(R)Evolutionary Relationships - Full Moon in Libra, April 10th, 2017
April’s full moon illuminates the cardinal cross, the most potent and primary of our instincts, the most basic relationships of ‘Me’ and ‘We.’ This full moon is super charged. The moon conjunct Jupiter in Libra magnifies the teachings of this year that are leading us all into greater awareness of relationships: the needs to participate, share, listen, learn, heal and move forward together. The sun conjunct Uranus in Aries continues to inspire and provoke us as individuals to know ourselves, to take responsibility for our own actions and impact, and to wake up to our own power. These points in Libra and Aries square Pluto, the force of transformational reckoning, who has been moving through Capricorn since 2008.
Pluto in Capricorn is a major force of our current era. The planet named for Hades, God of The Underworld, is the force of circumstance upon our attachments to stability and reality. It is the process of losing what we know in order to arrive at what we didn’t know was possible before. It is the intense depth of fear. It is unavoidable suffering. It is descent. It is transformation from one life to the next. It is rebirth.
Pluto takes 248 years to move through its orbit. In four years the United States will complete one full Pluto cycle and experience its Pluto return. For those of you familiar with the notion of Saturn return you can consider the same principles here… This is a potent moment of growth and development. This is a threshold and necessary moment of maturation. This is unavoidable reckoning and transformation moving through the sign of Capricorn, which means complete and total shifts to our stability, structure and governance.
Around the world, the last 248 years have been an era largely defined by the growth of the United States, its identity, its values and its force. Now potentially nearing the end of its reign as superpower many of us are being forced to confront our own values and beliefs. Evolution and time will march on. The future will push forward and bring what it will. None of us as single individuals will decide what that will be. But… We are also early in the Age of Aquarius, and never before have we humans known ourselves as so immediately connected to one another. The current opposition between Jupiter and Uranus is pushing this awareness in full force. No matter where you look, or even how it looks, everyone is waking up to the power they wield in relationships.
This full moon is an insistence for us to take our own power seriously. It is a moment to commit, or recommit to right relationship: with ourselves, with those we know, with those we don’t know. This full moon amps up the pressure of the past few years and if you weren’t sure before, then now you will know, there is no going back to where we came from. There is only the future. And each of us plays a role in how that future will be.
Your full moon horoscopes reflect upon the evolutionary nature of your relationships – be they to humans, nature, habits, or your mind. They are suggestions for reflection and affirmations for your growth. These horoscopes are for the next two weeks of this cycle and suggest contemplation for that time period.
To learn more about the astrology of this full moon, listen to my podcast here
To assist you in integrating this astrology and using it to your best benefit, please listen and practice with this guided meditation on cellular consciousness and community.
If you’re hungry to learn more about how astrology uniquely affects you, what your current life era is about, or how to work in best alignment with the stars consider signing up for a personal reading. I regularly hear from clients and friends that astrology is better than therapy! We don’t need to get into the backstory or explain all the how’s and what’s… An astrology reading can get right to heart of the matter, reveal elements that have been obtuse or hiding, and affirm and strengthen your own intuition. Learn more about the kinds of readings I offer here.
Sign up for the newsletter and receive astrology and horoscopes straight to your inbox
Original artwork by Janna Dorothy
These horoscopes are written partially as affirmations. Affirmative thinking and speaking are a form of magic that works through magnetism. If your horoscope affirmation resonates with you, print it out and place it somewhere visible for the next two weeks. Repeat it to yourself often and notice how the magic works. I suggest reading horoscopes for both your sun and rising signs.
ARIES
To be the agent of another’s healing is a true gift. To know yourself as capable of stepping outside of yourself – your own needs, your own agenda, your own hurts – in order to be present for another, is to trust yourself and your own best intent. The moments when you are asked to show up, and then you do, and it counts for something, are the moments that heal your heart as much as anyone else’s.
Awakening to your own potential does, of course, have a lot to do with you… But in so many ways it has to do with the people around you: the ones who love you, who depend on you, who follow you, who support you. Awakening to your own potential is awakening to the unique quality you bring to other people and the world around you. Without them, your uniqueness is nothing… just more noise, more material, more movement. It takes a lot of context to define an individual.
