Thanksgiving kicks off the holiday season with a tribute to gratitude. and it’s helpful to remember how grateful our ancestor immigrants were, back in 1621, to be welcomed by the indigenous Wampanoag with a three-day feast when they were near starvation. This is the spirit in which our country was founded – open arms, welcoming generosity. We have celebrated the generosity and kindness of these natives for over four centuries. That’s what the holidays bring out in us. Our desire to reconnect, to feast together, to celebrate and feel gratitude for the blessings of our lives.
The Full Moon isn’t until Monday, but we can watch the bloom throughout this holiday weekend, weather permitting. A Full Moon is the climax of a lunar cycle in which we begin to see the significance of the New Moon themes. During the next two weeks these themes can be integrated and provide the nourishment for our personal and collective growth. The last New Moon was in Scorpio, activating intense emotions, drawing us into our depths, dealing with our fears and phobias. Gemini now asks, what did we learn about ourselves? How grateful can we be for these gifts of growth?
Gemini is an Air sign, ruled by Mercury. The energy is convivial, curious and inquisitive, perfect for social gatherings. Mercury functions through perception, collecting information, sharing ideas, conversing with others. Perfect for holiday gatherings.
Full Moon Themes
There are several very clear messages in the Full Moon chart. Let’s begin with the lunar axis. The Sun is in our 12th House, at 5 degrees of Sagittarius, within 7 degrees of our USA Ascendant. And it is conjunct Mars which is less than 2 degrees away from transiting Ceres. It is also conjunct our natal Haumea.
At the Ascendant we encounter themes of identity, of closure and rebirth. The sign of Sagittarius speaks of ideals – expanding vision, dreaming a better future for humanity and our beloved home planet. The 12th House is our gateway to the Collective Unconscious. We connect with the Quantum Field through the 12th House. This House is associated with Pisces – the completion of a spiritual growth cycle, where we share our harvest with all of humanity, whether they, or we, are aware of it.
When the Sun crosses the Ascendant we begin a new collective growth cycle. We have agency here. We can flood collective consciousness with visions of a harmonious future and power our vision with compassion and caring. The Sun is conjunct Haumea, goddess of birth and rebirth. This is the planet that rises first at dawn in our natal chart. We are creative, we are visionaries, we embrace diversity, we can imagine better and better futures. This is the persona of the United States of America. We dream and we excel, we inspire and we shoot our arrows of hope and longing into the Unknown where they gather solidity and begin to manifest.
It may not look that way now, but it can. We have given away our air time, our inner dialogue and our emotional control, to the dark drama that flashes on our screens. We’ve turned our happiness over to a somber myth driven by the baser energies in our duality, another theme of the Gemini twins which reflect our dual nature – part human, part divine. Our country exhibits a wide spectrum of consciousness from brightest to blackest, but which story gets the most air time? And we buy into it whether we are nourished by hate speech or appalled by it. Our collective consciousness is diseased right now. We have a giant mental illness brought on by our addiction to beliefs.
At the Full Moon there are 11 planetary bodies in mutable signs. Gemini is one of those signs. Our beliefs are meant to guide our life choices, but not be set in concrete. As we grow, take in more information and experience, we gain access to expanded awareness and a new understanding of what we call reality. Beliefs are meant to shift, change and grow with us. Fixed beliefs create boundaries. They hem us in and block the light of new awareness. One of the messages of the Gemini Moon is flexibility, adaptability, willingness to change.
Duality is the essence of manifest reality. We had to split the atom to create the universe, leaving humanity with a paradox to solve. What is the truth? Is it this, or that? So far we have lived in conflict with our dual nature, gone to war over it, cultivated nationalist attitudes that create Otherness in everyone who isn’t US. The underlying truth is that All is One. Duality is the illusion that makes physical reality possible. Once we resolve our separation ideologically, our world will flow toward prosperity for all.
I know how idealistic that sounds, but Sagittarius is the sign of the idealist, the seeker – not the knower, not the opinionated, not the cynical. We have a Chiron Return on our horizon. The Cosmos is revealing an opportunity for our nation. Stop and think for a moment about all the grievance, all the loss, all the desperation in our population right now. We need to come together and comfort one another. We need to activate our creativity and figure out how to navigate the Dark Passage we have already entered. We need to bring forth our finest qualities, our spiritual essence that is loving, kind, caring, protective, creative, wise. These essential virtues will guide us to a better future.
The Moon, Sedna and Mutable T Square
So let’s take a look at the messages from the Moon in our 6th House. This house addresses our mundane life, our daily routines, our habits and our health. We have Uranus conjunct the dwarf planet Gonggong in our natal 6th House. Uranus is an agent of change and awakening. It is the doorway to the invisible planets in our solar system, encouraging us to expand our view of reality. 95% of our Universe is invisible to us. The unknown is a vast territory of exciting exploration. Uranus tends to shock us with unexpected events to wake us from our complacency and alert us to the so-much-more out there – a reflection of the so-much-more within.
