I look out of this window and I think
this is a cosmos, this is a huge creation, this is
one small corner of it. The trees and birds and everything
else and I'm part of it. I didn't ask to be put here,
I've been lucky in finding myself here.
The Full Moon on August 22, 2021, 5:02 am PDT at 29 degrees Aquarius,
has the potential to liberate our mind from narrow ways of thinking.
We can more readily see the bigger picture,
connect with larger and larger wholes, and find our place
within the scheme of the great movement of life -
as we become and become.
This is the second consecutive full moon in Aquarius in a year that has a strong Aquarian focus. Aquarius is future oriented and values objectivity, truth and progressive thinking. It seeks humanitarian solutions and innovative ideas that often emphasize technology. To whatever degree we are influenced by Aquarius, we seek authenticity and freedom of expression. In the name of a vision we hold, we are willing to be different and stand at the edge of the pack. The second Aquarian Full Moon this summer has afforded us a process and progression for how we are shaping the future in our minds and conversations.
The Aquarian Full Moon last month occurred at the first degree of Aquarius and this Full Moon happens at the last degree. The final degree of a sign, the anaretic degree, amplifies the nature of that sign, including an amplification of the shadow elements of the sign. When the Aquarius energy is not balanced, we may find ourselves too much in our heads. In the name of objectivity, we can become detached from everything.
Fortunately, the Leo Sun opposing the Full Moon draws us into our feelings and hearts, so we can better benefit from the ideals the Aquarian energies opens within our minds. Warmth, joy, and creativity (Leo) help to balance, inform and positively influence the intellectual and revolutionary idealism of the Aquarian Moon. What brings us joy and personal fulfillment has been nurtured the last weeks since the Leo New Moon so that we can look once again at our goals and dreams from a fresh and expanded perspective.
We cannot change anything until we accept it.
Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
Carl Jung
The mind is essentially tethered to the heart in the Full Moon dynamic. Feelings of love, courage and joy nurtured in the last weeks shed new light on the path we are walking. We are better able to accept and own the path we are on and embrace change. We are better prepared to waste less energy on wishing that we or our path were different. There is increased awareness, even aha moments, where we see where we have arrived, who we are becoming and sense the nature of our future self.
“My destination is no longer a place,
rather a new way of seeing.”
Marcel Proust
We take flight - Jupiter conjoins the Moon
Jupiter is about growth and expansion. Its presence can bring good fortune and success to what we are doing. Conjoined with the Full Moon, we may become inspired, buoyant or experience a stroke of luck.
The mind-opening energy of the Full Moon is accentuated leading to feeling liberated. As our soul’s calling is amplified (Jupiter in Pisces), our mind is set free. All that is not our soul nature can readily fall away as we are less identified or seduced by false beliefs or attitudes.
The authentic self is the soul made visible.
Sarah Ban Breathnach
Relationships Receive a Boost
We may feel less inhibited and more willing to sexually experiment in relationship. More free to be ourselves within intimate partnership, interactions are inspired by honesty and objective clarity. Simultaneously, passion and desire are fueled (Mars trine Uranus).
Couples can strengthen and deepened the bond of love through adventurous and experimental lovemaking. Single people may feel a boost of confidence to make the first move to connect with a potential love interest.
A Jupiter Full Moon can lead to being overly exuberant, but this is tempered by pragmatic Saturn (traditional ruler of Aquarius) whose presence is strengthened as part of a Grand Trine with Venus and the North Node.
Deepened Trust and Accountability Allow Increased Intimacy and Connection
Engagement with others may be more passionate and less restrained, but we also approach relationship with a dose of pragmatism (Grand Air Trine with Saturn, Venus, The North Node). This is a beneficial time to talk with someone we love, or with an authority figure, about a spoken or unspoken agreement between you that we wish to address. Conversation is generative and can help bring resolution so we can move forward in a good way. Where there may have been no opening before, there is now a way to communicate authentically and truthfully and respect the other person's needs and perspective. There has been a maturation process, over the course of the last lunar cycle, that has fostered humility and a way to claim ownership and accountability for the relationship we have helped create.
