Full Moon Watch: Lewis Carroll Recreates 1984

If you’ve wondered about the legitimacy of working with the Sabian symbols today’s Pisces Full Moon should quell any doubts. The images are kick-in-the-gut cogent. For 13 degrees Virgo, where the Sun resides, we have the image: “A powerful statesman overcomes a state of political hysteria.”

For the Moon’s degree in Pisces, the symbol depicts: “An ancient sword, used in many battles, is displayed in a museum.” Both of these emblems portend much, hold a dynamic promise (or debacle) — especially as Obama prepares what will be a last-ditch, make-or-break speech addressing both houses of Congress next week. And I’ll talk a bit more about this below.

First, consider the frenzied lunacy that’s saturated the political atmosphere. It’s like Lewis Carroll did a rewrite of Orwell‘s 1984 and we’re living through the new narrative. Right is left, up is down, lies are truths. Actually, opposites aren’t even opposites here, they are imploded info-mutations that make old fashioned propaganda seem transparent and consoling. And that disconcerting sense that you can’t get a clear bead on where anything is headed? That maybe you’re slipping over the edge yourself? Three words for you: Jupiter conjunct Neptune.

Given that a large number of Americans are beginning to resemble drugged animals, we need to consider the zombie-making power of Neptune’s transit through Aquarius. How exactly does that deluded social atmosphere interact with Jupiter’s transit through the same sign?

Quoting Grant Lewi, I recently wrote that Jupiter “represents the absorptive and assimilative qualities at work within any given environment…Jupiter corresponds to the indrawing of energies and the effect that things in the outer world will have as they impinge on the inner nature. [W]e rely on Jupiter to gather the data we need to have a sense of where we are heading, how we envision the future. But Jupiter is pulling on Neptune now — which, if we lived in a more utopian state, would be fabulous, but instead we’re likely to fall prey to Neptunian deception and glamor.”

So what we see in the environment, and what Jupiter — our ability to move forward as a collective — has become mired in, is the blathering hysteria about communism and socialism. It doesn’t matter that these credos are misapplied and void of reason (remember the town hall meeting guy yelling out: “Keep your goddamn government hands off my Medicare!”) The fact is these ideologies have blossomed within our societal matrix, they are part of the theater of our reality, and symbolically that’s significant. You could say these are the first rumblings, are the moral shadow, of the Neptune/Aquarian ideal of living in a culture that actually cares about and supports the well being (the health) of the individual.

So we can’t disregard the apparent lunacy. I think we have to acknowledge Herman Hesse‘s maxim here: “Chaos demands to be recognized and experienced before letting itself be converted into a new order.” Remember, Jupiter culls from the environment, and then, having summarized those impressions conjures a new set of inspirations to move you forward.

The lunation chart for today’s Pisces Full Moon gyrates with squares and oppositions. Mars in Cancer sets off a jarring parade of hard angles (squaring Mercury which then squares Pluto which then opposes Mars), if I had to concoct an astrological symbol for the term disinformation, this line-up would be it.

So, the lunation’s highlights: unhinged volatility, mixed with irate irrationality (Mars in Cancer). Spatially the chart says it all. Like the country, it’s split in half. The planets associated with the direct application of consciousness (Sun, Saturn, Mercury and Mars) are gathered against to the transpersonal (beyond the concerns of the status quo) and irrational or belief-driven (Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter and the Moon). Remember that old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” This lunation is the horoscopic equivalent.

If the Sabian symbols augur correctly, Obama is going to surprise us by finally showing up to put the house in order. Dane Rudhyar writes of the Moon’s symbolic degree: “Through the effectual use of his will a consecrated man can become a symbol of courage for all those who follow in his footsteps.” OK, so that’s encouraging. Rudhyar gives the keyword as: Willpower.

As to the eerie synchronicity with the Sun’s Sabian degree, “A powerful statesman overcomes a state of political hysteria”, he writes:

“We are at the stage where a powerful realization of the very purpose of the cycle of existence faces the chaotic remains of a dis-structured past. The character of the leader is always delineated by the need, subconscious though it may be, of the unformed agglomeration of entities his called upon by destiny to lead.”

Could he sound any more convoluted? Jesus. Regardless, Rudhyar associates this degree with “charisma” and I’m hoping to see some next week — combined with Leonian testosterone — from the president. Rudhyar, interestingly enough, defines charisma as the “mysterious power that comes from a man’s…openness to the power of planetary evolution.” Wow!

What in the hell is an “unformed agglomeration of entities”? I believe he’s talking about the collective acting as a mass of explosive reactivity. Hysteria seems to be the fallout to the encroaching loss of snug insularity — the vision most Americans have of ‘the good old days’ or the loss of the American Dream, which, for all intents and purposes has expired in corporate run America, Inc. It’s interesting, another definition of the word agglomeration is: volcanic rock. As in explosive thickheaded-ness.

If Obama caves to the insurance and drug companies he will have unwound the faith of those individuals who believed his promise, and we’ll have the darker side of this Sabian polarity to contend, where the “ancient sword, used in many battles” is simply displayed in a museum. Defunct. Defeated. A relic of battles lost or forgotten.

Pisces lunations generally coincide with a sense of conclusion for each of us, where our subjectivity — sense of separateness or aloneness — begins to rise, meet and become informed by the approaching objectivity, symbolized by the Sun’s ingress into societal-based, balance-oriented Libra. The urge then is to step beyond oneself and discover a new world of contacts and ideals, a world where cooperation and fairness become the keynotes. Let’s hope this spirit touches each of us as the equinox approaches.

Further reading? Highly recommended: Astrologer Jessica Murray’s latest entry, Sick as a Dog.