NEW & FULL MOON ESSAYS
Reconnect with the Heartbeat of the Night
Unlike the sun, the ephemeral moon is a changeling: first waxing then waning, from new to full and back, a different shape that casts a different spell each night. Following the moon's cycle is a way to reconnect with the rhythm of nature, of which we are a part. As Joseph Campbell said: "The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature."
The New Moon is the "seed" phase of the month, and has long been considered a time of power and magic. Utilizing the unique energies at play each month is another "flavor" to incorporate into your monthly plans, and the purpose of the essays here are to help regain connection with Earth's lovely celestial companion.
Searching for Lilith THE SCORPIO FULL MOON May 5, 2012
The degree of this Full Moon falls in opposition to "Black Moon Lilith," which prompted me to research the mythology and religious views around this particular "dark" feminine archetype. I have not yet incorporated Lilith in my own astrological counseling practice for a variety of reasons, and so I wanted to take some time to read from sources both inside and outside astrology to gather some insight into this rather confusing and somewhat nebulous astrological "hypothetical point." read more
Earthy Balance THE TAURUS NEW MOON April 21, 2012
Sitting on the kitchen table with us this morning, along with the morning coffee, were three little custard cups of garden soil that my husband had collected yesterday.
One of the tasks we do each spring is test our garden soil pH with this rather involved chemistry kit we purchased a few years ago. Soil pH is important — worth the hassle of testing — for if it is off by too much, overly acid or alkaline, plants cannot draw sufficient nutrients and won't thrive no matter how much you coddle them. read more
The Oak and the Linden THE LIBRA FULL MOON April 6, 2012
We have arrived at the Full Moon culmination point of the lunar cycle falling in lovely Venus-ruled Libra. With Luna approaching conjunction to enduring, "built to last" Saturn, Mars still running retrograde in humble, service-oriented Virgo, and Mercury just stationed direct and now retracing his steps through Pisces' "Sea of Love" — the cosmic picture, for me, evokes an old story about love that lasts.... read more
The Selkie's Message THE ARIES NEW MOON March 22, 2012
The day after my wedding, a "few" years ago now, on a morning walk along the beach, I spotted a seal. While not really a rare thing to see from a southern California beach, it isn't exactly typical either. What made the encounter memorable was the eye contact. read more
Count Your Blessings THE VIRGO FULL MOON Mar. 8, 2012
A few months before my daughter was born, a Tibetan monk moved to our neighborhood and became our dear friend. One of those people who can electrify the atmosphere around them, he single-handedly woke up our sleepy little neighborhood. A Yale and Oxford educated Ph.D, each conversation with him coaxed more and more of my grey matter back to life, and at a time when I needed it most — my daughter was a newborn and my days consisted of changing diapers, playing with blocks, and singing Raffi songs. With his eye-catching saffron robes, gregarious spirit and impressive stature (a tall, robust African-American), he was a larger-than-life figure here, as if some exotic seed had blown in from the tropics and taken root right here in the redwood forest. read more
Till Human Voices Wake Us
THE PISCES NEW MOON Feb. 21, 2012
Many years ago now, when I was in college, I unwittingly irked my speech communications professor big time by selecting T. S. Eliot's poem "Prufrock" as one of the pieces to read for the final exam in his class. The course was the Oral Interpretation of Literature and each of us were required to present a complete poem plus selections from a novel in order to pass the class. "Oral interpretation" is not reciting, nor is it entirely acting either. It's a kind of quasi-theatrical cross between the two. read more
The Center and the Circumference
THE LEO FULL MOON Feb. 7, 2012
Tomorrow we arrive at the Full Moon, the monthly opposition of Sun and Moon and culmination of a cycle that began at the Aquarius New Moon two weeks ago. Falling in Leo, the sign ruled by the infinite Sun, this Full Moon coincides with another culmination: the conjoining of the Sun and Mercury — the superior conjunction, or "Full Mercury" — the peak point in a cycle that began last December 4th when Mercury last met up with the Sun, smack dab in the middle of its retrograde cycle.
