Speak Up!

 

                          photo: Sarah Fuhro

The Sun celebrates in Leo, and there are a lot of others at the party for the full Moon!  Venus is right under the Sun’s beams, and his light diminishes her light, but not her beauty.   Love and Sun might look something like this: a Venusian altar!

                                             photo: Sarah Fuhro 

Traditional Astrologers say planets this close to the Sun are ‘burnt up’ and so can’t function, but maybe it’s more like extra fuel for both, Sun and Venus.  Maybe it is like singing in harmony, weaving the melody between two voices.

                                      Image from the Druid Animal Oracle, illustration by William Worthington

All spring and Summer, a  pair of wrens have ruled over my yard.  Extremely tiny and extremely loud, they sing even when carrying a tasty insect to the babies, now on their second batch.  Their happy song is like water over a stony brook, but when angry, it is like a tiny machine gun!   The wren seems oblivious of size.  They are almost as small as humming birds, but extremely feisty!  They might stand in for Mars and outraged Hera,  also in Leo, close to the Sun’s degree, hard to see in bright light but easy to hear!

If the Moon carries our emotions, an Aquarian Moon has a unique method of transport.         Like a dream I once had where I had a yoke with only one pail, the Aquarian Moon is ready to balance whatever Leo and his party is missing.

                         photo: Bruce Lhuillier

A friend recently suggested that autism is an expression of angel emotion. What if this is true?  Perhaps more and more angels are incarnating ‘on the spectrum’ of autism.  Difficult for them, but many of them are attempting to reach a wider definition of humanity this way.   No connection between Aquarius Moon and autism, but the characteristics and goals of angels and  autism read like the Aquarian Moon’s description:   unpredictable, eccentric, detached, yet altruistic.   Angels have no particular gender, and this is also true of androgynous Aquarius.  As the spring equinox moves into this sign, we feel the shift in the majority culture towards a sexual spectrum, instead of a clear delineation, male or female.

                                            Painting: Jake Baddeley  The Fool

Uranus, the eccentric planet discovered during the French Revolution is assigned to the Fool card in the Tarot, and is a co-ruler of Aquarius.   During this period of his discovery, the King, represented by Leo,  was overthrown and the idealistic fanaticism of Aquarius became the despot.

                                                           Wild Unknown Tarot: The Star and Strength

So this is not an easy Moon to dance under or integrate.   Yet they both have this in common.  They demand from each of us some form of self expression.  The Sun  in Leo is kingly, ready to roar, a little deaf to other voices around him.  The Moon in Aquarius has no fear of new expression, new feelings, new insights. She hears what has not been accepted as expression before.   Maybe this is the Moon to howl under, to recite poetry in her light, to search the stars for new adventures.   It’s definitely a Moon to release what is no longer vital.

Sarah Fuhro,  Astrologer

Breath and Fire

‘Hail to thee, thou new moon,

Beauteous guidant of the sky;

Hail to thee, thou new moon,

Beauteous fair one of grace.’

from the Carmina Gadelica 

Two of Swords from the Smith-Waite Tarot deck

When people speak of the new Moon, they usually mean the visible crescent of two or three days as it sets in the West in the company of the Sun.   But when I write these Moon thoughts, it is a day or two before the moment of New, and the Moon is a barely visible sliver of light at dawn. I’m working in the dark,  blindfolded like the Two of Swords above

Two of Swords from the Wild Unkown Tarot deck.

At the moment of this new Moon, there is a fiery triangle whirling in the sky, and in our bodies.  Here where I live in New England, the heat of summer is turned up to reflect the power of the Moon and Sun in the fiery majesty of Leo; Chiron, the healer, in the Fire sign of Aries, and the Earth mother (Demeter)  in the hot sign of Sagittarius.

The Symbol for the degree of this new Moon speaks so beautifully of the art of transforming one element to another.

GLASS BLOWERS SHAPE BEAUTIFUL VASES WITH THEIR CONTROLLED BREATHING.   KEYNOTE: The need to involve one’s most spiritual and vital energies in the creative act, if it is to produce significant and beautiful new forms.  CREATIVE INTENSITY.

It seems we are always involved in transformational Alchemy and meditation, stasis and refinement.   To be an artist requires  persistence, with patience to balance our fiery desires.   Just as the glass blower uses fire to melt sand,  so must he also carefully control his breath to create something of beauty and fragility.  Nature does this all the time!

Photo: Bruce Lhuillier

In my work as a clay artist I must cooperate with all the elements, and I have probably learned nothing else from this, except how to treat frustration with patience!    Earth is worked on with Water and Air to be the perfect consistency and then the piece is turned over to Fire, not once but twice to be finished.

