Moon Snake Sarah Fuhro
Moon snake hangs like a ripe crescent
from a tropical branch, over my pillow.
Creamy white fur, white feathers,
stacked like tiny leaves,
a white rope in the clean wind,
a sickle, ready to harvest,
a dream, a Moon snake.
Moon snake sways
over the bed where I lie asleep.
Moon snake lowers
a leafy white body.
Fangs bite me sharp upon the sternum.
Poison sweeps through me.
The toxic potion excites my heart,
but stills my body. Paralysis: the river
where my blood flows is stopped.
I can’t move. I am done and undone.
In the morning I begin again.
While Moon snake, like the wind
has moved on.
Bruce Lhuillier
Saturday, the New Moon in Scorpio offers a huge dose of potential creativity. Five celestial players in Scorpio will teach us to go deeper, beyond death, beyond birth, through the gates of chaos, through darkness and brilliant light. When challenged by Scorpionic forces we can always pull the blankets over our head, sit very still and see what happens, or take part in the action. The creativity of Scorpio is held in the seeds of the plants, which die in this season. We cut down the plants in our garden and so we scatter the seeds.
photo: Sarah Fuhro
This is the lunar month of Ngetal, the Reed. Ngetal stands knee deep in cold muddy water. He is not afraid of the chaos of transformation, where he lives. A swamp is a place of tremendous creativity and potential. Trump’s call to ‘drain the swamp’ should warn us of how dangerous it is to be fearful of what cannot be named or categorized. Swamps start the life process over and over. Sometimes they smell funny or harbor swarms of insects, but they are also a banquet for birds and mammals. They hold water during drought and absorb water in times of flood. They are places of refuge for the hunted beast, the runaway slave, the child Moses in his basket of reeds.
photo: Robert Fuhro
The creative potential of this chart deepens when we look at the role played by Saturn. Saturn continues his fiery connection to the catalyst Uranus. This combination is one of the planetary signatures of this time, when the world seems to be in constant crisis. Saturn is traveling through the sign of Sagittarius where he wants to solidify spirit. The Sabian Symbol for Saturn’s degree is ‘A Sculptor at his Work. The ability to project one’s vision upon and to give form to materials.’ Amidst all the energetic sparks from the intense combination of planet energy, there is a focus upon a beautiful form, which is held in the collective but expressed through the individual.
photo: Sarah Fuhro
Martinmas in Europe and the British Isles. St. Martin was a Roman soldier who became a monk, and was famous for cutting his cloak in half to share with a beggar in a snowstorm. St Martin’s day saw the slaughter of cattle and poultry in a time before refrigeration, and was the final harvest of the year. It’s a day of feasting and bonfires, a thanksgiving feast day before food becomes scarce. In Medieval times folks were ordered to fast three days a week between St. Martin’s Day and Epiphany. Did this apply to the rich and powerful, to the Bishop who sent down the order?
The speaker, thinker, messenger, Mercury stands close to the new Moon and Sun. Will we hear what is held in this moment of time? If there can be a place and moment of silence, perhaps we can hear the voice, particular to each of us.
cold water of the swamp, into the earth. Swamps are a place where the boundaries between Earth and Water are in flux. We avoid them because they are not clearly earth or water. Yet they are wombs for much new life; bugs, birds, creatures live there, lay their eggs there and return to hibernate in the murky water. We can’t see to the ‘bottom’ of the swamp, just as we can’t see into our own unconscious impulses and stories. Yet, compare the dark