by Robert Wilkinson
This visionary, future-oriented, power focused, and mobilizing Total Eclipse Full Moon occurs at 9:16 pm PST January 20, 12:16 am EST and 5:16 am GMT January 21, and falls at the 1st degree of Aquarius and Leo. As the Full Moon brings the themes of the New Moon to surface, continue to follow the Light of the mobilization and Light of the Capricorn New Moon and give it form and focus through joyously dislodging old material at the fulfillment of old cycles as new ones begin to emerge.
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 “robust enthusiasms in approaching life’s contests” developing these past two weeks. This one gives us a clear vision, with an eruption of heart energy as the way to focus the future-oriented vision of the Sun. This can lead to joyous self-expression. These Eclipses will take away old power structures and give us all a new “historical perspective” on what’s important and what’s enduring.
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’ve developed since Sag/Gemini which we expressed as forms of personal power on a social level in Capricorn/Cancer and turn them to action building a vision in Aquarius/Leo. Again, whatever is taken away in the Aquarius/Leo sectors of our charts will leave a void to be filled very soon by preparatory contents as a primer for the Jupiter conjunct Saturn at 1 Aquarius in December 2020.
Dramatic events are promised by this Total Eclipse. This is the return of many Plutonic seeds from last Spring which have sprouted since then. Those who surrendered with nobility and dignity will find their “spiritual triumph” these next 2 weeks. As the Sun and Saturn are the rulers of this Lunation, the organization and reorganization continues, which is why we need to see the past from a different perspective and let go of non-essentials.
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.
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. In this chart, we have Venus conjunct Jupiter with both square Neptune and sesquisquare Uranus, reinforcing the grinding and polishing process we’ve been going through since September.
The perfect Rhombus Diamond is made every September when a planet is in mid-Virgo opposing Neptune at the same time another planet is opposed Uranus, with double semisquares and sesquisquares created between those planets. This creates a massive Octile frictional configuration, which was most recently activated during the recent Full Moons which had Venus opposed to Uranus.
We’ve now been cut, ground, and polished to perfection in multiple areas of our lives, and now confront the next period of this “gem cutting exercise” with Venus in mid-Sag squaring Neptune and sesquisquaring Uranus. This continues to make this time period hotter than a firecracker, and as it is active at this Eclipse, it will be in play for a number of months to come.
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 Total Eclipse Full Moon, we have the approach of Saturn biseptile Uranus, which will put many things at another critical turning point in their destiny!
That makes the Grand Irrationality V.2 a factor in this Eclipse, even though Uranus is still trielftile Pluto. As this is the first of three biseptiles Saturn will make with Uranus, this one takes away that which we do not need down the road or which would hinder the structure of our individualization.
This first biseptile will be exact in mid-February and active until March, so take heed! The second one will be in late April through all of May, with the third and final one happening in December. As you can see, the biseptiles from Capricorn to late Aries and early Taurus will dominate the landscape this year!
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 7 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 Sagittarius through the Sun at 1 Aquarius spans 46+ degrees. This span will be the focus of broad activity in our charts. When we add the next nearest planet, Neptune, it expands the active span to 7 planets in 89+ degrees. Our occupied planetary spread (except for the Moon) has now expanded to 6 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 mid 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 Sag, Capricorn, and Aquarius, with the Moon in Leo creating a classic Bucket Jones pattern.
Now that Mars is in Aries 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 Capricorn 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, we are definitely in a classic Bucket chart, with the Moon as the handle, or “nozzle,” of a Bucket Chart.
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 Leo as the handle, we should be able to “get a handle on what we need to do” by demonstrating good Leo skills and approaches. Thus the focus requires creativity, spontaneity, and radiations of heart energy. Be playful, be creative, and be catlike!
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 Leo.
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 eighteenth 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 Capricorn coming to a Full Moon illumination through the current Sun in Aquarius and Moon in Leo.
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 Solar Eclipse at 16 Capricorn. You can learn more about that New Moon in Capricorn by going to The Partial Solar Eclipse New Moon at 16 Capricorn Pt. 2 – What’s Happening in January 2019 and into 2023, and The Partial Solar Eclipse New Moon at 16 Capricorn Pt. 3 – Signs, Sabian Symbols, and What it All Means. (You can find part one before part two)
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 forming biseptile with Uranus, the first of three points in the next year which will put all systems at a fork in the road of destiny where crucial choices are made. This will help us all get a different perspective on the long range factors happening at this time so we may anticipate major changes all year. This is the next point of “choice and change” 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 three and four on this Total Eclipse Full Moon precipitating major visions and outbursts helping us bring forth unique gifts and qualities that will fill the voids left by what this Eclipse will take away. This one shows us a timeless dance, where we must learn the right rhythms and perspectives while getting out of our own way so Spirit may manifest.
Some will experience a form of the Divine Conjunctio, the marriage of the heavenly and earthly within us. Others will see how primal fears have led them to hide their Divinity, and decide to throw off the chains of their own mental slavery. Like last month’s Full Moon, this one is also extraordinarily mobilizing, and many will cut loose from inhibitions and dramatically express something of their hearts.
Despite the friction, there is high specialization indicated by this Eclipse, and whatever is taken away must leave to clear the way for a more “light and bright” expression of the heart indicated by the powerful Venus conjunct Jupiter trine Mars opening many void points in mid-Leo. Let your Soul speak, put on the show to sway others to rise up out of their comfortable numbness or slumber, and remember that Fire is a mechanism to release many potential into action!
Many revelations related to the World Soul are promised by Mercury, while Jupiter counsels us to be alertly ready to act, and not fall into anxiety through not knowing what is to come. Things may be “falling apart,” but in seeing what is leaving and what remains there is healing to be found, and mentoring to be done.
This is the time to “join together with the band,” and play your song by cutting your Soul loose to express your heart. This Eclipse calls us to rise to some occasion, and not stay on cruise control. It is future oriented, and shows us many things to come this Summer and Autumn. Look to the signs, symbols, and omens, and you will see the larger patterns and understand what is coming and when.
Remember that the Rhombus Diamond energy is stimulated by Venus, Jupiter, the Sun, and Neptune, putting pressure on the middle degrees of the Mutable sectors and first degrees of the Fixed 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 have now moved 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 2019 Robert Wilkinson
Great read and insightful. Appreciated.
Posted by: Nancy Robinson | January 26, 2019 at 09:53 PM