full Moon by the Sun in Virgo, Uranus in Taurus, and Saturn in Capricorn. The Full Moon forms what some astrologers call a “kite” with the earth triangle, with the Pisces Full Moon at the midpoint of Saturn and Uranus, forming a harmonious sextile to each. Making this alignment even more potent, Saturn in Capricorn is slowing down to station direct on September 6, making the influence of Saturn especially strong in the week following the Full Moon. Altogether these aspects support breakthrough plans, taking new initiative cut free from inhibitions or restrictions from the past. Most importantly these aspects provide tangible, practical grounding into discerning how to structure and manifest innovative ideas and make real progress toward overarching goals that weave together diverse elements of core values.

The Full Moon is ruled by Jupiter in Scorpio separating from a trine with Neptune in Pisces, and applying toward a sextile with Pluto in Capricorn. As a result Jupiter in Scorpio brings a deepening and intensification to all manner of visionary projects and creative expression worked on in the light of the Full Moon. These aspects with Neptune and Pluto form part of the central promise of Jupiter’s time in Scorpio that began in October 2017, and so the Pisces Full Moon highlights how we can find treasures within the underworld domain Jupiter has been inhabiting while in Scorpio. The gifts Jupiter brings while in Scorpio are not found within easy experiences so much as they are discovered when bravely confronting difficult questions and dynamics. Jupiter remains bright in night skies and is moving direct through its final passage in Scorpio that will end November 8 when Jupiter enters Sagittarius.

As there have been numerous difficult collective experiences occurring with regard to environmental and political toxicity, the Pisces Full Moon points to what positive growth we can cultivate for ourselves and surrounding communities. If things have been falling apart around you and you have been burdened by grief or anger over upsetting events, the Pisces Full Moon also offers a climate supportive for an outpouring of emotion that can bring cleansing through the release. In particular the Pisces Full Moon is well suited for transmuting difficult feelings through expression and creation in any of the arts, whether that process involves tactile building or more intellective, abstract processing.

Pisces Notius aka Piscis Austrinus “the Southern Fish” with Fomalhaut in the mouth drinking the water poured by Aquarius, from Uranographia (1801) by Johann Bode

Fomalhaut

The Pisces Full Moon is aligned closely by zodiacal degree with the great fixed star Fomalhaut, one of the four royal stars of Persia considered since ancient times to be one of the four watchers of the year. Due to precession, around 3,000 BC in Persia it became known as the “Watcher in the South” due to marking the Winter Solstice, according to Bernadette Brady in her book on fixed stars. Its heliacal rising was also aligned with Greek temples devoted to Demeter around 500 BC. Fomalhaut is a star in the mouth of the Southern Fish, a constellation distinct from the fish of the Pisces constellation. Fomalhaut is at the point of intake where the Southern Fish is drinking from the celestial water poured by the constellation of Aquarius, the Water Bearer. Bernadette Brady wrote that Fomalhaut and the Southern Fish can be associated with the fish in Celtic mythology holding great wisdom to be discovered by those willing to venture into its watery depths. Ptolemy linked Fomalhaut with Venus and Mercury and there has been a long tradition by various astrologers of describing it as an angelic, poetic, guiding star of mystics.

Bernadette Brady additionally wrote that Fomalhaut is not only associated with “charisma,” “beauty or perfect harmony,” but also “high ideals or lofty visions” that force individuals under its influence “to clash with mainstream thought in order to achieve these ideals.” Brady also noted the warning that comes with all of the Royal Stars, that while Fomalhaut can signify true success it can also lead to a total downfall “if the ideals or dreams are corrupt in any way.” Oftentimes Mars retrograde periods call us to do things differently, taking action in areas we have previously held back from engaging with. When our ideals clash with the status quo, unless we are rebellious by nature it can take time to cultivate the inner fortitude needed to buck convention. With Mars now stationing direct, Fomalhaut’s co-presence with the Full Moon will strengthen resolve to follow through with unconventional visions.

There is interesting symbolism with Fomalhaut drinking the water of the Aquarius constellation, since Mars stationed retrograde in tropical Aquarius and is stationing direct as the Full Moon aligns with Fomalhaut. Fomalhaut’s influence will aid in creatively actualizing whatever has been stirred up by the Mars retrograde, fueling achievement of idealistic visions. Interestingly, the Pisces Full Moon is the most auspicious full Moon we have experienced since the Sagittarius Full Moon on May 29 that was aligned with two of the other royal stars, Antares and Aldebaran (Sun was conjoining Aldebaran; Moon was conjoining Antares). The Sagittarius Full Moon occurred before the Mars retrograde, and so with Mars stationing direct now there can be significant movement on whatever has been developing since that time. The Pisces Full Moon signals a time to take action on developing vision.

from the book of Lamspring (1607) kept in the library of Salzburg

Venus & Mercury: Creative Visualization

The Full Moon is in the bounds of Venus, with Venus at her brightest phase during twilight as an Evening Star. Venus is also at home in Libra and so strongly sovereign in both phase and place: she is embodying her role as Queen of Heaven. Yet she has an important challenge to face and integrate from Pluto in Capricorn, as Venus is in a square aspect with Pluto. This aspect can dredge up deep, previously buried desires to process, as well as catalyze empowering ambition that will benefit from the spacial and relational perception of Libra that can discern how to take action without causing damaging disruption within relationships. Venus in Libra is on the superior side of the square with Pluto, suggesting that social justice conflicts involving plutocratic power structures will have the scales tipped in favor of those fighting for equity and possessing ethical concern for oppression caused by systematic bias. As the fullness in lunar light amplifies feelings, so will the tension between Venus and Pluto lead to an outpouring of emotional expression and catharsis.

After Venus completes her square with Pluto, she will begin moving toward a square aspect with Mars in Capricorn during the waning cycle of the Moon that will finally complete on September 8 during a Dark Moon in Virgo. Venus will also begin to descend lower and lower each night in elevation as an Evening Star as she approaches her retrograde phase in Scorpio that will begin on October 5. Venus will enter the zodiacal degree shadow zone of her upcoming retrograde phase on September 2 at 25°14 Libra, the degree at which she will eventually station direct at the end of her retrograde in November. Since we know a Venus retrograde period is coming in October, we can begin to gain awareness for shifting narratives and changes we can sense are beginning to take shape in relationships.

Fascinatingly, just before entering her shadow zone Venus will form a conjunction with the benefic fixed star Spica on August 31, a conjunction that will not only happen by zodiacal degree but also visually in the sky. Around August 31 we will be able to see Venus as an Evening Star in the same space as Spica, the fixed star that forms the wheat held by the winged goddess of the Virgo constellation. Spica is associated with Venus and has a long tradition of being connected with bountiful gifts, talents, and reception of important knowledge. As a result it as if Spica is initiating Venus into her upcoming underworld journey, giving us a gift of insight to take with us into our experience with Venus retrograde in Scorpio and Libra in October and November.

A day after Venus enters her shadow zone she will form an exact sextile with Mercury in Leo on September 3. At the time of the Full Moon Mercury is already within four degrees of a sextile with Venus and so will be in an extended harmonious relationship with Venus in the week and a half following the Pisces Full Moon. Mercury is also applying to a square with Jupiter in Scorpio at the Full Moon, the third and final time that Mercury has formed a square with Jupiter recently due to its retrograde (previously Mercury was square to Jupiter on August 11 and July 9). This is yet another element of the Pisces Full Moon supporting taking a leap forward toward visions we have previously not felt ready to devote ourselves fully toward.

At the time of the Pisces lunation Mercury will also be at maximum elongation as a Morning Star after having previously gone through its retrograde phase, which is in contrast to Venus being at the maximum elongation that precedes her upcoming retrograde phase. Altogether this means there is an exchange of insight occurring between Mercury and Venus as we transition from a period of Mercury and Mars being retrograde into a period of Venus being retrograde. We now have the potential to embody increased levels of creativity sourced by the regenerative process of Mercury being retrograde in July and August during a series of eclipses. The week following the Full Moon will support taking risks and initiating change in alignment with whatever wants to emerge from the recent period of volatility.