This full moon shines a light on your partnerships and close comrades. It reflects you to yourself through the eyes and experiences of others. It asks you to see the power of your commitments, commit to your own power and wield it wisely. It is an opening and offering for you to open and offer.
Remember that regardless of your grand ambitions you still need love, affection and family of some kind for it to mean much in the end. A good strategy is one that marks success through how much honest enjoyment and quality time you share with those who mean the most to you. In order to achieve that success you need enough of your own thing to stay balanced and confident within, but you also need enough of everyone else in order to grow in all the ways you can’t, and shouldn’t, control. Your full moon affirmation is, “I’m here for you.”
TAURUS
It’s increasingly important for you to skillfully navigate your relationships to those who hold positions of power – especially as they pertain to your mind. You must remember that your teachers, professors, gurus, and spiritual guides are also human. If you don’t currently have these kinds of people playing strong roles in your life than apply the same sentiment to your belief structures and the truths you take for granted.
This is not to say you can’t listen well, be respectful, or believe what you are told. You can, but not blindly. Right now it’s important that you respect and listen to your own wisdom, and that you privilege that wisdom equally to the wisdom of your teachers (present and past.) It’s important that you have the wherewithal to question and confront abuses of power and knowledge if and when you experience them, and this includes interrogating how knowledge has been constructed in general.
Consider all learning and passing of knowledge to be a collaborative effort. Consider your contribution to the collaboration a responsibility and a job. The more you show up with your own energy, motivation and confidence, the more reward you will reap in the combined outcome. Your contributions to this collaboration come from two important places. One is from your body and your day-to-day lived experience. The second is your intuition and whatever streams of wisdom come through channels that you might call psychic or intuitive.
Listening to your body and intuitive wisdom, and trusting your experience takes tremendous courage. Especially now in a world where our bodies and our intuitions are systematically oppressed, manipulated and ignored. Bringing these elements into the construction and dissemination of knowledge is a radical political act. It is one that will be fought by Tyrants of Mind, and ignored by custodians of preferred realities. In short, the basic message is this well known affirmation, “The force is with me, I’m one with the force.”
GEMINI
Creative energy sometimes manifests as art, or what we might think of as creative works. But in a more general sense it is vitality. It is the instinct to create one’s life and the enthusiasm for how that can be done with the resources at hand. It is the dreaming of what is possible beyond probable. It is the unique chemistry that each person has based on their backgrounds, circumstances and je ne sais quoi. It is basically how you use your life energy to affect the life energy of the world; through what you say, speak, sign, wear, influence or give birth to in any way.
Creative potential and potency is not something that can be manufactured. It can’t be bought or sold, and it can’t be forced… it can however be stifled, stolen from and manipulated. It can be used by others towards means that are not aligned with your own. It can be used by you towards means that are not honest or beneficial to the needs of another. Creative energy can be destructive as often as it can be brilliant.
This month’s full moon illuminates your creative potential. It is a call to think big and dream bigger. It is an awakening to the potential future of your present creations, and a reminder that the future is not so very far away. This month’s full moon is a marker in the evolution of your understanding towards what it means to ‘create your own reality.’ It wants to give you gifts, tools and go-ahead to move confidently towards whatever it is that feels vital and vibrant for you.
The word of caution is this… Know the power of your own brilliance. Know what your bottom line is when it comes to directing your creative energy towards ends that may not ultimately be in your best interest. Be savvy to urges you may experience that would pour your precious life energy into power trips or black holes. Listen to hunches about what and who have your best intentions at heart, and commit to creating from your own best intent. The kind of impact you want to make in the larger world is significant. And it is possible. Whether or not you achieve your dreams depends fully on your present choices around you use your energy. Your full moon affirmation is, “I am the master of my own creations. I consciously create.”
CANCER
This full moon calls attention to three areas of life that most of us consider primary: home, partnership and work. On the home front it looks generous, balanced and abundant. On the work front it looks exciting, though possibly unstable, it looks like there might be some changes and maybe you’re the one who’s driving them. On the relationship front it looks like power, depth and intensity.
The Cancer chart for this full moon is a story about transformation in partnership and close relations. It is a testament to your endurance and a recognition of how much you’ve been growing in this area of life. Regardless of your relationship status, how you conceptualize and navigate power balance, ethics and attachment issues has shifted mightily in the last number of years.
