by Robert Wilkinson
This is a Full Moon where we find ourselves on the threshold of a new era, having already confronted hard realities and found new duties and responsibilities as a result of what we’ve let go of.
This distributing, anticipatory, purifying and integrating Full Moon bringing a new way of approaching the present and future on the emotional and social levels occurs at 4:05 pm PST, 7:05 pm EST on Dec 13, 12:05 am UT December 14, and falls at the 23rd degree of Sagittarius and 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 expressing the love and promise offered at this time in your own unique way!
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 seventh 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, this begins the fulfillment of the theme of the recent New Moon in Sagittarius. To learn more about that Lunation at 8 Sagittarius, please check out the recent articles The New Moon at 8 Sagittarius Pt. 1 - What’s Happening in December 2016 as well as The New Moon at 8 Sagittarius Pt. 2 - Signs, Sabian Symbols, and What It All Means.
An Overview
This Full Moon brings forth forms of fulfillment of new truths, futures, visions, and possible paths to power, and shows us the main themes and lessons of the period from now through October 2017. This is the front end look at what we’ll have to face and embrace in order to live a more integral life.
This chart continues the maximum productivity of recent weeks since the Full Moon configures very favorable with Mars, backed by the powerful Jupiter sextile Saturn and Saturn trine Uranus! The past and future are in a productive and harmonious dance at this time, and this Full Moon powers up distributive energy that should keep everything in motion, harmonizing every planet or angle we have in the middle and late degrees of Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius.
I’ll discuss more about this a mixed bag of aspects later in the series. For now, we continue the “tension of opposites” set up by the forming opposition of Jupiter in Libra with Uranus in Aries, as well as the Lunation opposition. This Full Moon continues the strong opposition-sextile-trine of 2017 that will be made by Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Very good for rhythmic building, and this shows us how to do it.
We are now in a time when we’ll have a stable Bowl Jones Pattern for many months except for when the Moon is outside the occupied span, which continues with this chart. So the Bowl is modified by the Moon, and that means this chart is a combination of Locomotive and Bucket, since the former is defined by the Moon trine Jupiter empty span, and the latter is defined by the Moon acting as a handle for the expression of all the other planets.
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.
This Full Moon does not trigger the Grand Irrationality except through the just separating Moon biseptile Neptune. While Mercury will soon make its conjunction to Pluto and septile to Neptune, it’s not a factor in this chart. However, as I’ve noted in previous Lunation articles, due to the Grand Irrationality being set into play by recent eclipses, the energies are in motion for many months to come. At this time, the current seven “hot zone” spans that trigger the Grand Irrationality are approximately 11-15 Leo, 2-6 Libra, 23-27 Scorpio , 16-20 Capricorn, 8-12 Pisces, 29 Aries-3 Taurus, and 20-24 Gemini.
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.
Planetary Distribution
In this Full Moon, the span occupied by the inner planets (in this chart the Sun in Sagittarius through Mars in Aquarius spans 63+ degrees. As the inner planets catch up to Mars over the next few months, then we’ll again begin to have significant clusters in a very narrow span.
For now, we have a focus of 7 planets in the 80+ degrees between Saturn in Sagittarius and Neptune in early Pisces, making Libra, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces very active these next two weeks. At this time we have the 10 traditional planets occupying 7 signs, in a widespread distribution.
Currently, the occupied span begins with Jupiter in Libra, and proceeds through planets in Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, and Aries, with the Moon in Gemini outside the occupied span creating an empty trine with Jupiter, creating a perfect Locomotive as well as a strong Bucket. What follows is a description of both Patterns.
The Locomotive Pattern and how it works
This type of spread, with all the planets occupying 2/3 of the signs with an empty third, creates an imbalance that leads to power if we can find the compensatory “weight” to make things move forward smoothly rather than rock side to side creating friction. Target what is needed, and provide compensatory energies accordingly.
As Marc Jones put it, “this type of horoscope reveals a balance of this sort in the life. A third part of things… consisting of a free span in experience, is set against a two-thirds part, embracing a related but limited span in experience…. The basis of the dynamic is found in the native’s resulting strong sense of a lack or a need, of a problem to be solved, a task to be achieved in the social and intellectual world around him.”