Mercury will enter its home and exaltation in Virgo as the Moon wanes in light on September 5, forming a trine with Saturn as it stations direct in Capricorn on September 6. Immediately upon entering Virgo, Mercury will re-activate the earth triangle formed by Uranus in Taurus, Saturn in Capricorn, and Mercury in Virgo. Mercury is extremely effective with discerning analysis while in Virgo, and will prove to be a valuable ally in figuring out how to most effectively implement plans and problem solve whatever difficulties arise.

from the book of Lamspring (1607) kept in the library of Salzburg

Mars Stationing Direct

An immense influence over the Pisces Full Moon comes from the fiery red planet Mars that is finally stationing direct. Mars will station direct on August 28 at 28°36′ Capricorn, dominating the astrological atmosphere with its assertive, separative, and martial influence in the surrounding week. Mars has been retrograde since it stationed at 9°13′ Aquarius on June 26, and with it finally beginning to slowly shift forward again in the week following the Full Moon, those who have felt frustrated by their experience and expression with Mars retrograde may get the sense of their full will force returning to them. The Pisces Full Moon will also serve as a final illumination of whatever inner transformation has coincided with Mars being retrograde and is now informing outer expression.

Although Mars stations direct a couple of days after the Full Moon, it essentially is not moving and will remain between 28 and 29 degrees of Capricorn through September 3. Mars will eventually return to Aquarius on September 11, form its final conjunction with the South Node of the Moon in Aquarius on September 25, and will finally exits its retrograde shadow zone on October 8. This means that we are going to continue dealing with all of the changes brought by Mars retrograde over the course of the next month and into October. Keeping this in mind, the stationing of Mars will bring revitalized desire to strike out in a new direction or go deeper in current direction. It’s also a good time to watch for triggers to conflict and avoid fights that are not necessary and drain energy levels. If you have been dealing with a lot of strife recently involving separations of some kind, there is likely a reborn presence you have recovered in the process to now embody more fully.

8 of Cups by Pamela Colman Smith

Pisces 1 Decan

The Pisces Full Moon falls in the first face of Pisces, associated with the 8 of Cups card illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. In the image the Sun appears to be becoming partially eclipsed, an interesting connection with the Pisces Full Moon illuminating a lunar cycle that began with a partial Solar Eclipse in Leo. The image contains a figure retreating into a watery, island realm of caves and seclusion ideal for contemplation. Their staff planted in earth, their red cape and boots signify the flowing vitality they may contact within a cultivated space of sacred meditation and ritual. The first face of Pisces is ruled by Saturn, which aligns perfectly with the image of a hermit turning away from the accepted and familiar in order to receive new visions of depth and penetrating insight.

Austin Coppick ascribed the image of “The Labyrinth” to the first face of Pisces, noting it signifies “a quest to map invisible walls of reality,” “the subtle structures which guide human life,” as well as the realization that our own unconscious is a primal progenitor of our current reality. Coppock wrote that in the first decan of Pisces we “recognize our imprisonment in our own reality construct” as well as “the possibility of liberation” from moving beyond our former boundaries into “a world as yet uncorrupted by our assumptions.” Coppock concluded the “liberation is achieved through insight alone,” meaning not only that our soul can re-create our maze-like circumstances, but also that through acceptance of our present labyrinth we may discover what we felt to be a prison can instead be experienced as a palace.

Ocean I call, whose nature ever flows, from whom at first both Gods and men arose; / Sire incorruptible, whose waves surround, and earth’s concluding mighty circle bound: / Hence every river, hence the spreading sea, and earth’s pure bubbling fountains spring from thee: / Hear, mighty fire, for boundless bliss is thine, whose waters purify the pow’rs divine: / Earth’s friendly limit, fountain of the pole, whose waves wide spreading and circumfluent roll. / Approach benevolent, with placid mind, and be for ever to thy mystics kind.

There is a sense of the fertile void that gives birth to all we can feel when staring into the ocean and smelling its scent, when drifting within its waves and aquatic life. Open to communion with soul at the Pisces Full Moon, and allow yourself to be guided from what emerges from within. The Pisces Full Moon signals a period of recovery from the stormy astrological weather of recent months, a time to nurture newfound strength and take initiative in helping to create the world we wish to live in. As Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote:

Whoever you are: in the evening step out / of your room, where you know everything; / yours is the last house before the far-off: / whoever you are. / With your eyes, which in their weariness / barely free themselves from the worn-out threshold, / you lift very slowly one black tree / and place it against the sky: slender, alone. / And you have made the world. And it is huge / and like a word which grows ripe in silence. / And as your will seizes on its meaning, / tenderly your eyes let it go . . .

“Entrance” by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Edward Snow

References

Addey, Tim. (2000). The Seven Myths of the Soul. The Prometheus Trust.

Brady, Bernadette. (1998). Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars. Weiser.

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

Rilke, Rainer Maria. (1991). The Book of Images. Translated by Edward Snow. North Point Press.

Scorpio Full Moon & Jupiter

April 29, 2018 / grayastrology / Leave a comment

Detail from The Cross Rose in the Garden of Venus by Marlene Seven Bremner (2016)

Full Moon in Scorpio

We marvel at the lush petals opening, quivering in colorful scent. Yet its the roots, invisible and unnoticed that nourish the splendor. The Full Moon in Scorpio invites us to descend into sensation, into our hidden inner world that replenishes vitality and sources our full presence in the world. Authentic growth comes from deepening into the senses of soul, quietly embracing how the fullness of our inner senses receives the fullness of the outside world. The Full Moon is united with Jupiter in Scorpio, meaning there is revelry to be found in depths of thought and feeling, whether through shared intimacy or solitary, penetrating contemplation.

Taurus has the grace of calm power and a stubborn resolve for maintaining the stability of whatever brings pleasure and nurturance. The season of Taurus invites gratitude for the beauty we find in our surroundings and doing the necessary work to prepare the fields of our domain for the harvest we wish to reap in the year ahead. The polarity of the Full Moon in Scorpio digs underneath the surface of our motivations to the primal desires that drive us and bring the intrinsic resiliency to persevere with full participation in life. The polarity between Scorpio and Taurus is a powerhouse willing to dig in and do the necessary work, and the surrounding astrological aspects indicate there are important endeavors to complete. However, it will also be important to make space and time for sensing within as its an especially fertile lunation for uncovering previously concealed insight.

The Scorpio Full Moon illuminates the path that has opened in the aftermath of numerous tumultuous astrological aspects that have dominated April. Over the course of the past month Mars has moved from a conjunction with Saturn (April 2) through a conjunction with Pluto (April 26) its beginning to separate from at the lunation. Mercury in Aries has formed two catalytic square aspects with Saturn in Capricorn, first while retrograde (April 5) and then a final time recently while direct (April 25). During the past month plans may not have gone smoothly, unforeseen obstacles or delays may have emerged, and our desires may have taken us off pre-planned paths into unknown terrain. The aspects surrounding the lunation suggest that however things have been developing, we have been given the needed information and felt the needed desires for intensifying realization of passion and purpose.

The union of Mars and Pluto in Capricorn rules the Full Moon, amplifying the potency of the lunation’s alliance with Jupiter. Whatever has been lurking in the shadows comes forward, demanding awareness. In some cases this subconscious material involves our positive potential we have been denying or holding back from. It also can involve ghosts of the past stirring up regrets, disappointments, and memories of immature behaviors we have now outgrown. Instead of debilitating ourselves with excessive self criticism, allow the putrefaction of the past to feed reception of the vital new presence ready to emerge from within. Mars and Pluto can be engaged best with the integrity of honest expression. If we attempt to block expression due to fear of external disapproval, the suppressed volatility of Mars and Pluto will erupt with volcanic force and unforeseen consequences. As a result its important to clarify internal feelings and then find ways to ground the inner fire into concrete action.

from Rosarium Philosophorum

The Full Moon in Scorpio forms a square and symbolic crossroads with its North Node in Leo and South Node in Aquarius. This deeply stirs lunar states of mind, irrational feelings, psychic messages, and subtle guidance to glean from flowing unconscious streams, especially since the Scorpio Moon is also applying to a trine with Neptune in Pisces. The Full Moon is at the bendings, and though this can feel chaotic it also creates reflective opportunities for investigating the undercurrents of our current trajectory and surrounding developments in relationships. Practically, this means that the Full Moon is at the point of forming a square aspect with the previous Leo Lunar Eclipse (January 31) as well as the upcoming Aquarius Lunar Eclipse (July 27). There are strong currents to navigate as the Scorpio Full Moon peaks, so do your best to balance the compulsive force of the union between Mars and Pluto with reflecting upon your current path and next steps to take. The force of Mars and Pluto together needs expression and creates the atmosphere in the weeks ahead to jump into the rush of life and do your works of passion.

