by Robert Wilkinson
This Lunar Eclipse will be extraordinarily beneficial, with a lot of productive harmony and stability as we train to manifest a new ideal. As the old ways shut down, Mars will show us a new worldly order and a new way to focus our potency.
This stabilizing, synthesizing, creative Full Moon moving us into balanced receptivity occurs on Feb 10 at 4:33 pm PST, 7:33 pm EST, Feb 11 at 12:33 am GMT and falls at the 23rd degree of Aquarius and Leo. 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 understanding and contentment with our natural role we’ve glimpsed since the New Moon.
Today’s Full Moon post will be an overview of the Lunation and some of its primary qualities. In parts 3 and 4 we’ll cover the Sabian Symbols, aspects, distributions, and patterns.
This is the ninth 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 Aquarius. To learn more about that Lunation at 9 Aquarius, please check out the recent articles The New Moon at 9 Aquarius Pt. 1 - What’s Happening in February 2017 as well as The New Moon at 9 Aquarius Pt. 2 - Signs, Sabian Symbols, and What It All Means.
An Overview
This Full Moon is one where we will accept a certain type of training to prove our ability to take the initiative in perfecting a function, and in doing so we open the potential for various levels of “initiation.” The next two weeks (and four months!) will stabilize new openings, new possibilities, new responsibilities, and give us opportunities to express our creativity in balanced and elegant ways. The future has begun, and this one shows us a new life order!
This chart has a huge number of favorable aspects, and now that Jupiter is retrograde, the Cardinal T-square is back in play. I’ll discuss more about this a mixed bag of aspects later in the series. There is tremendous harmony for those with planets or significant points in the last decan of the Fire and Air signs, and with the two powerful biseptiles, this Eclipse will put us all at very favorable “forks in the road” of our destiny.
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 Bucket, with the Moon acting as a handle for the expression of all the other planets. As the Moon is in Leo, creativity and heart power are the qualities to focus through the handle/nozzle. However, because of the open trine between the Moon in Leo and Uranus in Aries, it also is almost a perfect Locomotive pattern as well.
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, though the configuration will be set into motion in about 2-3 weeks when the Sun and then Mercury conjunct Neptune and septile Pluto. This will bring power and understanding to us related to what was set into motion when Mars and then Venus made those aspects in late December and the second week of January respectively. 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.
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 Mercury in Sagittarius through Mars in Pisces spans 78+ 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 6 planets in the 75+ degrees between Mercury in early Aquarius and Uranus in late Aries, making Sagittarius, Capricorn, 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 Leo outside the occupied span creating a perfect Bucket pattern, as well as a perfect Locomotive pattern.
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 in Leo is the handle.
This implies the Moon in Leo represents how to “get a handle on things,” or how to focus our energy. We can use the Moon in Leo 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.) This implies that creativity, natural self-expression, love, valor, and nobility will factor heavily into how the other planetary energies are focused. While there may be insecurity, keep putting on the show, and demonstrate to others how well you’ve trained your personality to do heightened creative works or expressions.
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 Leo.
Because it’s also a Locomotive pattern, I’ll also give the qualities of that Jones pattern again. You should see a combination of energies working out of balance, but generating power for those who know how to use the Lunar focus wisely.
So What is a “Locomotive Pattern” and how does it work?
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.”
The Moon is the leading planet in the Locomotive. Find appropriate Leonine forms of expressing things so they take relevant shape in your life, and prove your skills in creative ways. Leo is about heart strength as well as dramatic self-expression. Because the leading and closing edge of the Locomotive are both in Fire signs, keep opening your hearts to the joyous song of life! Be light, see light, live light, express light!
As the Locomotive keeps things out of balance, the Moon 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 why we’re having to “show what we know,” and be creative and/or playful, the easier it will be to use the Moon’s energies skillfully.
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 ninth 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 Aquarius, and this Full Moon Sun is also in Aquarius. 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 Aquarius that will come to a Full Moon illumination through the current Sun in Aquarius and Moon in Leo.
See you in the near future with parts three and four on this Full Moon Lunar Eclipse, where we will explore the Sabian Symbols, aspects, and other important chart factors.
© Copyright 2017 Robert Wilkinson
Thanks, Robert! What does it mean when a full moon eclipse conjoins one's nodes?
Posted by: Elizabeth Cohen | February 09, 2017 at 12:59 AM
"Because the leading and closing edge of the Locomotive are both in Fire signs, keep opening your hearts to the joyous song of life! Be light, see light, live light, express light!" So well said.
Thanks Robert and ready for parts 3&4.
Blessings be to all.
Posted by: Nic | February 09, 2017 at 03:17 AM