Full Moon in Aries

This is early tomorrow, the 25th September, around 4 am GMT.

The moon in impulsive, warlike, self-focused Aries is facing off against the sun and Mercury in polite, diplomatic, harmony-seeking Libra. Aries is all about ME and what I want, while Libra is about WE, and the balancing act that is required to achieve harmony between different people and perspectives. So a full moon in Aries is always going to involve the tension between following our own emotional impulses and acting on our desires, vs. restraining ourselves and keeping the the peace.

In this case, the tension is really amped up, because the Aries moon is conjunct Chiron in Aries. This is about a fired-up sense of grievance, hurt and outrage. The full moon is also squaring Saturn in Capricorn, which means there are hard limits, rules and realities to be accepted, and actions have heavy consequences. So no matter how much you might want to throw a temper tantrum, you can't. You have to be a grown-up, abide by the social rules, restrain yourself, and accept reality – OR ELSE.

It's interesting that this full moon comes just after the equinox on the 23rd September, which is a fulcrum or balance-point between light and darkness in the year. There is definitely some re-balancing going on here, especially in the realm of relationships. Something important and binding has to be carefully negotiated, despite our personal outrage and hurt. As Saturn is about karma, expect the relational chickens to come home to roost: there are heavy consequences for our prior selfishness and heedlessness toward others.

As full moons signify culminations or endings, this looks a lot like a very fraught divorce to me. Teresa May and her difficulties in negotiating Brexit with the EU come to mind.

Reality is harsh, and though it may be emotionally wounding to admit you're on the weaker side of the negotiation, facts are facts. All the highly publicised outrage in the world won't change them. Demanding respect when your own actions have been inherently disrespectful is stupid. So is storming out of a negotiation and declaring “no deal is better than a bad deal.” There are times when capitulation to a harsh deal is a matter of necessity, and this is just one of those times.

Unfortunately, there's also a grand cross happening between planets in fixed signs at this full moon: Venus in Scorpio square Mars in Aquarius square Uranus in Taurus square the north node in Leo. Meaning this is a standoff, people are not likely to budge. And with Mars approaching his final conjunction to the Aquarius south node (exact 26th September), there is a real danger of violence at this full moon. Given the tension between irresistible forces, immovable objects, wounded egos and emotional intensity – something's gotta give.  (Please be careful driving, operating machinery, etc, as  the risk of sudden accidents in heightened.)

There are beneficial ways this can play out, though! The full moon is also bound up in a mystic rectangle formation involving Mars in Aquarius and the north node in Leo, meaning things can work harmoniously, you can use the tension to break with the past and move forward into a different kind of future. The north node in Leo, disposited by the sun in Libra is your key. Leo is playful, generous and creative; Libra is diplomatic, tactful and peace-seeking. It's a good idea to try to act from those qualities! Think about whether there are creative ways to get what you want that don't involve blowing up everyone who disagrees with you, or following unworkable tactics off a cliff.

Pluto resumes direct motion in Capricorn on the 30th, which represents a surfacing and purgation of all the dark psychological stuff we've been mulling over for the past five months of his retrograde - like a big zit full of unconscious toxicities coming to the surface to be popped.

And then Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio on the 5th October. Her retrograde will last till mid-November, and will bring her back into the late degrees of Libra. It's inadvisable to begin new relationships during Venus retrograde, or to make major aesthetic changes to your home or your person. But it's the perfect time to review and a re-think your relationships, with a ruthless eye toward the bottom line: the energy return you're getting on your relational energy investments. The balance should be as equal as possible.

We'll have a new moon in Libra on the 9th October. It comes during Venus retrograde and after the turbulent re-balancings of this Aries full moon, and it looks like a relationship re-set.

Full Moon in Pisces

(Detail from Van der Weyden's Descent From the Cross)

This is exact on Tuesday, the 9th September around 2:30 am (GMT).

The moon will be at 16 degrees Pisces, conjunct Chiron and opposing the sun in Virgo.

A Pisces moon is sensitive and empathetic, with a lack of clear boundaries between self and other... and Chiron represents a wound that will not heal. So the emotional tone described by this full moon is one of painful sensitivity for the suffering of all existence. Boundless empathy.