The past month of Mercury moving retrograde, becoming purified by the Sun, and now moving direct again as a bright Morning Star has helped clarify passions and refined purposeful visions. Mercury is at maximum morning elongation as a Morning Star at the Scorpio Full Moon, and as it illuminates the liminal pre-dawn skies it will help open the awareness and make the inspiring connections that can bring the visions we have been developing into fruition. Frustrations and delays that arose in the past month through Mercury’s back and forth tension with Saturn have ultimately given us additional perspectives to draw from, with the process elucidating more effective strategies and choices. The mercurial process may also have catalyzed intimations of new potential voiced from within that can now be integrated.

Gary Caton in his book Hermetica Triptycha connected Mercury direct at maximum morning elongation to the rubedo phase of alchemy. Caton wrote that Mercury’s current connection with the rubedo phase signifies becoming “messengers of the future we have seen within us,” manifesting the new meaning gained during the recent Mercury retrograde period rather than returning to the status quo we had previously been used to. Caton advised as we integrate what we’ve brought back from spiritual realms and subconscious sensations, “the appearance of some externally chaotic conditions at this point actually demonstrates that the inner chaos of the spiritual realms has been successfully transferred, that spirit and matter are in correspondence” (p. 128). Embracing the volatility can help us deepen into the essential change and growth ready to be experienced.

Harmonia Elementorum (2017) by Marlene Seven Bremner

Saturn has begun its retrograde journey from 9º08′ Capricorn that will take it back to 2º32′ Capricorn when it stations direct on September 6. As a result this Saturn retrograde in Capricorn will be especially significant for anyone with sensitive natal chart placements in the first ten degrees of cardinal signs, but for all of us we are now at the beginning stage of returning to an examination of the issues that have arisen with the ingress of Saturn into Capricorn at the end of 2017. Saturn is in a harmonious sextile with the Scorpio Full Moon and flowing trine with the Taurus Sun, aspects that support time spent rooted in rumination. Saturn has turned away from the heated intensity brought by Mars earlier in the month to return to its cold and solitary lair that facilitates taking apart recent difficulties in order to discern how the lessons learned fit into the bigger picture of our lives.

In contrast to Saturn, Venus in Gemini is playing a mediating role with the transiting lunar nodes that are in hard aspect to the Scorpio Full Moon. Venus is forming harmonious aspects with both the South Node and North Node of the Moon, indicating that actively following our curiosity will help discern choices aligned with our life purpose to a greater extent. Venus in Gemini is explorative and willing to listen and sustain dialogue, promoting a period of greater socializing. Venus in the airy home of Mercury draws us toward perspectives we may not agree with at first but ultimately help us clarify our reasoning and purpose in response. Venus in Gemini can help us flexibly shift in line with volatile changes and refine our understanding through staying engaged in conversations and discovering connections that bring about self-realization.

Interestingly, Venus in Gemini is also contra-antiscia to Mars in Capricorn, a shadowy yet dynamic aspect that will bring relational issues to the surface. The triggering of old relational patterns is further signified by Chiron in Aries occupying the mid-point of Venus and Mars at 0º Aries. If we are reminded of old wounds we may also notice how much we have grown and are now capable of releasing old pain through genuine forgiveness and acceptance. There is also immense vitality within these aspects for creative expression that harnesses the value we can discover in difficult experiences and memories. The influence of Chiron further provokes self-esteem issues in relation to identity, placing importance on finding value for our true self rather than personas we have previously crafted to fit more easily into consensus culture. Chiron has been in Aries for a week and a half, so the Full Moon is opportune for noticing what issues have arisen in correspondence with Chiron changing signs.

5 of Cups by Pamela Colman Smith

Scorpio 1 Decan

The Full Moon illuminates the first face of Scorpio associated with the Five of Cups card illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. The image appears desolate at first, as a despairing figure stares with fixation upon three spilled chalices. However, upon closer look there remain two upright chalices behind the figure, suggesting hope. There is also a river flowing underneath a bridge behind the figure, bringing the flux philosophy of Heraclitus that no one ever steps in the same river twice since the river is always changing as well as the person. It is a fitting image to associate with the first decan of Scorpio as it captures the fundamental nature of having desires within our constantly shifting world in which we must deal with the loss of what we desire most in the world.

Austin Coppock in his book on the decans 36 Faces ascribed the image of “A Jawbone” to the first decan of Scorpio, declaring hunger as its chief concern. Coppock synthesized the ancient textual images of this face around the repeating cycle of desire, including consuming hunger, satiation, the loss of what one desires, and the competitive violence of pursuing desires. Curiously the ancient Hermetic text Liber Hermetis tells us “a crab having wings” resides here, indicating that liberation may be possible once we face the compulsive nature of the cycle. The Hellenistic text 36 Airs ascribed the Numphai to this face, feminine nature spirits who reside in sacred streams, groves, and grottoes. The obsessive nature of this face brings to mind the figure of Dionysus who often ran with wild nymphs and whose all consuming desires brought dismemberment and rebirth.

Mars rules the first face of Scorpio while conjoining Pluto in its exaltation of Capricorn. With Pluto amplifying the fires of Mars, feelings of grief and loss may come more strongly from collective rather than personal realms. We can feel pain and destruction within local and global collectives, from the degradation of natural environments to innumerable instances of abuse, abandonment, loss, and betrayal occurring in the lives of others if not ourselves. It can be easy to identify with the mournful figure in the Five of Cups card lamenting the spilled liquid softening the ground under their feet. Yet as the image suggests, we also have cups full of enlivening liquid ever ready to quench our thirst. Turning toward whatever has survived a chaotic process of purgation, we discover a deepening strength and magical potency. There is agency to be seized and embodied in the glowing light of the Scorpio Full Moon. Use it well, and discern how to most effectively serve with its light.

References

Caton, Gary. (2017). Hermetica Triptycha: The Mercury Elemental Year. Rubedo Press.

Coppock, Austin. (2014). 36 Faces: the history, astrology, and magic of the decans. Three Hands Press.

Aries Full Moon + Uranus

October 14, 2016 / grayastrology / 5 Comments

Isadora Duncan at the Parthenon (1920) Edward Steichen

Full Moon in Aries

Her magnificence unfurled from a darkly clouded horizon, the radiant light laid bare in the rising of the Full Moon heralds insight and illumination every month when Luna reaches the peak of her cycle. Yet the Full Moon in Aries on October 15 or 16 (depending upon your location) will electrify thoughts and feelings beyond the norm as it is united with Uranus and is also a perceptually larger “Super Moon.” Super Moons were defined by astrologer Richard Nolle as New or Full Moons within 90% of the Moon’s closest orbit to Earth, and besides being simply bigger in the sky they have also been found to impact tides more dramatically. Events speed up in alignment with this dramatic lunation, and since Uranus awakens with a jolt, there will be no hiding from whatever is unleashed. Any aspect of our life in which we have been asleep, unmindful, or in denial will receive an accordingly large dose of revelation. September was full of intense astrological transits dredging up buried material: two potent eclipses intertwined with Mercury retrograde in Virgo, and the final exact square between Saturn and Neptune that had been building over the past year. There is deep-rooted force from Mars united with Pluto underneath the swift flames of this lunation that brings catharsis and power to face arising challenges with accountability.

The Full Moon aligned with Uranus is a breakthrough marker on our astrological calendar that ushers us into a time period in which Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus will be in a relationship enabling rapid growth and development. The end of 2015 and first three quarters of 2016 were dominated by a square between Jupiter and Saturn, a square between Neptune and Saturn, and Uranus in Aries being generally isolated to Jupiter while in a sign based trine with Saturn in Sagittarius. Jupiter and Saturn are important to always consider in tandem, as Jupiter expands growth within the form and structures dictated by Saturn. As a result, this past year involved deconstruction and falling apart of old relationships and supports, with mixed results in the attempt to reorient life in a more enlivening and authentic direction. Uranus is the planet that can explode the boundaries of Saturn in order to facilitate the vision of Jupiter moving beyond previous limitations. As Jupiter in Libra forms a sextile to Saturn in Sagittarius with reception, and Saturn begins to slowly move toward an exact trine with Uranus that will come at the end of 2016, the containment of Saturn is energized with mutable activation opening portals to perception of how to manifest emboldened vision free of past limitations.

