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.

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The Seer

                                    photo: Sarah Fuhro

This might be the New Moon of ‘the Seer.’   A Seer, a visionary, a psychic describes a scene for us. She must state clearly what she sees, even if it is only a partial view of a situation, a glimpse through a key hole.

If we take a moment for a new Moon ritual over the next few days, we may feel that potential for something new, even unexpected in our body.  The message might appear in our  hips, for that is the part of the body, which is ‘ruled’ by Sagittarius.  But it might speak to us through some other channel completely.  I wonder if we listen to these messages, could we  avoid the louder, more insistent  voice of illness and discomfort in our body.

                                 photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Once more, we are at a moment of new beginning, a black Moon seed ready to be planted in the dark earth, with hopes for a harvest of …..what?   Maybe the rest of the chart for this tender passage into new territory will have give a clue as to what is the potential for sprout and harvest.  An astrology chart can be a theatrical moment, when a group of players (planets)  are aligned to interact in various dramatic ways.   Let’s see if we can make out what happens on the cosmic and earthly stage, and how it is reflected in our personal lives.

 

The Sun has now traveled the first half of his journey through the constellation of Sagittarius.   Sagittarius is associated with a kind of joyous idealism, an enthusiasm for philosophy and travel and partying.  The energy of this sign is not blocked unless the ideals become a stick to hit other people.   Sagittarius is both very enthusiastic about other cultures,  and religions, or the same energy  can be equally fanatical and intolerant of differences.

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

At the moment of the new Moon, Jupiter,  the king of Sagittarius is in close connection to the Sun and Moon.  The Symbol for the degree where Jupiter is located speaks of unexpected emotions: ‘CUPID KNOCKS AT THE DOOR OF A HUMAN HEART.    KEYNOTE: A stirring-up of individual longings for romantic love. Emotional rebirth.   Sagittarius is an archer with an upraised bow, who shoots at the stars. Cupid is a child of Venus who creates mischief, or ’emotional rebirth,’ with his arrows, which do not respect the rules of society.   Cupid’s arrows break the grip of the mental process, and open the heart.

                                    photo: Bruce Lhuillier

And speaking of action.   We have a very interesting pair in the wings.  They may not be immediately visible to us as we take a moment for a new Moon ritual, but they will be strongly felt.   Mars, the warrior and Neptune the mystic are  in perfect conjunction with a strong (square) relationship to the Sun and Moon.   Mars is full of energy and fury, but in watery Pisces and conjunct the ruler of Pisces, Neptune, he may not be able to focus his passion.   Neptune never can be seen head on.  He is a dream figure, without a clear strategy, yet he can sink our ship or keep us afloat in the sea of our emotions.

                                    photo: Bruce Lhuillier

The theme of elements in Fire and Water can make a beautiful melange, a poem, an inspired piece of music or art.  Or it can all escape in steam.  We call upon earthy Saturn in Capricorn to ground it in form.  He promises us: AN ANGEL CARRYING A HARP. The revelation of the spiritual meaning and purpose at the core of any life situation. ATTUNEMENT.  Creativity, is the essence of this Moon moment.

                    photo: Bruce Lhuillier

 

 

 

 

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Undersea Wonders.

 ‘A GLASS-BOTTOMED BOAT REVEALS UNDERSEA WONDERS.’

                                          photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Friday morning, just after midnight (EST), the full Moon reaches her greatest distance from the Sun to illuminate what lies below the surface of our consciousness.    I suppose Moonlight always lights what we can’t see with our daylight vision, but the degree of this full Moon offers the planetary psyche, all of us, ‘a new dimension of reality.’   This full Moon takes place as a celebration of the Sun’s entry into Sagittarius, a constellation of great hope and vision.   Moon enters the opposite sign ofGemini as a way to communicate (the specialty of this sign)  what Sagittarius wants to reveal.

The planet who guides Gemini,  Mercury, the magician, lives at the degree of a special image of deep power and imagination:  IN THE LEFT SECTION OF AN ARCHAIC TEMPLE, A LAMP BURNS IN A CONTAINER SHAPED LIKE A HUMAN BODY.

                                                                  clay figure: Sarah Fuhro

How does the human body bring light to ancient problems?    I depend upon my body’s response to tell me what my eyes cannot see.   More and more I find that my breath changes perception.   And as Mercury is on a retrograde journey,  we must plan to stop for a moment to learn everything over again, the breath, the perception, the Moon lit road.

                                            photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Think of this full Moon in Gemini as a new beginning in perception. Both Sun and Moon are at 0 degree, they are like a new pair of glasses, a new start more than a culmination. But are they emerald glasses? rose-colored glasses? Illusion or a clear vision?

‘A NEW DIMENSION OF REALITY’ is promised by this full Moon in Gemini,   ‘The revelation of unconscious energies and submerged psychic structures’  cannot be seen if we don’t take a moment to look through the lens of the ‘Glass bottom boat.’  What can be seen may be murky at first, or even ominous.

