This Full Moon in Aquarius is brilliant in every sense of the word.
It’s a Supermoon, the first of four in a row. The Moon is closer to the Earth than average, making it appear bigger and brighter in the sky. This Moon will shine.
Astrologically, this Full Moon is incandescent and sharp-edged.
The Sun is conjunct Mercury in Leo, following the cazimi late on August 18. This retrograde conjunction between the Sun and Mercury brings illumination, a deep look into what’s happening for us during this Mercury retrograde.
It’s a time when our perceptions and understandings may shift, depending on where this particular retrograde falls in our birth charts.
The Sun–Mercury conjunction opposes the Moon as all three square Uranus and the star Algol, creating a T-square in the fixed signs of Leo, Aquarius, and Taurus.
The star Algol has a fearsome reputation and history. In Greek myth, this is the severed head of Medusa, the gorgon who, in death, became the Aegis, Athena’s protective shield she loaned to various heroes.
Uranus, although named by astronomers for the father of Saturn, seems linked more strongly in astrology to Prometheus, the titan who sacrificed himself to steal fire from the Olympian gods and save humanity.
Prometheus and Medusa are beings of the Earth, gods who predate the Olympians worshipped by the Hellenistic Greeks. So Uranus and Algol together potentiate a chthonic place, one Nietzsche termed the abyss and Jung called the Shadow.
This Full Moon illuminates the ways we perceive and relate to this underworld darkness. Meaningless emptiness or the source of our deepest understanding? A place of scientific and technological progress, or creative fire?
The Moon in Aquarius holds space for the cold light of reason. Aquarius is a place of vision and innovation. When we gaze into the Shadow from Aquarius, we may see the darkness as exactly what needs to be illuminated by science and technological growth.
The power of the human mind has already created miracles. Surely we can keep on miracle-ing our way out of the problems we currently face–even the ones created by our own existing technologies.
It’s not that science and technology fail to understand costs. It’s more that from this perspective, we think we can keep ahead of the game by continuing to innovate. Costs tend not to be fully reckoned during the process of development.
Last year’s blockbuster film, Oppenheimer was based on a 2005 biography of atomic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer titled American Prometheus.
The Sun and Mercury together in Leo illuminate a more personal and creative perspective. Here we find the Romantic Era, with writers and painters and explorers like Percy and Mary Shelley, who dove into dark and shadowed places as both a rebellion against convention and a source of creative power.
One of Percy Shelley’s best known poems is Prometheus Unbound, a response to the ancient Greek play, Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was subtitled The Modern Prometheus.
These are big ideas, fitting for a T-square in fixed signs with the power of the Sun, Mercury, the Moon, Uranus, and the star Algol. But what does this have to do with us as individuals?
Personal impact for any set of transits always depends on how they intersect with the birth chart. It’s good to check where any New or Full Moon, or other important sky happenings, fit into your chart.
In my case, this Full Moon lies right across my Ascendant/Descendant axis, so, I’m definitely feeling it. But even if this is less directly impactful in your chart, these ideas are still important. They’re in the air. Part of the zeitgeist. We’re likely to see these themes show up in world events.
The shadowy realm that Uranus and Algol represent pushes against both the creative fire of Leo and the cerebral vision of Aquarius. Where are you feeling pressure? Where are you challenged to step forward and claim your place?
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There’s another T-square in this Full Moon chart that might help us sort out the personal impacts. This second T-square is in the mutable signs, a more flexible space.
Venus in Virgo opposes Saturn in Pisces as both square Mars and Jupiter in Gemini. Here we find both benefics, Venus and Jupiter, and both malefics, Mars and Saturn. Looked at in another way, we have the last two of the personal planets, Venus and Mars, who are not involved in the Full Moon T-square, plus the social planets Jupiter and Saturn, who connect us as individuals to the wider social spheres in which we live.
This T-square has been forming and reforming over the last week or so, as Mars and Jupiter met, each squared Saturn, and then Venus moved in to reactive the pattern.
If we take the high energy Full Moon T-square as the context, we can look at Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn as asking questions about what we do with this.
Venus in Virgo wants to know about specifics. How do all these big ideas translate into real things and events? Which ones really matter?
Saturn in Pisces is more concerned about long-term consequences. Where are the guardrails? Who is counting the costs?
Mars in Gemini sees endless possibilities for action and simply wants to be let go to experiment and explore. He finds Venus’ focus on details inhibiting and Saturn’s questions about the longer term impacts simply irrelevant right now.
Jupiter is intrigued by Saturn’s focus on the long term, but more in a philosophical way. He is also intrigued and enticed by Mars sitting right next to him, and ready to sign on to whatever Mars wants to do.
There’s so much going on that each of us may end up having our own unique experience, depending on which planets and signs and philosophies of life we most resonate with.
And that’s fine. Part of the gift of this Full Supermoon in Aquarius is the invitation to explore what we actually do think and feel in the presence of these complex patterns and realities.
Jump in. See what feels most present for you. Try looking at things through the different lenses offered by these complex patterns.
Wherever we end up, it’s going to be brilliant.
