An Enlightening First Quarter Moon

Tuesday evening's First Quarter Moon is an interesting one because, just as it indicates the next milestone lunar phase — evolving from the strong initiatory impulse from last week's Capricorn New Moon of the 1st — this configuration also represents a further stage in the retrograde of Venus that began at the time of the December 21st Winter Solstice. The Moon has now reached the next cardinal sign of Aries, where in addition to the Sun, she squares Pluto in Capricorn. This is the phase of increased tension, associated with a "crisis of action," meaning that we find unexpected obstacles to what we envisioned in the idealized impulse from one week past. These events bring new information to bear, that are enlightening to us in a transformational manner. Meanwhile, Venus, moving backward through the sign of Capricorn toward the Sun and Mercury, now exactly conjuncts Mercury, bringing greater consciousness to everything that we are attempting during this new month and as we look ahead to 2014.

Because Venus remains in retrograde throughout the month of January, relationship with our fellow humans is very much on our minds as we feel into the potential for this New Year. We are engaged in a meditation on how to conduct such sacred connections for the highest potential good of all concerned. With the manifold problems that we face, certainly collectively, and perhaps individually as well, we are very aware that to even make a start on getting it straightened out will take all of us. Therefore a sense of right relationship with loved ones and with peers is vital, as well as in the widening circle that represents the collectives to which we belong and within which we have our very being: the spheres of community, local government, state or province, nation, and finally, world.

In this quarter Moon configuration also is a momentary grand cross that forms between Sun and Moon, feisty Mars and positivistic Jupiter, all in cardinal or action-oriented signs. As we reflect on where we are going with the key relationships in our lives, we might well face increased reactivity, and yet also optimism for the potential end result. We humans are such a paradox, hovering along the borderline between good and evil, angels and devils all at once. If we can only, as Johnny Mercer would have it, "accentuate the positive" we might be able to more easily get along.

Chiron, the Wounded Healer, also remains a factor in these mid-month skies. We are each one of us in a huge process, throughout 2014, of taking the time to tune in to where we are wounded and placing there the gentle balm of acceptance, understanding and forgiveness, for ourselves first of all, and then for others. We win by silently witnessing any reactivity that comes up, as it comes up, and simply noticing. By this we are making a giant leap forward into better integration of the dark places within us as well as the ones that are more light filled.

The Sabian Symbols for the Sun and Moon in this quarter moon configuration are instructive; they are — for the Sun, "The Union Jack," or the British flag from the time of colonialization, signifying the enclosing circles of ever-widening collective entities to which we belong, and on which we leave our mark. For the Moon we have "An empty hammock," which reminds us of the creative void within, from which all inspired activity emanates. For this last symbol, Marc Edmond Jones has "a thoroughgoing integrity established by the inner reconciliation of outer inharmonies." To which we might add, that it is by finding the beauty in all our relationship and social connections, while attempting to minimize the negative, and the judgmental, that we individually forge ahead, laying the groundwork for a better, fuller and more vibrantly alive world.

An Enlightening First Quarter Moon

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Chart for the First Quarter Moon on January 7, 2014

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