Aries Full Moon

Aries Full Moon - Determined Independence

"In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth."

—Patti Smith

The current lunar cycle 'culminates' this week with an Aries Full Moon (8:47 PM PDT 14° Aries/Libra) on Monday evening. But this lunar cycle continues to confound even with the culmination. There aren't any apparent 'straight lines' between the beginning of the lunar cycle at the 'particularly dark' Virgo New Moon Solar Eclipse (September 21, 12:53 PM PDT 29° Virgo) and this week's Full Moon. With the Sun and Mercury in Libra, we may have believed we'd like to find compromise. But uncertainty and indecision seemed to persist. Mercury and Venus have been in 'mutual reception' since September 19th, offering help to 'ferret out' meaning and better understanding — but have brought us to few conclusions. Independent Mars has become firmly entrenched in Scorpio with a head full of determined independence that keeps us digging for certainty. Mercury leaves the helpful (but indecisive) connection to Venus to join Mars in Scorpio just before the Full Moon. The culmination of these energies at the Full Moon seems to produce less of a clear culmination and more of a sharp turn or unexpected veer — followed up by a Mercury-Pluto square that is likely to abandon any search for compromise. But the decisiveness lands quite hard — stubborn determination replaces indecision. Gone is the deference that was encouraged by the now ended Venus/Mercury mutual reception. Venus heads towards an opposition to Saturn this week, completing on Friday. The Venus-Saturn opposition, from Virgo to Pisces, can make trust hard to establish. The activation of the Pisces-Virgo axis — emphasized by the lunar nodes (South Node in Virgo/North Node in Pisces) — asks us to reconcile and balance material and spiritual values. Recognizing that the message of this lunar cycle is, in fact, about learning how to balance these values, may bring us to a profound sense of relief — and peace. The chaos and discomfort at the end of the week is likely to seem quite intense but may not actually be as threatening as we may believe. Feelings of vulnerability are difficult but brief. What is likely most important is acknowledging and empathizing with the discomfort in others rather than solely focusing on our own sense of vulnerability. It is also important to recognize that Venus will reach the Libra threshold next week (October 13) and again form the remarkable 'kite' formation we previously saw with Mars (August 6th), Mercury (September 18th), and the Sun (September 22 — the Equinox). We can expect further insights and revelations to come out of that connection that follows up on those past connections.

Emotion and intuition bring some constructive insights on Sunday but our confidence is getting shaky. Our intuition improves as we got through the day but is increasingly overshadowed by the building imperatives of the Full Moon. Monday's Full Moon's activity seems to push us away from open interaction and compromise. However, there are underlying rhythms that are difficult to fully understand which have brought this lunar cycle to a tricky culmination. Tuesday afternoon and evening's competitiveness is dialed up but subtlety is more effective. Stubborn determination replaces indecision but finding compromise becomes more difficult. We need to be prepared to jettison impulsiveness on Wednesday and perhaps reexamine some of our past actions in order to lay the groundwork for finding a 'better way' . Direct expression somewhat difficult. The openings that we find on Thursday may be surprising or fully expected, Either way, there is a fresh start offered. Despite Friday's activating atmosphere, establishing any sort of practical action is challenging. We need to focus on compassion towards others and avoid being too hard on ourselves. There is a deep sense of vulnerability on Saturday but we may be tempted to keep any vulnerability hidden or obscured rather than 'face the music' in any definitive way. Ultimately, there is no way to keep this chaos under wraps but the outcomes are not likely to be nearly as devastating as we may believe.