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| Full Moon over Astoria Catherine Al-Meten |
“If we sit with an increasing stillness of the body, and attune our mind to the sky or to the ocean or to the myriad stars at night, or any other indicators of vastness, the mind gradually stills and the heart is filled with quiet joy.” Ravi Ravindra, from The Wisdom of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
And what is to be gained by sitting still and paying attention to what our body and mind are attuned to? When we start paying attention to our relationship to the Universal energies, and listening to and observing what life is telling us about ourselves, we start making connections and understanding how energy works. The Full Moon in Taurus peaks at 8:17 AM (PST) on Sunday, November 17, 2013. Called the Full Beaver Moon as this is the time beaver traps are set in the swamps before the first freeze of winter (to assure warm winter furs for coats when beaver skins were used for winter hats and coats). It is also the time of the year the beaver gets its lodge ready for winter. This moon is also called the Frosty Moon and the Hunter’s Moon. These names are given to the November Full Moon in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, the November Full Moon is called the Corn Moon, the Milk Moon, the Hare Moon, and the Flower Moon, coming as it does in the heart of Spring.
Different indigenous tribes have given the November Full Moon names including the Lakota, the Moon of the Falling Leaves, the Cheyenne, the Freezing Moon. The Algonquin call the November Moon quinne kesos (much white frost on grass). The Arapaho on the Great Plains call this moon, When Rivers Start to Freeze. Cherokee from the East Coast call the Moon, nivdadegwa (Trading Moon) while the Choctaw in the Louisiana area call this moon, Hash Koichus (Moon of the Panther). The Haida in the Northwest call the moon, t’a’aaw kung’ay (Snow Moon). Hopi call the Moon, kelmuya (the Fledgling Hawk Moon), and the Kalapuya of Oregon call the moon, alangitapi (moving inside for winter) which is just what we’re doing right about now. The Wishram who live along the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington, call the November Full Moon Snowy Mountains in the Morning Moon. My favorite name for the November Moon comes from the Winnebago tribe, the Little Bear Moon. Each region and group of people name the moon according to the seasonal signs and changes. This Full Moon in Taurus ushers in a shift and relief from a period where we have experienced a flood of energetic shifts, changes, difficult aspects, and retrograde planetary movement.
Mercury has gone direct after three trying weeks of confusion, chaos, and stalled plans. Both Neptune and Chiron have stationed direct in Pisces, and now release their energy in Pisces from its underground and backtracking movement. Both personal and collective patterns now become the focus concerning how we use our imagination, intuition, and how honest we have been with ourselves. Have we been honoring and paying attention to our own perceptions, modes of behavior, and growing edges? Having we been trying to ignore those inner revelations or outer issues that keep popping up? With the Sun, Saturn, Mercury, and the North Node in Scorpio, a fixed water sign, we are plumbing the depths of our psyches, unconscious, subconscious, and Collective Consciousness. We may feel as if we have been inundated with conflicts, unhealed and unresolved issues, partiularly areas of our life dealing with intimacy, relationships, sexuality, power, and shared resources. What relationships are screaming, on some level of our being, to be acknowledged, fixed, released, or in some way healed?
With the lunar and solar eclipses falling before and after the Autumn Equinox, the fourth in the series of Uranus-Pluto squares, and the Mercury retrograde period, this last month may have felt like one long series of obstacles, obsessions, and aggravations. The Full Moon in Taurus, a fixed earth sign, brings us a more gentle type of energy, grounded in seeking rest, comfort, nurturing, and a return to a place of greater physical comfort and pleasure. In the final days of Mercury’s retrograde transit in watery Scorpio, and in the wake of Neptune and Chiron in watery Pisces. stationing direct as well, we have come face to face with what we must confront in ourselves, in our lives. The areas that have been affected have made us uncomfortably aware of their presence . We have been faced with the truth of what needs, no demands, to be changed. We can take steps to make the changes, or we can attempt to hold onto what we think is the source of our safety and security, but that would be a mistake, for what is falling away now, needs to go in order for room to be made for that which we need and desire.
Delaying satisfaction, putting off life, or holding onto the known for fear of being out in the cold, are simply not ways that nurture or help in your growth and healing. Spiritual guide and author, Catherine Ponder wrote the following affirmation of what needs to happen in order for us to be rid of the negativity that holds us down, keeps us trapped where we don’t belong, or imprisons our thinking and our hearts: "I do not depend upon persons or conditions for my prosperity. I bless persons and conditions as channels of my prosperity, but God is the Source of my supply. God provides amazing channels of supply to me now." And our supply is quite simply that which we need to sustain our lives, our health, and our ability to love and be loved.
