by Robert Wilkinson
This initiating, power focused, responsible and mobilizing Full Moon occurs just hours after the Solstice at 9:49 am PST, 12:49 pm EST, and 5:49 pm GMT on December 22, and falls at the 1st degree of Capricorn and Cancer. As the Full Moon brings the themes of the New Moon to surface, continue to follow the Light of new freedom, truth, and promise of the Sagittarius New Moon and give it form and focus through taking responsibility for opening to new ways to express your Highest Self in forms of social power and influence.
Continuing the theme that proceeds at each Full Moon as they move through each polarity, this one gives us the ability to bring to surface the new truths and “refreshed Self” developing these past two weeks. This one throws us into the future, with knowledge of how to bring out the richness of things coupled with a gift of intuition, or at the very least, an awareness of how to “give the people what they want.”
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.
An Overview
Continuing the theme that proceeds at each Full Moon as they move through each polarity, this one gives us the ability to use the broader views and truths we’re developing into forms of personal power on a social level. These should be expressed through a sensitivity to an important need, whether personal or social, though you’ll find these are related.
There is great growth for accelerated mobilization, and those who cooperated with that quickened growth will find rewards greater than imagined. As Saturn and the Moon are the rulers of this Lunation, there may be intense polarization due to their opposition and the Moon focusing the novile-double quadranovile configuration involving Mercury, Jupiter, and Pluto with the Moon as the nozzle focusing this intense spiritual energy.
The last Full Moon helped us unite with “kindred fire spirits” who we can teach what we know, and learn from what they know. We have had new discoveries, as well as many adjustments and special conditions. This Full Moon will be extremely important, given the crosscurrents pretty much all focusing through the restless Cancer Moon. See it all as “the world of the 5 senses and the mind as the playground of God and Soul,” and keep accepting the blessings that are offered.
Because so much ended during the Mars retrograde and the aftermath of the 2018 Summer Solar Eclipses, we’ve said goodbye to many things and withdrew from our projections on the world, and the world’s projections on us, especially in the late Capricorn and early Aquarius sector of our charts, as well as the areas of our chart between 21 Cancer and 19 Leo. We now have a technique that can help us “read the tea leaves” and know our individual spiritual place in the larger group work we’re a part of. Many things ended in 2018, or we simply no longer like doing those things and have moved in new directions.
We now move forward, having reviewed during the last Mercury Retrograde all of the signs and signals about our ancestral (genetic) Wisdom we received since last December. We’ve now completed, for better or worse, a period of phenomenal growth in Heart power and opportunities to demonstrate it. The past dozen weeks we’ve experienced our “will to wholeness” breaking up old complexes, repaired and/or reconstructed something in our social lives, taken a long look back at some ghosts which showed us how we got to where we’re at, and now move forward into new social roles and power. Welcome to two weeks of education leading to understanding how our expectancies impact our future!
The Rhombus
As Uranus is still semisquare Neptune, anchoring the off-again, on-again friction Rhombus Diamond configuration, we’ll have to continue to deal with this “cutting, grinding, and polishing” quality each time the Moon moves through the middle of the mutable signs and the end of the cardinal and beginning of the fixed signs. We recently experienced the extreme grind in the middle of September, with Mercury in mid-Virgo opposing Neptune at the same time Venus was opposed Uranus, with double semisquares and sesquisquares created between those planets. This created a massive Octile frictional configuration, indicative of the widespread grinding going on during the last two Full Moons via Venus opposed to Uranus.
We had a perfect complete Diamond several times last year when planets transited mid-Virgo and late Libra at the same time. However, the good news is that the transits of mid-Virgo and late Libra are now past, so the full power of the Rhombus won’t be back until next year. Still, every time any planet transits through the middle degrees of the Mutable signs and the late degrees of the Cardinal signs or first degrees of the Fixed signs the friction returns.
We’ve now been cut, ground, and polished to perfection in multiple areas of our lives, and the next period of this “gem cutting exercise” will be as Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus all transit through mid-Sag, squaring Neptune and sesquisquaring Uranus. That has made and will make parts of December and January hotter than firecrackers, especially 2 weeks ago when the Sun was in mid-Sag when Mars was in mid-Pisces. Now Mercury and Jupiter are headed into mid-Sag, followed by Venus conjunct Jupiter in late January at 17 Sag, a degree of social rebirth.
Is the Grand Irrationality A Factor in this Full Moon?
First, what it is. The Grand Irrationality is a phenomenon we’ve been living within since 1993. Since then, we’ve been in an extraordinarily irrational period which continues to this day. 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/or Pluto. Septile series aspects show us points in time when our future destiny is precipitated by critical choices made in the present.
