Full Moon in Libra: The Most Important

The Full Moon in Libra arrived this morning (7:12 am EDT) and would have looked most full last night. Here, the Moon was shrouded in rain clouds, but visible or not, this is a Full Moon we will feel.

Sun and Moon are opposite as they always are at a Full Moon, in the final, intense, 29th degree of Aries and Libra. This is the second Full Moon in Libra this calendar year.

Those alone would make this Libra Full Moon important. The tension between self and other is acute.

Do we get what we want (Aries)? Or do we pay attention to the needs of others (Libra)? Do we take direct action (Aries)? Or plan for yet more discussions and negotiations (Libra)?

Full Moons illuminate. At this Full Moon, we are likely feel exactly where we are in balance and out of balance with self and other, action and thought, impulsiveness and consideration. And that would be enough to learn.

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Now comes Uranus, conjunct the Sun and opposite the Moon. Uranus the awakener, the revolutionary, who brings change that is swift and unexpected.

The connections between Uranus and the Sun and Moon are out-of-sign aspects, since Uranus is in early Taurus. Typically, out-of-sign aspects are thought to be weaker. This time, I am not so sure. Uranus is a huge presence, impossible to miss.

Also, Mercury popped into Aries a few days ago. After long, long weeks in watery, emotional Pisces, our thoughts and our speech are feeling clearer, more active, more directed, and more incisive.

This is good. We need to get things done, clear the air, say what we think (now we know what what is). And it could also be startling. When Mercury is in Aries, we can be surprised by what we hear and what we say.

Impulse control is not a strong suit for Pisces or Aries, but the styles are very different. Pisces impulses are to drift, to sink, to avoid, to blend in to the background. Aries jumps in with both feet and starts taking names.

Is the Libra Moon being pushed into selfishness? Is it really all about me at this Full Moon?

Before I explore an answer, let’s be fair and say that Libra has her own styles of selfishness and avoidance. They tend to look more like self indulgence, or a retreat into beautiful thoughts rather than dealing with reality.

Wherever we are with all these energies, which appear in some form in every birth chart, Uranus is here to wake us up.

Uranus pushes us to individuate. This is the process in which we choose to become self aware, to explore what we might repress or deny. But if personal growth is the goal, becoming who we truly are, then we need both Aries and Libra.

Libra encourages us to look at all the parts of our psyches, of ourselves, with compassion and understanding. In the midst of inner turmoil, we can find a way to talk it through, reach for those key insights, and find a sense of peace.

Aries has the drive to keep going, even when the road through the psyche is tough. Aries can also make the decision to let some things go. Cut them out. In partnership with Libra, this cutting out will be limited to what is necessary for the soul’s growth, and not simple a rejection of parts of ourselves we prefer not to see.

At this Full Moon, we are on a journey. It is the journey Mary Oliver described in her poem of that name.

If we pay attention to what comes up for us today, we could find ourselves striding “deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing [we can] do – – – determined to save the only life [we] could save” which is, of course, our own.

Uranus reminds the Libra Moon and Aries Sun that our most important relationship is with ourselves.

All other relationships start from where we are with yourselves. Anything unrecognized, unappreciated, unintegrated, will be projected out into the world to distort our perceptions and, therefore, relationships. This is how the psyche works.

There is a vitally important caveat here, especially for people like me who live in the U.S. and others who are privileged and living in “new” countries. There is a myth of the frontier that says, when you get to the new land, your past no longer matters.

This myth says who you are depends only on the you in this moment and how to act. You have the power to walk away from the past.

The resonant power of this myth is clear in most stories of the American West. It was built into the U.S. policy of “manifest destiny” which said that immigrants had a “natural right” to be there and take land and resources from the peoples who were there already.

You can see the trap in believing this myth, both personally and collectively, when you think about how very unwelcome any claim of manifest destiny would be on the part of immigrants arriving in the U.S. or many other places today.

We cannot escape the past. Nor should we want to.

At this Full Moon, the connection between past and present and, indeed, future, appears in the chart. This Full Moon is squarely the Nodes of the Moon, bringing Uranus into that square as well.

The last few months have been filled with realizations about, connections to, and sometimes ghosts from the past. Our past. Hopefully, you have found some time to invite this in, work with it, and become a more fully integrated person as a result.

The square we see in the chart is a reminder. What’s past is prologue. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Uranus understands this even if we do not. The path of individuation runs through our family legacies, the lands of the ancestors, and the deep past. Our history is not a few neuroses we can unload. It is sacred territory that holds riches as well as challenges.

This Libra Full Moon, opposed by an Aries Sun and Uranus in Taurus, looks for balance.

The road might be rocky, or swampy, or feel barren. Another line from the poem The Journey says, “It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.”

But it is our road. Ours to take. Along the way, we will become ourselves and save that one wild and precious life.