The Strawberry Moon
This is an auspicious time to act from inner wholeness, to move from inner peace and hold the vision of heart-centered action. This is a great time to make space for your heart to breathe and open in direct proportion to outer pressure. There is a mastery in an equal and opposite approach. I’m reminded of the phrase, “They go low, we go high”.
The opportunity to make the future path sacred and to access personal spiritual wisdom peaks as the sun and moon reach their purnima, the moment of brightest potential.
I intend to respond, not react.
I aim to consult the open heart first and let action and speech bloom from the unconditional forgiveness that inhabits the core of my humanity.
If that fails, I’m just gonna do my best and trust that it’s good enough.
I don’t mean to diminish how hard this action plan may be, quite the opposite (wink), I am laying the preferred perspective out first because it is becoming increasingly difficult to focus on proper principles as the volume of chaos increases. My practice is to return to proper principles, no matter how far out the detour takes me. Current transactional energies are distinctly and excruciatingly unfair, unjust and out of alignment. I would suggest that this is the very heart of the healing crisis: conflicting energies are uniting.
I have been exploring the metaphor of goddesses of antiquity traveling through the underworld for quite some time. Innana, Persephone and Kali are the heroines in this tunnel of time. The nakshatra of this full moon is Mula, the tail star of Scorpio closest to the Galactic Center, which astronomers characterize as a black hole. Mula is also within the degrees of Vedic Sagittarius, where (now) retrograde Saturn has been ruminating since mid-January.
I picture him shuffling around in his bathrobe scrutinizing how well I am walking my talk and parsing the truth here. Maya Angelou said that “There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.” What we believe is possible, what we accept as true are being examined, explored and generally raked over the coals by the tools we use to accomplish things. The lord of time and matter is helping us refine our process. (Please, stop helping me, Saturn.)
Mula is symbolized by bound roots or an “elephant goad”. Yeesh. It’s the feeling of my meaning, my understanding, my truth, my adaptation versus my principles, cosmic law and, you guessed it, karma. I mean, let’s admit it, if only here and now, doesn’t all this constipated, lurching, herky-jerky, non-progress or even recidivism feel familiar? Does it threaten your self-value to be presented with the same obstacles repeatedly?
Tropical chart of the Full Moon
That’s not the energy to go inward with here. We want to trust ourselves to see the truth and realize that truth cannot ignore context. It’s not relative, but it is embedded and connected to everything else in the Water Heavy Oxygen Rich Ecobiome. I know boundaries are important to becoming myself, but they are. not. real. “I am he as you are she as they are he and we are all together”. But also, “It is not he or she or them or it that you belong to.” Both/and. Takes some capacity. Gotta reach.
I repeat: not all of what we are called to endure or correct is our own doing, there is no need to feel guilt or shame on top of the hardship of balancing the scales. Jupiter in Vedic Libra squaring Mars in Capricorn is expanding and accelerating the karmic bloom. Hold the line to human compassion in service, if you are called and DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY or assume others deserve the punishments they are getting. Hurt people hurt people, so it’s best not to heap judgement onto injury, even if Saturn says it’s OK. He’s testing us. Let’s be impeccable. Because the promise of this nakshatra is that those who transgress cosmic law bring their own fate upon themselves. Who knows? Maybe it’s true?
Vedic Chart
The astrology of this full moon is, well (need I say it), intense. It’s 1 degree away from Vedic Saturn and conjunct retrograde Mars (read: REALLY strong) in the graha (or planetary influence) of Ketu (the shadow “planet” or south node of the moon, (read: headless tail of the dragon) also known as our collective past. This graha is ruled by Ketu (read: REALLY, REALLY strong) and the dark goddess Nirrti of whom Wikipedia says:
“Nirṛti निऋती is the Hindu goddess of deathly hidden realms and sorrows, one of the dikpāla (Guardians of the directions), representing the southwest.
Nirrti is a Ketu ruled nakshatra in vedic astrology, strongly associated with Kali in form Dhumavati. Nirṛti is mentioned in a few hymns of the Rigveda, mostly to seek protection from her or imploring for her during a possible departure.”
“Goddess Nirrti has been mentioned in one hymn of Rig Veda. Nirrti’s name means “destruction.” Nirrti manifests herself in decay, need, anger, old age, cowardice and death. She is the representative of the dark side to Vedic vision of feminine divinity. Repeatedly she is given offering in order to keep her away from the sacrificial rituals as well as from general affairs of people.
However, in Atharva Veda she is described to have golden locks. In the Shatapatha Brahmana she is related with pain and the south west corner is considered as her region. In it she is also mentioned as residing in the south, the direction of kingdom of the dead.
In the Vedas, Nirrti is the daughter of Surabhi (the cow goddess), the wife of Adharma (Destroyer of All Things), and is the Goddess of Disease and Death. Nirrti means “misery” and is worshipped in order to dismiss disease. She is also considered as the goddess who punishes the sinners. However she also protects those borne into crime as long as they remain ethical. She dwells in isolated places and watches over those people who are hungry or in mourning. ” ~ https://www.indianetzone.com/56/goddess_nirrti.htm
Her vehicle is a raven, the most ambiguous symbol of antiquity. whenever I see a raven I look for subtle, magical intelligence, but that’s just me. Some people are happy to dismiss them as pests. 