We are also moving into an opposition between Venus and Neptune, exact on the 10th September. It's an aspect known for romantic delusion, pining, unrequited love. Also spiritual longing and artistic creativity.

The emotional tone of these skies is very idealistic, sensitive, dreamy and wounded overall.

The nice thing is, there are practical, helpful things you can DO with all this sensitivity and empathy. The sun in in Virgo, sign of the dedicated nurse, the selfless servant. Virgo is happiest when there's a job to be done, a problem to be solved, a bandage to be applied, someone to be helped.

The themes here are the classic Virgo-Pisces ones of compassion, service, sacrifice and healing. “Serve or suffer”, the motto of this axis, applies. If you're feeling bad, focusing your energy on something you can do for others is the quickest way to feel better.

That said, suffering may be hard to avoid. with the moon conjunct Chiron and also a cardinal t-square between Uranus, Pluto, and Mercury in Libra. Situations are weighty and difficult, on a mental level as well as an emotional one. Remember last month's new moon in Virgo? We are still clearing out the Augean stables - there is still plenty of work to be done.

I'm thinking of the Ebola health workers again...

Or of the old concept of the sin-eater, a person who ritually absolved the dead of their sins.

These are forms of human sacrifice. Or compassion (the word comes for the Latin for “suffering with”).

From Vivre sa Vie.

Beware of what the Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa called “idiot compassion” (another word for which is “enabling”). What's required here is a very sharp, pragmatic, purposeful kind of compassion. Like a “cordon sanitaire”.

Bearing this out, we have Saturn in Scorpio sextiling the Virgo sun and trining the Pisces moon. Saturn in Scorpio is a no-bullshit, surgical energy that is best used for removing what's rotten or diseased from your life.

The whole setup reminds me of a line from T.S. Eliot about “the sharp compassion of the healer's art”:

"The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart."

Chiron is often referred to as the 'wounded healer'. In the mythology, he was a healer and a teacher of heroes. But he was hit by a poisoned arrow during one of Hercules' escapades and proved unable to heal himself, for all his knowledge.

The archetype of the wounded healer goes back a long way. In classical shamanism, initiates were called to healing via trauma and illness. The explanation was that the spirits tormented people until they accepted the calling to become a healer.

Accepting the call meant the death of the ego – 'shamanic sickness' often ends with the sick person's vision of death and physical dismemberment, which is experienced as literal. And there follows the acceptance of a new mode of living, and a liminal social position – one foot in the everyday world, one foot in the otherworld. Your life doesn't really belong to you anymore – you become a channel between the worlds, an instrument. Not an easy position.

This pattern of initiation holds across cultures. The Buddha was so traumatized by his apprehension of the truth of suffering that he left his comfortable life and entered into austerities that nearly killed him – and his final realization was a kind of death. Jesus was an itinerant faith healer who was literally tortured to death before attaining god-status. Odin hung himself from a tree for nine days and nights in order to gain knowledge. Muhammed nearly killed himself after his initial revelation...and then he spent three years in a deep depression. Inanna went down to hell and was stripped of her finery and even her skin, hung for dead on a meat-hook. Etc, etc...

The message of all these traditions is: there's no real power or wisdom without the acceptance of suffering. You gain the ability to help others only by making your own wounds conscious. But bringing those wounds to consciousness can be very painful and difficult, and there's no going back to your old life... no 'healing' of what has been broken. It stays broken.

But that brokenness, that loss...is also the source of the ability to empathise with others, and to help them.

Chogyam Trungpa again:
"To be a spiritual warrior, one must have a broken heart; without a broken heart and the sense of tenderness and vulnerability, your warriorship is untrustworthy."

Ok, enough writing. Let's just play some videos. Under these skies, music and art make more sense than any amount of  talking or explaining...

Making art is a good use of this energy, by the way. Art is a form of catharsis or purgation, and can heal.

Another by Nina Nastasia:

And here are a few for Venus-Neptune. Bollywood has always been great at portraying Venus-Neptune (unreachable glamour, impossible love, spiritual longing).

