October 17th 2024 7:26 am Eastern
24* 35’ Aries
2nd Shape: VULTURE: 12*51’ Aries — 25*42’ Aries
This Full Moon in Aries officially brings eclipse season to a close with the first regular, not eclipsed lunation. Although, what we have here is not really run of the mill. The North Node remains in Aries, copresent the Moon despite being out of range of a shadow grab. Fate and destiny feelings might frame the action surrounding the subjective climax of lunar light as well as awareness of compulsive energetics which catalyze us to pulse out of itchiness or inability to resist temptation. The Moon finds itself separating from Chiron, squaring Mars in Cancer as well as Pluto in Capricorn, all of which speak to the larger context of the latter square, as this is the epilogue-like final episode of Pluto’s time in Capricorn since 2008. As Cancer is opposite Capricorn, its only apt that the sign of nurture and care which had been opposed to Pluto for the past sixteen years is made irritable by Mars for the end stretch of Pluto’s stay, as if the generative, nesting, comfort minded and nourishment intuitive areas of life are swollen, red and irritated from over a decade of everything infrastructure, hierarchy and history being more than a little sketchy and convoluted. A shifting over of where we feel afraid of the unknown, where we are abducted to and imprisoned in and where the heavier handed power dynamics lurk is in the process of letting this Cancerian territory alone, but not without first a last pummeling to the sensitive tissue which results in bruising as well as bouts of reactivity as habituation ceases and we’re thrown somatically into new circumstances.
Beginnings of course follow yet overlap with endings, and there is much foreshadowing in play over the past year and a half with Aries eclipses and Pluto spending months on end in Aquarius already, although this current fire Moon setting off incendiary friction sparks as blades grind against old steel framing, intent on an an episode of recycling, a la the 2nd Shape in the Prayer to Mene sequence: VULTURE.
Vultures, of course, are carrion birds, scavengers who dine on the dead, and find what corpses lay around uneaten and opportunistically pick whats left off the bones. Glimpsing them in the sky infuses an augury with underworld connotations, as they Greeks said they would "prognosticate slaughter", and in the context of the moment, Pluto’s final days in Capricorn for our lifetime, has us eyeing what is useful still in our otherwise outdated and expired life circumstances that can be extracted, cannibalized, repurposed, retrofitted, sold for funds, and made ready to reinstall or reinvest elsewhere, on the other side of a collapse and compost sequence which potentiates some future phoenixing. The regenerative process of the life-recycler who is nourished by re-cyclic consumption of scavenging eviscerated life shapes; an inner alchemical process to pivot to the next move in the life-hunt. We know we are in the presence of death by the Grecco Egyptian suggestion, the Chinese lunar station material informs us to withdraw and plan, the Indian Nakshatra also emphasizes death via the underworld god Yama as well as a nod to embracing your dharma, as death is inevitable. The Chinese also point to the faculties of self control and self restraint, which could imply not freaking out as things we have known or loved or at least gotten used to fade away but look tactically at what lies left strewn about on the fields of existence which might be useful for the next move, as Vultures after feasting on what has fallen take flight again into the sky.
From an objective look at how everything balances out relationally and what is harmonious generally arrives the question of how to contend with needs for performing autonomy even when its awkward and potentially hurtful being exacerbated by the heaviness of an end of an era in infrastructures and traditions haunting us vs taking action to defend what we need and what nourishes us. From the depths of our animal logic only one way of analyzing whats at play resonates at an instinctual level which informs the many options and variety of information increasing to loosen our grip and strategically be able to let go and flow with change. This is why we are so sensitized and protective around what we need to increase our skills and be more effective in our performances; so we can bring in the resources we need to accommodate and acclimate to this ending of one big chapter and beginning of another and keep our heads above water.
The Sun transfers light from the newly refined and realized temple of Ma’at. This aids us in having the self control and detachment to defend around our sensitized needs and take action in a state of grace as we perform regenerative maneuvers. We do so in the face of our fears of a long and solid era coming to an end and the ominousness of not knowing what we will have to rely on as we proceed into the blank slate of the future. But there is always power to alchemize in embracing the dark and sublimating it. There is a theme of formal training feeding skill sets so as to have security in personal and macrocosmic transitions. A scenario emerges of how the valuables of the old life will get divided up fairly so all the participants can afford their skill trainings and next autonomous moves while taking care to not get nasty with each other in the process of pulling the life apart and then feeding on it independently. The together becoming the separate feed differently as well as offer differently nuanced nutrients as ingredients to larger predators.
The Picatrix reflects this by speaking of destroying buildings as well as planting crops while including a talisman for removing anger. The Nakshatra as mentioned is presided over by Yama, the god of Death but also includes the Yoni as symbol of reproduction and female generation and ability to bear and bring about. The Chinese Xiu speaks of expertise in the alchemy of the inner elixir, the Picatrix talking of digging wells or at streams and finding treasure. The Grimorium Verum spirit here is Satanachia, the deputy of Lucifer, so having command over the many chthonic spirits on the list, as Yama is known to have command over many notable spirits of the dead, which may parallel the Egyptian vulture goddess Nekhbet, who holds sovereignty over the lands of half of Egypt. Both Nekhbet and Yama are considered guardians of realms and both correspond to southerly directions, which would track as Aries-East is where all rises and Cancer-South is where all culminates. The mutual reception of this Moon ruled Mars in aspect to Mars ruled Moon is palpable.