Raven and Dove by axymaid on Deviantart
Individuation requires an other. Unity and separation, systole and diastole, opening and closing are polarities required for expansion, knowledge and evolution. Nirrti and all the goddesses who travel the depths are representatives of the dark mother, the one we must push against in order to fully become ourselves. She does not symbolize the wholeness of the womb where hunger is food, thirst is quenched and stillness is movement. She embodies the cycle of need: the reaching, the questing, the striving for an answer in alienation and uncertainty. Birth IS separation after all and something is being born in this struggle. My job is to make sure it’s worth it to myself and the W.H.O.R.E.
Venus and Mars still stand across from each other in the sign of mother nurture and father foundation respectively. It’s slightly sexually sideways, in my personal view; the lovers are in the sign of the mother and father, so it’s like double masculine, double feminine and the glare of this lunation’s opposition (since all full moons are polarities) almost reduces the angle to opposing teams. Cancer is all immediate, instinctive response and nurturing abundance and Capricorn is careful, structural, rationing and rational. It’s like the human family is split over it’s resources into two camps: compassionate, sharing need fulfillment versus restrictive, limited autonomous martial state. Eep.
Arjuna stands before the great battle of the Bagavad Gita. He knows that he and his family have done all that they can to prevent this war, but war is upon him.
“What stops him is his feeling of grief, a feeling that clouds his vision and makes his mind reel. Krishna responds by teaching Arjuna how to see, not from his own particular point of view, but from the point of view of “Time,” in which everyone is born and lives and finally passes away. Krishna’s point about the destructive and creative cycle of the cosmos is conveyed in the revelation of Krishna’s divine form (a phenomenon called theophany) and in Mahabharata 1.1.188-190
“Time ripens the creatures. Time rots them. And Time again puts out the Time that burns down the creatures. Time unfolds all beings in the world, holy and unholy. Time shrinks them and expands them again. Time walks in all creatures, unaverted, impartial. Whatever beings there are in the past will be in the future, whatever are busy now, they are all the creatures of Time—know it and do not lose your sense.”
Red Eagle Lake this was a 16 mile (round trip) hike. Whew!
Since it’s a a both/and world I thought I would give you the rough stuff first. No sense in being Polyanna about it, we have had it really good for a long time and now the garden party at the end of time is wrapping up and the bill is being delivered. No problem, as long as you have the currency to pay it. But this time the cash comes in the form of connection, humility, tough love and personal discipline. It’s a tropical Capricorn full moon and Cap demonstrates emotion by being responsible and paternal. Cancer wants security and “adulting”. Step up and you will be rewarded with foundations of lasting value.
Capricorn is ruled by Saturn and among the softer qualities of this materialization, manifestation, rationalization duo we find discernment hightened and honed. We can see with great clarity what is not working and apply our logical razors to it. Do your research, come armed with the right information and separate the wheat from the chaff. Attend the minute particulars, as William Blake commands, and refine your foundation.
Red Eagle Mountain, Red Eagle Lake
Time to get off the treadmill, push into discomfort and growth, and take the training wheels off your bike. Be your own Daddy. The sun and moon both square Chiron so issues around the wound (y’know, the crack where the light gets in?) may get activated. You’ve been through this so many times recently, surely it’s time to own it, get on top and wrap your protective arms around that wounded inner child and protect him or her responsibly instead of joining her in blame, shame or grief. A little forgiveness and an open heart (regardless of who’s trying to hurt you) can be the best protection.
Eight planets are in Cardinal signs, four planets are retrograde in the tropical chart and Mars is among them. I intend to turn inward FIRST, to shine the light on my own dreams, goals and shortcomings when irritability and frustration strikes. We are going into the core, deep into the source of chaotic, volatile forces and rapid changability. I seek to train my first reaction to be to step back, find center and let it be my guide. If we can learn to release attachment, let go of the past, and forgive we can begin to make our daily mundane experience sacred. If you have a spiritual goal, this cosmic weather is a huge help in creating the discipline to realize it.
Red Eagle Lake and Mountain
I try to look to the opposite energy, so as Uranus shakes what I thought was secure, whether it be banking systems, earthquakes or volcanoes, I tend to go inside and visualize myself in meditation, even if I can’t do it in the moment. I train myself to take three deep breaths and release them slowly. Even better if I give myself a real break and have a daily practice. Doesn’t matter what it is. Just a little time out of time, just for me. Honor you. Value you. I do.
There’s a lot of mirroring, doubling and slight-of-hand going on. Hidden within the difficulty is the opportunity to realize the reward of your hand work, dedication and karmic bloom. If you’ve been owning it as you go along, really trying to do your best and accepting the mistakes and defeats, balance may come into your experience and it just might stay for a while. I hope so. I truly hope so. For those in the “smash and grab” camp, things may not go so well. I shall endeavor to hold them in their wholeness and not throw kerosene on the fire.
I’ve heard people say that the mountains in Helena are not as sexy or grand as the ones here are and maybe that’s true, but I miss this mountain and the standing stones in the batholith and the hikes without a destination. I miss all of you, too.
Mind your heart,
~L
dogmoonyoga 