Clay tile: Sarah Fuhro

This new Moon falls close to the Fire festival, Lughnasadh, the first harvest celebration!  The fiery triangle will heat up our ritual and feast. Bread is celebrated at Lughnasadh, another slow and complicated process…with the harvest of grain, the growth of yeast, the mixture with salt and water and then the offering to Fire to make bread to sustain our bodies.  The careful control of breath (patience), is needed here as well.

Photo: Bruce Lhuillier

A few days from now, the crescent of the new Moon, seeded tomorrow, will be shining in the evening sky. Lovely  Venus will be nearby.   Celebrate your own ‘creative intensity’ as you look up to hail the Moon.

‘She of my love is the new moon

The God of life illumining her;

Be mine a good purpose

Towards each creature in the creation.

from the Carmina Gadelica,   Collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland by Alexander Carmichael.

Sarah Fuhro

Stone Face

photo: Sarah Fuhro

Desert spirit of the mystery.

The stone,

who returned my glance,

and said:

you dare not look again.

 

But then he is there,

aroused,

waiting for me,

eyes turned,

breathing his world.

 

Water and Stone

                                             photo: Sarah Fuhro

This full Moon is about Water and Stone….Cancer Sun and Capricorn Moon.   Moon will be in a partial eclipse,  visible in Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, and South America.  For those of us in North America,  she will rise after her initiation,  after her disappearance and reappearance into the shadow of the Earth.

                                             from the DruidCraft Tarot deck: Will Worthington artist.

Emerging from the dark shadow of the eclipse, our own full Moon may feel renewed, ready to reflect the bright light of the Cancer Sun in a dark Capricorn sky.  The journey to this place of fullness has planetary challenges as well.

Tonight (Saturday)  the Moon rose with bright Jupiter as companion.  She will roll along and meet with Saturn and Pluto before her assignation opposite the Sun on Tuesday.  Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn urge transformation.  The security of Saturn takes us by the hand to go deep into the mysteries of Pluto.

                                photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Many of the planets in this celestial moment are in retrograde, they appear to move backwards.  This is an opportunity to mend old wounds and take care of long postponed projects.  But perhaps we will also feel a new strength we didn’t know we had.   The Moon’s symbol for this degree of bright fullness and eclipse is: ‘a store filled with precious oriental rugs.’   A treasure is held in this moment.

                        photo: Robert Fuhro

When I walked in the woods today, there were brightly painted stones along the path.  Some had messages: ‘Be Kind;’ some were designs with bright colors.   Here is one that looks like a full Moon.  I plan to celebrate the full Moon with friends on Tuesday night. There will be water and earth….fireflies and mosquitoes, food and drink.  The sky always gives us a reason to party!

               photo: Sarah Fuhro

At a quiet moment,  there can be an offering to the Moon.  A friend suggested a Tibetan ritual of gratitude for the senses at the full Moon.  On a special altar stone in the woods:

Sight.  A small mirror.

Sound. A bell or other instrument.

Smell: Incense or perfume

Taste: Food

Touch: a silk ribbon or fabric.

A small crystal ball for the sixth sense, which is formless.

                                             photo: Bruce Lhuillier

 

 

Animal Envy

 

 

If I had feathers,

I could let the sky

take me to your nest.

 

If I had fur,

Nothing could keep me

from your cold castle.

 

But I am naked,

and deeply

wounded.

 

Claws and fangs

will never win

your steely heart.

 

Sarah Fuhro June 7, 2019

The Impossible Feat!

                                                       photo: Bruce Lhuillier

It doesn’t hurt to remember how impossible it is:  an eclipse!   The Earth, the Moon, the Sun line up and the tiny Moon casts a shadow upon the great gas ball, the Sun.  Or the Earth moves between Sun and Moon and casts her shadow on the Moon, blocking her reflection of the Sun……All of us, Sun, Moon, Earth  has to be just the right size, just the right distance to make this light show possible.   It’s an impossible feat of placement!  And not only that, but it happens every year, two, three, four times.   Yet each time it gives us a chance to stop and notice the sky and how the sky feels within.

               photo: Bruce Lhuillier

This next new Moon on Tuesday is a total Solar Eclipse in the sign of Cancer, a Water sign, full of emotion and Moon wisdom, mobility, and fluctuation.   Directly across from this new Moon/Sun are Saturn and Pluto, planets with powerful influence upon events internal and external.  Saturn and Pluto are moving through Capricorn, an Earth sign, with the deep intention to organize, and create stability.   The snake in the picture above moves through water, much as Capricorn and Cancer  work together, in unexpected ways.  A snake is usually an Earth creature, but occasionally climbs trees (Air) , or is at home in the Water element.  The Lunar nodes in the astrology chart are always immediately across from one another.   In this case they undulate between Cancer’s watery demands for feeling, and Capricorn’s grounded insistence upon  stability and structure.

