Full Moon Watch: Time Stops to Release a Goddess

It’s time to talk about time.

The four cardinal signs of the zodiac — Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn — all of which are active during tonight’s Full Moon — have jurisdiction over the experience of time. As the place holders of the four seasons, the cardinal signs push time forward (in the spring and fall) and rearrange time (in the summer and winter) when time ‘stops,’ as the Sun changes its course during the solstice.

Dane Rudhyar helps with a visualization: Imagine swinging a pendulum back and forth (and who doesn’t love doing that?) He writes: “At the equinoxes came the times of greatest momentum of life; at the solstices, of least momentum; just as if we watch the oscillations of a pendulum we see its motion being the fastest when it crosses the point of equilibrium, and the slowest when it reaches its end-positions.”

This symbolizes time’s oscillation related to the four cardinal signs. The time makers (Aries and Libra) and the time keepers (Cancer and Capricorn). Tonight’s lunation enlivens each of these sensitive points, and brings to fruition your effort to abide, with grace, through a phase of time that can feel, well, kind of time-less (Saturn’s retrograde through Libra). So here we go. Tick tock.

A cause, of any sort, originates with Aries. And its momentum is halted and checked in Libra. Libra determines effects. Effects then return to their source — on route back to Aries. This phenomenon is interesting to watch with anyone who has Libra strong in her chart. Notice how Librans interrupt everything that’s moving around or through them in the environment. If you say it’s dark out, a Libran will pause and ‘check’ your statement. “Well, dusk doesn’t arrive officially for another fifteen minutes” — or something like that. Without Libra, the Arian creative impulse would just run on and on and on and on — as Aries are prone to do. Dear Aries, she loves starting things but then…

This is why Saturn is exalted in Libra. The ‘Big No’ in the sign of checks and balances. Which, especially for Aries (and we’re all feeling our Aries nature right now with the Sun and four planets transiting the Ram) gives a sense of being thwarted; of time slowing down and stalling (especially when Saturn, as Chronos, is retrograde, as he is now.)  Marcia Moorse illuminates further: “The static perfection toward which the Libran aspires must be upset by an influx of Arian forces if the guarded conservatism of this sign of equilibrium is not to freeze into immobility.”

So here’s the equation so far: We’ve the Sun, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Uranus pulsating in Aries. Can’t you feel that fiery tumescence?  Uhm, yeah. The most phallic sign of the zodiac, enlivened by some of the most masculine planets in the solar system. And with Saturn in Libra, opposing the stellium, well, you can feel the stalemate (and tension). It’s like wearing a lead chastity belt. Or jamming a big cork into the outlet of a retort that’s cooking a crazy melange — and of course the pressure is building. A priapic predicament. Engorgement looking for release. But where?

Unless you’re a sorcerer or witch, don’t look to Capricorn to provide outlet to your Arian impulses. Pluto’s huddled there, retrograde (underground): Picking, flicking, nicking and scraping at the scaffolding of the ‘old world order.’ Each news flash that details another facet of Wall Street gluttony, fuel and food deprivation, environmental breakdown, is a Pluto/Cap dispatch from Hades.  I recommend limiting your exposure to media now. Stop watching and start working on a strategy to dismantle what’s genuinely worn out in your world. Let. It. Go. That’s the beauty of the Pluto in Capricorn transit. It gives you time to ponder options while the termites slowly eat away at the floorboards beneath your feet. It’s so slow you can consciously participate in the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning. It’s Time’s benevolent nature — in the face of death. Letting you take it in, bit by bit — if you’re so inclined. We do the same thing in our mirror, as we watch our bodies age. It doesn’t all happen in one day. Time is loving and kind that way. Unless you’re hit by a truck or train.

So if not moving to Capricorn’s realm during this Full Moon, what’s your last option? That would be the only vacant destination within the four-cornered cardinal playing field. Yes: Crabville. Our designated loony point during tonight’s lunation lands in the most sensitive and tender part of our nature, as symbolized by Cancer the crab. A fascinating conundrum I’d say.

To metabolize this (something Cancers actually love doing) — to work it through a psychic process that can optimize rather than terrorize, means first, getting the crab part of your nature to come out of its shell. Remaining still and stagnant — repeating and recycling old habits and methods of feeling secure (overeating, sentimentalizing or worrying) — is counterproductive. Those recycling mechanisms can be interrupted with effort. (Forget about what you ‘like’ and ‘don’t like’ and concentrate on what’s really at stake: future peace of mind.) Call up a fire sign friend and get some no-bullshit feedback. Crabs repeat and redo as a survival technique to shield them against imagined pain or loss. Fair enough. But that coping strategy isn’t going to work when the bulk of their psychic force is seconds away from a Krakatoa-East-of-Java moment. (An Arian headache of mythic proportions).

So, participate and get out your hammer.

Remember when Zeus had a horrible headache and called for Hephaestus (the god of blacksmiths, craftsmen and artisans) to split open his head with a hammer? Zeus had reached his tipping point and couldn’t take another minute of the pain. Smash. Out exploded Athena, from his forehead — fully formed, completely armed with her weapons. Well, this is our current moment right now. To release the Athenian impulse. In other words the active, creative, side of our anima.

Athena is like a mega-vitamin that fortifies creative wisdom — she assists in building and strengthening the conviction of your calling. To fight or demand justice, to help you align with what will best express your heart or essence. And to skillfuly acquire what you need for your survival. The Cancerian part of this equation needs to understand that the feminine can be war-like. Actively living this insight is how the Aries and Cancer style marry. And we need both.

The old-fashioned astrology that has Cancer caught up with doilies, cooking and cleaning is lazy, euphemistic astrology. Cancer is fiercely creative. And can be bloody-minded. Those pinschers can waylay an opponent. (Ask Hercules about his crab problem.) Artists know that, often, creative vision must be nurtured for a long time. (And honey, we’re all feeling the ‘long time’ thing right now). Too, an artist must fearlessly ride the lunar cycles of his unconscious. When that movement takes him down, and outer activity has stopped, the process is culling something potent from his imagination. No sign does this better than Cancer. You can do it too. It’s what we’re made to do, otherwise Cancer as a style of life wouldn’t exist in the zodiac.

So, enough talk. Get crackin’.