Full moon in Aries October 5, 2017 @ 2:40 pm at 12.43 degrees.

“Aries 13 A bomb that fails to explode is now safely hidden from view.”

Traditionally, this is the harvest moon, and a time of celebration of self and community.  This moon, however, may not feel so much  like a celebration as a wake.  And hopefully a wake-up call.  The Aries full moon reflects identity issues in relation to social contracts.  This particular lunar degree, Aries 13, is the degree of adolescent frustration; although one might be relieved the bomb failed to go off, it also reflects a failed revolution due to ego conflict and a return to the status quo of the oppressive power order.  This full moon is about identity reflection, about humility, and about growing up and out of our own lower frequencies.  The self-oriented Aries moon is butting heads with the Sun and mental-governing Mercury conjunct in the sign of harmony and balance, Libra.  Libra likes the status quo; Aries wants revolution.    We’ve been getting a lot of lessons in these spheres all year.  It is worth noting that Jupiter is in its final few days of traveling through Libra, asking us to think about social order, what we are willing to sacrifice for the status quo, and what needs to be done to maintain harmony in disruptive times?  We are all being asked to consider who we are and how we can pioneer this world forward; we must risk these impulses to blow up the world in order to create a new one.  Frustration runs hot, high, and heavy.

On the same day, Mars and Venus unite in their once-every-two-to-three year dance with each other.  Fortunately, they are conjoined in the grounded, practical sign of Virgo.  Virgo wants to repair, to mend, and to sew things together in a fastidious manner.  Our masculine and feminine forces are asking us to tend to the small inner work on ego and self-gratification.  Mars and Venus in Virgo encourage us to plant a seed for tomorrow rather than burn the field of today.

Where you feel thwarted, devise a reasonable action plan. Where you feel humiliated, make a list of gratitude for all you’ve learned.  Take what you’ve outgrown and lovingly offer it to the earth, sending it off in service to new use.  Where you feel lack, pray inwardly for fertile mental/emotional terrain that will nurture your imagined seed of fulfillment.  Take the long view.  Take the deep breath.

And by all means, yes:  Love yourself under this full moon, but love yourself enough to see yourself for who you are, who you no longer wish to be, and who you will yourself to become.

*Image from NASA Jet Propulsion Library.  Labeled for reuse.