At Full Mercury, our Trickster God of Cognition, Connections and Commerce is moving direct at a fast clip, speed-skating right past the Sun to become an evening star. The forty-seven days from Full Mercury until the next station retrograde (March 12th) ordinarily marks a time in which the brain is functioning especially well: synapses happily firing away, composers composing, writers writing, commerce "commercing." However, at this Full Mercury phase, we have Mars, God of Action, already well into his retrograde cycle; and Saturn will arrive at his station retrograde tomorrow as well. So if you've been wondering why life seems to have slowed way down, why things are taking two or three times longer than they should, well that's why. read more
Belonging THE AQUARIUS NEW MOON Jan. 22, 2012
At the beginning of my sophomore year of high school — when transiting Saturn was sitting right on top of my natal Cancer Moon — to my absolute amazement I was invited to join the cool girls' clique.
A coterie of eight or so of the super popular, the girls congregated each morning in the school library — not to study, but to be seen. The library functioned, in our open floor-plan school, as a main artery for students to cut from one side of the building to the other. So each morning, I joined them at their post in the second floor library, each of us fully preened and on alert for the cute boys to stroll by on their way to homeroom. And it was fun for a while until I learned of the group's other, darker purpose. read more
Integrity
THE CAPRICORN NEW MOON Dec. 24, 2011
Capricorn, the sign of tomorrow's New Moon is, along with its ruling planet Saturn, associated strongly with issues of honor, integrity and wholeness. The New Moon comes with a number of compelling aspects including a potentially unsettling conjunction to eruptive Pluto, which can bring, especially when conjoined as it is with the emotional Moon, a volcanic upsurge of ancient emotion, old feelings, old memories — all of which could be buried very deep, tucked away long ago, and for very good reason. Pluto's ideal purpose is to nudge us, sometimes forcibly, to deal with what we are neglecting to face, stuff that's working us anyway, perhaps even more powerfully, below the surface. read more
Duality
THE GEMINI FULL MOON & LUNAR ECLIPSE Dec. 10, 2011
Sagittarius and Gemini, the signs of tomorrow's Full Moon and total lunar eclipse, both symbolize different aspects of the dual nature of reality. Sagittarius, symbolized by the centaur, half horse, half man (shown above), represents our inherent dual nature: the human and the animal. We possess both intellect and instinct, body and soul. Mercury-ruled Gemini, whose symbol is a pair of twins, represents a fundamental, basic polarity into which spirit is made manifest. The Gemini twins are the celestial and primeval twins, sons of the sun god, the brothers who represent the two sides of human nature, twin powers of good and evil. The building blocks of life itself derive from the double spiral, the twin helix of DNA. It is remarkable how similar the helix resembles Mercury's twin-snake-entwined caduceus. read more
Illumination
THE SAGITTARIUS NEW MOON & SOLAR ECLIPSE Nov. 24, 2011
One of three identity-focused, fire element signs, Sagittarius, unlike the others, cardinal Aries and fixed Leo, falls in the flexible, adaptable, disseminating mutable modality. Sagittarian fire is distributed fire — inspiration focused outward — like the Centaur's arrow, a perfect symbol for Sagittarius who finds its deepest fulfillment in the act of sharing knowledge. Sagittarian fire is more collegial than competitive, and represents a scholarly approach to life. Teaching, inspiring, and guiding others are all uniquely Sagittarian urges. Sag is the eternal student who possesses a lifelong enthusiasm for learning. Philosophy, by the way, associated with Sagittarius, derives from the Greek word philosophia or "love of wisdom." read more
Descent
THE SCORPIO NEW MOON Oct. 26, 2011
Unless Scorpio, Pluto or Scorpio's Eighth house is prominent in your natal chart, it is probably hard to understand why this unpleasant and entirely "unfun" process of facing one's darkness — Scorpio's raison d'être — is so utterly important. Scorpio represents the distasteful, unpopular, act of NOT turning away from these ugly realities, and refusing to pretend they do not exist, perpetuating the charade that some of us have evolved, risen above such darkness. If you are on Planet Earth, you are working on this "dark matter" along with the rest of us here on this plane of duality where dark is married to light. Denying darkness is the true source of evil, and Scorpio is here to remind us of that irony. read more