Those who have strong aspects of Uranus to planets in their birth chart are familiar with the necessity of working with the nonlinear field of Uranus that has commonly been likened to the dispersion of energy released from a strike of lightning in a thunderstorm. This doesn’t necessarily make this lunation easier for those who live everyday with a hard aspect between Uranus and their Moon, Mercury or Venus, but it does mean that whatever coping skills you have developed in relation to dealing with Uranus strikes will be helpful. Uranus can throw one off kilter into rebellious, freedom seeking behavior that is not in our best interest or the highest good, and so with Uranus it is beneficial to find outlets of release to actively engage with and transmit its primal vibrations. For example, pouring energy into a collective cause/movement you feel passionate about, discharging tension through vigorous exercise or balancing movement, focusing one’s energy into development of a project, creation of art or music, or cultivation of personal writing are some ways to let Uranus move through you into something productive you care about.

The Full Moon is also united with the mysterious dwarf planet Eris which befitting its moniker creates discord in astrology as not only did its discovery lead to the demotion of Pluto from its planetary status, but many astrologers are in disagreement over whether or not the meaning of Eris can be, or even should be, understood in astrology at this stage. Since Uranus has been co-present with Eris in Aries for years, and now is in almost exact conjunction, the one thing that is clear is that whatever meaning Eris has is merged with the meaning of Uranus in this period. One thing we do know is that the eccentric orbit of Eris goes beyond Pluto and at a point crosses in between the space separating Pluto and Neptune, approaching the orbit of Neptune before once again moving beyond the orbit of Pluto. It’s orbit is incredibly inclined compared to the other planets we use in astrology, so much so that it passes through only a few of the traditional zodiac constellations (it is now passing through Cetus the sea monster). In my own work in looking into Eris, similar to other astrologers I have noticed those with exact aspects of Eris in their chart often disrupting the consensus of a familial or mainstream cultural context, becoming individuals driven to break out of old paradigms that have dominated belief systems. We could view Eris aligned with Uranus and the Full Moon as reflecting a tidal wave of pattern breaking force.

Serpent and Moon (1937) Morris Graves

Mars in its exaltation of Capricorn rules the Full Moon while applying closely to a conjunction with Pluto. This is the close of the cycle between Mars and Pluto that began on 10 November 2014, and in the distillation of its building intensity our most compelling desires rise to surface awareness. We can simultaneously feel ambitious while also sensing acutely the power dynamics surrounding us and anywhere we have been losing our self-authority in relation to another. The blowout quality of this Aries Full Moon requires taking the responsibility to be assertive in pursuit of desires while being fully accountable for our behavior in the process of developing needed structures and relationships for support. The most fruitful way to navigate will be through cultivating mutual respect and cooperation in relationship with whomever we feel a healthy draw to engage with. The relationships in which we are out of balance in toxic or unhealthy ways will become obvious and feel intolerable to continue giving energy to. Mars in Capricorn facilitates being cool and resolute enough to sever ties where needed, while also being receptive and energized to collaborate with those of shared resonance and purpose.

The past lunation cycle has re-connected the Pluto Uranus square that dominated the astrological climate from 2011 – 2015, as during the waxing of the Moon the Sun in Libra passed through a square with Pluto into an opposition with Uranus in the culmination of the Aries Full Moon. While Uranus can be liberating, the unconscious realm activated by Uranus can lead us into scenes in which we must face choices mirroring past repetitive patterns. The liberating potential Uranus brings is through actively breaking free of our old mindset to make a radically empowering choice. Issues that have held us back in one way or another in recent years may emerge again in the full light of the Moon, creating opportunities for new responses and wholistic understanding.

Syncopated Rhythm, so-called The Black Snake (1967) Sonia Delaunay

Mercury in Libra is barely beginning to separate from a square to Pluto in Capricorn at the time of the Full Moon, and is one of the most exact aspects of the lunation. In the week leading up to the Full Moon, Mercury completed the final of three exact conjunctions it has formed with Jupiter since the period of Mercury going retrograde in Virgo in September, an unusual amount of unions between Mercury and Jupiter to experience. Mercury then moved into a square with Mars before entering its square with Pluto at the peak of this potent lunar cycle. Mercury as a result is at the “crisis in consciousness” point of the last quarter square in relation to both Mars and Pluto as it begins a new cycle with Jupiter. Our Mercurial perception is shedding and emptying itself from old beliefs and conditioning we are not aligned with. In the space opened up there is vital re-visioning available that will guide us toward relationships and experiences more essentially resonant.

Collective events have featured ugly discourse recently, as well as continued important exposure of individuals facing oppression within the power dynamics of society. The union of Venus, Juno, and Black Moon Lilith in Scorpio in the build up to these intense Mercurial aspects added visceral emotional power to revelations of injustices. Reflecting upon how we have been wronged by others and how we have wronged others, and any other messages unveiling whatever has been out of balance makes it possible for profound reorientation toward embodying a more receptive presence in relationship. Dealing with others fixated on bigoted and biased perspectives is also more excruciating under these hard Mercurial aspects, yet the lesson seems to be about how to remain in one’s own integrity while being confronted by perspectives antithetical and offensive to one’s own viewpoint.

Mercury is combust for most of the waning cycle of this Moon cycle, becoming purified under the rays of the Sun until it reaches cazimi at the heart of the Sun on 27 October a few days before the New Moon in Scorpio on 30 October. The insights gained into our relationship patterns can be used to burn off whatever needs to be released as Mercury heads into a union with the Sun in the week and a half following the Full Moon.

Paul Klee (1920) Theater-Mountain-Construction

Saturn in Sagittarius continues to be in square to the lunar nodes at the Full Moon, focusing attention on Saturn being in a harmonious sextile with both Mercury and Jupiter in Libra. While Mercury formed its exact sextile with Saturn during the Moon waxing full this cycle, during the ensuing waning of the Moon the sextile between Saturn and Jupiter will slowly build in strength. The structural walls of Saturn are now more receptive and open to mutating, and the union of the Full Moon and Uranus in a whole sign trine to Saturn signifies that outdated forms can now be torn down in order to erect edifices that are more attuned to internal shifts of meaning and purpose. Significantly during the realization of meaning as the Moon begins to wane into its disseminating phase a couple of days after the Full Moon, Venus will enter Sagittarius. Once Venus enters Sagittarius it will begin to form a mutually receptive sextile with Jupiter in Libra capable of imbibing developing forms with one’s arising sense of pleasure and aesthetics. Take advantage of this building sextile between Venus and Jupiter from October 18 – 26, 2016.

In addition to her mutually receptive sextile with Jupiter, Venus will also begin to apply to a conjunction with Saturn in Sagittarius in the waning cycle of the Moon. Venus will form an exact conjunction with Saturn at a Dark Moon in Scorpio at the end of October, and will be at the beginning of a new cycle with Saturn at the New Moon in Scorpio on 30 October. The shift of Venus from the slowly churning waters of Scorpio into the leaping fires of Sagittarius as a result will mean the galloping pace of Venus in Sagittarius will be somewhat restrained due to the impending encounter with Saturn. This can be a period of serious commitment to all things Venusian, bringing love and joy to the cold realm of Saturn. In addition, as Venus forms her mutually receptive sextile with Jupiter and approaches her conjunction with Saturn, her aesthetic senses will be altered by a square to the otherworldly Neptune in Pisces. These aspects appear to be fantastic to apply to any creative process involving imagination.

4 of Wands by Pamela Colman Smith

Aries 3 Decan

The Full Moon falls in the third face of Aries associated with the Four of Wands card illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. In the image we find two figures hoisting fragrant flowers in celebration under a garland within a container of four sturdy rods, with the protective structure of a castle in the background. Venus rules the third face of Aries and possesses dynamic charisma in this fiery decan. Indeed, Austin Coppock in his book 36 Faces noted that Eros was bound to this decan in the fragmentary Hellenistic text The 36 Airs of the Zodiac. Coppock ascribed the image of “The Burning Rose” to this face as it holds “the power of the spirit to unify and seduce, to motivate and to bond those of confluent passions” (p. 64). Coppock discerned that we find in the final decan of Aries “the power of art to overcome hostility,” such as the ability of a performer to transcend discord through a heartfelt performance that inspires and arouses the passions of an audience. Yet Coppock also cautioned that while the torrid potency found in the third face of Aries can bring union even in the most difficult circumstances, attention must be given to sustaining the flame of connection with less volatility so that it may last.

