Beautiful Disruption
The first Full Moon of 2023 sees the Moon in Cancer – the strongest sign she can be in. The Moon astrologically represents the people of the country, women, the family, how the people are feeling. The Moon in Cancer is strong, she is resilient, and she will protect herself and her family. Cancer is symbolised by the crab so the Moon in Cancer will put a hard shell around herself and those close to her – she is fortified by this strong shell of the crab. For me also the Moon represents our bodies – so how are our bodies? January is historically the time we all run to the gym to work off the calories. Does that last? It hasn’t for me ever. The Moon in Cancer is about nurture and nourishing which means the message here is that we must nurture and nourish ourselves. As Hippocrates said: ‘Let thy food be thy medicine’. Eat the best quality food you can afford and try to cook from scratch rather than processed ready meals. Zach Bush reminds us of the studies done showing the amount of trace glyphosate in fruit and vegetables as a residue of so many pesticides/Round Up. Is this one of the reasons we have one in two people now contracting cancer? So much of what we ingest that is freely available is not actually conducive to good health. Why are we not asking more questions?
The Moon is also what astrologers call ‘out of bounds’, along with Mars. Both planets will act slightly out of their normal character – they are ‘mavericks’ – so this is a Moon who is perhaps more sensitive but she is one who will fight. She has on her suit of armour and she is prepared to stand up for her clan.
This Full Moon chart is a really interesting chart - all the planets are contained in one half of the chart, boundaried or ‘contained’ by the Sun (leaders) and the Moon (the people). Both, however, are very aware of the killer wounds in the air (Chiron in Aries), emanating from the hands of others (Chiron in the 7th house); we may have become accustomed to how things are, but we are changed people from three years ago. No one is coming along to help to keep us healthy and able – we must take ownership of that ourselves – we must put on our protective shell, develop our own resilience and deal with our own woundings.
We still have Uranus with the North Node – our destiny is change of some kind. We see many right now trying to pick up the remnants of their old lives and go forward accordingly, but in fact they want to go forward by going back to what they had and how they used to live. This won’t work unfortunately and we have to be prepared to face change and disruption – we have it anyway at the moment but we need to have ‘beautiful disruption’ rather than ‘on the backfoot’ disruption where we just react to the buffeting of the winds of change. We have to put some thought into this change, however; nothing comes about without some kind of actual intention having been put in. At the moment the Sun (leaders) is in charge of this bowl configuration in the sky, with the Moon (the people) trailing along last. Mercury, is burned up by the Sun so any dissenting voices are disallowed. This needs to change – the people must know that they are not last and that they have a voice. The information is out there – it’s not hidden – you just have to find it and read it. And once you’ve seen it you cannot unsee.
"It’s time to go,” said Bear.
“But where are we going? asked Rabbit
“Forward,” said Bear, “we can’t stay here anymore.”
“So much has happened here…I don’t know that I can move on,” said Rabbit.
“You can stay if you want,” said Bear, “but life won’t wait with you.”
‘It won’t?” asked Rabbit
“No,” said Bear, “besides up ahead there might be something wonderful.”
“You think so?” asked Rabbit.
“I think ….,” said Bear, “if you stay here you’ll never know.”[1]
Certain parts of our lives are ending and we find ourselves in a state of flux. It is natural to react, but if there are endings then that means we are looking forward to new beginnings and these beginnings need to become opportunities. Later in January all planets will be moving forward – the stagnation energy is over. Uranus (disruption, sudden changes) is currently more or less stationary, so his energy is really powerful, and the Full Moon makes opportunistic aspects to him. We need to take advantage of this and use it to make the changes that will benefit us going forward rather than just be pushed around in an anxious or angry state, merely reacting to events. I believe we are now in the ‘happening suddenly’ phase, when we will see events that we just didn’t see coming and events that will shock us. Uranus and the North Node sit closely with Mars (action) in the UK chart, and the Full Moon chart reflects both the people and the leaders of the UK. It will soon be time to act. Mars governs the second house of our money in the UK chart, as well as the 7th – our close partners and our open enemies. Those who we think of as our friends may well not be and our money may well not be safe.
In March, as the days begin to lengthen and spring and summer beckon, we have two slower planets changing signs – Saturn moves into Pisces as Pluto starts to test the waters of Aquarius. That’s going to give us a big change in our background evolutionary energy. But, we need to understand the energies and prepare accordingly.
To quote Richard Tarnas, ‘when transformative evolutionary forces are fully in play they become energies that we can participate in, but they also have the potential to be far more powerful than we can control or predict. The past and the future seem to be converging with extraordinary intensity. An old age of the world is passing away and a new one is struggling to be born.’[2]
We are the vanguards of this new era as we hit a pivotal time in the evolution of our civilisation, and the movement of the planets reflects the changing heartbeat of civilisation. Clearly some form of creative intelligence informs the whole, yet just as clearly the human future is radically uncertain, dependent both on human choices and on larger forces beyond our power, beyond our awareness.
