Harvest Moon: Bringing order out of Confusion

On Monday we have a Full Moon in Pisces, sitting opposite the Sun in Virgo. It is the third and final Super Moon (closest to the earth) and will appear very large on the horizon. This is the time of the harvest, where the wheat is separated from the chaff. 

The Moon is our intuitive feeling self, while the Sun is our conscious logical function. As the Moon in watery Pisces washes us with cosmic vibrations, our intuition, dreams and our creativity will be highly active. This energy can also blur reality and make it hard to discern what is real and what is not. Our activated imagination will draw some to escape the confines of the physical three dimensional world. This can lead to addictions as well as supreme creative output. Many an artist struggles to avoid the first while they access the latter. Many fail.

Virgo on the other hand, is all about discernment.  Virgo is fussy and fastidious and organized, and wants us to focus on the practicalities of life. We will be pushed to integrate  these very different energies  … to somehow get them to meet in the middle.  If you can get these opposites to work together, you can manifest your dreams.

 Strong links from the Full Moon to Saturn in Scorpio add a sense of completion, of something ending right now.  All endings can lead to new beginnings if we handle them well.

When one door closes, another one opens.

 Those beginnings cannot happen, however, until we have let that something go.  That’s what Scorpio is all about. Ruling the root chakra, Scorpio takes us into the realm of sex, shared money, and basic survival. It is here where we give up something of ourselves to join with others (our bodies, our money). Saturn’s position here activates fears and attachments… challenging the need to let go. Yet no matter how hard we hang on, Scorpio’s ruler Pluto brings a death force to remove what is no longer useful or necessary for our further evolvement.  

This is therefor a time of pruning and cleansing. Health issues are highlighted in Virgo, and it is a good time to do some sort of cleanse before the onset of winter.

And if you have ever done a cleanse, you know that at first you can feel worse than before you started. That is because all the sludge and toxins in the body are being stirred up in the process of eliminating them. One must have a commitment to the cleanse to go through this initial stage.

With our vulnerabilities literally in the spotlight due to Chiron sitting very close to the Moon, we might feel extra sensitive and moody. Chiron is a minor planet in the outer Solar System, though Chiron’s effects are not at all minor. This powerful dwarf planet symbolizes where we are wounded or vulnerable, and also where deep healing is possible. Neptune in Pisces brings us compassion for ourselves as we move through our stuff!!

An overall sense with this Full Moon is of clearing away something that is no longer working for us.  Sometimes we cling to what is familiar out of habit... even if it hasn't been working fr a long time. A part of us may be holding onto dysfunctional beliefs, jobs we don't even like, or relationships that are holding us back. Saturn in Scorpio has been rather merciless in forcing us to face these things over the past year or so, and the Full Moon could bring to a head whatever you have been grappling with for a while.

 As Chiron’s proximity to the Full Moon focuses our awareness on that which needs to be healed and released, there is a blessing to help us get there. As a symbol of unity consciousness, Moon in Pisces connects us to our inner self. Pisces helps us trust in the universe enough to ‘let go and let god’ (or whatever you want to call source).

Both Neptune and Pisces work through our diffuse awareness. This is a good time to record your dreams or access your muse in some sort of creative endeavour. The Virgo influence will give substance and focus to this Piscean inspiration, as long as you can get the two working together.

The key to this is integration… of what is coming up for healing, and involves both our cognitive and intuitive brains.  We need to think clearly and intuitively. There is great opportunity here for spiritual growth as we grapple with these parts of our psyche.

Facing our vulnerabilities often comes via some sort of crisis, illness or sudden changes beyond our control (loss of job, relationship, money etc) . Uranus and Pluto are taking care of those these days.

Chiron in Pisces opens the penultimate wound a human being can feel, that of separation from source and thus from each other. It also offers healing and redemption by showing us our innate connection to all that is. You are not alone.

That knowledge will give us the strength to do the letting go that will move us forward in our life.

This is a profound and life changing time where we are being called to wake up and know who we are. Let the gentle yet powerful forces of Pisces and Chiron activate that deepest longing to go home.   And home is really not just a place or location. Home is where the heart is.

Open your heart and trust in the universe… and all will be well.

3. DIFFICULTY AT THE BEGINNING  I Ching

…Works supreme success,

Furthering through perseverance.          

Nothing should be undertaken.  

It furthers one to appoint helpers. 

Times of growth are beset with difficulties. They resemble a first birth. These difficulties arise from the very profusion of all that is struggling to  attain form . Everything is in motion: therefore if one perseveres there is a prospect of great success, in spite of the existing danger.

When it is a person’s fate to undertake such new beginnings, everything is still unformed, dark.  Hence he must hold back, because any premature move might bring disaster.  Likewise, it is very important not to remain alone; in order to overcome the chaos you need helpers.

This is not to say, however, that you should look on passively at what is happening. You must lend your hand and participate with inspiration and guidance.           

Clouds and thunder

The superior person brings order out of confusion. 

Within the chaos of difficulty at the beginning, order is already implicit. So too the superior person has to arrange and organize the inchoate profusion of  such times of beginning, just as one sorts out silk threads from a knotted  tangle and binds them into skeins.

 In order to find one's place in the infinity  of being, one must be able both to separate and to unite.