Full Moon in Capricorn: Old Bones

Tonight’s Full Moon in Capricorn is also a penumbral lunar eclipse, the last in the Cancer/Capricorn eclipse cycle we’ve been in since the summer of 2018.

Happening in my eastern time zone just after midnight on July 5, this eclipse arrives on America’s birthday, the solar return of the US Sibley chart.

A penumbral lunar eclipse is one in which the Earth casts only a slight shadow on the Moon’s surface, visible without being dramatic. This eclipse will be seen throughout North and South America, Western Europe, and all but the most eastern edges of Africa.

If you want to see the eclipse, watch the Moon about an hour or so before the Full Moon is exact. If your skies are clear, you should see the Earth’s shadow slightly darken the Moon.

This is still an eclipse, dramatic or not, and a critical one. This eclipse signifies endings. Whatever has been emphasized, has emerged and become more visible in your life since summer 2018 will now move toward some kind of completion.

This is not an “ok, now it’s over, we can forget about it” kind of ending. This is more of a “we’ve shown you some things you really, really need to pay attention to, so figure out how to deal with this” kind of ending.

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The world today offers many crises that call out for redress. This particular eclipse cycle has been greatly intensified by the presence of Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn for the entirety of the cycle, and currently Jupiter in Capricorn as well.

We’ve been confronted so directly with Capricornian issues. Pluto highlights how toxic current structures of power have become. Saturn, very strong tonight in the last degree of Capricorn, holds ever tighter to that power, as Jupiter makes it all inescapably large.

Yet we’ve also been shown that structures as such are essential. The option to live in a completely free and open way is not viable in today’s world. We are too interconnected; we must attend to all needs, not just our own. Also, we as individuals and small groups are prey to already existing massive structures that have no plans to dismantle themselves.

So rather than looking for a world without structure, or only small structures, we are tasked with taking apart structures that don’t work and replacing them with ones that do.

At this eclipse ending, we now have more than enough information to know where the problems are. Moving forward, we need to craft solutions.

There are powerful patterns at this Full Moon that tell us many voices want to be heard. They demand their place at the table. In the chart, everyone is talking to someone.

This Full Moon contains a Grand Cross in the cardinal signs and also important trines and sextiles.

Let’s look first at the Grand Cross.

As I’ve said, all voices are important here. This includes asteroids and planetoids, bringing in points of view often ignored if we only consider the planets.

The opposition at the heart of this Grand Cross is the Full Moon eclipse itself, lying across the Cancer/Capricorn axis.

Note how the Nodes of the Moon are kind of far away and in different signs, Gemini and Sagittarius. This is why the eclipse is penumbral, less dramatic in appearance, and also why the energy is shifting, wrapping up one orientation to shift us to the next.

Yet there’s still plenty going on in Cancer and Capricorn. Remember the Sun and Moon get wide orbs when considering aspects. The Sun is conjunct the asteroid Vesta and Mercury retrograde. The Moon is conjunct Pallas Athena and Jupiter, with Pluto and Saturn nearby.

Make sure you know where Cancer and Capricorn fall in your chart. This has been an active and quite possibly challenged part of your chart for the last several years. What do you know now you didn’t know two years ago? What changes in your life have occurred? How have your ideas and plans for the future shifted? These are worth noting.

Everything in Aries is squaring this Full Moon. Mars at 4 Aries, Chiron the wounded healer at 9, Lilith at 17, and Eris at 24, tightly squaring Pluto. Aries is the new thing, the new fire, the impulse to act. Forward momentum has been difficult during this intensely Capricornian time. The strong Aries energies say, it’s time. Stuff needs to change. One way or another, change is gonna happen.

Opposite, anchoring the Libra side of this cardinal Grand Cross, is Juno, the Roman name for Hera. We learn of her typically as the jealous, nagging wife of Zeus, an easy target for jokes. Yet her presence predates Olympus. She was, and is, a goddess who represented fairness, especially in partnerships. What better sign could she be in right now?

The square is a highly stable structure. This, paradoxically, is what makes square aspects challenging. They have their position, it’s a strong one, so why move it? Someone else can adjust. Why should I?

