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
Sarah Fuhro Star-Flower Alchemy 