Water remains a dominate element. With Mercury, Saturn, Neptune, Chiron, and Jupiter all in waters signs for the forseeable future, the watery element that rules the Unconscious and intuitive side of our lives, remains a strong component. Getting used to paying attention to inner stirrings, intuitive insight, and the insight obtained through reflection, prayer, meditation, and discernment, are tools we can use to honor this element of our nature, particularly during such trying times.
Jupiter just turned retrograde in Cancer, a mutable water sign where it will stay for the next four months. As I mentioned in the last column, Jupiter spends long periods of time each year in its retrograde phase, making it nearly half of our lives. When Jupiter is retrograde, we have the opportunity to reflect on why we are motivated to do what we do. What is it that nourishes, supports, and affirms our growth, development, and personal well being? Whatever we are doing to take away from our best interests, is probably something that we will notice is manifesting in pain, broken plans or dreams, seemingly unanswered prayers or desires, or broken promises, relationships, or bank accounts. Something basic and vital to our essence has been left out of the equation for how we create and express our happiness, love, productivity, and creativity through work, relationships, self awareness, as well as how we nurture and support our homes, families, and partnerships.
If our priorities and goals are out of alignment with our true health, happiness, and highest good, we will find ourselves struggling and having to face the reactions and fall out from a false sense of what real security, authenticity, and personal honor and safety is all about. No one can give us this; it comes from our own sense of safety, security, sense of dignity and respect for ourselves, and a willingness and the courage to stand in our own truth and to make the changes we need to honor our true essence. Each of us comes into life with a life purpose and calling to live out the fullness of life, recognizing, nurturing, and using our gifts to lift ourselves and others. Anyone or anything that does not lead us in that direction, will become painfully apparent and clear during this period of time.
Life is not just about knowing what we want. We do not get the whole picture at once. If we are highly intuitive, we get glimpses and signs, we get direction if we are willing to pay attention. We all have the ability to develop and use our intuition. Whether we do or not, is the question. Integrating our intuitive knowledge into our intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and psychological areas of knowledge, is key to fully functioning. We can develop our ability to pay attention to, reflect on, and hone our skills so that when opportunities open up, we are able to identify the gifts before us.
If we are willing to let go of that which holds us back, we will learn to recognize that when one doors closes (or when we close the door) another one opens. Being that we are spiritual beings living a physical existence, we are governed by the laws of physics. We cannot be or do more than one thing at a time. If we stay, keep our energy trapped in a place it does not belong, we cannot move beyond it, unless or until the situation or we fall apart. Making conscious choices is far more efficient than cleaning up or repairing the damage from having things fall apart in and around us. Accidents, illnesses, ongoing unhealthy relationships and situations result when we fail to take action on our own behalf. We think we're protecting ourselves or guarding our security, when in fact, we are making matters worse. Recognize the truth within you, and act upon it now.
When we fill our space, our time, our thinking, and leave no room in our lives for receiving what we claim to be waiting for or longing for, we delay our good; at the very least, we overlook possibilities, and we dwell too long, attached to our fears, anger, frustrations, worries, or negative programming. To change, we need to release what no longer serves us. How do we know what that is? Look at the source of your pain and sorrow? How does it help you live a fulfilling life? If we are to be vital, living fully-functioning and authentic lives, we must recognize that we hold the reins to our own power and energy.
We must honor our true nature by living a courageous and honorable life. We must stand up for ourselves, recognizing that the Divine gave us love so that we might love one another, joy so that we might share that joy and experience it ourselves. We have gifts that call us to respond and live more creatively, more authentically, and more honestly, as ourselves. Living life according to someone else’s wishes, beliefs, or vision of truth, just does not work. Trust that you hold the vision for your own happiness. You hold the ability to love and be loved, and to recognize the difference between love and manipulation; between love and control; between love and servitude. You, as you are, hold the seeds of love within you.
Whatever you have experienced, discovered, struggled to overcome or release during the periods over the last year when you were engulfed in the waters of transformation, now become those seeds for transition. Many of us have been jolted by the Sun’s passage through Scorpio and her alignment with Saturn’s ongoing unveiling of shadow aspects of our nature and deep-seated emotional reminders or awakenings of what is unfolding in our relationships. It has been a powerful month, roiling up our deepest sentiments, desires, and unfulfilled needs. Whatever has been knocking at the door of your consciousness, begging to come into complete you, reveals to you anything that cries out to be acknowledged and dealt with. It’s as if your emotional container has been filled to the brim, and is expressing itself through physical, emotional, sexual, psychological, mental, spiritual, and creative ways...seeking release and channeling of energies too long pent up and denied. You probably won’t need a magnifying glass or a map to find the areas of your life that these deep, watery aspects have been stirring up.
Full Moon in Taurus.