--Worth noting: the actresses in these films were dying in real life. Madhubala of a hole in her heart, Meena Kumari of alcoholic cirrhosis. Very fitting, for Moon-Chiron in Pisces: they were tragedy queens. The boundary between life and art was very porous for these women.

--And here is one that is just kinda silly. I don't get what is happening in this video at all, but it's fun...

Anyway, "a heart that hurts is a heart that works" is a good slogan for this full moon.

Venus Conjunct Saturn & North Node / Full Moon in Pisces / Pluto Direct

We have a few days of heavy-duty magic as we drift toward the full moon in Pisces on September 19^th. And by heavy-duty, I mean no bullshit. This story is about having the power to change your life, no lie—but it only works if you use it the right way. There is definitely a right way involved, and a wrong way.

The right way involves seeing (in an intensely focused, probing, detail-oriented way) what is unworkable or diseased in your life… and REMOVING it. Cutting it out. 

The wrong way involves wishful thinking, pining for the impossible, fantasy, escapism, self-delusion. But thankfully, the current cosmic weather makes grand illusions hard to sustain. Reality itself, seen clearly, will have more than enough magic and strangeness in it—you are not going to be needing your bullshit, or anyone else’s.

How does it play out? Well first, on September 18^th, Venus in Scorpio conjuncts Saturn & the north node at 8 degrees Scorpio. The conjunction exactly sextiles Pluto at 8 degrees Capricorn and trines Neptune and Chiron in Pisces. (The moon is involved today on the 17^th September—so you can try to tune in on what these themes mean for you via feeling, the day before it all really goes down.)



This is a very big deal. The theme of the skies at this time (signified by the north node) is all about karma coming due—and the reckonings involved are profound. Venus (love and money) joined with Saturn (responsibility) in Scorpio (depth and death), backed up by Pluto (transformation).

--I put a picture of a pearl here because the sky these next few days is making me think of pearls. Irritation and wounding (Chiron) transformed (Pluto) over time (Saturn) into something of great beauty and value (Venus). And it happens down in the depths of the sea, hidden from sight (Neptune). And the product of this deep-sea transformation (Pisces) becomes a symbol of purity and integrity, absolute simplicity (Virgo). The themes are all accounted for.

Regarding Saturn in Scorpio: this is all about getting back the energy you've given. Energetic return on investment. So if you've invested wisely in solid relationships or ventures and done the necessary work, you will know it. And conversely, if you've wasted your resources somewhere, it will be quite clear--you will know it's time to cut your losses.

We can't keep throwing good money after bad under Saturn in Scorpio--it's untenable; there is just not enough to spare. Resources (financial, relational, energetic) must be conserved and invested wisely. Squandering your love or your money or your limited and valuable life energy on folly and delusion—will not fly for long under these skies. Casting your pearls before swine: ditto.



However, there IS the opportunity to use your compassion and idealism in concrete, practical ways that ground and heal: that’s courtesy of Chiron and Neptune in Pisces trining the Saturn, Venus and north node conjunction. And Pluto in Capricorn gives backbone and integrity.


As I said above, it’s all about seeing clearly. Using discrimination. The sun is still in precise, detail-oriented Virgo, and Virgo’s ruler Mercury is Libra, just moving out of tense cardinal t-square formation with Uranus and Pluto. All the flaws and imbalances in your relationships have been on full display this past week, right? Maybe you’ve managed to stay out of any toxic verbal exchanges…but I’m sure you’ve felt the tension in some way. I sure have! The mental urge (Mercury) to completely torch what’s inherently flawed (Uranus square Pluto), and do it in words that can’t be taken back… To give the world a good tongue-lashing.

Well, I held back, mostly. And for me that’s been a good thing. It would only have made things worse…and in the end, Saturn (karma) will do what he does regardless. Rottenness WILL be laid bare under these skies, whether I open my big mouth about how rotten it all is or not.

But if you have something burning in you that MUST be said or done in the interests of individual human freedom (not individual self-aggrandizement—be clear on this)…well the days ahead might be the right time. Mars in Leo and Uranus in Aries are in easy trine formation, and Mercury is leaving the cardinal t-square—so the potential for explosive conflict via communication is reduced. Speaking up might even revolutionise matters.

