The Fiery Furnace

                                    painting: Sarah Fuhro

In each of us there is a fiery furnace. It is the place of transformation, the heart. The element of transformation is Fire.  This Sagittarius full Moon gives the gift of that fire. What may have been burning embers is now a roaring blaze. Alchemy, the ancient art and science of transformation was never without the action of fire. Sagittarius is a sign associated with the transformation of the spirit through fire and joy.  In the Tarot card, Temperance, which corresponds to Sagittarius, the angel Michael, mixes essence of old and new to create an alchemical state, which has no further need for ego.

The story of the Fiery Furnace in the Book of Daniel tells a tale of the three Jewish ‘children’ who would not worship the Statue of Gold erected by the King of Babylon. The three, including the prophet Daniel were flung into a fiery furnace and the heat turned up, yet they remained untouched by the flames and a fourth figure was seen in their midst.

All this suggests the nature of this moment of Full Moon, when Moon, Chiron and the North Node are arranged in a fiery triangle, a Wheel of Flame.

Healing (Chiron) and evolution (the North Node) is the message of this configuration of the Fire Signs. It seems perfectly illustrated by the Sabian Symbol for the degree of the Moon, ‘a Mother leads her small child, step by step up a steep stairway.’

We are here to help each other with healing and transformation, which can bind up the wounds in the human condition and our relationship to the Earth. Evolution into a new form of humanity can only be accomplished through group intention rather than the old way of attempting to progress one soul at a time.

                                       photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Sagittarius is open to spiritual adventures and new territory, travel, optimism, and an open embrace of diversity. This is a full Moon of possibility, curiosity and hunger, greater than our fear which keeps us locked in old ways.  Sagittarius is a free spirit, open to the impulse of the fiery furnace of the heart.    In the photograph above there is a chain across the bottom of the staircase, an impediment to those who would be held back, but no real barrier to any who are determined to explore those stairs.

It’s strange I could not find images of a woman ascending a staircase, only descending!

I found a painting by Burne-Jones of musicians descending a winding staircase.

There is Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase:

And Rembrandt shows a woman with a small child, but also descending the stairs:

What does it take to imagine a woman ascending the stairs? With the Sabian Symbol of a woman, her child and the step by step ascent of a steep staircase, we can look up to the Moon and imagine ourselves climbing a golden ladder to reach her. We can be like Jacob as he slept, homesick in the desert, he saw the angels ascending and descending a golden ladder.  I don’t like to think that ascending is somehow better than descending, but like the waxing and waning of the Moon, there must be equal appreciation for the special gifts of both!

                                    William Blake, Jacob’s Dream

This full Moon and Mars point to Venus in the sign of Cancer. Perhaps she is the mother of the small child in us, ready to climb the next step in a steep staircase.   Cancer is the Moon’s sign, and opens the door to the season of summer.  Yet even as Cancer marks the highest point in the Sun’s journey North, it is also the turning point to Sun’s return South, and the slow growth toward darkness for our hemisphere.

Where is the Sun in this moment of opposition to the Moon? He has a Sabian Symbol very connected to Sagittarius: A quiver full of arrows! Sagittarius is the archer in the sky, the centaur with drawn bow. We are given the gift of potential.   Will the arrow find its mark or stay in the quiver?

Artemisia, the goddess of the Moon is often shown with bow and arrow. She is a hunter, and a full Moon light’s the hunter’s way to prey.   Her arrows are the thoughts, which pierce the darkness, and invite us to dance under the full Moon!   In Moonlight we see the world in a new way. Let this full Moon open your heart and mind to a  new version of reality.

                                             photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Read Full Post »

A Graveyard Poem

 

A Graveyard Poem–

the click of recognition

 

The moment when I knew

I must return to earth–

a click of recognition

to say: ‘here is my home.’

 

The dark New England tomb,

which will always mean;

you have to live,

and dig into the crevice.

 

The suffocating attic room

of the pale country girl

confined in a lifetime service,

to the family below.

 

 

Heat of August air

tears into granite stone.

A hand shaped stone,

a woman shaped tree,

 

Poetry: Sarah Fuhro

Photo: Sarah Fuhro

 

Read Full Post »

Quirky

Let’s honor the quirky;
the Moon half eaten
by ragged cloud  mouths,
the child thrown from home,
by chaos and ashes.

Who would remember
Hansel and Gretel had
the step mother been kind,
or the witch less hungry.