Integrating the meaning of the third face of Aries holding the union of the Full Moon with Uranus, there is incredible potency available to performers of all arts to beguile and enchant. Venus is in the third face of Scorpio, which happens to be another one of the decans of the zodiac ruled by Venus. This means that while Venus is not in the same face as the Full Moon, Venus nonetheless possesses the dignity of face that enables her to achieve success despite being in the sign opposite her home of Taurus. As previously mentioned, there is an electrical field found in the light of the Aries Full Moon that can be transmitted into dynamic performance or any creative process. In the light of the glowing Moon, open awareness to whatever brings inspiration and joy and find ways to share your passion so as to uplift others of resonant accord.

References

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

Libra New Moon

September 27, 2016September 29, 2016 / grayastrology / 3 Comments

Butterfly (1950) by Chuji Yasui

A silver quivering cocoon that shakes
from within, trying to break.
What psyche
is wrestling with its shroud?
Blunt diamonds
scrape at its casing,
urging it out.
But there is too much grief. The world
is made of days, and is itself
a shrouded day.
It stifles. It’s our world, and we
its dreams, its creased
compacted wings.

— Denise Levertov, Emblem (II)

New Moon in Libra

The New Moon in Libra on September 30 is the first lunation to follow the Equinox, and within the shifting of the seasons supports momentum borne with reawakened focus. The New Moon conjoins the expansive and visionary Jupiter in Libra, while in range of a square to the cathartic depths of Mars and Pluto in Capricorn. The blackness of this New Moon has a different mixture within its matrix than we’ve experienced this year, as Mars has finally left Sagittarius for its exaltation in Capricorn, Jupiter has finally left Virgo for greater dignity in Libra, and Venus has entered the deep waters of Scorpio. Mars in Capricorn is applying intensely to a square with Jupiter as our lights unite in darkness, demanding we be accountable for enacting our will force in pursuit of our most prioritized goals. While the past year has involved immense tumult of mutable changes, the Libra New Moon in sextile with Saturn in Sagittarius fortunately supports building structures to develop and express the soulful desires that have been dislodged by the catalyzing, cascading currents.

The Libra New Moon follows a dynamic month of eclipses, Mercury retrograde, and the final square between Saturn and Neptune. If we have been able to clear out the dead weight of our lives in the past month, there is vigorous force within the Libra New Moon for launching enterprises bound to the authentic ardor welling up from within. The eclipses of the past month combined with Mercury retrograde in Virgo forming trines with Pluto were a perfect storm for releasing the heaviness of past grievances and awakening to an enlivening lightness of spirited presence. As the Libra New Moon is in square to the midpoint of Mars and Pluto in Capricorn, it facilitates bold embodiment of the presence liberated from previous hangups. If overwhelming loss arose during the past month of eclipses, the Libra New Moon further supports reorienting to the resulting ramifications as needed.

It is worth noting that this New Moon that is aspecting both Pluto and Mars arrives at the balsamic close of the cycle between Mars and Pluto that began on November 10, 2014. From the standpoint that Mars and Pluto have an octave relationship in which the leading edge desires of Mars emanate from the deep well of Pluto, there can be a distillation available of all our circulating desires from the past two years that have not yet manifested. In the coming lunation cycle Mars and Pluto will conjoin and begin a new cycle- this will happen on October 18 in the waning Moon that follows the upcoming Aries Full Moon. Vision can be found in the blackness of the Libra Moon that lets go of what was not meant to manifest in the past two years, while opening to intimations of the potential that can be realized in the forthcoming cycle.

by Scott Young

Venus in Scorpio

Venus rules the New Moon in Scorpio, the home of Mars, with Mars freshly in the sign of its exaltation, Capricorn. Though Venus is separating from Mars, they are in a sextile relationship in which the subterranean sensations of Venus in Scorpio can be injected into the persevering drive of Mars in Capricorn. Though Venus in Scorpio is in a sign opposite her home of Taurus, it pleases Venus to be in a water sign as her full feeling nature is available. Venus in Scorpio can acclimate with an astrological climate that follows the storms of September, as Venus in Scorpio wants to dig up the roots of whatever circumstance it finds itself in order to feel how the unseen underworld has been informing what is on the surface.

The eclipses of the past month combined with a Mercury retrograde phase in Virgo that stationed direct in a trine with Pluto could have led to the uncovering of secrets or hidden material in need of being known in our relationships. The Libra New Moon ruled by Venus in Scorpio further supports opening to the depth of mystery within the Self, being willing to embrace shadow and unconscious forces. If there has been a lot of disorientation due to recent revelations, there can now be healing readjustment as long as we avoid the negative side of Scorpio that manipulates and controls the emotions of others due to fear of being hurt. The virtue of Scorpio is not its fixated ability to influence the feelings of others to do its own bidding, but rather in its transformational potential to shed old skin and merge with radical presence.

Leonora Carrington (1967) Spider

In addition to forming a sign based sextile with Mars in Capricorn, Venus in Scorpio also forms a sign based sextile with Mercury in Virgo. Mercury direct in Virgo as a Morning Star is one of the most potent forces within the Libra New Moon enabling us to discern the most direct route toward manifestation of our goals. Mercury has now separated from a conjunction with the North Node of the Moon, a square with Saturn, and a trine with Pluto, and is now applying to an opposition with Chiron in Pisces that has been a key player in the eclipses of 2016. Mercury is at home and in exaltation in Virgo, a discriminating and rational abode for Mercury that accentuates its ability to bridge soulful spirit to the earthly matters at hand in the moment. Mercury arises at dawn as the rays of the Sun pierce the tranquility of night, weaving the golden light into a consciousness able to awake and start the day mindful of the choices in greatest alignment with our solar purpose. Mercury in Virgo and Mars in Capricorn, both places of their exaltation, are capable of building containers in our life that allow for a descent within that regenerates passion that can then be projected into our worldly endeavors.

2 of Swords by Pamela Colman Smith

Libra 1 Decan

The New Moon falls in the first face of Libra associated with the Two of Swords tarot card illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. In the image we see a blindfolded woman crossing two swords in front of her, while sitting before an oceanic expanse. The blindfold and ocean suggest contact with the instinctual inner realm and unconscious, the Crescent Moon the waxing cycle of the Moon’s orbit we enter at this Libra New Moon that calls us to persist on our path forward despite the regressive pull of the past. Commonly, this card in tarot has a meaning of mediating between opposing forces to discover mindfulness and courageous equipoise, resolving previous conflicts within a protected space of exploring internal balance.

Austin Coppock in his book on the decans 36 Faces ascribed the image of “A Blind Fold and a Sword” to this face, suggesting it awakens us to surrounding injustice and disequilibrium on a societal level as well as in our daily personal interactions. Coppock further noted that the fragmentary Hellenistic text The 36 Airs ascribed the Erinyes (also known as the Furies) to the first face of Libra, linking the chthonic goddesses who punish transgressors of divine law to the element of this face that is concerned with natural law and justice and the revelation of hidden evidence of inequities. Coppock captured the essence of this face in the following passage:

While fair trade and social justice are prime concerns in this face, its true object is relationships. Legal proceedings and commerce are essentially about the balance between two entities. Indeed peace or strife between individuals is what determines social order, and consensus is the very root of the law. Fairness and reciprocity must underlie all friendships and romances if they are to last. This face shines a light on these dynamics, bringing what is troublesome to the light of conscious recognition. The core principles of ethical interaction with other beings are thus revealed in this face.

— Austin Coppock, 36 Faces, p. 158

The Moon is the ruler of the first decan of Libra, making this New Moon that conjoins Jupiter particularly fertile in terms of bringing expansive alertness to whatever has been out of balance, opening awareness to how to recalibrate the necessary elements. Embracing our individual wholeness without denial and being willing to communicate honestly with integrity is of course always wise counsel, but the Libra New Moon is particularly responsive to those asserting their needs with healthy and respectful boundaries. Just as the recent Libra Equinox demarcated a new season of changing winds, so does the Libra New Moon herald a new period of astrological transits that are more conducive to bringing about ample feelings of success more so than the transits that have dominated the majority of 2016 so far. We are clear of eclipses, Mercury retrograde, Mars retrograde and within the aftershocks of the squares between Saturn and Neptune, Pluto and Uranus. The blackness of night holding the union of Sun and Moon in Libra is fecund with reception for making tangible what has previously been deeply felt and yearned for.

References:

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

Levertov, Denise. (2013). Collected Poems. New Directions.

