23.05.24: Full Moon in Sagittarius
"The call to adventure signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of this society to a zone unknown."
- Joseph Campbell: The Hero's Journey
Hello, dear One,
today, we're witnessing a bright shining Full Moon in Sagittarius and I can't help but wonder what in the world could be a better moment to let go than this Full Moon.
As many of you know, I am currently in Berlin, and for the last 3 weeks, I've been roaming around, emptying my old apartment that I lived in for 15 years.
4 days ago I did give it away for good. With only 5 boxes left from “my old life”, I am ready to close a big chapter and start a new one. Doesn't come with rivers of grieving tears though.
FROM THE MACRO TO THE MICRO
“Why are we following the planets and the sky, assuming that any of this makes sense and call it astrology?”, some of you might ask. And that's a valid question that I keep asking myself too.
I don't have an answer to this but I have some ideas and imaginations that I'd like to share.
I imagine that in ancient times, when the intellect wasn't as strong as it is today, people were sitting together around the fire, observing the movements of the planets (prominently the one of the Moon because it's so close to the Earth) and sharing in community what is moving them at this time of their lives. I often imagine that this is how what we call Astrology today, started back then.
What I find so beautiful about this imagination is that it doesn't isolate us from the rest of our environment.
It makes us believe that we're part of the cosmos and that somehow the cosmos is reflected in us, our struggles, and our joys. We're not separate from the macro. “As above so below” makes beautiful sense in that way.
And maybe, this is also why you like reading my love letters. They put your experience in context with the cosmos so that – on some level – it starts to make sense and doesn't seem that random anymore.
Maybe it's true, maybe it's not – no one really knows. But what counts, is the question, if it soothes your heart and gives you some kind of guidance for your experience. “And if it does, that's the answer”, Sagittarius would say.
FULL MOONS: POTENT TIMES FOR CLOSINGS
It's believed that Full Moons carry the power to help us let go. A cycle that's been building within the last two weeks is now coming to its culmination. The fruit is ripe and we can lay down our head to rest.
This time of the month, astrologically speaking, is asking us to release the old and reflect on it. To let go of something that's no longer working in our favor and give ourselves all the grief needed.
Some days ago, I had my second last lecture about C. G. Jung's psychology with a lecture about "Wrestling with the problem evil” when the analyst said: “Yes. Full Moons are known to be times… when strange things happen.”
I was a bit surprised because the lecture had nothing to do with astrology and in general, the analyst seemed pragmatic – nevertheless, he seemed to have witnessed in his work with the human psyche that indeed Full Moons are somehow evoke interesting states of mind in each of us.
One thing is certain: On a Full Moon, the energy is buzzing. When the Moon shines bright, it illuminates the darkness – and maybe also our darkness, I'm wondering?
By that, I mean our blind spots. The tender parts of ourselves that we often don't see because we have unconsciously pushed them into the shadow of our subconscious – often for very good reasons. And often, a Full Moon is a good moment to bring those parts back into consciousness and embrace them with a loving heart.
A FULL MOON IN SAGITTARIUS: IT'S ABOUT YOUR TRUTH
This phase of the Moon occurs at 2 degrees and 55 minutes of Sagittarius, opposite the Sun at the same degree of Gemini, affecting people born with personal planets and points at 0 to 7 degrees of the Mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces) and 29 to 30 degrees of the Fixed signs(Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius) most significantly.
Full Moons happen when the Sun and Moon are in opposition in the heavens. Some days ago the Sun moved into Sagittarius so the Moon today is in Sagittarius, illuminated by the sun's light.
Sagittarius is the ninth archetype of the zodiac, it's said that it's represented by the centaur: half horse, half human. He carries a bow and arrow which aims to his truth in the heavens.
Sagittarius believes in intuition rather than the intellectual mind.
He knows that we're all guided by a higher force and that we need to trust in life, to have faith and it will all fall into place. “No need to control anything. Life has all the answers”, he would say.
In the shadow, Sagittarius can either lose himself in his dogma claiming to know the only valid truth, or lose his faith leading to a spiritual crisis.
What can help in these times, is going on an adventure – physically or spiritually – and finding new perspectives that might create a shift and reconnect you to the thirst for life.
FAITH: THE FACTOR THAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
In the last lecture about “the evil,” the Jung analyst brought some clinical examples of his clients and how they experience the archetype of evil in their lives.
In one example he described a 40-year-old man who, after he had lost a child, one night when he suddenly woke up started to hear a weird voice coming from inside telling him to jump out the balcony.
He got scared but the voice wouldn't stop. It started telling him that he would see his son if he would only dare to jump (and kill himself). The man, creeped out by the voice, started to pray which didn't seem to help, the voice continued.
So he woke his wife up and asked her to hold him closely. The voice never came back, he told his therapist.
The lecturer also brought other examples where it wasn't that easy to approach the voice and people struggled. When someone in the course asked, what made the difference, the analyst said: “I wasn't surprised, this man didn't struggle with it for long, he believed in god and had a spiritual guidance."
This sentence made me remember the first three steps in Alcoholics Anonymous which go like this:
"1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."
Again, it seems that connecting to a higher force in dark times – whatever each of us might call it: Higher Self, Soul, Mother Earth, Nature, God, the Universe, the Source, etc. seems to fast-track our healing.