Because this configuration involved Neptune and Pluto, two powerhouse Transpersonal planetary representatives of Spirit, they have symbolized the long wave planetary crisis the entire human race has been going through since 1993. From then to now, 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.
The Grand Irrationality V.1 was the period when Neptune was septile Pluto. It began in 1993, was very strong and in constant movement the last 5 years of the 20th century and the first 15 years of this century. This phase has now waned, since Neptune no longer makes a forming or partile separating septile to Pluto and won’t again for many centuries.
However, we have now moved into a new phase of The Grand Irrationality! It’s not the configuration as we’ve known it since the 90s, since the Neptune part of the equation has faded into a “pulse” that is triggered after the main configuration is set into play. I explain more downstream.
Uranus began to biseptile Pluto in the Summer of 2017, briefly setting the new configuration into play. That began the current “never-ending revolution” since Uranus, the Cosmic Awakener, has hit its “fork in the road of destiny” with Pluto, the Lord of Transformation. I term this phase The Grand Irrationality V.2!
This particular larger period in time is even stranger than it was during the Grand Irrationality V.1, since this period combines Uranus’ semisquare to Neptune with Uranus biseptile Pluto. So along with the hard edge of the Grand Irrationality involving Uranus and Pluto in a 7th harmonic aspects, we also have Uranus in an 8th harmonic frictional aspect to Neptune, another of the Transpersonal Spiritual planets!
This configuration was highly active during recent Full Moons, with the world at a Mercurial turning point followed by the Moon in the configuration in the Scorpio/Taurus Full Moon. During this Full Moon, we have no 7th harmonic aspects to Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto, giving the world a bit of slack for the next two weeks.
That makes the Grand Irrationality V.2 not as strong an energy at this Full Moon, even if we do have Mercury and Jupiter square Neptune and Mercury biseptile Mars pumping up the energies in their departments of life. So neither the Grand Irrationality nor the Rhombus diamond is as powerful this Full Moon as those in the recent past.
Still, stay prepared to be ready to act when needed, since Mercury is squaring Neptune and sesquisquaring Uranus. Trust your instinctive genetic wisdom, and see any friction in the near future as a signal for what will explode in a big way when Jupiter makes those exact aspects during the first 3 weeks of January. The Sagittarius aspects to Uranus and Neptune anchoring the Rhombus generates a lot of friction and movement around 13-16 Virgo and Gemini. Remember this is interactive internal and external friction that is “cutting, grinding, and polishing” those parts of our charts.
More on Uranus Biseptile Pluto
Though Uranus is temporarily not in biseptile to Pluto, we’ve already begun to experience the radical choices and changes associated with these two planets in a 7th harmonic aspect! As I offered back in May when Uranus first entered Taurus, “… they will soon make a biseptile, guaranteed to be a very unstable and irrational time!” That prophesy has certainly played out in the news with trumpets blaring, thanks to other transits triggering these 7th harmonic non-rational energies.
We first encountered these very briefly in August 2017, and it went into nonstop pulses beginning at the end of June 2018 with Uranus again 101+ degrees from Pluto. This lasted through October when the orb became too wide. We’re now enjoying a brief return to the trielftile between December 2018 and April 2019. The biseptile comes roaring back between May and July, and again October 2019 through December 2019.
This is the first biseptile in the larger Uranus/Pluto cycle that began at their conjunctions in the mid-1960s. The waxing septile occurred 1989-1991, so this is the next point in that larger “Pulse of Destiny.” The hot zones, measured from the current Uranus biseptile Pluto, are around 18-22 Capricorn, 9-13 Pisces, 30 Aries-4 Taurus, 22-26 Gemini, 13-17 Leo, 4-8 Libra, and 26-30 Scorpio. If you have anything near these zones, your life has had some abrupt transformational experiences this Summer, with more in early November when Jupiter activated both Uranus and Pluto!
As this aspect was in play during the June Solstice and the September Equinox charts, it’s no wonder that we’ve had radical events the past 6 months! It’s been a major fork in the road for the entire world, and things have certainly seemed extraordinarily irrational at times.
As I told you at the Solstice, if things don’t make sense, they don’t have to. The only thing that matters is to know how to focus and not get distracted by the craziness in the atmosphere. Sometimes, when we keep our heads when all around us are losing theirs, we come out on the other side looking and feeling good!
Planetary Distribution
In this Full Moon, the span occupied by the inner planets (in this chart Venus at 15 Scorpio through the Sun at 1 Capricorn spans 46+ degrees. This span will be the focus of broad activity in our charts. When we add Saturn and Pluto it expands the very active span to 6 planets in 65+ degrees. Our planetary spread has now expanded to more than half the signs. We hit maximum compression last March, with all planets between Jupiter at 24 Scorpio and Uranus at 27 Aries, making a very powerful triseptile between the bookends.