There is no way this evolution could not affect your home – past or present. Working through issues of relating inevitably means dealing with your parents and their influences on you. Similarly it means that how you shape and manage your home now has to align with who you do or do not share it with, how you structure the agreements of your sharing, and whether or not the details are in harmony with your present needs.
Shifting perspectives on partnership and increased empowerment in regards to your own foundation, stability and comfort will undoubtedly bring new revelations in regards to your career goals and/or life aims. If you have been operating from a place of uncertainty, insecurity or lack than chances are good you haven’t actually gone for what you want but have instead been making choices to gain the support you need. This full moon reveals what kinds of choices you’ll want to be making in the coming years and pushes the issue in case you try to convince yourself otherwise. This is a time to claim the steadiness, security and support you need in order to do the work you’re here to do. No apologies, no compromises. Your full moon affirmation is, “I am at home in the world and with myself. I have nothing to prove and nothing holding me back.”
LEO
The past six months or so has seen you making strides in a new way towards harmony and peace with those in your immediate vicinities. You’re beginning to understand in a different way how good relations with neighbors, friends and colleagues bring increased benefit into your life. It’s not that you didn’t understand this before, but perhaps the understanding has recently deepened through increased opportunity and relating in these realms.
These kinds of relationships are great teachers of balance: the balance of transparency vs pleasantries; the balance of talking vs listening; the balance of seriousness vs chit-chat. As you’re learning to be more sensitive to the needs of casual relating, you’re also learning something about your mind and its preferences for engagement. Just like you need to discern how much to entertain drama with a neighbor, you also need to discern the same thing for yourself.
Choosing where and when to entertain which thoughts is a lifelong practice that few will master. Thoughts are slippery and quite convinced of their own importance. Additionally, they collaborate with your neuroendocrine systems and in the blink of an eye can become a full-body experience and emotional landslide. Gaining control over your thoughts is neither easy or fun, but similar to getting a grasp on appropriate social cues – figuring it out can make all the difference in the world when it comes to whether you have pleasant, trustworthy relations.
This full moon shines a light on your relational progress. It asks you to consider what you’ve learned so far and how this learning can assist you in traveling into the wider world with more diverse people and needs to accommodate. Remember that most people respond well to friendliness, respect and honesty. Remember that no one owes you anything, but that you always have the capacity for generosity. Finally, remember that your relational skills are a daily practice and you can hone them with everything and everyone around you. This means plants, animals and buildings just as much as the humans you encounter. Your full moon affirmation is, “I treat the world how I desire to be treated.”
VIRGO
Where does your energy come from? What is the foundation of your vitality? What refreshes, restores, rejuvenates you? What excites, inspires and turns you on? What is the connection between your pleasure and your income? What is the connection between your pleasure and your obligations? What is the purpose of your pleasure and who benefits from it?
This full moon highlights the area of your life that has to do with value and resource. It is a question surrounding your financial pursuits and achievements. It is a recommendation that you wake up to whether you are being compensated fairly and appreciated fully. It is an insistence that you claim what is rightfully yours and refuse to take less than you deserve.
This full moon pushes you to consider the source of energy: your own and others’. It asks you to testify as to whether you’ve been taking or borrowing more than you can repay. This is a moment to honestly examine the currency of your vital force and creative capacity, and make whatever shifts necessary in order to ensure that you’re applying yourself in ways that give as much as they take.
If you’ve been dreaming or scheming of creative business ideas or generative collaborations, now is the time to take those dreams a little more seriously. If you’ve had ideas of how to monetize your favorite hobbies, you might just be able to do it. This full moon is a call to revolutionize the ways in which you share and receive resource. It is an exclamation mark on your creative capacities and encouragement to indulge them. Your full moon affirmation is, “My life is abundant, playful and pleasurable. I earn what I need by being honest about who I enjoy.”
LIBRA
This full moon is in your sign, together with Jupiter, the gift giver of the zodiac: the one who teaches through abundance, generosity and excess. The moon conjunct Jupiter is a powerful and emotional self-recognition. It is an affirmation of your feelings, your intentions, your identity and your efforts. This full moon is a moment to affirm yourself as your own best teacher; to appreciate the ways in which you’ve expanded into your capacities; and to celebrate your ability to continue to grow through all that life throws at you.
