It’s the last lunar lesson of the celestial school year, and, true to form, the Gemini Moon is a bright one. Pulled taut by the Sagittarius Sun, under dictation by Capricorn Mercury, and with Piscean Neptune in the periphery, this lunation becomes a child’s kaleidoscope. The life, the self, the soul, viewed between two reflectors, pixellates into a beautiful symmetry of rotating fractals, of ever-changing patterns of colors and shapes. We find ourselves caught between the logical and the illogical; between the purposeful, practical, and direct; and the mystical, strange, and nebulous. Boundaries morph, distractions and escapism test the mundane, but the potential to enlighten is still there in small but important ways. And the mutability of the moment might allow us to find a middle ground. After all, Full Moons are mini masterclasses in managing polarity.
This Full Moon is one of countless guiding lights that constellate the path of your dharma. Still, it is an opportunity to observe patterns, make meaning, and find order, in your particular cosmogram; to bring attention to your sacred contracts; to look around, and witness yourself through the ideas you gather and share, and through the minds with whom you share those ideas. The Moon in Gemini wants to know: what lights up your mind? And the Full Moon of this December, with its particular signatures, is a reminder that we each fulfill our roles here on earth with both small and large contributions; and that life demands both dreams and action, an open mind and objectivity, faith and skepticism, flow and fixity. And lastly, I offer, that we might find its most constructive message distilled in the words of Roman philosopher Seneca, written over 2000 years ago, and as valuable as ever today: “What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.”
If Mercury in Sagittarius was a dasher, a dancer, a comet and a cupid, then in Capricorn he is the faun, meeting us at the lamp post to walk us into the land of winter, where Venus currently sits in her ice palace, amongst the elves and other magical animal folk. He dons a cardinal cloak, his caduceus a candy cane, or an elder wand, and does Old Saturn’s bidding. He makes a list, and checks it twice, knows who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. He speaks through us with authority, and economy, and turns our minds to contracts, the old days, orchestration, and the well-timed dad joke. So you’d better not pout and you’d better not cry. Mercury keeps a stiff upper lip and a twinkle in his eye, in stoic, wry, and occasionally frosty Capricorn.
At the same time, Mars enters where Mercury’s fleet footsteps exit, jousting forward into Sagittarius upon his galloping steed, or blowing through the fire sign like a steam locomotive. In Jupiter’s domain he regains a sense of optimism that might have been waylaid in Scorpio, and provides us in the north with the last of ration heat for a while, as we go with the Sun further downward and inward into hibernation season. But the heat he brings is less like a furnace and more like a fireworks display: for some it will be grand entertainment and inspiring illumination; for others, it will be too loud, too disruptive, and too over-the-top. But raucous or not, we are roused, our passions piqued, driven to act first, and ask questions later. And just as quickly as we feel the burn, we cool off, and move on, hopefully no harm done.
In the early hours of Saturday, when the Moon strikes twelve degrees of Sagittarius, she will draw a curtain over the face of the Sun, and hold him in her earthly lap, at her ample bosom, and feed him dragon wisdom. In this case, a powerful, poignant reminder of the human need to be fed, sheltered and safe—while at the same time free to move, to grow, and to experience the depth and breadth of life. It is an unwanted, but necessary, restraint on the stentorian, centaurian, Sagittarian star; as much as he would like to, he can’t run away. Blithely bypass it, he cannot. Father Sol, our sole provider; the Heavenly Sun, our Fortunate Son, must listen to the Mother, to the children, and to the People, and hear what they have to say.
It’s a moment of silence, heard round the world: a reset, a pause, amidst the buzz of the season, and of the mutable signs. It is the end of another lunar cycle, another eclipse cycle, and the last of the Gemini-Sagittarius eclipses that have vibrated in the background of our lives since May of 2020. It’s time to graduate, and we will all pass, in one way or another.
Over the past year-and-a-half, these eclipses have led us to rewrite old stories, or to let old stories die so that new ones can be written. They have seen philosophers and firebrands come into, and out of, this world; seen old souls born into young bodies, and youthful ones into old. With mutable signs as hosts to the nodes of karma and destiny, we are being taught to accept what change may come, and, in the best case scenario, to gladly anticipate it. And perhaps the biggest lesson that the south node in Sagittarius has offered us: you can’t outrun your problems, nor can you outrun your shadow. And only by facing them are we afforded a real chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the best of all possible worlds.
This New Moon solar eclipse, conjoined as it is to Mercury, will come bearing a message, traveling on the centaur’s arrow, and encoded in hymns and songs, in eulogies and confessionals, in sentences and statutes, in scripts and scriptures, that find their way to us. What kernels of truth can you glean from them? In what ways have your beliefs about the world, or your faith, changed since two summers ago? And how comfortable are you with not knowing all the answers, and with the idea that some Truths, some of the Big Ideas, are not meant to be known, only wondered at?
