Tomorrow just around dawn, the Full Moon in Capricorn will be exact. This means the Moon will look most full in the sky tonight, if your sky is clear enough to see the Moon. Here, we have clouds.
Indeed, it feels like a cloudy time–in history, in this crazy year, in our lives. Uranus, reaching the end of Taurus, seems determined to turn the world upside down. The Mars–Uranus conjunction has certainly done its best. The echoes still resound.
What does this Full Moon intend to illuminate for us? It feels too soon to figure out the meanings and implications of this week’s news stories. So, where are we? Where will the spotlight shine its light?
The Moon at 29º08’ Capricorn opposes the Sun at 29º08’ Cancer. The archetypes of Mother and Father we associate with Cancer and Capricorn have been transmogrified into the King and Queen, the pinnacle of these cardinal signs of Water and Earth.
But the archetypes are flipped in one way, because the Moon, typically the mother, is in the third decan of Capricorn, the King. The Sun, the kingly life force that rules Leo, is in the third decan of Cancer, a place where we experience a queenly abundance while also realizing that our plenty means others don’t have enough.
How do we sort this out?
The Full Moon is conjunct Pluto at 00º54’ Aquarius. We’re drawn into deep territory, facing into serious questions about power, structure, and truth. Pluto at the beginning of Aquarius has left the castle to embark on journeys of exile.
We’re invited to go along. To experiment with new perspectives. We’re challenged to look at our values through a variety of lenses.
We all have ideas about what is true, or at least, what is true for us. But how do we know? How can we be certain that our ideas, our values, our principles, are the right ones? The best ones?
This question of how we know the truth is a valid one. Neptune at 29º50’ Pisces trines the Sun and sextiles the Moon and Pluto. In the foggy realms of Neptune, where one thing blends into another, how can anyone know what is really true?
We’re also not out of the Mars–Uranus chaos. In fact, this Full Moon activates the now-waning conjunction. The Moon leaves a trine to Uranus to form a trine to Mars. The Sun moves from a sextile to Uranus into one with Mars.
The luminaries act as messengers to bring us right back into the crazy.
Of course questions about truth, values, and right action feel really important when the world seems to shift under our feet. When values we hold as true and important are suddenly up for grabs.
World events are not going to settle themselves any time soon. So perhaps this Full Moon arrives to draw us into an examination of what our values are, why we hold them, and what they’re based on.
I am not suggesting we ignore the world to focus exclusively on ourselves. Instead, it seems to me we’re living in a time in history when values, principles, justice, even ordinary kindness, seem to be turned on their heads. Such a time requires each of us to get really clear on what we believe and why.
Journalist and writer Anaïs Nin said “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
At this Full Moon, we are entering a time made for examining our beliefs. We have already entered the preview period before the upcoming Mercury retrograde in Virgo and Leo. Let’s talk about that for a moment.
The Rising Moon Astrology Podcast is available on an expanding number of sites including Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Podbean, PlayerFM, Castbox, TuneIn, and Pocket Casts. Listen in on your favorite and please leave a review.
Mercury goes retrograde about three time each year, usually in signs of the same element. Our first Mercury retrograde this year was in Aries, which is Fire. The last one will be in Sagittarius, also Fire. This one, although Mercury will turn retrograde in early Virgo, happens mostly in Leo.
Leo is the sign of the self, the place we shine our light into the world. Ruled by the Sun, Leo is a place of creativity, playfulness, personal expression, and claiming our life’s purpose.
Retrogrades are times when planets or asteroids appear to move backwards through the zodiac. This shift in motion, so different from the fixed stars, is what first made planets stand out in the night sky. The word “planet” comes from a root that means “wandering star.”
We know that the retrograde period itself is when the planet appears to move backwards. Yet the full experience, the best chance we have to learn the most from a retrograde is to pay attention to the periods of direct motion before and after the retrograde when the planet is moving over the same degrees.
Mercury will turn retrograde on August 5 at 04º06’ Virgo, will travel back to 21º24’ Leo, then turn direct and move forward again.
Since we see Mercury at 26º03’ Leo at the Full Moon, we know we’re already in the preview period. In fact, Mercury arrived at 21º24’ Leo on July 16, in the midst of the Mars–Uranus chaos.
The review period, after the retrograde, begins at the direct station on August 28 and continues until Mercury reaches 04º06’ Virgo again on September 11.
I’ve learned over the last years of tracking these pre and post periods that the full back-and-forth is worth paying attention to, to get most learning from each Mercury retrograde.
In fact, since this Full Moon arrives early in the retrograde preview, I’m feeling the illumination offered as the Moon is full connects directly to what we’re meant to see during the coming retrograde in Leo.
Note that in the Full Moon chart, Mercury tightly squares Uranus. Our attention is again drawn to the creator of chaos and uncertainty.
One more signature pointing to the open-ended nature of this Full Moon is that Saturn, who rules the Full Moon, is unaspected in the Full Moon chart. Saturn’s not talking to anybody right now.
Unaspected planets can be interpreted two ways. Either the planet will have trouble expressing itself, being unconnected, or the planet may take advantage of being on its own to act out strongly.
Since we don’t know what the world’s up to right now, and because Mercury is preparing to turn backwards in Leo and Virgo, I see this Full Moon as an invitation to look within.
Carl Jung tells us to look into our hears to clear our vision, saying, “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
I’ll end my Full Moon essay with one of my favorite quotes from Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
At this Full Moon, we’re all invited on a journey to explore what it means to be ourselves.