There are likely diamonds in the rough which can be employed to our benefits as we make tactful transitions in a highly sensitized time where power structures and allegiances are shifting. Pausing to reflect on how to guard our realms, and best recommission and command what there is to work with may deliver you to an advantageous position and render you more powerful than you expected. The mindset of one who makes a shelter or a fortress out of demolition materials and a meal or a bounty out of dumpstered goods and gleanings. You often have to break things to make things, and even when you didn’t do the breaking there are still things laying about in a smashed state ready for our next constructions and future personal projects. The regenerative loops in life happen at all the various time scales at once, inter-oscillating within each other.
Both Prometheus and the giant Tityus are punished with having their perpetually regenerating liver’s pecked out, but Prometheus by an eagle and chthonic Tityus by a pair of vultures. The liver was thought to not only be the seat of passion and desire but also the soul, and as the sequence permanently cycles and cycles, we exist ensouled by being insatiable and persistent in our pursuit to satisfy our existence. The punishment comes about as a result of Tityus’ attempt to rape Leto for which he was defeated by Apollo and Artemis and imprisoned in Tartarus by his father Zeus. In the logic of the Mene list Shapes this suggest Tityus was a breaker of civilized taboos, for which he pays a penalty, emphasizing the feeding of light into this impulsive Aries Full Moon from newly refined Libra as well as the tension of Mars in fall in Cancer squaring this Moon while she also squares Pluto; fairness, civility, action, severance, sensitivity, wounding, tradition, era endings and where passions are smuggled into the future with as little collateral damage as possible. Tityus’ liver was feasted on by the vultures every New Moon, so once every dark, moonless, night between the end of one cycle and beginning of another. The 2nd Shape is early in the 28 sequence, but still so close to the beginning it is simultaneously still very close to the ending, so here we take stock, and supply ourselves to emerge from the end so we may begin.
This past week sailor friends with a boat moored near me on two seperate occasions informed me of large, dead, rotting bodies tangled in buoys in the harbor, one he described as a fish as large as a bluefin tuna and the other he thought might be an infant sperm whale calf. I've been in the practice of doing pre-dawn sky observations along with ongoing daily augury, and the past week or two's sky has hosted semi visible or digitally assisted aurora at night, anomalous misshapen rainbows accompanying bifurcated clear-black skies with unpredicted wind blasts, stars that move about the other asterisms like flies then disappear, head scratching cloud formations, inexplicable light and now an incoming comet. The activity of jets and helicopters has been similarly baffling. Large aquatic creatures like these that met their demise tangled one in the outer harbor and one near the inner channel are not a common occurrence in upper Penobscot Bay, and it might be that some electrical disruptions related to solar flares and whatever else contributed to navigational devices and satellite receptivity being on the fritz extended also to the marine biology's own navigational way-finding and coherence of hazards. I can only wonder, but the simultaneity of all the above was certainly eclipsy, the astral and celestial dramas coinciding.
Those who work and tend to the waterfront are currently busy dropping mooring chains into the mud, removing dock floats, stepping down masts and pulling out boats as the much maligned Columbus Day signals the end of the warm season and beginning of winter contraction. Soon the public docks will have water shut off and many of the remaining boats will start building hoop ribs for shrink wrapping their decks over the snowy, icy season. No human came for the carcasses tethered to the buoys, only the many aquatic species who swarm below water and the birds who arrive via the air, who diligently dissect and divide the bloated bodies and cold tissues that host a dynamic, teaming, temporary, novel ecosystem.
Ironically, this weeks Venus ingress into a fire sign accompanied by the hot and fictive Aries lunation herald a shift in regional weather to almost summery temperatures, and Penobscot Bay will likely see one of the last instances of many masts carrying full sails dissecting the outer harbors, cutting up their micro currents, wind funnels, breeze blocks and buoy patches with a sudden and noticeable up-tick in activity for whoever is left in the water after many or most of the boats have already been pulled out and trailered elsewhere. The season has come to a close as far as the Harbormaster is concerned, yet boaters rally and emerge from wherever they shelter in some capacity whenever the weather is considerably fair enough. This Moon marks a deadline for many in the Gulf of Maine to make their journeys south if they plan to escape the winter and not be battered by cold fronts in their clawing down the coast.
Last week I had dinner with a neighboring boat as they readied to return to the Chesapeake in their junk rigged homebuilt wood and epoxy sailing vessel named Terrapin painted yellow with a matching yellow dingy. They recognized my boat from the days of the previous owners who sailed it all over high latitudes and crossed oceans. They sail with their twenty seven year old son who is non-verbal autistic and two cats. I was told to keep my wine and water glass touching or their son would mess with them, which I experienced on several occasions if I forgot this rule he would quickly reach over and adjust them to be in contact, like the many other groups of connected vessels on the table. I felt an electric familiarity to this practice. He sat close to me and laughed at my presence. I smiled and projected friendship to him while contemplating the circuit making of altar work, the sympathetic chain linking of enchanted objects, the formal and informal feng shui arrangements of homes and landscapes, megaliths, installation art, even the intimacy of physical touch and how the body responds in energetic relay. |
My boat remains in the water all winter, and plans to dress warm enough to sail and give sky tours all season are underway. Flavors of beginnings are seeping into the lived experience like saline splashing onto my face while driving the dingy from shore. Later I absentmindedly lick my lips and taste the salt. It's all one water. The water my boat inhabits, the whale carcass dissolves into, distant places flood with and ancient worlds eroded from; development and demise as siblings, like civilized Apollo and savage Artemis who took down the chthonic Tityus to protect Leto from violation, and the vultures who in turn won the lucky lot of a perpetually renewed feast of rich organ meat and blood.
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