And who is not Hansel,
not Gretel, cruel mother,
cowardly father, ravenous witch,
All singer of songs!

poem: Sarah Fuhro

photo: Sarah Fuhro

Read Full Post »

It’s Almost Time

A Vast Public Park!

Taurus Sun and Moon are meeting in a ‘vast public park’, according to their Sabian Symbol!   There they will celebrate the shared joys of May, the pleasures of Taurus energy, earthy, sensual, imbued with the beauty and love of Venus, ‘ruler’ of this sign. Taurus is fixed, marks the fire festival of Beltane,  and keeps an ancient reverence for the feminine, celebrated all over the ancient world 5,000 years ago, during the ‘Age of Taurus.’   This was a period of huge public processions and gatherings, when tribes met in peace during the season of Beltane to find love and comfort in each other’s presence.

                      photo: Sarah Fuhro

The constellation Taurus marked the two halves of the year for many ancient people. Taurus contains the Pleiades and the Hyades, two important and highly visible star clusters.   At Beltane the Pleiades rise at dawn. At Samhain (late October), they rise at sun set. It’s hard for us to see these great wheels turn in the sky from season to season, but when we do they enrich our understanding of the meaning of change in our lives. Astrology, which came from ancient observation is one way to enjoy and interact with the turn of the cosmic wheel, and to remember that nothing stays the same, but is always in process of transformation.

Sun and Moon feel the action of Mars, Pluto, and Black Moon Lilith, from their position in another Earth sign, Capricorn.   Mars and Pluto make demands upon the luminaries in their Taurus embrace to manifest their love, because Capricorn demands material evidence.   We may also feel that strong energetic push to make something visible during this season of Venus, whether a new child or piece of art.   Black Moon Lilith is always a reminder of whatever we might choose to forget or ignore. Pluto is also the revealer of truth as we see week after week during this time of revealed sexual secrets.

                                    photo: Bruce Lhuillier

But the planet most energized at the new Moon is Uranus.  Always on the move, electric, rebellious,  Uranus will move into the sign of Taurus later this day.   This might have a huge impact on earth energy since Taurus is very associated with the element of earth and there is the extra impact of a new Moon cycle. On the day Uranus went into the sign of Aries in 2011, Fukushima was struck by a huge tsunami, and nuclear plant melt down.   But Taurus is a sign of love of the earth. What if the entry of Uranus into Taurus on May 15, hours after the new Moon, becomes a moment of intense victory for the earth, a joyous appreciation shared by enough people to turn our self destruction into passionate appreciation of the beauty and grace of our home?

                      photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Despite all the heavy interaction between planets, asteroids and luminaries, between cosmic bodies visible and invisible, this new Moon, embraced and hidden in the light of the Taurus Sun contains the potential for a new way of seeing the world.  Love and kindness are always there, waiting for us to notice.

It’s Almost Time

It’s almost time.

almost time for the change in the light,

but almost time for the poor and weak

to reach out their trembling hands

to each other and to grasp.

It’s almost time for the kind to smile

and be seen

in all their glory,

for the shift in power.

 

It’s almost time for the silenced to sing,

and for the earth to receive the sweet rain

of justice as it falls on ploughed fields.

 

It’s almost time to be brave,

and to go the next step

without knowing how.

 

It’s almost time for the Moon

to rise in the dark sky and let us know

there is more than one way

to see the road ahead.

 

– Sarah Fuhro

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Eternal Flame

 

There is a fire, which burns,

and keeps the elements

in constant motion.

 

It is an old fire, eternal.

Alchemy is the work

of this cool flame.

 

Like a cauldron,

I contain the fire.

but I don’t stoke the flame.

 

I feel the molten soup

as it transforms

and shifts in color.

 

poem: Sarah Fuhro

photo: Sarah Fuhro

Read Full Post »

Demon Wars

Demon Wars

Many battles won or lost,

take place in moonlight,

when the big hoop

is caught in a tree top.

 

So tonight was my battle,

into the morning hour,

when birds mark location,

and speak of their intention.

 

These battles end in draw,

because there is no start,

and the winner is never

announced  to the world.

 

poem: Sarah Fuhro

photo: Aaron Greene

 

30 April 2018

dedicated to my friend Else,

poet, artist, astrologer Druid,

who left on her journey toward the

light today.

Her laughter echoes in my heart.

Read Full Post »