The Full Moon at 7’25 Pisces is exact on Wednesday August 30th, 2023 at 9:35pm EDT – marking the midway point of the Lunar Cycle we are in that began with the New Moon in Leo on August 16th. This is a Super Full Moon and a calendric Blue Moon (the 2nd Full Moon in a calendar month)- amping up the emotional energies as well as the rare once-in-a-blue-moon energies BIG TIME!
To add to this picture the Full Moon is conjunct Saturn which brings the Lord of Karma and Father of Time into focus. The ONLY aspect in the Full Moon chart is to Saturn. Moon/Saturn conjunctions can be heavy or depressing- bringing get real moments where we are asked (or forced) to take off the rose colored glasses and really truly SEE REALITY as it is, rather than what should be/could be/might be/used to be. This heavy energy has a purpose as the ethereal energies of Pisces want to float up and out- but Saturn demands we come down and in and deal with what is in the root and foundation of our lives. This can be amazing for mastery when wielded wisely!
Shadow Moon/Saturn can block and repress emotions for some of us and for others it could manifest as being sucked into a vortex of emotion we cannot find our way out of. Right relationship with emotions is key for a heavy Full Moon conjunct Saturn. Healthy expression of emotions, healthy containment of them and working with them to emotionally and somatically release them is the most graceful way forward. This Full Moon is a great time for Shadow Work practices with the Moon/Inner Child, Saturn/Inner Critic, and Neptune/Pisces/Spiritual Bypassing. For support on your Shadow Work journey my course Astrology & Your Shadow is available on demand. It has Guided Meditations and Shadow Work practices that can be super helpful if you are feeling the heaviness of this Full Moon week. You can learn more here- https://divineharmony.com/astrology-your-shadow/
Saturn is showing each of us where our own personal Saturn in Pisces lessons are. For some of us the growth edge can be related to gaining greater mastery over emotions, for some it’s about opening your heart back up, for others it could be opening your eyes to reality, or having healthy boundaries and saying no. Pay attention to what is coming up for you right now as opportunities to grow past limitations and see past blind spots are incoming!
The Rulers of this Full Moon are Neptune in Pisces (Contemporary Ruler) and Jupiter in Taurus (Classical Ruler). Neptune is in a series of tense aspects to the Karmic South Node, Mercury, Mars and Venus. The desire to check out, escape and not see or deal with reality can be STRONG. Luckily Jupiter is trine Mercury and heading to conjunction with Uranus. Information, insights, realizations and bolt out of the blue awarenesses coming in can be worth their weight in gold- but we want to ground them and embody them. If we are floating up and out- we will miss out on the gifts that only come in fully when we have our feet on the earth ;) Dreams can be brought into reality- but illusions can also be seen through and shown for what they are. Being willing to face the Truth about ourselves and our actions in life, as well as about others and the world around us- is the medicine of the moment.
We have SO MANY Retrograde Planets! Mercury & Venus (the Mind and the Heart), Saturn, Chiron. Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Eris – oh my! The only Planets moving direct are the Sun, Moon, Mars and Jupiter (who is about to go Retrograde in 4.5 days). Retrograde Planets demand we go over the past and deal with things that are unresolved. The Sun and Mercury in Virgo can help us get discerning, Mars in Libra can help us wield the Sword of Truth and Jupiter can help us take risks that can be materially and financially lucrative. Just know that with so many Retrograde planets it may feel like one step forward, two steps back. Use the planetary energy wisely and don’t push forward too hard- particularly if you are using forward movement to ignore what is in the past that needs facing and resolving.
This Full Moon (and the Sun/Saturn opposition that precedes it on Sunday August 27th) can be heavy- so take it easy and don’t push yourself. ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” At best we can use Saturn’s mastery in mystical magical Pisces to take our dreams, inspiration and intuition and do something masterful and tangible with it- to anchor and ground it into physical reality. But it may require that we let something or someone go first- something or someone that is tied to illusion. To create space for the new dreams that want to come in, we have to let go of what holds us back. To walk through a new door, we have to close an older door and move on. Discernment about what needs to pruned and released versus what can come with us into the new chapter is key.
