Happy Full Moon in Sagittarius! This is the time of the year to shine a spotlight on beliefs, faith, expansion, wisdom, and the connection to something far outside of ourselves. The full moon is exact at 12:24 am EDT, 4 Sagittarius/Gemini. But this is not just any full moon; it’s also a lunar eclipse, the last in a series in Sagittarius/Gemini that began in December 2010 with a lunar eclipse at 29 Gemini. Think back to that time and you may discover a thread and an opportunity to bring closure.
Sagittarius is a sign that describes the path to knowledge — knowledge gained through a journey through the unknown. All you have to do is take a look at Scorpio, the sign adjacent to Sagittarius, and know that the unknown is often very dark indeed. Joseph Campbell brought this process to the forefront — the call to adventure, isolation, and return — in this book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Therefore the Sagittarian Full Moon asks us to think about the spiritual journey that we’ve been on, especially one that commenced back in 2011 and took us to the dark and back.
Although the Moon is in Sagittarius, there is a focus on Gemini with this full moon as there are four planets in the sign of duality, communication, and learning. In addition, the dispositors of the eclipse are both in Gemini and they are conjunct Venus! So there’s a big energetic focus on that airy, friendly triple conjunction at 19–22 Gemini. After so much heavy energy in 2013, it’s nice to see a couple of friendly faces, Jupiter and Venus, the two benefics, waving back to us like a promise of something magical after such a long journey.
But make no mistake, there is some tension with this chart. It is a full moon after all and a lunar eclipse, a time of revelations and when emotions run high. Notably, the eclipse makes a tight t-square to Neptune in Pisces. Squares describe challenge and so to reach the Moon in Sagittarius — to reach wisdom — we have to pass through Neptune, a strange land where nothing is at it seems, learning to discern what is real and what is not. The Neptune square also describes a process of ego surrender so that we may be transformed.
Curiously in this chart there is a Saturn/Neptune trine, which is about the dissolution of boundaries and it is as if the trine has left a window open for us, a portal into another world. Neptune might be the Lord of Illusions, but it is through this portal that we learn to surrender and find our true selves and thus arrive at the wisdom of Sagittarius.
Speaking of spiritual journeys, it’s been six months since the New Moon in Sagittarius, which occurred on December 13th, the day after the 12/12/12 portal. We’ve had six months to become acclimated to these higher frequencies coming into the planet. And it’s been six months since we began this lunar cycle, which is to say that the seeds we planted at the 12/12/12 have now come to fruition. Think back to the 12/12/12 and think about the distance you’ve covered. If full moons are about revelation, what is being revealed?
I leave you with something I wrote back in December that is still relevant with this lunation.
The Gemini/Sagittarius axis always has a sense of destination to it and Sagittarius, the sign that points to lands so far off into the distance we can’t even imagine, pushes us outward into the world like a great ship leaving port.
We may feel the call to connect to something profound with this full moon, to think about what is outside of ourselves. We may even feel like slipping through Neptune’s portal on a quest for knowledge. But know that this full moon is more about a return than a new beginning; dissemination after a collection of facts. Let the wisdom settle in and own how you came to it. That is your hero’s journey.