Thursday evening we reach the Full Moon in Aries, a time we look for intensity, sudden action, flaring tempers, risk taking, and accidents. The light of a Full Aries Moon can trigger unexpected things.
This is definitely a time to avoid unnecessary confrontations. Not the best night for taking chances. It’s a good night to be careful, although this is not an Aries trait.
Having survived 2020 so far, we expect the unexpected. At varying levels depending on our circumstances, we’re exhausted by shocks that seem to keep coming at us.
Maybe the Full Moon in Aries will barely be noticed in such a landscape.
Maybe. But I don’t think so.
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For one thing, the Moon rising in the sky has been luminous and very present the last few nights. It will be even more full tonight.
For another, this Full Moon represents both a culmination of the waxing cycle we’re now completing and a shift of focus and energy.
The waxing cycle began with an unusual New Moon in Virgo, in that the quiet humility of a typical Virgo New Moon shifted into something stronger and darker due to trines to Saturn and Pluto, and other aspects that drew in the most difficult challenges of this year’s skies.
Then we dove into lunar phases ruled over by Moons in Scorpio, Capricorn, and Aquarius, taking us through shadow lands, leading us to confront some of the challenges living within our own psyches.
If we’ve stayed the course, we’ve spent time in the last two weeks letting go, weeding out, doing release work–again unusual because waxing cycles are generally about building.
Yet we have been building, just not in the conventional sense. We’ve been building understanding, insight, focus, and resilience. We may have strengthened ties with ancestors or present day communities, or severed connections we feel have been toxic for us.
As we arrive at the Full Moon, we might say we’ve been becoming ourselves. We’re now closer to an authentic self.
This is reflected in the closest aspect to the Full Moon, which is tight by degree if awkward in aspect. The Full Moon falls at 9 Aries and 9 Libra. Uranus, the one who awakens, who foments rebellions, who turns things upside down, is at 9 Taurus.
This is a semisextile to the Moon, 30°, and an inconjunct to the Sun, 150°. Like Uranus itself, these aspects are unsettling, edgy.
Then we have Mars also in Aries just past another square with Saturn, who has stationed direct. These two powerhouses might push in and steal the show, creating a tense and dramatic standoff.
Despite the many events on the world stage we can link to the Mars–Saturn situation, I’m going to focus in on the Full Moon. For us as individuals I believe the illuminations, messages, and insights are with the Sun and Moon.
This Full Moon falls in the first decan of Aries, the Sun in the first decan of Libra.
While Libra is described as oriented toward others, and sometimes criticized as being too eager to please, the first decan focuses on balance and justice. Austin Coppock links this decan to the scales of Maat, who weighs the heart at the moment of death to determine our fate.
The first decan of Aries naturally focuses on separation. This is where we emerge as new beings after communing with the All in Pisces. Here we are renewed, reborn as individuals.
While Aries’ first decan can be raw, focused on contention without discernment, this too makes sense. When we reenter the cycle after a time of completion and dissolution, we need to fight our way clear to our own space. To define ourselves as our own person.
This is the key to this year’s Aries Full Moon. We have reached the point where we’re compelled to define who we are.
2020 has been difficult, isolating, draining, shocking, violent, life changing–and is not yet over. The next few months hold some of the most challenging patterns of the year, which is not especially reassuring to think about.
Yet we are not who we were in January. We might feel exhausted, angry, and depressed, but we’re not the same.
We’ve seen things we can’t unsee. We’ve confronted things in ourselves and in others that have shocked and surprised and dismayed us. Our values have been tested and honed. We see more clearly than ever where the world is and what’s at stake.
At this Full Moon in Aries, we have the chance to see ourselves illuminated and righteous.
This will look different for each of us. We’re not all activists in the same way for the same reasons. Yet in the light of this Full Moon, we can catch a glimpse of our unique powerful selves. Who we are when we must stand up and be counted.
We are none of us perfect. And it’s good to see who we have become, fully lit, on our own two feet, defined by our values and actions. Only then can we know what our course forward looks like.
The astrological charts are my own. The images in this post include the title,
adapted from the sunset by Zoltan Tasi,
and the following images:
the Minoan axe by Wolfgang Sauber,
the battle by Hasan Almasi, and
the personal best by Matheus Ferrero.