And as the Moon (keeper of our emotional garden) has made her transit through our chart/life over the last month, we have been reminded, on a daily basis, of all the areas of our lives where one action directly affects what is going on in other areas. For example, we realize that emotions triggered during the transit of the Moon through Aries, may have unleashed some deep-seated, suppressed anger, resentment, or frustration in a not-so-pleasant way, surprising us and those with whom we are in relationship. The Full Moon in Taurus brings a fine blend of beauty, comfort, sharing of earthly delights and more peaceful expressions of ourselves with one another. Taurus seeks to connect to the polarities, weaknesses, and struggles of life by weaving them together into some functional form of behavior, relationship, and artistic expression. Taurus’ way to handle conflict and unfulfilled desires, is to approach life through the doorway of simplicity--simple joys, simple pleasures, simple and basic expressions of our true selves with one another. The desire that wells up in us for connection, fulfillment, touch, and pleasure, now finds form in earthy and practical forms that express the depth of our feelings in the fullness of simplicity. The traditional song, Simple Gifts, reminds us: "Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free, tis a gift to come round to where we ought to be. And when we are in a place of delight, we will be in the Valley of Love and Delight...” And the final words in this song delivers us the message of the Taurus Full Moon: “When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed, To turn, to turn twill be our delight, til by turning, turning, we come round right.”
So as you find yourself caught up in the dance of life, see the turning of life and yourself in that dance, turning round right to where you belong. Our transformation takes us to the next right and perfect place where we can engage in the dance of our life, more fully aware, more fully alive, and more fully mindful of the vision we hold for our own happiness, health, and well being.
Venus is now in the sign of Capricorn. Venus‘ transit through Capricorn awakens us to how our needs and desires are being fulfilled, or not. We are aware, on a very basic and practical level, of the way our inner code of honor or our way of determining what is right for us, is working. If we are living in a fool’s paradise, holding onto a vision that has no firm connection to the reality of our lives, we find ourselves very uncomfortable and dissatisfied. Rather than worrying about what is missing from our lives, externally, it’s time to reexamine how our perspective, our beliefs, or our appraisal of a situation (a condition, a relationship, a job, a project, or some other significant area of our life) is working or not. Now is the time to trust our ability to respond to those inner nigglings and voices--that intuitive part of our selves that reminds us that we are not honoring our code, we are not valuing ourselves, as we need to. Venus in Capricorn awakens us to love and be loved through our day-to-day interactions, service, work, art, creativity, homes, relationships. When we find our lives lacking, we need to enter a process of discernment to determine, again, what seeds we hold within us that are beginning to bloom, that have already taken root, or that hold the strongest chances of survival and fulfillment.
On a very practical level, take care of life within and around you. Repotting plants, tending to our inner and outer gardens, and taking care of our physical environment and health, are all called for during the time of this Taurus Full Moon. The most wonderful aspect of living for years with a Taurus is the discovery of how every aspect of life can become a pleasure. Even the most simple tasks, when viewed from through the Taurean lens, becomes a sacred and sacramental act. Taurus time is a time to enter into the wholeness of being. By fully embracing the depths of the polarities presented to us in our Scorpionic depths and facing our fears, using the coals of the flames fanned by our passions to light the room where we are, we can embrace the velvety joys that the Taurus Full Moon bathes us in. As the light of this lovely full Taurus Moon rises in the sky night after night just past sunset, let yourself be bathed in the beauty, passion, and full expression of its energetic power. Feel the deep connections that have made your life richer, deeper, and more passionate, and embrace the dance right where you are, enjoying the simple nature of life lived one moment at a time. Set aside some time to be still, peaceful, and calm, relieved of the struggles that are simply reminders that you are alive and capable of choosing Life. Let the past go; embrace Life now.
Earthiness is the Taurus path to delight. Earthiness can be defined as direct, robust, and unaffected. Taurus energy and actions are practical and grounded in direct connection with what is right before us. Open your eyes, take off your shoes, and feel the earth beneath your feet. Stand under the Moon and watch the stars as they move on our nightly rotation on our axis, swirling through space, soundlessly making our way through the Universe. Savour the flavors of your life, and feel the softness and silkiness with your hands allowing your fingers to caress the textures that enfold you. And think on the words of some of the most earthy, artists and writers who ever lived:
John Muir: “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browing. “Earth’s crammed with heaven...but only he who sees takes off his shoes can feel it.”
Kahlil Gibran. “And forget not the earth delights to feel your bare feet, and the winds long to play with your hair.”
Chief Seattle. “The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.”
Root yourself in the delights of the earth, in the joys of life before you, and in the pleasure of your own senses and ability to live fully and be grateful. That is one of the strongest messages of this full moon. Live in gratitude and appreciation for the simplicity of life itself, and the gift it is to be here, now.
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