Uranus, Ruler of Aquarius Trine Mercury and Mars
Daily life is energized and exchanges with others can be electric (Mercury and Mars trine Uranus). Communication of ideas and the pace of life are inspired and fast moving. We can better grasp, embrace and move with changes that are happening.
We can initiate a change that is tangible and specific, like organizing a closet or beginning a new exercise routine. We can look to doing larger, more ambitious projects with the awareness that often with Uranus we are not in control of the change and so welcome how the universe wants to participate in shaping what we are changing.
Uranus' position indicates where to anticipate dynamic change. In the sign of Taurus 2018-2026, it heralds change in agriculture practices, food distribution, financial systems, and what we designate is 'valuable'. Taurus is the sign of the Earth and all that is connected to the material. Increased earthquakes (Uranus), literally and metaphorically, will have us realign our personal values (Taurus) with universal values of how to work in harmony with the planet and all who live on it. The changes Uranus initiates are directed at an imbalance. Disruption and chaos are part of the change needed to return us to balance.
Uranus stationed retrograde on August 20 at 14 degrees Taurus. The planet of change has now slowed down and pressure for desired change will now build and be released when Uranus goes direct once more mid-January 2022. Looking to where the middle degrees of Taurus fall in our natal chart, we can identify what areas of our life have stagnated and need a little shaking up. If we have planets in our chart between10 and 15 degrees of a fixed sign (Taurus, Aquarius, Scorpio, Leo), we can see where we are struggling against restriction and looking to make a dynamic change in the coming months.
The key to nature's therapy is feeling
like a tiny part of it, not a master over it.
There's amazing pride in seeing a bee land
on a flower you planted - but that's not
your act of creation, it's your act of joining in.
Pegasus – Breakdown to Breakthrough
The Full Moon is aligned with the constellation of Pegasus. Most of us are familiar with the white-winged horse Pegasus of Greek myth, but how many of us know the story of Pegasus’ origins?
Pegasus has captured the imagination of generations and generations of children and adults. Our heart soars when we see this magical horse with wings soar into the sky in stories, movies or cartoons. Pegasus is a symbol of liberation and freedom and thus an apt symbol of the Full Moon's message.
Pegasus was not born in a field of flowers nor was this horse a child of the clouds. Pegasus’ origins involve betrayal, heartache, fear, revenge and entrapment. Pegasus fully grown flew out from the head of Medusa after the hero, Perseus, cut off Medusa's head. Her decapitation and death gave birth to this magical horse that had been gestating inside her.
Medusa wasn’t always fearsome nor a monster. She was once a beautiful young woman who served in Athena’s temple along the Aegean Sea. One day Neptune, god of the ocean, entered Athena’s temple, perhaps by tsunami or hurricane and desecrated the temple with his powerful waters. As the story goes, he ravished the beautiful Medusa and impregnated her.
Athena was enraged by the desecration of her temple. She took her revenge out on the young Medusa by first making her hair a bed of snakes. Medusa’s body was then made grotesque and was joined with her two sisters, the Gorgons. The last act of Athena’s revenge was to fix it so that anything Medusa looked upon turned to stone. The Greek people feared the terrible gaze of her eye and it was through great trickery and support of the gods that the young hero Perseus was able to chop off her head without being turned to stone himself.
We can readily admit this is a gruesome, tragic story. And yet, it gave birth to Pegasus. The purity, beauty and magical wings of Pegasus does not exist separate from his origins. It is also a reminder that no matter how great the imbalance, there will always follow a movement to rebalance.
Likewise, the tragedies, injustices and heartaches of our life were fertilizer for a seed potential, where through gestation something new and marvelous could take flight in our lives and in our mind (it is notable Pegasus sprang from Medusa's mind and not her body). I am reminded of the phrase: No Mud, No Lotus. Beauty, magic, freedom are often borne of chaos, not control and order. Similarly, the Full Moon is the culmination of a saga in our lives and in the evolution of humanity where things need to break down in order for there to be breakthrough, to embrace life as it is and see our place in the scheme of the great movements of creation. It is a Moon where we to can find our wings, feel unfettered by the mind’s prior limiting perspective, and see ourselves take flight.