The Cottage with the Thatched Roof

 

I am a cottage with a thatched roof,

and within me, an old woman,

with a young body.

 

I am a cottage with a thatched roof,

and within me, a young woman,

with an old body.

 

I am a cottage with a thatched roof,

where the folk in terror,

hid their treasure in the straw.

 

I am a cottage with a thatched roof,

where the treasure was found

by those who cared, not at all.

 

The old woman and the young woman

made a pact with a yew tree,

a strong tree with deep roots.

 

The liqueur of the tree

was their blood.  Their hair

bound up in the branches.

 

I am a cottage with a thatched roof,

where rooks circle in November,

wings beat the story again.

 

Sarah Fuhro

photo: Robert Fuhro

15 October, 2019

Triangular Challenge

On Sunday, the full Moon in Aries makes a perfect triangle in the sky with Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. This moment in time might be called the challenge of  courage.  If there is something  which you know must begin, something which feels too heavy, too daunting for you, something you would rather postpone, this is the moment to take the first or the further step into its dark embrace.   Because Sun, Moon and Pluto are all in seasonal beginning signs,  you might feel their energy as a push toward something new to build, create, understand, touch, or manifest.

                painting: ©Bruce Lhuillier

You won’t have to travel alone and chartless.   There is a guide in this moment as well.  Jupiter, the planet of joyful expansion, of optimism, heavenly approval is also at the same degree where the Moon, Sun, and Pluto are located.  He is traveling with Ceres (Demeter), Earth Mother.  Jupiter loves to be in his present sign, Sagittarius.  He may be suggesting a pilgrimage of some sort, even it is just into the woods or shoreline for the afternoon.  Here you will find your guide, a spirit who shows you the way.

                                             photo: Sarah Fuhro

This Aries full Moon carries with it a symbol of the warrior god who rules it.  ‘A Pugilist enters the ring.   The ring with two fighters in it can be referred to the Tai Chi symbol and the interplay between Yang and Yin. Each of the two types of energy wins in turn. Victory is always temporary in a dualistic world. ‘* The Moon challenges us to find the fire within and know our power comes from a universal source and is in constant flux.

                      photo: Jean Svizzero  

While the Moon urges you into the fiery ring of self expression, the degree of the Sun  suggests keeping in touch with simple communal pleasure!  ‘A Sunday crowd enjoying the beach’.  He offers an us ‘Oceanic feeling.*’  This is a nice reversal of the Sun and Moon’s basic energy.   And what about you and me?  Can we reverse our male/female polarities?  How does it feel to be both aggressive (Aries Moon), and deeply immersed in the cosmic waters (Libra Sun)?

photo: Robert Fuhro

All around me the woods are in flame while the full Moon is drowned in water….It is Pluto,  arisen from the Underworld who will direct this attempt to bridge two opposing forces.  Something which terrifies you, has the power to burst your bonds.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

As the Moon fills up, find the impossible combination in your Self which demands you stretch across the chasm of contradiction!  It will be in the form of music, for no words can hold it.

                                             photo: Bruce Lhuillier

* Sabian Symbols were recorded by Marc Edmund Jones, astrologer and Laura Wheeler, a psychic in 1925.  Laura Wheeler envisioned an image for each of the 360 degrees of the zodiac.   Later they were written up by the astrologer, musician, Dane Rudhyar, in his book The Astrology of Personality.

Sarah Fuhro

The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry. For an appointment call 508 740 7039 or email her at sarahfuhro@gmail.com.  In addition to personal consultations, Sarah teaches workshops and private classes, offering both clients and students knowledge powerfully rooted in the past, presented in the language of the present. 

Vision Quest

                                                   from the Arthurian Tarot  Anna-Marie Ferguson

 

One of the adventures of the Quest for the Holy Grail,  takes place when Percivale, Galahad and Bors are guided to a ‘Miraculous Ship’ by the sister of Percivale, Dindrane.  In the ship they discover a beautiful bed. Upon it lies a crown of gold and silver. Across the bed is a magnificent sword with a jeweled handle, partly drawn from a  rich and mysterious scabbard, which looks as if it was made of snakeskin. However, the belt of the sword is of very poor quality. It is the belt which will connect the sword to the rightful owner.   Dindrane looks at the sword,  and says only one person is allowed to carry it.  She then repairs the belt with her hair.  Now she girds the sword around Galahad, and explains that he is now truly a knight and the only one who who might carry this ‘Sword of Strange Hangings.’

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Libra is about partnership, about male and female polarities in balance, as light and dark are in balance at the equinox.  It is Dindrane who guides the three knights to the ship and Dindrane who knows the answer to the riddle of the bed, the crown, and the sword.  The Arthurian stories have strange partnerships between men and women which allow the action of the story to take place.   This story resonates with the Sabian Symbol for the degree where the Sun and Moon are located in Libra.

A MAN WATCHES HIS IDEALS TAKING A CONCRETE FORM BEFORE HIS INNER VISION.  The need to visualize clearly one’s dreams or ideals in order to make them truly effectual.

Galahad saw his vision of true grail knighthood take form, through the action of Dindrane based upon her internal vision of the ship, the bed and the sword, which must be repaired by the visionary before it can be united with its rightful keeper.

 

Across from the Sun and Moon in Libra is Chiron, centaur and healer.   The centaur is both divine and animal.   The symbol for Chiron’s degree  is ‘Two lovers strolling on a secluded walk.’  Chiron is the challenge which begins every grail journey, the labyrinth to the center of the self. If I accept this challenge, I will face the crisis which marks my deepest fears about myself, and what I try to hide.  The struggle to accept and shine light on my wound, finally opens me to new light.   Maybe it is not some fearful weakness which will be revealed, but rather strength.  Like Galahad I must then take responsibility for my gift, and carry the sword into the world.

                photo: Bruce Lhuillier

The new Moon in Libra is a challenge to take up a vision, which may have languished, and in the darkness repair what keeps the dream from taking form.  It was always waiting for us!

