Capricorn Full Moon, July 18, 2008
Full Moons generate awareness. When the Moon stands opposite the Sun and fully reflects the Sun's light in the darkness of night, we are stretched to understand this central mystery of human life: to be fully human, we must be fully aware of the two sides of our nature. These two sides have their correspondence in the two different lights of the Sun and the Moon.
Look around you and tell me if we can afford to continue to only live in our rational, egoic state of consciousness. I believe we also have to integrate the silent depths of our feeling nature. Perhaps our abiltity to ignore those depths is what calls forth the 'craziness' we feel at the full moon – werewolves and vampires live within us when we repress our feeling nature. The full moon calls out those feelings, whether we want it or not.
The Sun initiates and controls the cycle of life on Earth: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. The amount of light sets the limits of life experience – summer is for growth and expansion, just as winter is for rest and contraction. Psychologically, the Sun symbolizes your rational ego consciousness and also represents your unique Self and purpose in life – your true Identity.
The Moon initiates and controls growth and transformation. While the Sun enables the photosynthesis of plants, the Moon's light is what makes plants grow. The energies of the Moon are tied to tides and emotions and our Unconscious depths. Psychologically, the Moon is your unique personality, the way you live out your life. The Moon symbolizes your instinctual, intuitive, feeling nature and your ability to 'reflect upon' what you're learning from the Sun.
So, what's been happening in your life during this month when the Sun in Cancer, here in the northern hemisphere, brings us summer? This is the time for growth and expansion, the time of year to live life to the fullest. 'Summertime, and the livin' is easy.' Are we really enjoying it? That is the question this full moon in Cancer/Capricorn is asking us.
As I mentioned in my Cancer New Moon newsletter, Cancer energizes the Great Mother archetype, the instinctual energy of nurturing and caring. Ruled by the Moon, Cancer sensitizes you to your life's needs. Did you go inside yourself this month and pay a visit to the Great Mother within as frequently as you paid visits to the beauty and bounty of Mother Nature? Did you let one feed the other? Our inner 'personal' mother can enhance the bounty of the outer world, or cut us off from it. When we connect to our inner Great Mother we come home to ourselves. Then we find out what we are made of and what we really desire.
The full moon is in Cancer's opposite sign – Capricorn. Capricorn carries the energy of The Great Father archetype, the energy of law and order and culture. In the patriarchy, the Father archetype has become the rational energy that devises the laws and structures for group interaction. That's why Capricorn rules our government and corporate structures.
But Capricorn also rules our Dharma – our righteous duty in the world. What do you think your responsibility is to our collective life? Are we here to work and consume, or are we here on Earth to become a grown-up human being, with talents, gifts and responsibilities to ourselves, our families and our world? Our Capricorn Moon reflects on the Cancer issues of what will really nurture your inner, feeling life through the filter of your Capricorn sense of authority, autonomy and personal power in the world.
This full moon calls us to our Integrity, to live out our essential nature in the public arena. It evokes a sense of freedom – the freedom to live according to the laws of your own essential nature. Are you a feeling type? Then don't be afraid to show people what those feelings are telling you is of value. That's a hard one in our society, even though we elevate that ideal in our country. We are still a country impressed by collective attitudes and perceptions. The true individual is often ignored and sometimes despised. But this is the freedom essentially promised to Americans in the Constitution.
Be your original Self! Your public image doesn't need the approval of society – make your inner knowing and your public 'showing' one.
The shadow side of Cancer is over-protective mothering, while the shadow of Capricorn is materialism, dominance, and depression. These two shadows combine to ensure that you're only out for yourself. Power in the world become the illusion of safety.
We are seeing some of the effects of the shadow side of these two signs: a strained banking system, housing markets in chaos, food contamination and energy scarcity. And Integrity lost in the shuffle.
The (new) dwarf planet Ceres is in Cancer and she plays a role in this full moon, just as she did in the Cancer new moon. Ceres symbolizes the archetype of the Great Mother who creates and supports life. She is an agricultural Earth Mother, goddess of growth and food. Ceres in Cancer can teach us the self-love and self-acceptance we need to nurture ourselves.
