First Quarter Moon: Awareness of Higher Responsibility

Friday's First Quarter Moon in late Pisces is especially interesting for taking place directly on the Moon's South Node, signifying inheritance from the past. There are additionally several quite important outer planet interactions to take note of, as has been the case with all these recently quite strong lunations, including the New Moon of this past Friday. Last weekend's lunation with Mars opposed to Uranus kicked off this very interesting Sagittarius and Winter Solstice cycle that will lead us into the new year of 2016. In this current configuration, inner and outer planets again combine, with Mercury in close forming conjunction with Pluto, just as Uranus square Pluto comes to within two degrees of exact. The revolutionary and transformational ardor with which we may be facing the turning of the year becomes even more fully emphasized, implying that major metamorphosis is again coming to us, both individually and collectively. Our changes are still rocking our life raft as we head over the waterfall of this powerful end-of-year timing. Perhaps most importantly, with prominent Mercury, is the increased awareness implied on our part, regarding of what our transformation actually consists. When we act from unconscious places within us, as is usually the case, we have little information by means of which we can consciously integrate our changes and challenges with what we truly want, deep down, for our lives. The opposite is true now, to the extent that we can allow ourselves to feel and recognize, in this important turning of the year, what it is that we are truly up to.

In the current quarter Moon configuration as well, Mars is closely opposed to the new planet, Eris, so that we are all of us enjoined to continue taking an important and definitive stand for that in which we most deeply believe. Then, too, in this configuration, Venus makes a close trine to Chiron, the Wounded Healer, in mid-Pisces, highlighting issues of interpersonal relationship. With our old patterns, based on prior wounding, coming so readily to the fore, we are also reminded that the Sun and Moon in this difficult opening square of the lunation cycle land directly on the nodal axis, with the Sun in square and the Moon conjunct the South Node. Issues of the past could thus come up for you in a big way as you navigate the tricky waters of this difficult phase.

What are we to make of all this outer planet activity and our inheritance from the past? The outer planets invite us, nudge us, and then, finally, strongly thrust us into the needful alteration of our lives. Resist as we might, preferring our simple, static, pre-existing status quo, we must nevertheless embrace the potential within us for massive change; acknowledging as we do that life itself is change. In this we take what has come before as grist for the mill of transformation. Bob Dylan perhaps said it best, during the tumultuous 1960s with Uranus and Pluto in conjunction, when he suggested: "take what you have gathered from coincidence." By this he meant, no coincidence at all but rather the evidence of cosmic intentionality. You are, ultimately, a child of the universe. Once placed in position, and given that initial push down the slope of your destiny, the rest is up to you. Yet once you take that first bold step, the universe answers, opening the necessary doors.

The Sabian Symbols for this First Quarter Moon are, as usual, revealing. They are, for the Sun in the 27th degree of Sagittarius, "A sculptor," a symbol that reminds us in this context that we each of us shape our own intended life direction. Marc Edmund Jones relates this symbol to, "the manifestation of self-consciousness in its maturity of realization," and goes on to remark upon "an irresistible desire to endow all life with some enduring potentiality ... building all experience into a personal fulfillment." For the Moon and South Node we find, "A harvest moon." Considering our human destiny as the theme, and our desire to grow in our comprehension of it, this makes for an obvious symbol of what we stand to reap. Jones references "life's moments of culmination as the threshold of new achievement." Indeed, we are all of us harvesters of what we have sown, from the past and within the emerging present moment. When we pay close attention to what we are about, rooted in our deepest soul intention, we can achieve much. This is especially so when we recognize that life's challenges have a higher meaning, and ourselves also, as we hone our understanding and offer our own evolving instrument to the cosmic symphony.