                          photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Light through water plays tricks.  Distance becomes illusory.  We reach for something and it is beyond our grasp.  Yet there is something about this underwater world which is intriguing, even necessary to our understanding of the dry land we inhabit.  Maybe we can learn something from Jupiter,  who has just spent the last year in Scorpio, a watery sign of the deep places.  Now he is a few degrees from the Sun in his new sign, Sagittarius.  He is there to support the Sun in the newly entered sign, which Jupiter rules.

This is the lunar month of Ngetal, the Reed, a time of dark days, and early nights.  Reeds grow in swamps, the beginning of new life, the places of death and renewal, Scorpio.  The asteroid Ceres (Demeter) is in Scorpio at this moment.  She is in a trine with Mars in Pisces, release and endings.  Everything in this chart conspires to offer power to the regal pair, Sun and Moon, ‘the luminaries.’

                                            photo: Sarah Fuhro

Gold is light from the Sun reflected in a swamp near my house.   Take heart, this is a full Moon to lift our spirits.   Gemini, the chatter box and Sagittarius the visionary, push away the fears, which leap out to deter us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Tree’s Lament

                                                     photo: Bruce Lhuillier

 

A new Moon in Scorpio offers a gate,  an entry, a lintel to a place we would rather postpone or avoid.  What happens when we feel the energy of a doorway?  How much do we dare to feel in times of deep and perhaps sudden transformation.  Look through the gate in the photo above, and see that the space beyond is magical, but the entry is blocked by large stones.   The access is difficult and what lies beyond may not feel entirely friendly.   This time is a moment of challenge.   It is a time of ending.  Many planets in this chart are in late degree…..about to experience a change of element and mood.

 

In the United States, the spectre of political death plays out everywhere, leaving only stunned silence.   To prevent further attacks, we are told to hire ‘armed guards.’  Yet clearly this is about a transformation which feels too difficult to bear by some.    Many planets are in retrograde motion, the energy of reversal before new journeys can begin. The new Moon will follow election day.  We vote for the future in the darkest hour of the Moon’s journey.

                                          photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Before the new, we face the old….the fears that lurk in the entry way to new territory!  The season of Halloween gives us that opportunity each year…to be terrified and then to laugh with relief as we see the phantom as an old bed sheet, and the demon as a trick of light.  Whatever terrifies, also enlivens us!   The heart beats faster and faster!

                                             photo: Bruce Lhuillier

This particular new Moon in Scorpio is the astrological moment of Samhain (Halloween): 15 degrees of Scorpio!  And the Sabian Symbol is: ‘ A girl’s face breaking into a smile’!  Laughing… at Death?  Smiling with the joy of understanding what lies behind the mask?

                                             photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Be prepared to go deep into the season of end and beginning, into the ‘Valley of the Shadow of Death.’   Feel the mossy walls of life renewal, the birch tree which grows into the stones with only one toe in life sustaining soil.   Scorpio strips away ego, and leaves only the resource of ancestor and bone.

I wrote a poem about how this season feels to a tree…..

Going and Coming         Sarah Fuhro

 

Hawk left my arms this morning,

My leaves sail away on their journey,

But Moon makes a promise:

Soon I will turn my face to you,

And we begin anew.

 

Hawk left my arms at dawn,

leaves sail away on their journey.

Moon makes a promise:

I will turn my face to you,

And we begin anew.

 

Bird, gone; leaves, gone; Moon turns her face,

and I am left with wind, and darkness.

My roots call Moon, call leaves, and bird

and, in the sweetest moment, they return.

 

Bird, gone; leaves, gone; Moon turns dark;

left with wind and earth, I call them back.

Keeping our Ancient Wisdom Alive

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Veiled Prophet Speaks, Seized by the Power of a God

photo: Bruce Lhuillier

This is the Sabian Symbol for the degree of the Capricorn full Moon. Who is the ‘veiled prophet,’ and which god is speaking?   Perhaps the god is Saturn, one degree away from the Moon. Saturn’s degree image: ‘ten logs lie under an archway leading to darker woods.’

                                             photo: Bruce Lhuillier

He invites us into the darkness of the woods at midnight when the Moon will be exactly full (Wednesday in the Eastern zone of the United States). We need that darkness in order to fully experience the light of the Moon!

                          photo: Virginia McEachern

Saturn is very comfortable in Capricorn. The Moon in Capricorn does not feel at home, because the sign, which she rules is Cancer, on the opposite side of the chart.   She is out of her ‘element, ‘ alone with Saturn, and to further the discomfort, she is partially eclipsed. The chart has many dramatic possibilities.

The degree of the Sun has this beautiful image:   ‘Two nature spirits dancing under the moonlight’! And Saturn’s degree: ‘Ten logs lie under an archway leading to dark woods,’says we must go deeper to find the magical circle where the spirit dance takes place.

                                              photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Capricorn, where the Moon is in her full form this month is an Earth sign.   The Earth element is about manifestation, what we experience with the five senses. The symbol for the Earth element is a pentacle, held in the star at the heart of an apple, the pattern of the cycle of Venus. The pentacle is also a reminder that that there are four elements and spirit. And the pentacle is a reminder of our human form. We are made of the five elements and five senses.