Taurus Full Moon

November 6, 2014January 26, 2016 / grayastrology / 17 Comments

Full Moon engraving by Claude Mellan (1635) Paris

We say it is human nature to be attached, thinking of the bond between the mother and the child she births, the parents who focus on nurturing the development of the human being birthed into the world through their merging. Yet although attachment and connectivity is a primal urge of humanity, there are many people who are abandoned, neglected, or abused as children, and do not experience an opportunity for full bonding with a parent. This and other societal ills link to the separation polarizing our attachment, the separation we experience being released from our mother’s womb and ensuing need for bonding with someone or something in our environment. The sign of Taurus connects to our hunger for security, and the forms of attachment we engage to feel secure and stable in an ever changing reality. We become attached to ideas and feelings as well, thoughts and sensations that give us comfort, irregardless of whether or not our fixation on them is in our best interest. For example, we can become attached to being depressed, attached to avoiding our passion, attached to numbing our pain and emotions through drugs, attached to escaping reality through popular culture, attached to being in denial of what will bring us happiness, attached to a life leaving us essentially unfulfilled. Today we can see around us people more attached to their electronic connection to the world-wide web than their physical surroundings, parents fixated on their “screen connections” instead of their connection to the needs of their child.

We now experience a Taurus full Moon, the full phase of the lunar cycle that began with a solar eclipse in Scorpio aligned with Venus as well as Mercury stationing direct in the sign of the scales ruled by Venus. No doubt if you like to read astrology posts on social media, you are hearing a lot about “integrating your authentic values” for this Taurus full Moon, and it is true that the Taurus archetype helps us find internal worth and stability instead of grasping for it in the external world. However, in light of the Scorpio eclipse and Mercurial shifting that began this lunation cycle, this is an opportune moment to question why you think the “authentic values” that come to mind for you are the genuine article. Be willing to question everything during the full light of this Taurus Moon, and you will open yourself to letting go and releasing the values that you have led yourself to believe in the past are essential to your nature. Are they really? What signs and symbols in your environment since Mercury stationed direct have emerged to give you guidance? Who or what is getting in your face begging you to give second thought to your absolute fixation on having this or that particular value or attachment in your daily life? If we can gain clarity for the real deal, the true values that will bring us genuine happiness and wealth, then going forward we can intend to ruminate our thoughts, circulate our feelings around desires arising from these values. A lot of unconscious material could have been stirred up in the solar eclipse at our last new Moon, so keep in mind it is worthwhile to give further thought to what exactly “happiness” and “wealth” actually mean for you, as opposed to what you have gotten used to thinking they mean in your past.

Reflection by Karena Karras

Venus has not yet finished her underworld journey in Scorpio, and is getting closer each day to a union with Saturn that will occur on November 12: there will be crucial lessons to be uncovered within during this closing week of their cycle. This heavy Scorpio pull into our depths is an intense facilitator for a pivotal aspect of this Full Moon: the balsamic conjunction between Mars and Pluto in Capricorn. Mars and Pluto will begin a new cycle in Capricorn on November 10, so this Taurus and Scorpio full lunation is illuminating our experiences with desire and the degree to which we have integrated the conscious and unconscious sides of our nature in the past two year cycle of Pluto and Mars. In union the combined message is to courageously go deep within to sense what brings us alive with passion and joy, beyond the limitations and guarding of repression, guilt, and fear of judgment or abandonment. The Capricorn archetype also links to the conditioning of our parents and surrounding culture from birth, and the manner in which our sense of self learned to adapt to find a sense of security and attachment within the values and expectations of our early environment. In order to harmonize with the values or expectations cherished by our parents or surrounding culture, many of us adapt our personality interacting in the external world to an external conditioning that is not wholly connected to the internal conditions necessary for us to feel wholly passionate and joyful.

Our desires that come from Soul and connected with Self are too strong to completely repress, however, and so many of us learn to pursue our essential inner desires in secret. Out of this fear of external judgment, we set up a dichotomy of acting in the culturally acceptable way in the outer world to gain acceptance, while inwardly or in secret we follow the desires burning from within and demanding expression. As Carl Jung and others have noted, when we completely ignore or deny our burning inner desires, these unconscious forces can erupt in our lives in the form of crises demanding that we finally pay attention. Within the sixth of the seven ripening squares between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn, this Full Moon in Taurus illuminating our interplay between the depth of Venus-Saturn and Mars-Pluto holds the potential for us to re-source our desire nature to reveal our whole Will we have previously given away to others, including outside power structures.

Furthermore, there are additional strong aspects from Leo to the Scorpio and Taurus activated at this Full Moon, with Jupiter in Leo in square to Saturn and Venus in Scorpio, and Juno in Leo in square to the Sun in Scorpio and Moon in Taurus. In combination with the closing cycles of Venus and Saturn in Scorpio, and Mars and Pluto in Capricorn, we can receive a message of how we have attempted to compensate for our fear of abandonment and separation by grasping for control over whatever we can control, whether that be people, non-human material, or thoughts. A Taurus Full Moon invites us into the realm of Venus and what will bring us authentic pleasure and joy in our body. Instead of remaining fixated on what you thought was bringing you happiness in the past, this Full Moon of Venus asks you to open to what is bringing you joy and happiness in the ever evolving moment, and to follow it. Part of this is taking the risk to be vulnerable, part of this is expressing our needs to others and taking our essential needs seriously instead of a need to find acceptance in the dominant cultural paradigm. Within what we previously thought would hold our disempowerment we may find what will make us feel powerful, while within what we previously thought was bringing us power we may realize was leading to our disempowerment.

The strong Leo energy interacting with the rest of the aspects of this Full Moon means there is something to be revealed about our personal destiny going forward if we are willing to listen. This is not a time to feel guilty about the past or past decisions, but rather to reflect instead on modifications we can make in our life going forward that have been revealed to us through this past reflection. This Full Moon aligns in the tropical zodiac with the cross-quarter holy days that occur in the middle of the fixed signs: in the Southern Hemisphere this Full Moon is embedded within the blossoming of Full Spring, in the Northern Hemisphere this Full Moon lays within the clearing of Full Fall. Open up the desires from within you have locked away, and there will be an opportunity to integrate these passions into manifestation in your future daily life.

Sengai, Autumn Moon

Finally, with the North Node in Libra and Mercury moving direct again at the end of Libra, near the point of its inferior conjunction of the Sun, I would like to share a text I feel is connected to our current nodal axis of Uranus being conjunct the South Node in Aries, the North Node being in Libra, and the nodal rulers Mars and Venus entering into and out of intense dynamics. The following is from The Chalice and The Blade by Riane Eisler that was published during the shifting times of the late 1980s, and connects to the dominant cultural paradigm many human beings have been attached to for centuries:

One result of re-examining human society from a gender-holistic perspective has been a new theory of cultural evolution. This theory, which I have called Cultural Transformation theory, proposes that underlying the great surface diversity of human culture are two basic models of society.

The first, which I call the dominator model, is what is popularly termed either patriarchy or matriarchy- the ranking of one half of humanity over the other. The second, in which social relations are primarily based on the principle of linking rather than ranking, may best be described as the partnership model. In this model- beginning with the most fundamental difference in our species, between male and female- diversity is not equated with either inferiority or superiority.

While there is much more to this idea than the above quote, it goes to the heart of realizations that we can find in our daily interactions in our external environment and internal mind. Namely, moving away from a focus on a need for power over something to a focus on the power that can be found in between authentic partnership.

Mercury retrograde: a forest dark in liminal twilight

October 3, 2014October 5, 2014 / grayastrology / 8 Comments

Yaroslav Gerzhedovich

“I go along dreaming roads of the twilight”

Antonio Machado

Between thought and expression, between the colors of the sunset and the eye of the beholder, in the liminal light of twilight we feel the atmosphere of Mercury retrograde. Mercury retrograde is a three week period in which we can surrender to opening our awareness beyond our usual habitual reactions, interfacing with our environment in different ways that surprise us. Mercury retrograde is the magical air we feel on our skin when we watch the sun disappear on the horizon with shifting hues, the shifting frame of perspective that invites epiphanies. In astrology, the setting sun is also a symbol for a death of self-absorption through the meeting of another in relationship or partnership. On October 4, 2014 Mercury will station retrograde at 3° of Scorpio (a sign of soul relationship), and move all the way back to 17° of Libra (a sign of social relations and social justice) on October 25, 2014. If we include the “shadow zone” before the retrograde station and following the stationing direct, between September 15 and November 10, 2014 Hermes is guiding us to a deepening of self-knowledge through our interactions with our environment and every relationship formed.