I leave you with the Star Sparks and Sabian Symbol degrees for this Full Moon. I find it interesting that the Star Sparks degree speaks to mourning and honoring the past by processing trauma. The Sabian Symbol talks about an evolutionary crisis approaching and the Divine Feminine (the girl) leading the way to rebirth. They are both deep meditations on the degree of this Full Moon- you can read them in full below.
Grief is a holy emotion and it can crack the heart open. In order to rebirth ourselves we MUST deal with the past that we carry- personally, ancestrally and collectively as a humanity. Much of western culture is polarized on the now and the future- with a tendency to not want to deal with the past. The issue is the past is present and not only is it present it is informing the journey from a deep place of the Unconscious. We don’t realize it but it is running the ship so-to-speak. This is why I am so passionate about Shadow Work as it is work that helps us face, process and heal around the past. And it is the Divine Feminine that can lead us into the past and can hold us through our grief and rage as we process and move through what is unresolved. Call on Her to support you in the coming week <3 Blessings… ~Harmony P.S. I have a brand new course starting on September 20th- the Alchemy of the Asteroid Goddesses. This course is a deep dive into the mythology, archetype and meaning of the Divine Feminine asteroid Goddesses Ceres, Juno, Pallas and Vesta. This is Part One of a 3 part series on the Goddess in Astrology. You can learn more and sign up for this course here- https://divineharmony.com/alchemyoftheasteroidgoddesses2023/
STAR SPARKS
by Ellias Lonsdale
Pisces 8 A gypsy peasant woman sings a mournful chant
We are here together, we who have suffered, we who have lost, we who grieve, and bleed, and cry and keep going. We are the salty tears of this Earth. We feel everything. We pass all of life through us. Our emotions count. Because we are here, something altogether different can follow. We clear the way by honoring the past, by processing the trauma, the wound. We are the ones who make the future inevitable.
Our voice is muffled most of the time. Under our breath, in the inside, we keep sensing what the Earth is going though and what it means. But this has so little to do with the events of everyday. So we live it on the inside, a whole different life in there.
What we most avidly explore deep down under is the tale, the song, the fable, the myth. We weave this through our own body, our soul, which is not ours. Nothing belongs to us. We are a sense organ, an extension of this Earth’s inner experience. We are every-woman and we are nobody.
Therefore, we can wonder, we can journey, we can dream, we can go anywhere. So much of us is invisible, unknown. We tap the secret springs. And inwardly we are as joyous as we are in agony. It’s all the same.
We are the chant you never quite hear. We are the rumbling that surprises you. We are that which you underestimate. We should have been gone long ago. We dissolved into the deep under and tried to stay out of your way. But no longer.
We are the stirring of this Earth, the search for a new species. We are just beginning to remember ourselves.
SABIAN SYMBOL
by Dane Rudhyar
PHASE 338 (PISCES 8°): A GIRL BLOWING A BUGLE.
KEYNOTE: A call to participation in the service of the race, as an evolutionary crisis approaches.
This symbolic picture presents another aspect of the emotional relationship between the individual and the collectivity of human beings. It can also be related to the old feminist movement or the present women’s liberation. In traditional symbolism the woman refers more specifically to the biological and psychic aspect of human life; she is seen primarily as the mother, and/or the intuitive or “psychic” type of person. A new race of human beings may well be slowly unfolding some of its potential of consciousness and fulfillment. The individual who envisions this evolutionary development “sounds the call.” He or she is both seer-herald and mutant. In that sense such a human being is both an individual true to his original nature and a dedicated person — dedicated to the future he or she holds in latency as does a seed in mutation.
At this third stage of the sixty-eighth five-fold sequence the two preceding phases blend in a new form of consecration of the individual to the Whole. Tomorrow acts through today; it SUMMONS men to rebirth.