R/evolution in the air?
Conversations about today’s Full Moon have, predictably, been focusing on themes associated with Cancer (the Sun) and Capricorn (Luna): home, family, career, traditional values, etc. Each month, as we get a new set of Full and New Moons through the 12 signs, we are wise to consider the similarities, differences and significance of each polarity. But there’s more to it than that.
The zodiac year opens with Aries, the first cardinal sign and celestial trailblazer whose motto might be "move fast and break things." Like the planet Uranus, modern ruler of Aquarius, Mars is about taking decisive, speedy action with little regard to the "cost."
But our calendar year (in the West) begins with Capricorn, the last cardinal sign and the zodiac’s arch conservative. This connotes politics, of course, but the strict definition of conservative is “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.”
The two-week sphere of influence of this Full Moon is indeed a favorable time to acknowledge your accomplishments of the past month—even six months if you’ve been slogging away at a long-running project—and to evaluate your next set of goals and break ground on one of them.
The Cancer-Capricorn polarity has a strong “family values” theme, with those signs in the archetypal chart representing our parents, upbringing and the principles they instilled in us, as well as the behaviors they modeled. And the houses where 11º of those signs fall in your natal chart are likely to get a power boost over the coming several weeks.
Yet I think it’s instructive to consider the greater context of other recent and contemporary planetary phenomena, much as one wouldn’t watch just a couple scenes of a movie and presume to understand its implications.
One step forward, two back?
Just like a pendulum swinging, there are natural laws and social laws that keep things in balance and seeking homeostasis. When the pendulum swings wildly to one side, well, you know the countermovement will eventually bring it back to center.
There’s no need to rehash the pandemonium the pandemic wreaked on life as we knew it at the start of this decade. But it is worth mentioning the nearly two-year ongoing square between Saturn and Uranus. That’s something historically inclined astrologers will talk about for a long time.
For starters, Saturn and Uranus are the co-rulers of Aquarius, the sign (in shorthand) of rebellion and modernity. Saturn does double duty as the sole ruler of Capricorn, the sign of conservatism. That alone is like throwing cats in a bag. Then three exact squares in 2021 followed by some “close enough for discomfort” ones in ’22 added palpable pressure to the stress cracks in the foundation. Which foundation? Everything from governance to policing to health care to education to financial institutions to…
Saturn finally disengaged in March by moving on to Pisces, where the planet of form, structure, discipline and boundaries struggles to find his footing. But Uranus carries on in Taurus, the sign of its fall because the planet of rebellion and change tears its metaphorical hair out at that slow and restrictive pace.
And just weeks after Saturn made its sign change, an even more consequential one occurred: Pluto entered Aquarius for the first time since the 18th century, underscoring and potentiating the cataclysmic changes that the Saturn-Uranus square cycle initiated.
But I don’t see this as “doom foretold,” not in the least, and you shouldn't either. Otherwise, why study astrology? Why read history? Why fight for our inalienable liberties?
The greatest mystery ever is what the hell we’re doing here. We can, and many of us will, ponder that for a lifetime. In the meantime, I think the best thing we can do in the absence of absolute answers is—and I'm dead serious—make it up as we go along. With vision, with integrity, and yes, with traditional values even as we collectively forge a new world.
People talk about our need for a new mythos, for new archetypes representing high-minded values that prioritize preserving the planet, ancient ways of healing ourselves and Gaia, prospering without pillaging, and defending the rights of all.
I don’t believe the way forward is by duct-taping the cracks in the foundation and limping ahead. Nor am I fan of radical revolution. But I firmly believe we need to understand the past and all the factors that contributed to it from the 20-20 vantage point of hindsight.
Something that all my great and revered teachers shared and that I resonate strongly with might help us find that healthy balance between conservatism and progress. Whether in my astrological studies, dreamwork, walking the medicine wheel, even when I dabbled in Tarot, Feng shui and other modalities, the transmission was clear: Learn the ancient ways. Internalize that, find the universal truth in it, let it speak to you as it has for millennia, and work with those techniques until you’ve mastered them. And then feel free to stretch and experiment and see if the guidance that comes through on a personal level is applicable to others.
To me, that’s showing respect for what’s survived for so long yet not clinging to it simply because “it’s always been done that way.” Too much horror has been defended with words to that effect.
In your life, where are you at a crossroads between “staying the course” (aka the devil you know) and taking a bold leap of faith to follow your passion or dream? It’s usually fear, whose source is usually limited and false beliefs, that keeps us stuck.
Do you know this line by the 19th-century Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier: “For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’”
One month after today’s Capricorn Full Moon, we’ll be in Leo season and the Full Moon will be in Aquarius: the pendulum swinging. So even as you’re curating your goals and to-do list now, glance ahead and let your vision be guided not merely by what’s safe and “realistic” but what your heart (Leo) knows is worth fighting for (Aquarius).
Even if the only thing you’re fighting is your own fear and resistance.