                         https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/269160515204178002/

Most occult traditions insist on our participation in the earth dance.   To be a magician is to be involved in the everyday work of this planet. Before we can step deeper into the forest under the full Moon at midnight, we must attend to the Capricorn business of earning a living in some form. We have to wash the dishes, and live with our family and community in a responsible way. We are under the rules of Saturn on this planet, but he keeps his promise: Manifestation of your desire awaits the completion of the task you have undertaken.

                                              photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Chiron is also in the mix of this chart. He will heal our wounds, if we accept our contradictions. We are strong and vulnerable, angry and loving, responsible and ready to run from what we know is required of us.   Chiron in Aries is the wounded warrior. He might be our impulse to seek excitement rather than the focused attention on our task we have pledged through Saturn.

                          photo: Bruce Lhuillier

And I cannot ignore the role of Uranus, the revolutionary, the unexpected, the disrupter and transformer.   He is at a degree in Taurus, which connects him to the Moon and Saturn. They are all in earth signs, but he is the god who strikes from the sky. His Sabian Symbol is ‘an electrical storm.’

                   photo: Robert Fuhro

A full Moon with everything…a message from a god through a veiled prophet, nature spirits to be found if we go deeper into the dark woods and just as we are ready to grasp this promise of manifestation, an electrical storm!

This full Moon and this astrology chart belong to the whole world.   The pain inflicted on refugees fleeing terror only to have their children snatched away and lost, is not an isolated event. Each of us has a veiled prophet within who speaks truth to us, so that we can go deeper into darkness and find the route to actions, which will manifest in justice and kindness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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

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A Doggy Party

                          photo: Sarah Fuhro

Each new Moon offers a fresh start, as does each new breath! But there is something doggedly universal about dragging our old stuff around with us, and holding our breath when we are stressed. Dogs offer us an alternative. They greet new opportunity with delight, and humor, forgive themselves and their people for bad behavior, and go on to take full advantage of the moment. This new Moon is the entry to the Year of the Dog in the Chinese zodiac. The best way to celebrate the new Moon and New Year might be to take on the energy of a dog on a spring morning and roll in the grass of contentment.

The chart for the new Moon in Aquarius features the Sun and Moon (the luminaries) in the center of a wide swath of planetary relationships. Like a scene from King Arthur  in happier days, court members, Venus, Hera, Mercury are in close attendance, and visitors from afar: Uranus, Eris, Jupiter Chiron and Pluto send messages to the royal couple.

Expect that the next lunar cycle may bring a hundred opportunities for friendship and community, love and appreciation with every excuse to celebrate! If you dance with this Sun Moon combination, you will absorb the pleasures of all the planetary energy focused upon you.

                            photo: Robert Fuhro

Jupiter is in a degree of Scorpio with a beautiful image:   A Rabbit Metamorphoses into a Nature Spirit! Here’s a transformation we might all embrace at this season of change.   I have a garden full of rabbits, but even as they eat everything I plant, they give me a tingle of delight with their company. Animals offer a gift of vision with their presence. They say their wildness is safe with us. They remind me that spirit, as well as rabbits, are all around me.

                                            photo: Bruce Lhuillier

New England winter takes a pause after Imbolc (Groundhog’s Day) is celebrated. Twilight has extended into the palpable magic of promised change. It is a time when we can look, and then look deeper to find the wheel of the year spinning around us.   This is why I love the month of February with its undercurrent of new life beneath the mud and ice and snow of winter as it revolves into a flirtation with spring. We experience a warm promise and then a cruel setback. Yet our houseplants tell us they know the change is irreversible. And the festival of Imbolc is the energetic jolt of spring no matter how deep the snow may be piled.

Imbolc    Sarah Fuhro

Full Moon is buried in our lungs.

She breathes with us.

 

Heart beats in a hurry
to keep in time,

with the passage of sweet fog.

 

The cold air fills and empties

the magic chest,

treasure box 
held within,

the holy ghost,
 the spirit place,

the temple, 
the toolbox,

the home sweet home.

 

The White Lady draws nigh,

twilight fills in her footsteps.

 

Feel her furry breath, as she approaches.

She leaves muddy tracks 
in the new snow,

and promises that someday, one day,

when she consents, spring will be here,

hot, with chill overtones.

 

Soundless, the Lady is the moss under crystal,

thin February glass on small ponds.

She is the bird of early arrival,

the fox,
as he leaves his lair to venture forth

on a cold morning with breakfast in mind,

after long hunger.

                                                 photo: Bruce Lhuillier

Uranus also makes an angle to Sun and Moon on their royal thrones. He offers the vibrational energy of new visions, but always, always in ways unexpected. His electricity is necessary to jolt us all into the season of growth, new possibility and gives the voltage enough to carry us into the audacity of some crazy hopes and dreams, a future we can embrace rather than fear. Like Mercury, Uranus is a messenger, but unlike Mercury, emissary of the Sun, Uranus seems to speak for another deity, a different form of organization of the universe.   His Sabian Symbol at this moment is:    A man possessed of more gifts than he can hold.

Sarah Fuhro            sarahfuhro@gmail.com

Keeping our Ancient Wisdom Alive

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. 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.  To learn more, please visit www.sarahfuhro.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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