Many think of astrology as just Sun signs or ‘when will I meet someone’, but the essence of astrology is the planetary cycles and how the collective reacts to these cycles - astrology reflects the evolution of civilisation. In particular, the slower moving planets from Jupiter out to Pluto act like humanity’s software upgrade. But looking at the major aspects solely on an individual level, as though they are a light being switched on and then, once the aspect is over, the light is turned off is totally incomplete. Major aspects reflect societal and political changes that then form the backdrop to the next aspect, which then merges into society creating a new backdrop awaiting the events of the next planetary aspect. Each one merges into the next within a slightly changed society. We have to apply the ancient archetypal meaning of the planets in a modern way that reflects society as it is today and we have to look back in history to see what happened with similar aspects, but we have to apply this to a radically different society. Similar themes will be there, but we have to apply the aspects intelligently whilst trying to leave behind our cognitive bias and dissonance. Sometimes what we have been told and always believed is just ‘indoctrination’, but it takes a ‘beautiful disruption’ for us to realise this.
So what we have in effect are developing trends that occur over a long period of time like interpenetrating wave patterns. For instance, even if we only go back to 2007, we saw Saturn opposite Neptune which led into Saturn opposite Uranus. This then led into a greater planetary aspect of a three-pronged Saturn/Uranus/Pluto T square, an aspect which historically has tended to lead to globalised financial situations or crises. Pluto squared Uranus over a ten-year period, whilst Saturn would go on to square Neptune and later to conjunct Pluto. That’s one incredibly busy sky over what is really a short space of time, and geo-politically this is reflected within our current situation. Tarnas speaks of periods when shorter Saturn/Pluto aspects coincide with longer Uranus/Pluto alignments as times when complicated archetypal tensions are strongly in evidence. People born under such challenging aspects often experience with special acuity the challenges and tensions of these dynamically interacting forces in the course of their lives.
In future blogs I intend to go further into the archetypal meanings of the planetary principles in order to help us to understand where we have come from and where we are heading. For instance, Uranus brings a sudden and disruptive Promethean type energy, which ultimately can benefit civilisation, as symbolised by the gift of fire to man. Pluto brings an intensity, a purging from the depths, ultimately leading to transformation and rebirth. But before you have a rebirth, something has to first die to make space for the new. Neptune tends to dissolve and require some form of salvation. Saturn brings realism and contraction – he makes us face up to reality as opposed to Neptune’s desire for fantasy and illusion. Pluto with Uranus brings social and political turmoil, whilst the meeting of Saturn and Pluto has an ‘end of an era’ theme with the contraction and austerity of Saturn joining with Pluto’s rebirth quality. Pluto may well also reflect the deep dark state – the one that really rules, just like in the closing scenes of Spectre. And mixed within this we had the ending of the Mayan Long Count – one civilisation ends before another begins. The Saturn/Uranus square has just broken, with its conflict between the old and the new, restriction and freedom. Saturn has held Uranus back as they fought, but now Uranus has broken away and events are likely to happen much more suddenly and unexpectedly, so that is another reason why it is important to give thought to what this might mean for you.
The forces of the three outer planets – Uranus, Neptune and Pluto – particularly when joined by Jupiter and Saturn, demand and bring out potential creative resolution of intensely opposing forces – old and new, past and future, order and change, tradition and innovation, stability and freedom, struggle between power and powerlessness. Tensions that appear between established social authority and newly empowered counter cultural impulses tend to be exacerbated, together with generational tensions between old and young and political tensions between conservative, extreme and progressive.
Much of what happens will depend on what steps are taken - an extremely wide range of archetypally relevant scenarios is possible - and that is why it is so important that we work with the truth and with the meaning of the planetary cycles. We must spend time and effort (Saturn) to uncover what is kept secret from us (Pluto). Historically we find that past wars have been based on lies – so why should it be any different now – particularly in our current age where we are subject to extremely sophisticated forms of psychological warfare? Political and rich elites appear to need some kind of financial reset to balance the books after so much money printing, financial collusion, corruption and debt realisation. A whole host of spurious actions will be required, they say. And what has been hidden during the festive holiday whilst no one is watching? War is always an option favoured by such elites to fill the coffers, reset and cover up financial difficulties. However, as with most other options, it tends to favour the already rich rather than the rest of society.
I believe that 2023 will be pivotal in terms of the future of our civilisation. The important criteria is to question whether we now have a greater collective awareness to make a significant difference? We are within an almost century long Pluto sextile Neptune aspect which has had the potential to affect the collective unconscious and enable us to function at a higher vibrational level. With this backdrop and with Saturn entering more compassionate Pisces, can we become more capable of collective healing helped by technological advances, and can we respond in a spiritually evolved manner to the world’s swiftly changing realities than has ever before been possible? Add in Pluto’s entry into Aquarius and can we embrace the principle of individual freedom, autonomy and authenticity?
[1] Tara Shannon, 2021
[2] Richard Tarnas, Cosmo and Psyche and World Transits An Overview