Mercury stationing retrograde in Scorpio draws us into a spiral of Desire. Whether you have or have not already felt yourself pulled into an intense gravity of focus, an object or other drawing forth a surge of yearning from within, it will happen, and it will continue to be felt with expanding intensity in the weeks ahead. All the consequences of desire, all the lessons learned from wanting something out of reach, the questions dawning once we finally reach, acquire, or merge with our craving, will be part of our experience traversing through not only a Mercury retrograde, but a particularly shattering Lunar Eclipse and Solar Eclipse. Unless we have somehow done the miraculous work of lining our life up so that we are completely available to the focus of our desire, we will also come across all the limitations and habitual reactions of our past mind-frame restricting our ability to respond fully to the present passion. If you want to use astrology to help discern the nature of your desire, look in your chart to what house holds the first few degrees of Scorpio, and what aspects these degrees make in your chart. You can also then move clockwise in your chart to the middle of Libra and see what additional house or aspects in your chart will be further impacted as the Mercury retrograde continues.

Research on habits has supported that the easiest time to break a habit is on vacation. This theory revolves around the concept that on holiday in a new environment, all the familiar surroundings we partially fixate our identity around are gone, the triggers of our habit have been removed, and we are more vulnerable to initiating a new pattern of behavior. This same concept goes well with Mercury retrograde: even though all of our usual triggers will still be in place, the atmosphere invites a different response to them. Additionally, as this retrograde cycle is initiated in Scorpio, there is potential for a death of old reactive patterns. Scorpio has the courage to enter the darkness where the past can be felt to our deepest core, without our usual defense mechanisms operating in the light of day. In this darkness our inability to possess or be present with the desire we yearn for burns from within with such magnitude that a release of past attachments can occur that ultimately opens us up to the real possibility of having or merging with our desire in the future. In Scorpio, the phoenix pulls us through the fear of abandonment, the terror of the focus of our past sense of security being destroyed, and Mercury stationing here facilitates the integration of the dualities within us like the light and the dark, the conscious and unconscious, in order to synthesize the birth of a new identity or presence in the world.

Virginia Woolf contemplated this same concept when she wrote, “The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think,” in a journal entry on January 18, 1915. This journal entry of Woolf’s was analyzed in a lovely essay by Rebecca Solnit entitled Woolf’s Darkness: Embracing the Inexplicable, as well as the following:

The evening hour, too, gives us the irresponsibility which darkness and lamplight bestow. We are no longer quite ourselves. As we step out of the house on a fine evening between four and six, we shed the self our friends know us by and become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers, whose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one’s own room. For there we sit surrounded by objects which enforce the memories of our own experience. But when the door shuts on us, all that vanishes. The shell-like covering which our souls have excreted to house themselves, to make for themselves a shape distinct from others, is broken, and there is left of all these wrinkles and roughnesses a central pearl of perceptiveness, an enormous eye. —Virginia Woolf

This idea Virginia Woolf journaled about, that to close the door on the attachment of our possessions, to walk the streets in twilight among strangers, is an opening of our personality to the limitless depth of soul. Mercury retrograde is likewise an opportunity to go for an evening walk under a canopy of dark trees, above a network of deep roots, into an awakening of who we are and where we desire to go.

Yaroslav Gerzhedovich

With those we share our most intimate essence with, there will be a more ardent interchange than usual, leading to an intensification in interaction that could be chaotic yet essentially revealing if we can avoid becoming so wrapped up in melodrama that we block our capacity to discern meaning. We do not want to be afraid of the dark, because there will be no avoiding the shadow or the dark night of the soul necessary to birth the insight we desperately need to actualize our purest passions. If there is anything we have been consciously avoiding from past relationships, the time of denial will be over as there will be no escape from suppressed thoughts and feelings emerging that will demand our attention.

“Love goes toward love” William Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet, and when we fall enflamed in our heart’s rapture, we can feel like Romeo musing about Juliet, that the Other we desire is a “Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!” It seems that as much as we project and idealize an illusion in romantic folly, we negate a true desire of our soul for a love that terrifies us as much as it enchants our wildest passions. This is because great love dissolves and destroys our former sense of self, and we change and shift in the embrace of true love. Or, if we risk taking on the transformation of love, the work needed to sustain a relationship lovingly further challenges our sense of self, as it involves making compromises and listening to the needs of the Other. We get used to focusing on our old needs like a bad habit, instead of opening to how these needs can shift in every moment, guided by the wholeheartedness of desire. Since Mercury retrograde can facilitate shifting habits out of a changing place of perspective, we can realize which relationships we truly desire to focus on going forward, and cultivate the faculty needed for our mind to respond to the arising needs associated with our yearning.

Since Mercury will move from the beginning of Scorpio back into the heart of Libra, and then forward again back into Scorpio, we will feel a surging ebb and flow of subconscious shadow in all of our relationships. In the eye of the present partner we may catch a glimpse of a childhood emotion, in a conversation with a passing passerby we may hear the echo of an issue that feels like it has been with us for an eternity. If we open to this process, there is something deep within to unearth through dialogue and attention to the needs of our relationships. In this way while our desires may be pulling us into a space of new perception, another major meaning of this Mercury retrograde will be Power. Where, when, and with whom do we feel powerful, where, when, and to whom do we give our power away, and how can we find the balance of feeling secure in our own power yet interacting with others so that we are not overpowering them or projecting our issues of power on to them.

In addition, Mercury stationing at the beginning of Scorpio means that there are three generations of people on our planet right now who may be especially impacted subconsciously: those with Neptune at the beginning of Scorpio (1956-58), those with Uranus at the beginning of Scorpio (1974-76), and those with Pluto at the beginning of Scorpio (1983-85). As there will additionally be a potent Solar Eclipse occurring at the end of October in these same degrees, right now with Mercury stationing retrograde at the beginning of Scorpio is a tremendous opportunity to sense what some of the coming changes may center around.

Yaroslav Gerzehedovich

In the space of retrograde Mercury we can be more sensitive to signs, symbols, and omens in our environment. While our relationships with other humans will come into play, it will also be about our relationship with the world. The more we take the “I-Thou” relationship of honoring the soulful nature of everything in our environment, and less the “I-It” relationship of viewing our surroundings as resources to meet our own needs, the more we will be able to recognize and realize the significant meaning this Mercury retrograde is bringing into our life. There is a good chance we will feel upside down, with our emotions in total disarray as our old identity and attachments dissolve within a liminal state. In this in-between we can find our way through reading the symbols and signs around us and balance within the flow of the life streaming in front of us.

In the next month there will be obvious events and conversations that we know are pivotal; there will also be less obvious symbols surrounding us with a message to integrate if we keep our awareness open to them. Let the Mercury retrograde allow information to come in that you would normally rationalize away, and see where it takes you. Here below is a chart for Mercury stationing retrograde: Uranus in Aries being involved in both a grand fire trine with Jupiter in Leo and Mars in Sagittarius, and a t-square with the Sun and Pluto, means that there is something especially Uranian about Mercury stationing retrograde. This is also a plutonic Mercury full of explosive energy that can blow up our previous perception of our world and what is occurring within it. Meanwhile, there is also a huge uplifting, dynamic energy that can synthesize meaning from both our impulses and our experience and weave them together into a tapestry that can seemingly transport us into a deeper dimension of perception, not unlike the magic carpets of fairy tales. The ticket for entry into this process involves a willingness to go into the dark and persist through fears or feelings of dissolution.

