NEW MOON August 4, 2005, at 12 Leo 48
Sabian: An old sea captain rocking.
Chandra: A man painting scenes on a ceiling.
Polarity symbols (Aquarius)
Sabian: A barometer.
Chandra: A lidless sarcophagus. It is empty.
One of the issues involved in the Leo/Aquarius polarity is that of self-seeking, attunement to personal desires, and truth-seeking, attunement to universal laws. All seeking is future-oriented, but the Leo seeking is more personal and often incorporates the past and/or the subconscious to a much greater extent than Aquarius. This is very apparent in this New Moon's symbols.
Water is often a symbol of the sub/unconscious; the ocean would symbolize the collective unconscious. Dane Rudhyar comments that the captain "has steered the ship of his ego-consciousness ...maintaining the integrity of his individual selfhood while in close contact with the collective Unconscious. Now...he may try to distill wisdom from his many experiences..." The implied danger is getting too immersed in the past so that one does not use that experience and wisdom but simply relives the past again and again, doing nothing but move in place. The rocking chair may feel like movement, but it goes nowhere.
The Chandra symbol also implies a connection to the subconscious. All artists agree art is not a "rational" process, but an intuitive one; yet it, too, draws on the artist's past - his art training, his experiences that color his representations.
The Aquarius symbols move to a more impersonal truth-seeking, a search for more universal truths. The future is emphasized much more. A barometer is a scientific instrument designed to foresee the weather, to be able to tell what Nature's impersonal, universal forces will do. It does not say what the weather was; it is totally connected to prediction. The sarcophagus refers to another universal truth, that of death. The emphasis is on the future for it is lidless, implying the body is gone, perhaps even resurrected. If it were waiting for a body, there would be a lid. There is none. Implied is the search for the answer to "What happens after death?"
The impetus from the New Moon, then, is the quest - personal or universal. The New Moon asks, "What do you seek?"
FULL MOON August 17, 2005, at 26 Aquarius 50
Sabian: An ancient pottery bowl filled with violets.
Chandra: A man laying stones for a path.
Polarity Symbols (Leo)
Sabian: Day break.
Chandra: A beaded curtain.
The focus of the Leo/Aquarius polarity changes a little at the Full Moon; the focus is not so much on seeking as using. Both ends of the polarity - personal and universal -- appear in each set of symbols.
The Aquarian symbols strongly combine the personal/universal polarity and explicitly refer to using that dichotomy. The pottery bowl is "universal" in the sense it belongs to a past age, to the history of humanity asa whole. Yet someone is using it personally as a holder of violets. Why violets? Violets in the past were associated with the "between times" of sunset and twilight - the times one can have "a foot in both worlds," here past and present, personal and universal.
The chandra symbol has the same combination. Stones go back to prehistory, they are "universal" symbols of Earth; the man uses them in the present to make a path. We can assume others will use the path; so while it is a personal use, it is not a "me only" use - just as the violets may well bring pleasure to others than the one who put them in the pot.
The Leo symbols continue in the same vein, perhaps in a more veiled manner. Daybreak is another "between time," one has yet to "step through" into the light of day. It is a universal event, yet highly personal for each of us. Each person's day will be different; each will use, or not use, that time in an enriching way.
The beaded curtain is not so obvious. Usually such curtains are used in doorways, which gives us the key. Doorways connect different realities - separate private from public, separate "mine" from "yours". Yet this portal is "open" - it is only a beaded curtain, not a heavy, lockable door. The significance is very much like daybreak - daybreak is a portal time and the beaded curtain is a portal. Both are there for each of us to use to travel between realities.
Thus we see August is a time for us to formulate our quest and then actually do something. The houses of your chart will tell you in what area of your life this needs to happen, with the house the New Moon occupies being where you need to "quest" and the houses of the Full Moon giving information as to where the results will show.
Looking Further:
The New Moon is very highly aspected: four planets (Mercury, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune) and two asteroids (Pallas Athena and Ceres) lend their influences. Mercury is conjunct, and emphasizes the here/there theme as the god Mercury was a psychopomp, leading souls to the underworld after death, as well as a messenger of the gods through all realms. Neptune's opposition also underscores the theme. Pallas Athena and Jupiter in sextile add an ability to work philosophically and judiciously, while also imbuing us with faith and hope. The square from Ceres reminds us this quest must be self-nurturing as well as nurturing others, while the Uranus quincunx sounds a warning to not get carried away to the point we needlessly hurt others or put "me" above all else. The fixed t-square involving Mars (Taurus) squaring Saturn (Leo) and Chiron (Aquarius) will affect your quest depending how it affects your personal chart, either giving you the determination to pursue your quest, or making it difficult for you to change.
The August Full Moon is a Blue Moon. Many people mistakenly believe that a Blue Moon is a second full moon in a month. The misconception started when Hugh Pruett wrote an article for Sky and Telescope in 1946. He did not check his source material and jumped to an erroneous conclusion, which made it to print.
In 1999 Donald B. Olson, an astronomer at Southwest Texas State University, researched over 40 old almanacs after he realized Pruett had to be wrong. He found over a dozen references to Blue Moons, and not a single one was a second full moon in a month! Instead, he noticed that all occurred within a day or two of the 21st of February, May, August and November. Obviously, a Blue Moon was a seasonal definition, as they all came in the month preceding a solstice or equinox.
Further study helped Mr. Olson determine that each season had three named "Moons", with a certain name reserved for the last moon of the season. Thus when a season got a fourth Full Moon, the Blue Moon was actually the third one - the one in February, May, August or November. Unless my trifocals missed something, our last Blue Moon was August 22, 2002, and the next will be May 20, 2008. Such an infrequent phenomenon adds an importance to this lunar cycle.
Chiron is at the apex of a T-square with the Sun/Moon axis. This really pushes us to break our old molds, to be willing to quest into new areas. Chiron helps us to make dramatic changes; in fact, it demands that of us when it aspects our personal planets in our individual charts.
© Kasey Kester - 2005