At this time we have the 10 traditional planets occupying 6 signs, in an uneven widespread distribution. Currently, the outer planet occupied span begins with Jupiter in early Sag, then moves through Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, Neptune in Pisces, and Uranus in late Aries, with the inner planets (except Mars) now occupying Scorpio, Sag, and Capricorn, with the Moon in Cancer creating a dual Locomotive and Bucket Jones pattern.
Now that Mars is in Pisces and Jupiter is in Sagittarius, we’re in a year when Saturn is no longer the final dispositor for all the other planets except Neptune. I’ll discuss the ruling dispositors in another article. We’re also back in a time when Mercury in Sagittarius leads the Sun, showing that planet is the way to find our Light.
We’ve now moved into a time period of shifting Jones pattern. The patterns change mainly due to the position of the Moon, and at this Full Moon, as I noted we’re in a wide but classic “Locomotive” Jones pattern defined by the span between the Moon at 1 Cancer and Venus at 15 Scorpio defining the unoccupied third. However, because there is a wide gap between the Moon and Uranus, the next nearest planet, the Moon also serves as the handle, or “nozzle,” of a Bucket Chart. This creates both a perfect Bucket and Locomotive pattern, combining the two influences. That’s why this month I’ll give you both patterns.
So What is a “Bucket Pattern” and how does it work?
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. With the Moon in Cancer as the handle, we should be able to “get a handle on what we need to do” by demonstrating good Cancer skills and approaches. Thus the focus requires sensitivity, caution, emotional intelligence, awareness of immediate needs, and a sense of the flow in situations.
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 1 Cancer.
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.”
Venus is the leading planet in the Locomotive. Find appropriate Scorpio ways to embrace experience with an eye to “honesty in self-expression” as you see the phenomenal world as the playground of your Eternal Self. Scorpio is about piercing through the form to feel a depth connection with the essence of a thing, idea, or person. Because the leading and closing edge of the Locomotive are both in Water signs, use deep feelings, a sense of the magnetics at work, and self-transcendence through eliminating obstacles to move through experience and come out with a greater sensitivity and caring about what truly matters, as well as a revelation about why you are as you are and what need in your world moves you.
As the Locomotive keeps things out of balance, Venus in Scorpio 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 by referencing the Higher Self’s ability to play in the world of “the 5 senses and the mind,” the easier it will be to use Venus’ energies skillfully.
Is the Sun Following the Moon, or the Moon Following the Sun?
There are two patterns; one is when the Full Moon Sun is the same sign as the previous New Moon Sun, and the other is when the Full Moon Sun is in the next sign from the Sun in the previous New Moon. We had the Sun in the same sign in both the New Moon and Full Moon between September 2013 and September 2014. We then changed pattern, and between October 2014 and May 2016 we had a “reversed pattern” of the Sun of the Full Moon occupying the sign after the New Moon Sun.
We then went back to the “natural” order between June 2016 and the late July 2017 New Moon in Leo, when the Full Moon Sun fell in the same sign as the Sun of the previous New Moon. This is the seventeenth Full Moon since then where we again are in a “reversed pattern” of the Sun of the Full Moon occupying the sign after the New Moon Sun. So we’re now in “the other” New Moon/Full Moon sign expression.
We finished the period of the “natural” order of Lunation Suns at the August 2017 Solar Eclipse in late Leo and began this other sequence, since that New Moon Sun was in Leo, but the subsequent Full Moon Sun was in Virgo. 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 are in a sequence with the “Seed Light” of Sagittarius coming to a Full Moon illumination through the current Sun in Capricorn and Moon in Cancer.
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 at 16 Sagittarius. You can learn more about that New Moon in Sag by going to The December 2018 New Moon at 16 Sagittarius Pt. 1 – What’s Happening in December 2018-January 2019, and The December 2018 New Moon at 16 Sagittarius Pt. 2 – Signs, Sabian Symbols, and What it All Means.
Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend
Because Saturn is in its home sign of Capricorn for the first time since 1991, it is the final dispositor of all planets transiting Capricorn and Aquarius from now through 2023. We have now begun a year of “co-equal rulerships” between Jupiter and Saturn, since Jupiter now disposits all planets in Sag and Pisces, while Saturn continues to disposit all transits through Capricorn and Aquarius. Because Mars was in a Saturn-ruled sign from March 17 through November 15, 2018, Saturn was a very powerful influence on all Mars-related events of that time, which of course meant Saturn was the backdrop to Jupiter in Scorpio for that entire time.
