The 26 Virgo Full Moon

 An Arizona Moon by John Fowler

As Earth’s moon dictates the planet’s tides, so we all experience a monthly flow and ebb, the increase of which begins with elemental themes presented by the New Moon with some sort of ‘high tide,’ ‘turning point’ or point of which occurs around the time of the Full Moon.

That Full Moon will occur on March 16th (UT/+0 time) at 5:09 in the evening – and it will be positioned at 26 Virgo.

Right away we know several things: the results of what you have done or not done (said or not said, participated in or not participated in…etcetera) dates back to March 1st, the date of the New Moon. And that March 1st New Moon, besides being in the Piscean world of shared emotionality and common human feelings was also wedged in time between Mercury’s turn to direct in Aquarius and Mars’ turn to retrograde in Libra.

Things could get done, things did get done. In fact, since Saturn went retrograde a day after Mars did, there will be consequences, ramifications of, and/or a playing out of whatever was thought about, done, ignored, talked about, reacted to, begun, ended or  committed to at that time.

2014 March Full Moon chart (glyph chart)

 2014 March Full Moon chart (text chart)

Those Mars/Saturn ‘eventualities’ are hardly due yet. And no, none of us were entirely comfortable with what we were having to do, or what we were doing knowing that other people weren’t necessarily going to like it around the time of the last New Moon…even if what we were asserting was a personal emotional truth. Having eclipse effects set in on February 28th going into the New Moon (and Mars plus Saturn stations) assured us we would be given time to work through things…and that there would be plenty which needs working through on our way to changes we will make or meet up with as-and-after the April 29th solar eclipse.

The current lunar cycle having begun in one of the water signs (Pisces), the whole of this month is ‘underlaid’ or ‘centered’ in how we feel about things…and our feelings about life in general. With both the New and Full Moons in 2nd decanate degrees of their respective signs we also know feelings would run high – that this month would be filled with a sense of need, urgency and desire to have things ‘feel’ the way we want them to feel.

Unfortunately things haven’t been exactly to our liking (that being the current Mars/Libra retrograde effect)…its as if something isn’t quite in alignment. Life’s ‘machinery’ isn’t meshing. Nothing is happening in the way…or at the rate we thought it would.

And now, as the Moon comes to Full phase in Virgo, we either realize something more about what needs to be doing in order for things to proceed more smoothly…or we pass/fail to pass some sort of functional ‘check point/’ The implication here is about some sort of adjustment which needs making. That may be to our attitude, methodology, timing, tools or to the choice of or need for teammates, with central questions being about what will help or hinder performance and operational parameters.

Mind you, many of us will have gotten a great deal done over this past little while. We may even be feeling very accomplished even if with Mars in retrograde everything seems to take more effort than we think it should.

Regardless…something isn’t done yet, and some part of what that is and why things still aren’t fitting together may very well be reflective of whatever difficulties we (or others) have with reconciling pragmatic Virgo realities with more spiritual, esoteric…even mythical beliefs.

Imaged in the above by dwarf planet Sedna, the myths we believe in now are those we either use to inflict or defend from whatever it is we consider our most deadly challenge (Algol), be that from within or without.

The image of any Full Moon being the Sun in opposition to the Moon, our instincts are pragmatic and practical while our (solar) consciousness and the power of our being is focused either on our emotions…or how emotionality functions either when we are (or get) carried away or what incites emotionality to the point of ‘undoing that which you otherwise know.’ Whatever we hear, see or encounter now is as likely to provoke our reactions, and reactions are probably either due or duly necessary.

But there is a trick here…and that is really knowing what our feelings really are. Amidst all else, we are so dearly likely to be driven by echoes of our own issues that though we may try to make a practical choice that whatever choice we make is not towards what we think the goal is, but as a reaction to something implanted deep in our psyches a very long, long time ago.

That doesn’t make whatever we do or why we do it right or wrong. It just makes our motivations less explicable than usual – even to us.

Or maybe that’s the ‘other guy’s motivations…with Moon conjunct MakeMake in late Virgo why and exactly anyone is doing what they’re doing may very well seem immoral…and yet, on some perhaps very odd metaphysical level the weakness is actually with or within our Self.

It’s an injury. Our ability to connect to others in such a way as to build and advance our ultimate aspirations (Scorpio) is injured – that injury being indicated by fixed star Toliman. While we have learned much from the pain, it has also grown to be something which at some level (Mnemosyne) both pains and drives us, creating some sort of limit, some emotional Saturnine wall within which causes us to judge our priority meaningful and that of others less so.

In the diagram above Mercury is shown in isolation at 28 Aquarius, a combination which at its heart is about non-involvement. This is the reality and ugliness (or in some cases, our presumption of ugliness) which makes us not want to ‘touch’ or be touched – which in being separatist (or elitist or contrarian, etc.) violates the Aquarian notion of universality. It is fine in other words to not want to be involved so long as you treat others as an equal  entitled to the same rights and respect you are entitled to.

To list the technicals in brief here, Mercury is semi-sextile Europa and Scheat, suggesting we are at odds with what others might think. Mercury is also in square to Saturn, Mnemosyne and Toliman, representing the broadest of all challenges here – the recognition that whoever we are, we all instinctively fear the same things.

We’re all human. The trials of mortality and eternity expressed by 26 Virgo are all about being afraid of paying any price for being human.

Because of this…inevitably…we end up wanting to see others pay that price,  if only so that we know they paid…not us. And though that may sound harsh and it isn’t kind, this is a basic and instinctive need, one which 26 Virgo challenges by ‘freeze-framing’ some portion of our psyche into immobility, causing the rest of our Self to cast about looking for ways to validate that existence which suddenly feels so strangely and oddly incomplete. We will tend now to see emptiness in the searches of others not because their efforts are empty, but because our quest to fill our own insecurities (however buried and denied they may be) are pushing us to the point where we will tend to become less forgiving of the very mortality we feel so acutely in our Self – and thus  less forgiving of others.

Hardly known as the world’s most innately ‘forgiving’ sign, squares from Mercury in late Aquarius often trend towards public discordance and the sort of haste which makes for mistakes, particularly in the area of understanding and /or communication. It is far, far easier to criticize someone else now for what they aren’t than to realize that such a speculation can only be rooted in who we aren’t in our own eyes.

Moreover, we may just be wrong – about ‘them’ or what they’re doing, why they’re doing it or the basics of some situation we’re trying to act on or react to without having all the facts.

All of this is happening under Mars retrograde in Libra, so we will do well to remember that we are in the process of learning about ourselves through others. We think we’re considering them when we’re really considering what we think of them, and why we think that.

We’re doing it so that we can concentrate on ourselves – which would be why the Full Moon is in Virgo, the earthy sign of working towards our goals.

Not humanity’s goals, ours.

When our myths of accomplishment overcome the willingness to be human, others may well suffer first, but we will ultimately suffer last.

And longest.

Most of all in our own regard.
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