Self-recognition and appreciation means that you see your own agency in your relationships. It means that you appreciate when others give to you, because you are worth giving to. It means that you allow your relations to wake you up to yourself rather than use them to keep telling the same old stories.
Where you came from has shaped you for sure, but it does not define you, and it certainly does not define your future. For nearly a decade now you’ve been sorting through your past in order to claim your foundational freedom. You’ve had to atone, forgive and release. You’ve had to feel fully into the ways in which you perpetuate the conditioning that keeps you trapped, as well as the ways in which you embody the strengths and power of your lineage.
This is a moment to claim what is rightfully yours. This is a moment to recognize the birthright of true power which is the simple recognition that you were never without it. This is a moment to offer the remnants of your shame and self-denial to the fire of time and pray for the freeing of those who are still trapped. This is a moment to courageously lead your ancestors forward into a new future – one that celebrates self-love, equity and shared power. This is a moment to fully arrive, with no apology, into the brilliant, self-affirmed benefic that you are here to be. Your full moon affirmation is, “I love myself.”
SCORPIO
Unconscious fears, unknown motivations, unseen desires. The past. Your dreams. Dreams of the past. Your ancestors. Dreams of your ancestors. The merging and blurring of what is you and what is everything. The myth of where you came from and how you were made. The spaces that are sanctuary – isolated, removed, veiled. The spaces that are prison – isolated, removed, veiled.
This full moon illuminates the territory of dreams, ghosts and unseen realms. It shines upon the teachers and teachings that whisper to your inner ear, pull you and prod you without your recognition, and beckon you to follow into the abyss.
How do you awaken to yourself? How do you see the true you underneath the stories you tell? How do you feel yourself? How do you feel what you really do underneath all the things you make yourself do? It wasn’t by accident that you arrived here, yet do you really know how you did? Can you account for all the choices and take direct responsibility for each of them? Of course not. You were shifted and shaped in ways you couldn’t see then and perhaps can’t even see now. So who are you, why are you here, and what do you mean?
The decades long process you are in that is the transformation of your mind is just over the halfway point. Since 2008 you have been deepening and penetrating into layers of your mental consciousness. Perhaps through rigor and discipline, but also undoubtedly through resistance, struggle and attachments. This full moon calls you to pay attention to the ways you grasp onto meaning, accountability, structure and form. It points to the ways that over-fixation on “reality” leads to stagnation and and pain. Let the unknown permeate your daily existence. Question all the assumptions you make, especially those that lead to judgment. Your affirmation is, “The magic of mind is the creative force.”
SAGITTARIUS
The last five years has seen you persistently striding towards a complete transformation of your values. What you used to take for granted as your motivation has shifted, deepened. There have been moments of fear, unknown and quite possibly questions of your own sanity or right-mindedness. Where you find yourself now is in the midst of new versions of the same questions.
Look back at what you have accomplished. Even if what you have accomplished seems to be the creation of chaos. No transformation is possible without first completely letting go. What needs to be let go is the inhibition of your own creativity, and the discomfort of fully embodying your creative authorship.
Instead of trying to figure out what your talents are, instead consider what you want to spread into the wider world. The details are unimportant, what is important is the feeling. Imagine the quality, sensation and emotional essence of what you do, who you are and how you give. Imagine the relationships, literally the passing of sentiment from one person to the next. Imagine this from you to those who will contact you directly, and then from them to their relations, and from their relations into the wider world.
You are being asked to trust the value of your own creative power. That means you must completely trust your own intent. What you put out into the world will be returned to you. This isn’t a moralistic message as much as an invitation to think outside the box. What do you want to experience? Your full moon affirmation is, “I see the power of creative intelligence in all my relations.”
CAPRICORN
In order to make the most out of the direction your life is heading you need to be in good standing in your relationships. When I say good standing I mean: gracious, grateful, honest, equitable, present, diplomatic, and loving. When I say relationships I mean everyone. Your successes and growth this year depend primarily on how you do or do not get along with others in your life. Of course we all have our challenges and challenging people… but in general, think of your potential and capacity for achievement as synonymous with being a good ally, friend and collaborator.