These are the bones of this chart, even as Capricorn rules the bones in our bodies. This eclipse cycle has taken us right down to the bone. What have we found there?

We’ve been confronted with situations that expose our core principles. We all tend to see ourselves as good people, law abiding, contributing in useful ways to society. But are we?

When we’re asked to do things we don’t like because they benefit others, do we? When we have to give up things, activities we enjoy because they’ve become dangerous, how well do we adjust?

When presented with clear evidence of injustice, intolerance, hatred, and violence, and when these things point to issues we thought were already fixed because they didn’t directly affect our lives, how do we respond?

When we are at risk of losing our basic security because our jobs are threatened or gone, the economy is flailing, health care systems are stressed, and government structures struggle to create workable fixes, how do we respond?

These are real issues and tangible threats. Each one pushes us into our deep selves, our structures, our bones.

What does it mean to be a good person? What do we feel the world owes us? What do we owe our societies?

These are ancestral issues. We all came from somewhere. Our people have histories, struggles, traumas. I am in no way saying all struggles are equal, all trauma is the same. Yet the struggles and triumphs within our own ancestral lines have shaped us.

We carry within us wonderful things and terrible things. We’ve now had a better look at what those things are and how and when they get triggered. It’s in our bones.

This Full Moon also offers interesting trines and sextiles. These are the easy, energized, flows of information and support. We can miss these, take them for granted or simply not see them, if we don’t look.

The trines and sextiles bring in other voices. Uranus is key here, Uranus the revolutionary who in Taurus and therefore already connected to deep structures. He sextiles both the Cancer group and Ceres the grain goddess in Pisces. He trines the Capricorn group.

Uranus says, look, things change. Cycles of birth and death are built into this world. If we hold on to the old too tightly, we will die with it. Vitality emerges with new births. Our vision of what can be, needs to be activated now.

Venus in Gemini sextiles Mars and Chiron in Aries. She says, hey, sure, let’s change, but we don’t need to burn it all down first. Let’s check out what’s already here. Maybe we can get creative, repurpose some of what we already have. There’s lots of options. She is also trining Juno in Libra, strengthening our focus on right relationship.

These connections offer ideas, innovations, and hope.

In case you though we needed more indicators of how significant this Full Moon eclipse is, let me tell you about the fixed stars. There are two bright stars, one conjunct the Sun and one with the Moon

Sirius,the Dog Star, the ancient signal of the flooding of the Nile, sits with the Sun. This star is bright, powerful, kingly, and can bring wealth and power. It is also volatile, and can get angry and dangerous. How do we handle ourselves when we feel threatened? Can we work with others to craft solutions? Or do we become threatening?

Vega, the Harp star, sits with the Moon. This star within the constellation of the Lyre, carries the same inspiration that made Orpheus a mesmerizing musician. Here we can find talent, idealism, and refinement. We can also access a kind of letting go, giving in to worldly instincts and desires, losing focus, and being pretentious about it.

Vega is also the Egyptian Maat, the one who weighed the feather of the soul at death, to determine what kind of afterlife we had earned. If we faced Maat’s scale today, what would it show?

An eclipse Full Moon is a time to pay attention, rather than a time to act. Manifesting, or any magical works, are best left to a calmer time. As the charts show, there are many powerful energies in play. Right now, we are better focused on learning than doing.

So look at your chart. Look at your life and experiences over the last two years. We can also check back into earlier summers when Cancer/Capricorn eclipses came our way, back in 2002, 1983, and 1964. But with so much happening right now, there is much to be explored in our current lives.

Dive deep. Get right down to the bone. What are your core principles, core structures? What holds your life together? What needs to be retuned, refined, reinterpreted? Where is there room for a new birth?

How can we recast what our ancestors bequeathed to us to create something wonderful and new, something just and inclusive, that still honors where we came from, and the best of what we know in our bones?

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The astrological charts are my own. The images in this post include the title,
adapted from the bone drawings by Joyce McCown,
and the following images:
the earth goddess by Maniraj Madishetty, and
the feather by Daiga Ellaby.