For years and years when it comes to working with and writing on the phases of the Moon, I have leaned heavily to the New Moon. The New Moon is about the New. What we want to create, give birth to, invoke in some form or fashion. And while all of that is fabulous and needed in life so is its opposite.
There’s not much room for beginnings when we fail to leave space for endings. It’s the Full Moon that holds the secret to achievement, completion, and change. During the Full Moon, she is at the zenith of her cycle. It’s all downhill, or to be more accurate waning, from there until the New Moon when we are called to begin again. When she is in her full illumination the Moon calls us to change, to let go, or at least start to as she becomes less and less illuminated over the next two weeks until the New Moon.
It’s been a little over a week since the last New Moon and so we are still in a time of culmination and creativity as she waxes toward her Full Moon phase in the wee hours of 4th of November (1:23 AM EDT). And as is always the case at this time of year the Sun is in Scorpio; the sign known for ushering in extremism, passion, sexuality, sensuality, secrecy, and manipulation. This year we get an added dose of this annual time of intensity. In early October Jupiter, the god of expansion also entered Scorpio, where he will be taking up residence for the next year. The coupling of Jupiter and Scorpio means that the changes ahead of us will more likely than not lack subtlety. At a collective level, we are called to root out that which is hidden and let go of that which no longer serves us, be that people, places, ideas etc. and like the phoenix spread our wings into expansion.
All this focus on the power of endings, transitions, and transmutation has gotten me thinking about why it is I’ve put so little energy into working with and writing on the Full Moon. Full Moons are about completion, endings things coming into fruition, which then necessitates a new chapter when the Moon returns to her New phase. Without the endings, there would be no room for a new story, project, journey or chapter. Like day and night, light and dark, expansion and contraction they are interdependent on one and other. What I have come to see is that part of my rather singular focus on the New Moon phase is linked to the uncomfortableness of letting go; of people, things, plans or expectations. Change may be the only constant in life but it is, even when welcomed, often unnerving, met with internal and/or external resistance. Or at a minimum to get it over and done with quickly; rip off the proverbial Band-Aid.
We can each month work toward letting go of things that are archetypally related to the sign of the Full Moon in a given month. But additionally, for the next year, in particular, we get to dig deep within ourselves and let go, transition and transform that which has shackled us to things we have long. The last time Jupiter entered Scorpio was in October of 2005 (and was there for about a year).
- What did you let go of then?
- How did your life transform in the year?
I know for me it was a big 12 months; which included the death of my grandmother, starting graduate school, and moving from Santa Barbra, where I had lived for the last 6, years to Oakland leaving dear friends behind to follow my own path.
It takes Jupiter about 12 years to transverse the Zodiac and so assuming you are over 12 you’ve lived through him in this sign of change at least one time before. Change does not happen all at once. Although the event that is the catalyst may be quick, the lived embodiment of it takes time.
As the Skin Horse wisely told the Velveteen Rabbit:
“It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit
Change, transformation is a process, an on-going process. Part of my change is I will be doing more post on the Full Moon and what and how to transform. Stay tuned as I change with you.