Stewart's Moon
THE ARIES FULL MOON Oct. 11, 2011
The Full Moon in Aries, the monthly opposition of Sun and Moon, arrives this Tuesday night, October 11th, at 7:06pm Pacific time. Falling at 18.24 degrees of this active, Mars-ruled fire sign, the Aries Full Moon is the culmination point of the lunar month that began at the New Moon in Libra on September 27th. The Libra cycle is the time of year when relationship issues take center stage. When the Sun transits Libra, we get a chance to look at how we can improve the "give and take" of life, fine-tune how we connect with all of those important "others." This particular cycle especially highlights relationship issues with serious, "lessons to learn and wisdom to earn" Saturn holding court at this high tide of the Libra cycle. At this Full Moon, the Sun will be only one degree from exact conjunction, and the Moon only one degree from opposition, to Father Time. read more
Unanticipated Harvest
THE PISCES FULL MOON Sept. 12, 2011
My husband and I bought our home 14 years ago now, after living in a tiny apartment for five years in order to save every nickel we could. We closed escrow on September 16th, the very day of the Pisces Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse that year, 1997. Fourteen years is roughly a half-Saturn cycle, and on that day, Saturn was retrograding back to conjoin the Aries IC — the root — of my husband's natal chart, a natal "angle" that represents home and family. Mars had returned to the exact degree it was on the day I was born, and the Moon's North Node fell at 19 Virgo, with the South Node at 19 Pisces, the same degrees of this Full Moon opposition. 19 Pisces also happens to be the degree of our daughter's natal Pisces Sun, a beautiful baby girl born two-and-a-half years later. read more
Mending Wall
THE CAPRICORN FULL MOON July 14, 2011
Recently, hiking the trails that criss-cross down through the wooded hillside below our house, my husband and daughter discovered that someone had trespassed on our property. Not only that, they had cut some small trees and brush, clearing a section of an old logging landing that lies far below our house. A new trail had also been cut through our property to the spot. And although we have been able to thus far resolve the issue (a "misunderstanding" about the boundary lines) easily and painlessly, the whole experience stirred up some deep emotions for me, and for my daughter who was very upset to find one of her favorite spots to which we had often hiked "desecrated." The experience, which lead to the necessary reaffirming of our property lines with our neighbor, brought to mind two things: a childhood memory and a poem. read more
The Squaring of the Circle
THE CANCER NEW MOON & SOLAR ECLIPSE July 1, 2011
The New Moon on July 1st brings a partial solar eclipse, observable only from small section of ocean off the coast of Antarctica. While it may be small in terms of viewing, tucked in its chart is something grand — a grand cross that is, comprised of the initiating cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, the signs that mark the four seasonal turning points of the year. With this New Moon/Eclipse degree squaring a cabal of planets each planted in a different cardinal sign, it signals the arrival of new evolutionary energies and a potent turning point for Mother Earth. read more
Wishing on the Moon
Because the New Moon is the beginning of a fresh cycle, it is an excellent time to make wishes and set intentions. You can develop your own elaborate monthly ritual, setting up an altar with objects that symbolize your intentions for the month, lighting candles and playing music. It's fun to host New Moon gatherings with friends, or you can just simply record your wishes alone in a quiet moment of reflection. I like to keep a special journal so as to track my progress over time; others prefer burning the paper on which they've written their wishes, releasing their intention to the winds. Whatever feels right, whatever you have time for, there's no "right way" of course. You may feel a little silly at first, and that's okay. It's good for us to feel silly every now and then.
The photograph above is titled, "Goguac Lake, Moonlight" and was taken in 1918 by an unknown photographer, from a collection at the Library of Congress.
© 2012 Elaine Kalantarian, all rights reserved