by Robert Wilkinson
As you know, the “Christfest” is considered to be the Full Moon of Sun in Gemini and Moon in Sagittarius. Usually it happens only once a year, but this year is different! This is the second Full Moon with Sun in Gemini and Moon in Sagittarius in 2016. I surmise from this that the “Buddha Wisdom” generated at the Wesak Festival (Sun in Taurus, Moon in Scorpio) now has a second avenue of distribution throughout the world!
Like the last Full Moon, this distributive, inspired, and freeing “Christfest” Full Moon opens the world to a new form of Wisdom Teaching. It occurs at 4:02 am PDT, 12:02 pm BST on June 20, just a few hours before the Solstice at 3:34 pm PDT, 11:34 pm BST the same day, and falls at the 30th degree of Gemini and Sagittarius.
The Christfest Full Moon is usually considered as the third of the “Three High Moons” of the Northern Hemispheric Spring, and so this year we have a mutation with “Four High Moons,” this one both similar and different than the last one in the same signs. Whereas the first Gemini/Sag Full Moon fell after a New Moon at 17 Taurus, this Full Moon occurs after the past New Moon at 15 Gemini. As with all Full Moons, use the light you’ve been seeing and expressing since the New Moon, and give it form and focus through understanding the available power, and renew your life!
The importance of the Christ Fest Full Moon is explained in greater detail in the article Spiritual Astrology – the Three High Moons of the Northern Hemisphere Spring. Briefly, the Life Force of Earth re-emerges at the Full Moon of Aries-Libra, and this Life Force is expressed as a form of “Buddha Wisdom” of some compassionate form that helps us all to end suffering. This Wisdom is then shaped into a form of expression by the World Teacher at this Full Moon of Gemini-Sagittarius, and expressed the “world teaching” for the next year.
Today’s Full Moon post will be an overview of the Lunation and some of its primary qualities. In parts 2 and 3 we’ll cover the Sabian Symbols, aspects, distributions, and patterns.
This is the first Full Moon where the Full Moon Sun is the same as the Sun sign of the previous New Moon. I’ll explain the importance of where we’ve been and where we’re going later in this article. Because the New Moon preceding the Full Moon always represents the seed forms that are brought to surface at and after the Full Moon, please check out the recent New Moon articles The New Moon at 15 Gemini Pt. 1 - What’s Happening in June-July 2016 as well as The June New Moon at 15 Gemini Pt. 2 - Signs, Sabian Symbols, and What It All Means.
This sets the prototype for many months! This one offers us the ability to use the light of the New Moon in Gemini and the enthusiasm, information, and balance you’re been seeing and expressing since the New Moon, and give it form and focus to see how to distribute what needs distributing. Because the Moon is in Sagittarius, it’s time to see a broader view or greater truth related to the Wesak Wisdom of renunciation and letting go that was set into motion in the Wesak Full Moon of late April at 3 Taurus/Scorpio.
An Overview
This second “World Teacher” Full Moon brings forth Wisdom that expresses something eternal about the relationship of mind to Life. This chart brings a reprise of the Great Fracturing of early June, thanks to Mercury in Gemini activating the Grand Cross with squares to Jupiter and Neptune, and an opposition to Saturn. In this case, Mercury “collects the light” and re-activates all the hard aspects between Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune! So like the last Full Moon, this one will also prove highly activating!
This is an extremely important Lunation that will open a certain type of Wisdom for the next year. This Lunation bridges what has been, and what is just now beginning to unfold. We still have 4 planets retrograde, though Mars is now on its stationary direct degree, requiring that we use the information, inspiration, and wisdom we’ve been experiencing the past two months to transform our lives and responses. This Full Moon blesses us in crucial ways to live a higher, more perfect standard.
We still have a Bucket Jones pattern with Jupiter as the handle, or “nozzle,” for focusing all the other planetary energies. This is the last Full Moon with that pattern for a while, since the Sun, Venus, and Mercury are all closing the gap with Jupiter, and the next Full Moon will fill in most of the signs between late Cancer and late Aries. That implies this Summer we’ll return to shifting patterns between Locomotive, See Saw, and Splay types.
Because of Jupiter’s position, we’re learning a lot about discernment, and because it’s picking up speed and returning to the degrees where Venus and Mars conjuncted it last October, we will see rapid forward movement on both personal and social levels, even with Mars still retrograde but slowly speeding up. Because Jupiter is still conjunct the North Node for many months, it indicates our generic line of greatest development involves “the expansive principle” being pushed to a greater effectiveness.
Is the Grand Irrationality A Factor in this Full Moon?
The Grand Irrationality, along with the other non-rational configurations that happen off and on, indicate that we’ve been living in an era of very heavy decisions determining the future destiny of humanity since 1993. To refresh you, the Grand Irrationality is a long wave configuration set into motion every time a planet makes a conjunction, septile, biseptile, or triseptile to Neptune and Pluto. Septile series aspects show us points in time when our future destiny is precipitated by critical choices made in the present.
Unlike recent Lunations, this one does not trigger the Grand Irrationality. We won’t really have to deal with another one of these “forks in the road of destiny” for humanity for a few weeks.
At this time, the current seven “hot zone” spans that trigger the Grand Irrationality are approximately 13-17 Leo, 4-8 Libra, 25-29 Scorpio, 17-21 Capricorn, 9-13 Pisces, 1-5 Taurus, and 22-26 Gemini.
As I’ve explained before, we are now in a period where this influence is waning, since Neptune is now no longer in a close septile to Pluto. We are now moving through Spring, where Neptune and Pluto will continue to separate in distance, and unlike the past 22 years, by Summer they will no longer be in septile.
