Full Moon reading: “I’m being followed by a moonshadow”

As I write this, the moon is coppery shade of red, as the shadow of our Mother Earth plunges in front of the line between the sun and the moon.

Tonight’s full lunar eclipse is occurring at 4 degrees Pisces. To see how the eclipse is going to affect you personally, see where that position is in your natal chart. Does it form any important aspects with any other planets or bodies in your chart? What House does it transit?

In keeping with the astrological theme, I decided to do a reading using the Celestial Tarot by Australian artist Kay Steventon. I haven’t ever used this deck for a reading before, but seeing as I now have a copy of Brian Clark’s accompanying book, I thought I would use it in honour of this marvellous celestial event.

I had to shuffle the deck quite extensively, as the deck was unused/unshuffled. As I did so, there was one card that kept falling out and landing face-up, the same card which I drew from the top of the deck when I finished shuffling: the Fool.

The astrological correspondence with this card is Uranus, the Herald of change. He suggests a turning point and a new beginning. Looking at the chart for the present moment, there appears to be a lot of conflict, with some significant oppositions and squares involving all the planets (except Pluto).

In Greek cosmogony, Uranus was one of four primal beings who emerged out of the void of chaos. God of the Heavens, he fathered numerous monstrous children with Gaia, the Earth Mother, but unhappy with his progeny he pushed them back into her womb. Gaia then conspired with one of her sons, Kronos, to destroy the sky god. Kronos cut off his father’s penis and threw it into the sea. Uranus then retreated into the dark underworld of Tartarus. Uranus symbolises boundless creative energy – the dark side of this energy is when this energy is undirected and smothers all it creates.

The Fool’s energy is sudden and unexpected, and uproots the past to make way for the future. He inspires us to rebel against the status quo. This uranian energy can often be experienced as a disengaging or a separation, discarding old habits or patterns. When this planet was discovered in 1781, Western civilisation was in the grip of revolutions – political, cultural, and scientific; a new social order was developing. With Uranus’ current placement in Pisces (just 13 degrees away from the Lunar eclipse) it suggests that a shift is occurring in the realm of human evolution and transcendence.

I have been subtly aware of this shift of late. Perhaps tonight’s eclipse is triggering some of the grander, more important transits currently in place…

Regardless of the positive things this current government (and other governments around the world) has achieved during its tenure, there is a perceptible ‘feeling’ to the style of leadership and governance, and to the mood of its words, actions, and policies. That feeling is one of negativity, fear, and a lack of accountibility and responsibility. This is not passing a judgement (although I have been known to do so, I write this as objectively as possible), but most commentators and observers would agree with me I dare say. Given the polls we have seen over the last 8 months, one would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to not feel the growing sense of change that is in the air in this country. Perhaps the eclipse tonight is heralding the change in our collective dreams (Moon in Pisces), the releasing of our unconscious desires to be better connected with one another and to walk with a greater degree of trust, faith, and intuition in our lives. These kinds of attitudes are the ones that fail to bolster paradigms of fear, tyranny, and terror; these negative energies feed off their own feedback – if they are not fed, then they don’t thrive!

Saturn (in opposition with the Moon tonight) is about to transit into Virgo, the sign of the humble, unconditional service. Saturn is comfortable in safe and steady Virgo. This could herald a couple of years where we will feel the need to knuckle down and take seriously some of the social problems we are all part of (like the environment, health, community service, helping out those less fortunate, poverty, homelessness, etc).

All of these signs are pointing to change, and the stubborn recurrence of the Fool appearing out of the deck as I shuffled confirms this. But with unexpected change comes unexpected challenges, and we must be prepared and able to face these in a responsible and mature way, with wisdom, compassion, and tolerance.

Mitakuye oyasin.