The Gemini Moon is within 4 degrees of this electrifying planet and conjunct transiting Sedna, the outer limit of our solar system. I see Sedna as the destination of this phase of human evolution. She is an ocean goddess, a symbol of expanded and inclusive consciousness, but also of letting go of what we cling to. Sedna asks us to surrender to the evolutionary flow and trust Spirit to guide us. This requires a shift of perspective and an integration of the Divine Feminine. The discovery of Sedna expanded the boundary of our solar system by quantum leaps. We have a new frontier and it is the potential of human consciousness.
This cluster of Moon (emotional receptivity), Sedna (enlightened consciousness), our natal Uranus (awakening) and Gonggong (the spiritual power of empathy) suggests that we bring these qualitites into our daily life, honor them with ritual and sacred space.
So how does Gonggong function in our lives? This planet’s message is reinforced by its conjunction with Saturn in Pisces and these two planets form a T-Square to the Solar-Lunar axis. The myth of Gonggong is appropriate for our country right now. This Chinese water god was known for losing his temper and wreaking havoc on the people. At one point he was so furious he rammed his enormous head into a mountain and let loose a torrent that flooded the valley below and wiped out the community. It became an act of genocide. Somehow Gonggong woke up, however, and realized what he had done. He felt remorse and was flooded with empathy for the innocent victims of his rage. Obviously Gonggong is a cautionary tale on the collateral damage of our emotional outbursts, but there’s more to it.
I have thought long and hard about this enigmatic character, but I think I understand what he is about – an agent of emotional transmutation. He learned remorse, took responsibility for his emotions and received the spiritual blessing of empathy. We have to face up to the pain we have caused one another, not just now, but since our violent beginnings. If we are to have peace in our country, we must feel and express remorse. Chiron is opening the door to reconciliation. The exact conjunction happens on April 20th of 2024 with the Sun at 1 degree of Taurus. At that time Venus is only 15 minutes shy of an exact conjunction with transiting Chiron. It’s a return of love. Will we embrace it?
Grand Fire Trine
The Sun forms a Grand Fire Trine with our USA North Node in the 8th House in Leo, and transiting Salacia in our 4th House in Aries. Since our natal North Node is involved from the 8th House of mysticism and a portal to our unknown depths, it involves the future we choose now. Our North Node resides at 6 Leo providing the courage required to approach the unknown with an open heart.
Salacia is in Aries in our 4th House. Holidays mean family. Perhaps a surprising shift will happen in family dynamics. The more I learn about this partner of Neptune who transformed from a mermaid into a goddess, the less I can pin her down. She has a wide range of self-expression, and seems to operate differently in different people. I know this much: she is all about helping us find true love. My experience of her is delight. She seems to add sparkle and joy to my life. I think she may also catalyze events that shock us out of our comfort zone and reveal issues that need resolving before we can accept love.
Retrograde Jupiter is moving toward a conjunction with Salacia, so we all have an opportunity to discover how she works in our lives. Jupiter passed over Salacia last June and will make its second rendezvous on December 6th. It concludes its visit on January 24, 2024. What a great combination between the spiritual planet of faith, optimism and good fortune and the dwarf planet of delight manifested as sparkling sunlight on the ocean’s surface!
A Grand Fire Trine activates. We may glimpse a potential future. We may find a dream coming true. Fire may burn away old karma. We may suddenly see life from a new perspective, or discover spiritual purpose. We may grow our love and become more devoted to the sacredness of life. Pay attention to what inspires you and follow that thread.
Solar Yod
God’s pointing his finger again. This time at the sun, which is the apex of a Yod. The two legs are formed by the sextile between transiting Jupiter in Taurus (conjunct our natal Salacia) and transiting Vesta in Cancer which is conjunct our natal Jupiter/Venus. The planets of sacred devotion and spiritual growth point to the Sagittarian Sun conjunct transiting Mars in our 12th House. So much energy is available to us. We can dare to idealize, to dream the impossible dream, to aspire.
On a personal note
I had hoped to post this before Thanksgiving, but life and cooking got in the way. As I was preparing for Thanksgiving, I felt a huge shift in my consciousness. I realized I am out the other side of a long, dark tunnel which began with a chronic illness in 2021 that confined me to my home. After two years of suffering, researching and finally finding the answers, I am healing. I feel that Aries energy of wanting to leap back into life. I’m free!!! So I share my deep gratitude with you and thank all of you faithful subscribers for reading my words, reflecting on them, and finding where they resonate with your own experience.
I hope you all had as happy a Thanksgiving as I, dear ones. May you have even more to be thankful for in the coming year.
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