Jupiter retrograde in Capricorn asks us to reconsider the best way to expand our worldly power. Ceres opposite Jupiter makes us aware that we need to nurture a social vision if we are to be nurtured ourselves. Ceres conjoined with Mercury sharpens our intuitive sense about what is life-affirming for ourselves and others. We are all interconnected. We need to make that conscious and act on it.
The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 27 Cancer: A violent storm in a canyon filled with expensive homes. This symbolizes a confrontation with a social upheaval demanding the reconsideration of static values. Our cultural values are under attack by environmental hazards, war, food shortages and economic recession. Now would be a good time to rise to the occasion and meet the crisis with integrity, intelligence and spirit.
The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 27 Capricorn: Pilgrims climbing the steep steps leading to a mountain shrine. This symbolizes the ascent of the individualized consciousness to the highest realization reached by the spiritual leaders of its culture. This is a call to greater consciousness, a consciousness that spiritual teachers of all religions have handed down to us. It is time, and past time, to walk the 'steep steps' that will bring us to a larger vision. The Force will be with us.
Ceres in Cancer, Capricorn Full Moon alert! Buy local organic food. (From the Organic View, Spring 2008.)
“Rising food prices and shortages have joined the energy and climate crisis, economic recession, and the war in Iraq as headline news. While consumers struggle to pay their bills and put food on the table, Monsanto, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland rake in billions from taxpayer-subsidized biofuels. Monopolizing markets, polluting the environment with genetically modified organisms, and hoarding future reserves of crop seeds, wheat, rice, soy, corn, and other grains, the food and gene giants profit from global crisis and misery. Adding fuel to the fire, Wall Street speculators have shifted their greed from sub-prime mortgages to food and non-renewable resources.
The public is becoming aware of the multiple causes of the food crisis: millions of acres of corn and soybeans diverted into biofuels; corporate-driven free trade agreements that discourage nations from maintaining grain reserves and becoming self-sufficient in food production; massive subsidies for industrial agriculture and a misguided export model forcing millions of family farmers off the land; sharply escalating oil prices, farm inputs, and transportation costs; commodity speculation; population growth; a growing demand for feed grains for meat consumption, and most ominously, a destabilized climate spawning deadly droughts, pests, floods, and unpredictable weather. “
The answer: Buy locally. Buy organic.
I'm still looking for recurring dreams – either from childhood or later. My dream blog will begin in August. If you're interested in helping out, please send your dreams to me with any associations you have to it.
Check out my MySpace page: www.myspace.com/cathypagano for astrology blogs.
Margie Herskovitz and I will be teaching an intermediate astrology course on the Internet – visual and audio with class participation – starting on Wednesday, July 23rd. You can still sign up. The classes will be archived so you can re-watch them, or if you miss a week, see them.
Margie has 40 years experience as an astrologer - and knows all the rules. (A virgo! :)
Cathy is the psychological/mythic astrologer - and she knows all the stories. (12th House Sun)
I have my Birth Chart. Now What Do I Do with It?
With
Margie Herskovitz & Cathy Pagano
This
is a four week Internet class on Chart Interpretation. You'll
learn
how a natal chart defines a person's character, evolution,
upbringing, spiritual tests/ initiations, and personal potential.
The class will be broadcast on an Internet site called Hello World, and you will be able to write in to us any questions you have during the class. We'd like to make it as interactive as possible.
Putting The Chart All Together!
4 Classes: Wednesdays
July 23, July 30, August 6, August 13
Times: 7 to 9pm EDT, 4 to 6pm PDT
Where: www.helloworld.com/cathypagano
(find the broadcast tower on top or left side of the page and click)
Cost: $100.00 for 4 sessions
Session 1: Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Moon Phase, Elements, Modalities, chart ruler
Session 2: Houses & their meanings
Session 3: Aspects & other considerations
Session
4: Bringing it all together.
You must already know the meanings of planets, signs, houses, and something about aspects. Make yourself a Keyword list for reference.
And
please send us your chart so we can use it for class at:
CathyPagano@helloworld.com
Whether you want to be a professional astrologer or you want to use astrology for your own personal use, this course will take your understanding to a new level.
To register, call Cathy Pagano, at 310-741-7013