Your ability to show up in big ways for others comes from your continued examination and transformation of self. By now you should be fairly familiar with the sensation of Pluto passing through your sign (it’s been there since ‘08.) To be familiar with it doesn’t mean comfortable, since that’s not what this time is about for you. This time is about uncomfort. It’s about pushing past the limits of who you knew yourself to be and discovering who you are meant to be. It’s about giving up cherished dreams and making way for ones which are in better alignment with your soul. It’s about letting die that which is ready to go, facing emptiness and unknown, and giving birth to that which is ready to arrive.
All this shifting in yourself and in your relationships requires revolution at your root. This full moon is calling you to consider how you are ready evolve, awaken and upset that which you have taken for granted. It might look like moving somewhere new or an extreme change at home. It might be a revelation surrounding the home and people you’ve come from. It might be an awakening of kundalini and a very different experience of what it is to feel alive. Whatever it is wants you to trust the person that you’re ready to become. Whatever it is wants you to release your clinging to the past. Whatever it is, is ready for you, so get ready for it. Your full moon affirmation is, “I give generously to my future. I awaken fully to my past. I transform my presence.”
AQUARIUS
In the traditional practice of Mysore style Ashtanga Yoga, participants begin each morning with a chant to the Supreme Guru. This Guru, or teacher, is the essence of all the teachers who have come before and the teacher who resides within. In chanting to them one offers the fruits of their labor back to the community. The understanding is that whatever strides one makes (physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually) are towards the benefit of all beings. In this way as each individual understands that their healing and awakening is a collaborative process, they devote themselves further to the ongoing effort.
The essence and intention of this chant is a point for you to meditate on in the coming weeks Aquarius. What is being illuminated currently are the teachings, healings and opportunities for growth that arise within the context of relationship. The more you see yourself as agent and benefactor of others’ wellbeing, the more you will be assisted in the deep inner transformation that is of utmost importance in your life currently.
The transformation that I’m talking about has a lot to do with your larger self concept. It’s a need to resist creating boundaries and hard lines around your identity and an invitation to find power in a sense of collectivity. This means on some level that it is important for you to consider your identity as inclusive of everything else, even that which you detest. This also means that you get to expand your notion of relationship in ways that dissolve boundaries between people and simply come down to the various ways in which you are in relationships to yourself.
Being in relationship to yourself in this kind of way is nothing short of a total revolution of Mind. It is the staunch refusal to accept constructs of separation which divide “us” from “them.” It is the invention of new language and pronouns in which anyone who speaks it understands themselves as equal and same to all others. It is embodying and enacting the notion that we are all siblings and one family. How you do this will take various forms throughout the next five years, but what you are working towards is the kind of radical self empowerment that creates enlightenment and true gurus. It is the knowing of oneself as the everything. Your full moon affirmation is, “I bow to all my teachers and the source of my true happiness is revealed.”
PISCES
Why it’s been determined that it’s not ok to talk about sex, genitals, death, or how much money someone makes has less to do with moralism than it does with power. If culturally we were more comfortable talking about these things then they wouldn’t be closeted: perversions would have less room to grow into violence if they could be acknowledged and discussed; dying might be a cause for celebration instead of a cause for isolation; and there’s a good chance that finances would be shared more readily rather than hoarded. Simply, the way taboo functions is to breed shame, and shame is an emotion that can be manipulated easily by those who seek power. Taking away the cultural norm that wraps normal human processes in shame is taking away the primary weapon of power mongers.
The general cultural agreements about what is ok to talk about and what must be avoided are however, a place where you can bring a different perspective. Your ability to empathize, hold complexity, and treat what’s taboo with graciousness is the kind of generosity you want to be cultivating right now.
Presently, and in the coming weeks and months you may find that you are asked to play the role of mediator between others and the more uncomfortable aspects of their beings. In this job you will be forced to examine and wake up to your own values. This process is just as important for you as it is for them. In waking up to your own values you open the door for a radical shift of energy exchange between people in general. The more you can accept, be present for, and help negotiate ease in the presence of shame – the more you become a transformer of larger cultural values that can shift the system of our current shame-based economy into something much more generous and generative. Your full moon slogan is, “Life Beyond Moralism! We’re all perfectly imperfect.”