Use discrimination, caution and compassion (in the form of ‘tough love’) and you’ll be backed up by the cosmic weather. Speak the truth if it falls to you to speak. Do it quietly and clearly and with concision—do not go overboard or fall back on emotionally manipulative tactics. The potential for doing so is built-in, via a square between Jupiter in Cancer and Mercury in Libra, so try to stay mindful. But don’t back down from what you know is true, either. And accept the fallout. Of course there will be fallout—there are situations and people you will have to walk away from, or they may need to detach from you. It may hurt. But it is imperative to accept the loss of what is no longer necessary and vital.

The day after the Venus, Saturn and north node conjunction, we have the full moon at 26 degrees Pisces. 19^th September: here is the pearl of great price, fully illuminated. Nurturance, compassion, sacrifice, suffering (Pisces moon) versus method, organization, discrimination, clarity.

It is entirely possible to balance these energies via service to others: that is ultimately what the Virgo-Pisces axis is about, and the energies complement each other. Notwithstanding the brashness of Mars in Leo, this is not a time for self-assertion, unless you are doing it in the service (Virgo) of the transpersonal (Pisces).

And finally, the day after the full moon, Pluto goes direct, having been retrograde since April. There will be no avoiding deep structural changes to your life now. The gears mesh up and the big wrecking machine sputters to life. Whether it’s going to grind your world to dust or seed the ploughed-up ground for new growth, the machine has its own momentum—you really just have to suck it up and get out of the way when Pluto’s involved.

What in your life needs to die? What are you holding onto that is already dead? By now you know exactly what it is…it should be clear as day.

Whatever you are unwilling to let go of now will be ripped from you regardless—so best let go if you can. Make a sacrifice of it on the Pisces full moon. Sit down and name it, define it (Virgo)…and then let it go.   

New Moon in Virgo Opposite Chiron in Pisces

Plastic-filled albatross: see here

It’s very hard to know even a little about the damage we’ve inflicted on the world’s oceans without feeling overwhelmed and depressed. Among the most obvious—and difficult to address—problems are overfishing, pollution, and acidification due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.

With a human population projected to hit 9 billion (from a current 7 billion) by mid-century, the prospects for ‘fixing’ the damage we’ve been doing are dim. In many respects, things are already too far gone to fix.  

Life on Earth depends on the health of the oceans. They are the circulatory system of the planet. We came from the sea and the salinity of our blood mirrors the composition of seawater: the amniotic fluid we developed in.

Pisces is the sign of the sea and the last sign in the zodiac. It signifies our origins as well as our ends: the final dissolution of the ego and the personality; of all the seeming boundaries that make us separate and individual beings. Neptune, the ruler of Pisces, has been in the sign since April of 2011—so in a very nebulous way, our intuitive awareness has been focused on the seas these past few years. And Chiron, the asteroid signifying profound wounding, has been in Pisces since January of 2011, conjunct Neptune—so this awareness we have of Piscean matters is inherently painful. We all have this dim background sense that something is very wrong, whether it can be articulated or not, whether it is faced or evaded (and Neptune is famous for self-delusion and escapism).

Shortly on the heels of Chiron’s ingress into Pisces we watched the Deepwater Horizon disaster unfold in the Gulf of Mexico. Millions of barrels of oil from a blown-out wellhead gushed into the Gulf from April to July of 2011, an environmental calamity with ongoing consequences.

I remember watching the ‘spillcam’ live video footage in horror that spring and summer, hypnotized by sight of oil billowing from the broken pipes. Like blood from a wound that wouldn’t heal.

Chiron, the unhealable wound, is also supposed to teach…but I don’t know what it taught in the case of the Macondo blowout. There is a Neptune-tinged helplessness and despair in the face of such destruction: a resignation to profound loss. BP, the corporation accountable for the disaster, continues to evade real culpability. It is a Pluto in Capricorn theme.      