Just as Mercury is plutonic now, so is Mars, as the red planet of desire is in a balsamic phase with Pluto. Mars is a centaur bounding forward from a source of strong desire that will help us expand beyond previous confinements created from our conditioned personality. Yet the expansive energy of Mars in a grand fire trine with Jupiter and Uranus will also be catalyzing us within the fluctuating back and forth of old desires arising to be released or re-integrated as new desires emerge from our inner fire. With Saturn and Ceres closely conjunct in Scorpio, and Mercury stationing retrograde in Scorpio, our structural source will generate a Mercurial mediation into our depths and the death of an old identification. This is a time of becoming unbound amid disintegration, as Mars will take us deeper into our desires stirred by a Lunar Eclipse and Solar Eclipse, each of which is further ruled by Mars. A chart for the Lunar Eclipse in Aries is below, a polarizing lunation in which Uranus is also prominently conjunct the brilliant Moon:

Mercury will be descending into the underworld in Scorpio at the Lunar Eclipse, as the eclipse occurs around the time of Mercury’s heliacal set at sunset in which it disappears below the earth, becoming invisible. This is truly an extraordinary leap of a Lunar Eclipse managed by the structure of Ceres and Saturn united in the fertile darkness of Scorpio. Fittingly, the timing of this eclipse goes well with this being the initiation of the most magical of all the Mercury phases, the time in which Mercury becomes more of a mystical guide into our inner realm. This is the phase in which we can be more receptive to signs, omens, and symbols, and we can receive information intuitively more easily than rationally explain anything. In this time of Mercury as the Magician, Hermes guides us through accumulating and then releasing our old patterns of thought in preparation for a new vision. I don’t mean to suggest this will be smooth sailing for our Hermetic navigator, however, as Venus in Libra is in a harsh last quarter square to Pluto at this eclipse, adding additional climatic intensity of outer events forcing profound inner reflection.

There is an imaginal link between this Lunar Eclipse and a High Priestess using her Dark Moon envisioning skills within the brilliance of a Full Moon Eclipse. Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, has a rarely discussed link to the Aries II decan where the Lunar Eclipse is occurring. In the “Tables of Correspondence” in 36 Faces by Austin Coppock, it is listed that Persephone is the God/Spirit connected to the Aries II decan in the Hellenistic text translated as The 36 Airs of the Zodiac. Although Persephone is not mentioned in Austin Coppick’s analysis of Aries II, Coppock did give the following description of this decan that is befitting the Queen of Spirit:

Applied magically, this decan has tremendous power. It is the power to generate the world of your choosing, and to be its sovereign. It is the key to creating pocket realities which do not obey the laws of the collective reality field in which they exist. — Austin Coppock

Eclipses are known to throw everything into disarray, and are not known to be times best for laying carefully designed plans. Yet this eclipse is so full of break-through aspects and force that it seems an air of liberation will be part of the chaotic atmosphere. It will be a time of sensing the power within a polarity of feelings, integrating the subconscious with the conscious, and owning our authority to heal the previous fracturing of our soul like Persephone. This will be a time to believe in our capacity to create a life aligned with our deepest soulful passions more so than the expectations of the consensus reality dominating our environment.

The inferior conjunction of Mercury is a magical moment in which Mercury aligns with the Sun, in between our orbit and the fiery center of our solar system. This is a moment in which Hermes transmits a message from Spirit to us, and with Mercury in Libra we will have information to integrate about the Other our Self is in relationship with. However, Libra is not only about social relations but also social justice. As usual, there have been many stories involving oppression in the news and many traumatic events occurring around us whose story is untold by anyone other than the participants. What is frightening about our world is all of the abuse not covered by the media, that people suffer in isolation without anyone to reach out to for help. I do not mean to suggest that this Mercury inferior conjunction in Libra will be some sort of magic pill to heal all the societal ills in the world, but I do suggest that a window of insight will open giving us a very deep look into the source of our collective trauma and oppression.

Nonetheless, this inferior conjunction will also be about our personal relationships and intimate partnerships, as the Leo Moon will be conjunct Juno and Venus, Mercury, and the Sun will all be conjunct in Libra. The insight we can gain will have something to do with all of the underworld mythology involving the pursuit of love and desire. Most of the stories involving a mythic figure being capable of descending to the underworld and back involve the character having such a powerful desire of love that they manage to somehow survive: Persephone, Psyche, Dionysus, Orpheus, Inanna, Ishtar, and Isis. We may be rocked and rolled over from where want and lust lead us, or from the desire and passion we attempt to repress or suppress, but in the end there is a more wholehearted sense of self in relationship to gain.

This solar eclipse conjunct Venus at the beginning of Scopio is happening close to the same time as the Superior Conjunction of Venus with the Sun. This is Venus as Inanna following her descent into the underworld, and these Scorpio aspects bring to mind the Dark Goddess who will be with us during an especially intense balsamic moon phase leading up to this solar eclipse. In contrast to Mercury who is close to rising again at dawn as a morning star, Venus is on her way to becoming an evening star. The future promise of Venus rising again in our night skies with her brilliant white light is an apt symbol for inspiration that will eventually arise out of our current darkness, no matter the difficulties and disorientation we experience at this time.

Traditionally Mars is also ruling this eclipse, and in modern rulership Pluto in Capricorn is ruling it. Either way, with Mercury stationing direct in the underworld at this time in Libra, and so ruled by Venus at the heart of her descent, this is a Solar Eclipse taking us into our core inner world. Change will come from within this core, sourced by our deepest desire, as we begin re-integrating the messages and information received from this Mercury retrograde cycle. It is an excellent time to set an intention for who and what we want to magnetize and attract into our life going forward from the inner vibration we are cultivating. However, this time will not just be about ourselves and our inner world, as this eclipse has clear aspects indicating a huge impact from the relationships in our life. Out of the challenging and uplifting experiences of this time, there appears to be a sharper sense of our essential nature to realize and embody.

As Mercury finally stations direct, he turns to re-ascend to the upper world as a morning star harbinger of dawn. Hermes welcomes a new reality for us now, symbolized by Venus in Scorpio entering a new phase with the Sun, symbol of our Spirit. In addition, Pallas Athena in Scorpio remains conjunct Venus as Mercury stations, a sign that we could have greater access than normal to the ingenious insight available from Mercury stationing direct. The important quality to access the wisdom available here is honesty, and a willingness to take responsibility to both nurture our own needs linked to our desire, as well as listen to and respect the needs of others we are in relationship with.

Amazingly in epic proportion, there will be a lunar occultation of Saturn in Scorpio occurring as Mercury stations direct, and following Mercury stationing direct the Moon will move on to a conjunction with Ceres. The myth of Persephone and Ceres seems strong in these symbols, and the compromise that Ceres managed to create enabling her to have her desire fulfilled of spending time with her daughter for half a year. This desire did not come easy, and followed inner disorientation, outer torment, and soul searching from the goddess. Yet as this myth served as a vehicle for rituals of epiphany in ancient times, there was also an inner revelation revealed, and so will there will be for us.

Mercury will leave the shadow zone on November 10, 2014 at a time that Venus will be conjunct Saturn in Scorpio and Mars will be conjunct Pluto in Capricorn. As Mercury moves forward through Libra, focus on re-integrating all of the messages gained regarding our desires, relationships, and sense of self within relationships. The astrology of this time suggest there is something profound to build and cultivate from the rumination of our inner mind.

Inanna and Dumuzi

References

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

Muchado, Antonio. (1902). Soledades. Translated by Eugenio Florit.

Solnit, Rebecca. (2014). Woolf’s Darkness: Embracing the Inexplicable. The New Yorker. 24 April 2014.

Gray Crawford

ASTROLOGY

Mars in Capricorn

New Moon in Pisces

New Moon in Pisces

Pisces 1 Decan

Mercury retrograde in Pisces & Aquarius

Mercury Stations Retrograde in Pisces

Into the Black

Chthonic Cazimi

Mercury Stations Direct in Aquarius

Maximum Morning Star in Pisces

Full Moon in Pisces: Flow into Fomalhaut

Full Moon in Pisces

Fomalhaut

Venus & Mercury: Creative Visualization

Mars Stationing Direct

Pisces 1 Decan

Scorpio Full Moon & Jupiter

Full Moon in Scorpio

Scorpio 1 Decan

Aries Full Moon + Uranus

Full Moon in Aries

Aries 3 Decan

Libra New Moon

New Moon in Libra

Venus in Scorpio

Libra 1 Decan

Taurus Full Moon

Mercury retrograde: a forest dark in liminal twilight

“I go along dreaming roads of the twilight”

Antonio Machado

New Moon in Pisces

Pisces 1 Decan

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Mercury Stations Retrograde in Pisces

Into the Black

Chthonic Cazimi

Mercury Stations Direct in Aquarius

Maximum Morning Star in Pisces

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Full Moon in Pisces

Fomalhaut

Venus & Mercury: Creative Visualization

Mars Stationing Direct

Pisces 1 Decan

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Full Moon in Scorpio

Scorpio 1 Decan

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Full Moon in Aries

Aries 3 Decan

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New Moon in Libra

Venus in Scorpio

Libra 1 Decan

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“I go along dreaming roads of the twilight”

Antonio Machado

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