The past day or so we’ve been experiencing the Full Moon. One interesting thing about that is that the whole world has one experience, a consequence of it being a celestial event; something beyond the Earth. We, as in all of us here, have also been awash in the remnants of a solar storm that took place overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, resulting from a mass coronal ejection from a sunspot, with the energy bursting out to many times the size of the Sun.
Vesta photographed from the Dawn probe in 2011.
And that energy rains all over us. As fast and as uncontrollably as our technology is moving, or the speed of our minds or activities, the Sun in all its passion and Moon in all its silence embrace the Earth between them and there is some collective awareness that something is happening, happening to all of us, in the background though it may be. A burst of energy comes from the Sun, and we’re reminded that our power grids can be taken down in a matter of moments.
Because the Sun is in Pisces — the last sign — this was the last Full Moon of the astrological year. The Sun is now moving through the last 10 degrees of Pisces, called a decanate or in older terms, the last face of the zodiac. The astrology to watch is how close Mercury is to stationing retrograde — in Aries. It’s in a bold part of the zodiac, the first few degrees, and Mercury is conjunct two other points — an asteroid called Vesta, named for the goddess of fire; and Uranus, representing a kind of fire of his own — the fire of the mind.
Think of Vesta as tending some sacred idea, or core expression of vitality. Her role is to keep the flame at all times, and, we are told, to remain chaste. Yet those initiated into the mysteries know that the chastity of Vesta’s servants represents a preservation of youth and at the same time, conceals a deeper secret, known only to members of the order. Mercury is communing directly with Vesta now, and is about to turn retrograde, make a second conjunction, and then bring a message back to Pisces, the sign representing all of humanity.
Uranus has a role here: this secret may come in the form of an invention, such as an idea that can change the course of events, in a world that seems to be going madder every day. I could think of no better time to have a message from a central goddess, one whose servants were called upon to stand guard at all state functions. So deeply entwined were the Vestal Virgins with the state that Cicero revered them as central points of integrity for the empire, without whom he believed Rome would surely fail.
Now, let’s be on the lookout for some information that Mercury would be delivering. It may literally be coming through our news distribution systems, at least on one level. Certain elements in government and politics have lately revealed the true nature of their agenda, which is the control of women, which is to say, attempting to relegate women, through proposed laws and marginalization, to the role of birthing pods who bear fetuses that have more rights than they do. While this is wrapped in piety, self-righteousness and everyone’s distaste for abortion, the agenda is belied by the fact that so many, indeed, nearly all ‘pro life’ people are so casually in favor of the death penalty.
Martha Wescott, one of our respected colleagues, cautioned last week that the flash and glamor aspect of Uranus in Aries might be a distraction from the real needs, and some other agenda, indicated by Pluto in Capricorn. We are, after all, in the time of the Uranus-Pluto square, and this interweaving of Mercury with Uranus and later (once Mercury is direct) with Pluto is worth mining for information.
The Sun moving through the last few degrees of the zodiac is in a kind of disseminating phase. The Grateful Dead have a song with an unusual line: “Different seasons, with their treasons,” meaning what the changing of the season betrays or reveals.
When the Sun and the Moon get together for the New Moon in less than two weeks, they do so on the heels of the vernal equinox, which means the Sun conjunct the Aries Point — the first degree of the zodiac that acts like an echo chamber. Uranus is in the aspect, meaning that something unexpected might emerge; Mercury is there, ensuring that there is a coherent message; and Vesta is there as well, bearing her secret amidst her hot coals and sacred flames tended only by women.