                           She of my love is the new moon,

The God of love illumining her;

Be mine a good purpose

Towards each creature in the creation.

—Carmina Gadelica            collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland

The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry.

Reflection of Pleasure

“Whatever lifts the corners of your mouth, trust that.”
~Rumi

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

The light of the full Moon is the reflection of the Sun’s light, when she is farthest from him.  They are always in perfect opposition at this bright moment of fullness, reflecting love back and forth between them, but with lovers’ taunts thrown in!   Saturday night we will see their brilliance combined, and if we feel into that light, we may open doors of perception and pleasure which are not easy to forget or override.

This is a moment of powerful opposition between astrological signs Pisces and Virgo, both feminine, both Mutable. The challenge of each full Moon is to take pleasure in opposition, to dance between the poles and to combine the treasures offered from opposite sides of the sky! Mentally, Virgo offers analysis and the magic of poetry and word, images with messages.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Pisces sends messages with no verbal construction, built of feeling, water, powerful intuition, images with no translation.

  photo: Luis Rosado

To make the dance even more tangible, we have another opposition,  a powerful face off between Mars and Neptune.   We could experience this as: ‘Make a movie!’ or ‘Put your dreams into action.’ or ‘Fight about nothing, and then burst into tears.’

Oh, but the Sabian Symbol for Mars in Virgo is ‘A ouija board’.  This must be urging us to channel all those Neptune in Pisces messages!  Mars in Virgo can keep us afloat so as not to drown in our own tears.  Maybe this is a definition of art…we take the intangible, that which touches us deeply and turn it into something which is tangible and shares the unspeakable.

photo: Sarah Fuhro

Chiron is healing some issues with love and communication.  He is, according to the Sabian Symbol for his degree, ‘a triangle with wings.’  Like the vibrant flowers in the photo above, Iris and Sunflower growing in a granite quarry, he knows no limits to his power to mend and celebrate life.  This seems like a good time to turn to silence, to turn to intuition, to listen to music.   Let Mars show you the action that your Moon and Neptune nature wants to take.  Don’t brush away what seems too fantastical, for the fantastic may be the future we are all waiting for.

The need to bring down to the level of everyday existence the clear realizations made manifest in a great “peak experience.” *  This is what this full Moon in Pisces promises.  “Whatever lifts the corners of your mouth, trust that.”    ~Rumi

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

* commentary on the Sabian Symbol for the degree of the Moon, Dane Rudhyar.

Sarah Fuhro

The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry. For an appointment call 508 740 7039 or email her at sarahfuhro@gmail.com.  In addition to personal consultations, Sarah teaches workshops and private classes, offering both clients and students knowledge powerfully rooted in the past, presented in the language of the present. https://wordpress.com/post/sarahfuhro.wordpress.com/4856

A Harem in Virgo

The new Moon in Virgo is positioned in a crowd of other planets who wait for explanation.  Why are all these planets here together?  What is their desire to be together and what will they accomplish?  The symbol for the degree of Sun and Moon is A Harem.   ‘The individual finds himself one with a number of other individuals all seeking or being subjected to the same type of experience or fate.’  (Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala)

 

                          photo: Bruce Lhuillier

There they are: Sun and Moon creating a new cycle of experience, in the close company of Mars and Venus, Juno and Mercury all in the sign of Virgo.

What to do with all of this Virgo energy?   Virgo is a sign of harvest…of discrimination between what is needed now and what must be stored for later.   Virgo is by necessity self contained, and values secrets which give depth to her experience.   Like the girl in this painting, this is a lunar cycle of both equanimity and mystery.   Harvest is the feast of completion and storage of seeds for next spring’s growth.   Sun, Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury and Juno have come to share in the banquet, yet have plans for the future.

                                              painting: Odilon Redon  Young Girl Facing Left

But there is another aspect to this moment.   Sun and Moon make a ‘trine’ to the planet Uranus.   This is the planet of surprise, of electrical energy, of sudden revelation and the demand for individual growth.   Uranus has recently moved into the Earth sign, Taurus. Taurus is an extremly important place in the sky to people who hunt or who cultivate cattle. All over the world, cattle represent wealth, and Taurus is associated with prosperity.   The horns of the cow (Taurus) represent the waxing and waning crescents of the Moon.  Taurus is considered the Moon’s place of exaltation!

                                       photo: Bruce Lhuillier

This new Moon might be the opportunity to make a creative breakthrough.   Like the artist or craftsperson (Virgo) who has carefully and patiently learned and perfected her technique, when touched by the triangular energy of Uranus in Taurus, bursts the bounds of that craft to create something unique to herself.   This is perfectly expressed in the Sabian Symbol for the degree of Uranus:

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA AT THE ANCESTRAL WELL.

KEYNOTE: The meeting of the traditional past and of the creative spirit pointing to the future. A NEW QUALITY OF BEING is revealed which renders the old patterns obsolete.

Sarah Fuhro

The Wisdom Tradition evolved over the centuries to address our deepest human needs. Sarah Fuhro is a practitioner of its many forms; including Astrology, Tarot, Flower Essences and Druidry. For an appointment call 508 652 9880 or email her at sarahfuhro@gmail.com.  In addition to personal consultations, Sarah teaches workshops and private classes, offering both clients and students knowledge powerfully rooted in the past, presented in the language of the present.

 

 

 

 

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