Full Moons illuminate. What happens if a Full Moon shines its light on what we do NOT know? What happens when the Full Moon invites us to dance with that not-knowing?
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This month’s Full Moon arrives on November 25 at 5:44 pm EST, in the sign of Gemini, the sign of the trickster, the juggler, the sleight-of-hand artist who always has another angle and another story to tell. This November Full Moon is sometimes known as the Long Night’s Moon, and it’s good to remember that winter has always been the time for stories.
Gather ’round the fire. Let’s share our favorite tales.
Full Moons happen when the Sun and Moon are opposite each other, and the Sun’s light fully illuminates the Moon’s face. This ‘opposition’ can seem like a challenge, or a chance to see clearly. Sometimes we get both.
The opposition this time is Gemini and Sagittarius, two mutable signs that both love learning, exploring, journeying to new places. Gemini values breadth, reaching out wide with both hands to grab every new thing, juggling all that stuff into new combinations never seen before. Gemini plays. Sagittarius values depth, delving into the past, into philosophy, into theology, into any kind of system of thought that might hold answers to the great questions. Sagittarius studies.
Gemini can feel goofy to Sag, dangerously naive, not taking life seriously enough. Sag can feel too heavy to Gemini, self important, self involved, and way too certain he has all the answers. Sagittarius feels very heavy these days, since Saturn has entered the sign with all his gravitas.
Saturn is part of this Full Moon, right there with the Sun … and look, Mercury is there too, also in Sag. Phew! That’s a lot of weight on the Sag side of the table. Does the light-hearted, light-fingered trickster Moon stand a chance?
At this Full Moon, we could feel the weight of the world. Life is real, life is earnest, and bad things happen to good people. How do we cope with tragedy and disaster? Can we remain open-minded, open-hearted? Or are we closing in as we feel vulnerable and challenged?
There are other forces in play at this Full Moon. Neptune, ruler of the oceans of the subconscious, of mysticism, of the span of the cosmos, sits in her home sign of Pisces to challenge both the Moon and the Sun-Saturn-Mercury group. Wait! she says. (Yes, my Neptune is female; lots of ocean deities are goddesses.) Do you really see clearly? What is your point of view? Which lenses are you using? Which senses?
At this Full Moon, the light shines on where we think we are certain, and why we might want to look again. Dive deep, says Sagittarius. Learn history, check your values. Shake it up, says Gemini. Take a different perspective, and suddenly the picture changes. And Neptune in Pisces says, look with your heart, see with the eyes of your soul.
It all comes back to stories. What stories do we tell ourselves? What stories do we share with each other? Stories are powerful, magical, wonderful things. They are the threads, and the pattern of our lives. Contrary to what some might say, we cannot “just” set them aside, for their hold on us is strong. We can listen to new stories, question the ones we know, and craft new endings.
We have the next year to think about this. The Gemini Full Moon is the prologue, the curtain-rising moment when our attention is focused on a key theme. The day after the Full Moon, November 26, we experience the first of three squares, three challenges, between Saturn in Sagittarius and Neptune in Pisces. The second square arrives in June 2016, and the third in September 2016. As these two dance in and out of challenge, we’ll be more or less in this energy for a long while.
What might happen for us? We’ll question certainties (Neptune pushing at Saturn). We’ll feel a need to clarify core values in the face of doubt (Saturn pushing at Neptune). Things we were so sure of suddenly seem murky. Out of the fog, we finally see what’s truly important. Write your own story here, something that explores certainty and doubt, clarity and fog, change in the face of new information.
Two things to avoid: (1) Giving up and sinking into a sea of relativity. (It’s all the same; nothing matters anyway; I can’t make a difference.) (2) Hiding behind a wall of rigid beliefs. (I don’t care what you say; I know what’s right; you are evil/wrong/dangerous.) These are both ways of staying stuck. They don’t feel good, and they aren’t very effective.
Writing inclusive stories is hard. Staying with the old simplistic plots is way easier. The old plots are tired, though, and kind of boring. Over the next year, beginning with November’s Full Moon in Gemini, we’re invited into a cosmic workshop were we can preview some bold new plotlines, meet new characters, and write beautiful new stories.