Winter is when they are closest, but by Summer they’ll be too wide to be a septile. We’re now slowly moving out of the configuration, and within a few years Neptune and Pluto will be back in long term sextile, as they were for most of the last half of the 20th century.
At this time, the Grand Irrationality gains strength as we move through Autumn and into Winter, and will again lessen in strength in the late Winter into the Spring and Summer. As I’ve explained in other articles, that means that in the Autumn and Winter (in the Northern Hemisphere) they operate as a simultaneous “pulse,” since they’re both aspected near the same time. But in the Spring and Summer we experience it as a rolling influence, with first Pluto aspected, and then Neptune at some time after that, depending on which planet is doing the aspect to these planets.
Because this configuration involves Neptune and Pluto, the outermost spiritual planets, they show a long wave evolutionary crisis for the entire human race. Since 1993, at one point or another, everyone on Earth has experienced a nonstop energy of having to choose, at the bottom of our beings, the path to evolution or devolution, progress or regress, love or fear, joy or control. It’s why things have been so weird, irrational, and hard-edged.
Important Factors
This Lunation brings us a mixed bag of forming aspects which I’ll discuss in parts 2 & 3. In this chart, the most prominent aspects are the Grand Mutable Cross described earlier, along with Moon quintile Neptune, Venus quintile Jupiter and quintile Uranus, trine Neptune, and opposed Pluto, Sun biquintile Mars and tredecile Neptune, and Jupiter biquintile Uranus and trine Pluto. There are three elftile (11th harmonic) series aspects, two vigintiles (quarter quintiles), and two deciles (10th harmonic), with the Moon making one to Mars, so this Moon is NOT “void of course.”
In this Full Moon, the span occupied by the inner planets (in this chart Mercury in Gemini through Venus in Cancer) spans 21+ degrees. Once Mars returns to the same proximity to other inner planets in October 2016, then we’ll again begin to have significant clusters in a very narrow span. For now, we no longer have any significant concentration of planets in a narrow span. However, because of this month’s distribution, Gemini and early Cancer will be very active these next two weeks (and related to the Wisdom to come forth this year). This month we have the 10 traditional planets occupying 8 signs, in a widespread distribution.
This Lunation creates an occupied span of 219 degrees with only Jupiter in mid-Virgo not within that span, creating the final Bucket Jones pattern for a long time. As I mentioned, this is also important because Jupiter is conjunct the North Node. This position of Jupiter shows that we need to take the humor, vision, sensitivity and and heart strengths we cultivated when Jupiter in Cancer and Leo leading and/or focusing the changing configurations of late 2013 throughout 2014 and 2015, and find ways to reclaim that power and vision in a practical form.
Be willing to confront any sense of power within you that you locked up a long time ago, and confront the part of you that is afraid to claim that primal power. Name the truth as you know it, show courage in focusing your will power to demonstrate the Divine Will or Law of the situation, and take a new look at all that’s ended since the Summer of 2011, since the fracturing we’ll all go through is directly related to our saying goodbye to ghosts of the past, whether the distant past or the more recent past.
The Bucket Pattern and how it works
This month’s Bucket pattern falls away from the ideal, because the occupied span is far wider than the ideal, which is 180. Still, Jupiter is 72 degrees away from Venus, and 68 degrees away from Mars, making it a singleton in its own area of the zodiac. As I explained above, with all the planets on one side of the zodiac and Jupiter in Virgo far enough away from the nearest planet to become a nozzle for the focus of all the other planetary energies, it becomes the “handle,” or nozzle for focusing the energies of the rest. The handle, or focal determinator, represents the way to greater effectiveness, the cause to be embraced, the lack to be filled, or the way to use the total energies of this time in a focused manner.
Dr. Jones states “the Bucket type indicates a particular and rather uncompromising direction in the life effort.” This pattern gives “interest in a cause,” with executive tendencies that will adapt allegiances to maximize results of the effort. He says “the Bucket type at its best reveals the real instructor and inspirer of others, and at its worst the agitator and malcontent.” This is the larger planetary pattern within which we’re all trying to do what we do.
We are also told this pattern is more about finding an effective release for energy within social settings, but also about the individual imposing their patterns on society rather than adapting to what is there. It’s about focused intention. So all of us can expect some sort of focused attention on the house where we have 16 Virgo.
We also had Jupiter as the handle of a Bucket pattern off and on through the past two years. In 2014, Jupiter was the nozzle then as now, but was in Cancer at that time. It then became the nozzle, or handle, when it was in Leo in 2015. Now it’s in Virgo. Same handle, different expression. It would seem we’re all learning a lot about how to manage Jupiter’s energies as the nozzle for the fire hose!
Is the Sun Following the Moon, or the Moon Following the Sun?
We now have finished the pattern of the Full Moon Sun falling in a different sign than the Sun of the previous New Moon. With this Full Moon, we re-enter the pattern we last had between September 2013 and September 2014, and are now finished with the “reversed pattern” we have been in since then.
So we now enter many months of the “natural” order of Lunation Suns, since the last New Moon Sun was in Gemini, and this Full Moon Sun is also in Gemini. Since the New Moon offers us seeds in the first half of the month’s lunar cycle, and fulfillment in the second half, we now have the “Seed Light” of Gemini that will come to a Full Moon illumination through the current Sun in Gemini and Moon in Sagittarius.
See you in the near future with parts two and three, where we will explore the Sabian Symbols, aspects, and other important chart factors.
© Copyright 2016 Robert Wilkinson
Once again thanks for the valuable information and the relation to the Christ Fest and Wesak festivals. As always very helpful and ready for part 2&3.
Blessings be to all.
Posted by: Nic | June 17, 2016 at 03:12 PM