SAGITTARIUS: A DEEP KNOWING THAT ALL OF LIFE HAS PURPOSE
Can you see the Sagittarius signature in my stories? I was born with a Sun in the 9th (Sagittarius) house in the sign of Cancer. So sometimes I think that faith and the belief in a higher force is my true home – and without it, I would have never had the chance to draw strength from some dark experiences.
This reminds me of something that Toko-pa Turner writes in her book “Belonging” about:
“Especially in times of exile, when our anchors are pulled up and we're no longer taking cues from the outside world, we have a chance to find that inner well and reinstate our connection to the sacred. We may find it overgrown, or hard to reach through the brambles, but each of us faces a time when the well within needs tending: when we're no longer able to bestow blessings on others because we've over-given, or when something precious has been taken from us, or life's demands have been too taxing on our fragile system. When the moisture goes out of our lives, and we're no longer able to see beauty or converse with magic, we must ask ourselves how we can replenish our well-ness.”
The archetype of Sagittarius carries that blissful faith that all experiences we go through – in the end – will transform us and bring us closer to a more truthful version of ourselves, to “our inner well” to say it in Turner's words.
When we connect to the sacred within us everything that doesn't align with our highest truth, with our intuition, falls away naturally.
FEAR AS A NECESSARY PART OF THE PROCESS
We all know how it feels to fear in those moments. Fear of abandonment, losing one's existence, financial breakdown, serious illness, failure, humiliation, being expelled from the group, and other things.
Sometimes, those fears prevent us from stepping into a more aligned version of ourselves. We get frozen in the repeating thoughts and scenarios about worse cases and keep playing small.
What Sagittarius can teach us on this Full Moon is not to do it DESPITE of the fear but WITH the fear. To accept that, sometimes, fear is a necessary gate we have to pass through to arrive at a more aligned and fulfilled version of ourselves.
RITUAL AS AN ENTRANCE DOOR TO THE SACRED
What can help us to reconnect to faith and trust, are rituals and ceremonies.
If you're going through a transition, if you're grieving an old love (or apartment), if you're feeling lost and hopeless, if you're excited about a new job or phase in life, you can always offer your sadness, grief, tears, joy or love to the altar of life in a ritual or ceremony. What may sound sophisticated, is really simple and easy.
What you need is just some time, presence, and yourself. Often it helps to surround yourself with loving people who can mirror your power back to you when you're unable to see it. You can light a candle (or not), you can make some tea, you can sit down in a comfortable position, close your eyes and connect to the unseen forces that you believe him and ask them for help.
In this way, we can remember a very important Sagittarian truth: That we don't have to carry it all by ourselves but we're having invisible forces that can help us to go through especially dark periods when we call upon them.
Toko-pa Turner also writes about this in her wonderful book:
“Human beings have a natural urge to worship that “something greater” which coheres to us, but we, in modernity, are living in a kind of spiritual cul-de-sac where our gifts only serve the human community. Unlike the many shamanic cultures that practice dreamwork, ritual, and thanksgiving, Westerners have forgotten what indigenous people understand to be cardinal: that this world owes its life to the unseen. Every hunt and every harvest, every death, and every birth is distinguished by ceremony for that which we cannot see, feeding back that which feeds us. I believe our epidemic alienation is, in good part, the felt negligence of that reciprocity.”
QUESTIONS THE FULL MOON WOULD ASK TODAY:
How can you reconnect in an authentic way to the sacred today?
Can you make space for ritual?
What's your relationship to the unseen / the unknown?
What's standing in the way of your current life and your highest truth?
What's your next adventure that makes you thirsty for life?
OTHER INFLUENCES ON THE MOON TODAY
Also today, we find the Moon in Sagittarius in a sextile to Pluto while the Sun forms a trine to Pluto. If that doesn't mean anything to you, let me make it easier to understand: Both the Sun and Moon are influenced today by the transformative energy of Pluto – but easily and nicely. Some powerful wind that pushed us to dare to do things.
If you're finding yourself confronted with opportunities that are out of your comfort zone, if it feels like life is giving you a little push to jump over the fence, to risk it. Just say “yes” if there's a little voice inside of you wanting to try it. Remember: Failure is often a way better teacher for evolution than success is.
Additionally, Venus and Jupiter are aligned in the same degree in Taurus which is a beautiful constellation that reminds us to connect to the beautiful things in our lives.
This conjunction of Venus and Jupiter opposing the Moon in the heavens is screaming: “Hey Moon, don't forget to slow down and open your heart to the beauty around you. Don't forget, this is when you feel the bliss and faith you love so much when you breathe deeply into your heart.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FINE IN THE END
Oscar Wilde once shared some deep Sagittarian truth: “Everything is going to be fine in the end. If it's not fine it's not the end.”
Sagittarius knows that no matter how bumpy the road, it never really was about the destination but eventually the journey is the reward.
So maybe – we can practice today, leaning back and enjoying the ride rather than obsessing about the outcome and collecting all the facts about the path ahead. Trusting that, we'll become who we're meant to be rather than who we wish to be.
With lots of love,
Karina
** header graphic from GIPHY.com
