A First Quarter Moon of Finding Your Spiritual Voice

Saturday morning’s First Quarter Moon in Pisces, taking place early on December 15th, has the interesting characteristic of being at the precise degree, 23 plus, that Eris still occupies in Aries, so that the Sagittarius Sun makes a partile trine to Eris, with the Moon in perfect semi-sextile. This strong Eris placement has a bearing on how we handle what can be a difficult transition from the New Moon to the First Quarter, a lunar phase that reflects the notion of being brought down to the real. As former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Frost puts it:

Nature’s first green is gold -
Her hardest hue to hold.
The early leaf’s a flower -
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief.
So dawn comes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

In the early idealism of the New Moon time, we can dream mightily, believing that these fantasies can all come true. The First Quarter square that follows by one week is when “the rubber meets the road,” and ideas that were purely conceptual are tested for viability. This is especially true in this case, when Neptune was strongly highlighted by the December 6th New Moon in square with his conjunction with Mars, so that in this quarter moon phase we suffer from the significant contrast and must try to remain content with what we actually have. This theme is reflected in several ways now, with prominent Eris, and also with Venus, high-flying in the timing of the New Moon, now finding herself in major aspect to discriminating and difficult Saturn. The Venus-Saturn sextile has Jupiter at its midpoint for emphasis, and urges us rather than indulging our untried ideals regarding these, to look to the practical reality of all our relationships. Eris, archetype of the Feminine Warrior, in turn urges us to make the most of what we have inside ourselves, to the extent that we can discern these bottom-line beliefs. Once we have accepted who we are at the deepest level, warts and all, it is what use we make of ourselves, and of our values, that truly matters.

And this is the very message of a powerfully highlighted Eris. There is a feisty nature in support of soul intention that is buried deep within each of us, and that we may choose to access to the extent that we can make greater self-knowledge a major goal. This is a vital fighting spirit that guides us to stand up for what we uniquely possess inside, independent of the tugs of consensus thinking or the opinions of others, a lonely maverick quality that goes against the tide, and that is stronger in some than in others, and these serve as exemplars of this deep-seated archetype. In studying this new astrological archetype, I found over and over again that feminist leaders, who battled for equal recognition through the last two hundred or more years, or paradigm-shifters, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, and many others, all possessed strong Eris. My research is summarized in my well-received book on this subject, The Tenth Planet. As we move from the idealism of the New Moon timing to the reality-test of this First Quarter, it is vital that we speak from the heart, as Eris teaches us, about our concerns for our society and our world, and most of all, regarding our own ongoing spiritual evolution. Thus we are summoned by the cosmos that surrounds us to become more fully ourselves, and to take up the task that called us into this incarnation.

The Sabian symbols for this First Quarter Moon form, as usual, a telling secondary point of view on what we are in the midst of dealing with through these difficult and challenging times. We find, for the Sun in the 24th degree of Sagittarius, “A bluebird standing at the door of the house.” This symbol reminds us of the call of Nature, and of natural law, to lift us out of ordinary reality to the acknowledgment of higher planes of existence and self-transcendence. The bluebird summons us, but then we find, of course, that we have to do the work required in order to get us there. Marc Edmund Jones references, “the persisting imminence of real rewards in experience, and of the ever-immediate danger of failing to see or welcome them. Implicit in the symbolism is the need for a conscious worthiness of selfhood as the foundation for self-fulfillment.” For the Moon, in the same degree of Pisces, we have, “An inhabited island,” bringing the twin concepts of solitude and community. Jones states, “this is a symbol of the self-adequacy of experience on the objective side of everyday reality, and of mankind’s gift for the organization of his [or her] own private world… achievement through a creative opportunism or inventiveness of exceptional order.” Indeed we must cultivate our own garden, always, and yet in so doing we find that we come to the aid of, and participate in, the wider circles of tribe, society and world that surround us and in which we have our being.

A First Quarter Moon of Finding Your Spiritual Voice

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Chart for the First Quarter Moon on December 15, 2018

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