And now, just in time for the September 5^th new moon in Virgo, comes an escalation of the ongoing (since March of last year) Fukushima crisis: another profound wounding to the health of the seas, and thus, to the overall health of the planet. Another poisoning.

But the situation at Fukushima is much scarier than the Deepwater Horizon disaster because the threat is invisible, intangible. Much easier for corporations and governments to lie about and whitewash into non-existence. How Neptune is that?

Except Saturn is in Scorpio, in mutual reception with Pluto in Capricorn—and the attempts to cover up or avoid dealing with inherently rotten situations can’t work for long these days. Again we are seeing, clear as day, the criminal failure of a corporate structure to prevent or adequately deal with the destruction it has unleashed. 

And again we are seeing environmental catastrophe on a scale that induces abject horror and helplessness. A wound that can’t be fixed, with ramifications that spread across national borders (more Neptune) to encompass the whole web of life on the planet. 

Virgo is the sign of attention to detail, health, orderliness, self-purification. The new moon in Virgo is a good time to start new health regimens or get your physical or psychic house in order.

The question posed by this new moon, which opposes Chiron in Pisces, looks to me like this: how can you adequately safeguard your physical integrity and health in the face of disasters like Fukushima, that threaten everything and everyone indiscriminately? Of what use is it to get your own personal house in order—clean and germ-free!—when the entire planet is being poisoned?

Ultimately there’s not a lot we CAN do, except live with the consciousness of wounding and profound loss these disasters entail—and this is also a consciousness of our own mortality. I mean, we can write letters to ‘responsible’ government bodies; we can avoid eating Pacific fish and seaweed (or anything grown in Japan for that matter); we can move to locations on the planet we hope are ‘safe’ and ‘clean’; we can organize and march in the streets against the expansion of nuclear power generation… and all these actions are necessary and valuable.

But ultimately they only give us the illusion of personal agency. And what’s happening is (always) much bigger than our pitifully limited personal agency. We can’t personally or collectively stop the process that’s underway at Fukushima. It is out of control, and even the attempts at mitigation have proven to be dreadful failures so far. A process has been set in motion that is out of anyone’s hands. 

And it is terrifying and painful to know this—but also healing. Because ultimately our lives are uncontrollable in exactly the same way, and this lack of control must be accepted. You can try to systematize your existence, to purify and perfect it (Virgo)…but the boundaries and routines you build and uphold are temporary and foredoomed to failure. Your attempts at self-mastery are foredoomed…the self does not endure. All boundaries dissolve eventually: you are destined to become part of everything again.

And the retaining walls and containers at Fukushima, sooner or later, will dissolve. Invisible poison will disperse through the world’s bloodstream unhindered, and everything alive will partake of it in some way, for generations and generations. It’s terrible, but it’s the reality. How do you live with this knowledge? How do you live with the knowledge that even if this situation is ‘contained’, there are currently hundreds of nuclear power plants around the world, each as potentially destructive as Fukushima Daiichi?

It’s like asking: how do you live with the knowledge that someday you will die? That despite all your best efforts to eat right and stay healthy and be a decent human being…one day you will die and this is entirely out of your hands?

I pose these questions because they’re the questions this Virgo new moon poses for me, not because I know how to answer them. Everyone has to find their own answers.

As we move toward the new moon, we also move into the current square between Mars in Leo and Saturn in Scorpio. It’s uncomfortable…it’s like, you can try to have fun and be lighthearted, but the awareness of just how bad things are, personally and collectively, will make that difficult. And as we move toward the full moon in Pisces on the 19^th September, Mercury also moves into the Cardinal Grand Cross zone that Venus has just left—so our minds are likely to be preoccupied with the weighty, shocking, difficult things we’re finding out. Pay attention. Don’t try to look away from or evade what you know deep down to be true.

All the thrust of the current story lies with Saturn in Scorpio, which is moving toward conjunction with the north node and Venus, exact on the 18^th September, the day before the full moon in Pisces. Attempts to skate along the surface, especially relationally, just will not work under these skies. The themes are depth and endurance. Find out who and what you trust, and stick to it! You should know pretty well who and what you can’t trust by now: don’t waste any more energy on it.