2017 and 2018 were an extraordinary period, due to Saturn trine Uranus dominating most of those years. Their 2017 Fire trines stabilized Electric Fire and distributive “Fire by Friction,” which led naturally to the 2018 Earth trine helping us ground our efforts in practical ways. These helped us blend the past and future, the established with the innovative, and make the structure of our lives unique.
This Full Moon finds “the Light of Saturn” front and center due to the conjunction with the Sun and opposition from the Moon, focusing the blended Sun/Saturn energy. As Saturn continues in its powerful serendipitous tredecile with Uranus, we are finding perfect interactive gifts and circumstances showing us specialized unique qualities in the Saturn-Uranus “dance of individualization” in our lives.
I cover a lot of their dance awakening us to using our power to create our destiny in conscious individualized ways in my book Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend. Saturn helps us give form and structure to our quest for Self-realization, and in Capricorn, teaches us how to construct an “organized personal structure” to the Uranian energies making our spiritual life come alive.
It was written for both astrologers and non-astrologers. Even those with little or no understanding of astrology will benefit from understanding why you had to make certain choices at crucial times that shaped your life in profound ways.
Each time you read any section of this book you will find new insights about your power to steer your personal evolution. You will understand how to throw off all the attitudes and memories which have held you back from finding and living the life and purpose. Through your journey of self-discovery, you can find ways to live your life on your own terms, and fulfill your purpose for being alive as an Eternal having human experiences!
If you’ve haven’t already gotten your copy, you can go to the Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend page on Amazon and this should be all you need to order your copy. It’s also available on Amazon and as an ebook on Kindle, so if that’s more to your liking, go for it! If you would, whether you’ve gotten the ebook or the paperback, please write a review on the Amazon site, since the more reviews, the more of a boost they give it.
On A Final Note
See you in the near future with parts two and three on this Full Moon precipitating major revelations in our lives, helping us bring forth unique gifts and qualities that will fill the voids left by what we’ve left behind up to now. This one is extraordinarily mobilizing, and many will shift direction or allegiances in their lives. This period will bring many realizations we’ve been waiting for, both favorable and frictional, while other things will be put on hold for a few weeks.
Pay attention to what your “bodily wisdom” is telling you, since Mercury’s teaching us this exact thing over the next 2 weeks. While it may seem that some activities are “dominated by fate,” in fact it’s just an exercise in prioritizing and organizing some practical necessities so we can get ready to spring forward in January. Keep your eyes on the prize, and stay clear about what roles you are and aren’t playing, while not verbalizing in ways that undermine your sense of who you are and what you’re here to do.
Because of the squares and biseptiles from Sag to Neptune and Mars in Pisces, don’t waste energies getting aggravated by the need to centralize as you expand, do NOT push things past your endurance, take time to meditate and recuperate after activity, and take a new look at how and what to communicate, teach, or learn. This is a time to check out what you know you expect, and get educated about the power of the subconscious mind to bring forth what we expect, whether we know it or not. Find understanding from the stabilizing Sun conjunct Saturn, and take the long view.
Though there are quite a few frictional aspects, there are also the two very powerful spiritual and specializing configurations going on involving 6 planets, showing revelation and serendipity are in the air! Though the energies may threaten to spin out of control from time to time, remember that many things are “tidal” right now, so learn to feel which way the tides are flowing and you’ll make progress despite the imbalances, cross currents, and general inner and outer friction!
This is a time to mobilize, and “claim power before the assembled tribe.” It marks a time of shifting allegiances, powerful repolarizations, and a fusion of the power generator with the guardian of boundaries, as well as a fusion of the higher and lower minds in the sign of the Higher Mind.
Remember that the Rhombus Diamond energy will be stimulated by Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus these next 5 weeks, putting pressure on the middle degrees of the Mutable sectors in our charts. When under pressure, remember that it takes pressure to turn carbon into diamonds. And the more skillful we become in dealing with life’s aggravations, annoyances, disruptions, and unexpected diversions, the less these are a problem in the future, and the more we are able to keep our cool in the midst of the generic atmospheric conflict. That way we can fulfill our destiny and enjoy the journey!
We are now moving from a Sagittarius to a Capricorn emphasis, though with Jupiter in Sagittarius for the next 12 months, we all get to learn the Sagittarius dance with life, love, humor and freedom. Keep laughter in your heart as you move into the future, and claim your power to live a more effective life!
I’ll see you soon when we’ll discuss Sabian Symbols, aspects, and other important chart factors.
© Copyright 2018 Robert Wilkinson
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