At this time, the world, but especially the United States is experiencing a Cancer/Capricorn crisis.   Climate change, war and corporate greed have pushed millions of people into a crisis which uproots them from their homes and sends them into areas they hope will give them shelter.   Cancer says they are all of the human family and should be treated with kindness, compassion and generosity.  Capricorn says, no,  there must be structures to hold and organize the homeless of the earth.  And so we see children in jails, people eager to work kept from earning a living, new laws which limit the right to ask for asylum.  But it works the other way as well, those who say we fortunate ones will be overrun by dangerous and hungry criminals are also in a Cancerian mode.  Those who embrace and try to help the refugees, with legal or humanitarian aid are reacting with Capricorn structures.

Borders are in turmoil, but like the snake navigating in water, a way is found to move through and around those barriers, which become like a ‘sieve’ to those who want to prevent their movement with walls.

                         collage: Bruce Lhuillier

Each of these ‘refugees’ has a Cancerian desire for a safe home, a place to raise children, and each has tried to use Capricorn skills to find and secure a place in a new country and culture.  Pluto and Saturn lean on this new Moon, this eclipse to find a way through this crisis into a new way of seeing.   What in your life has become fraught with this conflict, a conflict looking for transformation?    Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we won’t see the eclipse on Tuesday.  It’s visible in South America and Oceana, but we share in the power of the eclipse, which one way or another, forces us to stop and take note of the conflict in our own life.   For me this eclipse takes place very close to my Cancer Moon, my place of home, family and feeling.  And like the Druids of old, I must pass the test (Pluto and Saturn looking on)  to find my way home in a rudderless, oarless,  coracle, a tiny boat of leather: an impossible feat.

The Sabian Symbol for this New Moon:  ‘A clown caricaturing well-know personalities. In this twenty-first five fold sequence we witness the development of true individuality in man. And the first step is a cathartic one – the ability to laugh, which includes the ability to laugh at ones own petty habits and mannerisms – indeed, at one’s pomposity. It is a DECONDITIONING step. ‘

 

 

A Generous Spirit

                                               photo: Bruce Lhuillier

This full Moon in Sagittarius has a powerful connection to generosity.   The Moon and Jupiter are close, close enough to bring the joyful generosity of Jupiter, and especially Jupiter in the sign of Sagittarius, into our consciousness.  Jupiter is the planetary ruler of Sagittarius.  His large spirit of creativity and optimism fill us with a kind of divine happiness.

             photo: Aaron Greene

It’s a season of generosity as we approach the Solstice and the light of the Sun stays with us into the night, and Tuesday we have a full Moon to continue that joyous radiance into the darkness….

                                          photo: Aaron Greene

But why is Jupiter associated with generosity, with expansiveness, with laughter? He is a god of lightning, yet he is not associated with fearfulness, but rather with courageous hope, fertility and growth.  Here he is in eagle form, fertilizing the pomegranate trees.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Jupiter at this moment is in a perfect square with Neptune.  Together they rule the constellation Pisces.  Neptune is king of the oceans where the fishes (Pisces) live.   Both Pisces and Sagittarius are  associated with spirituality in many forms, with priests, with compassion.  Sagittarius especially has an all embracing enthusiasm for strangers and foreign  religious traditions, but it is also the sign of the fanatic.  And here is where the dark side of Sagittarius emerges.  There is a kind of twist which can take place so that instead of accepting and enjoying difference, Sagittarius may turn into the witch hunter, the inquisitor.   

                                          photo: Bruce Lhuillier

This might have something to do with the sign of the Sun.   When the Moon is full in Sagittarius she is opposite the Sun in Gemini,  the mental aspect of the Zodiac. The airy thought process of Gemini can become become tangled and tormented, and what appears generous and friendly, one moment becomes dangerous or intolerant the next.   The expansiveness of Sagittarius morphs into greed and hoarding.   Everything is tangled and choaked in too much fertility.

                                           photo: Bruce Lhuillier

The moment for this full Moon on Tuesday is full of twists and turns, surprise and revelation.  All the planets are in aspect to one another. A Pluto-Saturn South Node combination is facing off against Mercury, Mars and the North Node, and Neptune is in contact with Pluto-Saturn and Jupiter as well as Mars and Mercury.  Eris (Lady Chaos) is there as well with relationship to Sun and Moon, and Pluto and Mercury and Mars… This is a moment to understand that nothing is black or white, but to contemplate every color in the rainbow.

 Mercury and Mars across from Pluto and Saturn could mean we blow our stack over nothing… or speak up for the environment.   Chatting with a friend tonight we marveled that we see so many hawks, ospreys, herons now which were almost made extinct by DDT, until one woman, Rachel Carson, spoke up, against the manly disdain of Congress and much of the scientific community.   And when I came home, and looked at Rachel Carson’s astrology chart, I discovered she was born at the time of the full Moon in Sagittarius. This very mental and very spiritual   woman was  born with her Sun in Gemini and  Moon in Sagittarius!