Dr. Jones states “The temperament reveals a self-driving individuality, an executive eccentricity that is not … unbalance but rather is power. It exhibits a dynamic and exceptionally practical capacity which is neither the broad universality of the Splash pattern, nor the special obsession with some particularly narrowed aspect of experience characteristic of the Bundle people.
He goes on to state “The Locomotive classification is … moved more by external factors in the environment than by aspects of its own character. The point of application for the powers of the self is shown … by the “leading planet,” or the one of the two in the empty trine which forms its aspect clockwise in the zodiac, irrespective of any distinction as “applying” or “separating.”
Jupiter is the leading planet in the Locomotive. Find a balanced way of following opportunities to learn, grow, and expand your life, while adjusting to the rhythms of nature. There may be a need to see what’s unfair or out of balance, with diminished tensions due to Jupiter separating from its square to Pluto. Try to find a well-rounded approach to dealing with what needs rebalancing, and remember that Mercury is slowing down, and therefore some of what comes up the next two weeks will have roots in the past, or judgment must be suspended until January.
With Jupiter leading the Locomotive, sometimes many small steps will be more appropriate than a few large ones. Because the leading edge of the Locomotive is ruled by Venus and the closing edge is ruled by Mercury, keep transcending old views, old attitudes, and be willing to see what must be corrected to embrace the radical self-transcendence promised by this Lunation.
As the Locomotive keeps things out of balance, Jupiter is now the front end to finding the way of initiating activity that must be accompanied by a compensatory “weight” to keep things moving forward rather than sideways. The more we work with the imbalances that can lead us to understand when and why we need a break from routine, the easier it will be to move through the transmutations promised by this Lunation.
The Bucket Pattern and How It Works
This type of spread, with all the planets in about half the signs with one outside that span wide enough to be a handle, creates a “Bucket” Jones Pattern. The energies of the occupied half are focused through the “handle,” or “nozzle,” in this case the Moon, termed the “focal determinator.”
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. We had this pattern dominant a few years back, first with Saturn as the handle, and then later with Jupiter as the handle. In this pattern the Moon is the handle.
This implies the Moon in Gemini represents how to “get a handle on things,” or how to focus our energy. We can use the Moon in Gemini to deal with a problem or need in our lives, or the nature of what is needed in any given circumstance (since it’s impacting ALL charts.)
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 23 Gemini.
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. This is the seventh Full Moon echoing the pattern we last had between September 2013 and September 2014, and we have left behind the “reversed pattern” we were in through May 2016.
So we’re now in many months of the “natural” order of Lunation Suns, since the last New Moon Sun was in Sagittarius, and this Full Moon Sun is also in Sagittarius. 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 Sagittarius that will come to a Full Moon illumination through the current Sun in Sagittarius and Moon in Gemini.
A New Look At Mercury Retrograde
Because Mercury entered its shadow zone on December 1, this Lunation has a Mercury retrograde quality. While it won’t go retrograde at 16 Capricorn until just before the December Solstice, we’ll begin seeing themes that will play out in some interesting and maybe roundabout ways between now and the end of January.
The coming period will be an extraordinarily important retrograde, since Mercury will be exactly conjunct Pluto with an exact Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus opposition-sextile-trine. You can of course find out more about the coming retrograde, as well as all others past and future, by getting your copy of the expanded 2nd edition of my award winning book A New Look At Mercury Retrograde. In it you can find out all you need about Mercury Retrograde in the signs, houses, what it means for each sign, when it happens, and Mercury Retrograde celebrities and historical events that you'll never find in any other source.
Here's the Amazon link to the page where you can purchase a paperback edition of A New Look at Mercury Retrograde. You can also get a Kindle ebook at that site, or go to Barnes and Noble for a copy on Nook. (Please note that if you go to amazon, make sure you're ordering the 2015 edition, and not the earlier one. There are plenty of used ones for sale, but they are far inferior to the newest edition.) Check out possible ways this Mercury retrograde effect could play out over the next 4 months!
Of course I’ll be posting the usual plethora of articles on the coming Mercury retrograde in Capricorn and Sagittarius over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for more about this important retrograde period!
See you in the near future with parts two and three on this Full Moon, where we will explore the Sabian Symbols, aspects, and other important chart factors.
© Copyright 2016 Robert Wilkinson
Thanks for the very useful post.
See you inn part 2 and 3 then.
Blessings be to all.
Posted by: Nic | December 11, 2016 at 05:24 AM