2012 Sagittarius Full Moon Lunar Eclipse

By Kathy Biehl

June 4, 2012
14 Sagittarius 14 / 14 Gemini 14
4:13 AM PDT / 7:13 AM EDT / 11:13 AM GMT

Beliefs and philosophies are up for their annual review with this month’s Sagittarius Full Moon. Review may be an understatement, given the level of waking up and coffee smelling that are already underway. Have you jumped off a fence or three in the last week? Has a situation – or, more importantly, your attitude about it — come into sharper focus than ever before? Know it or not, you’re running on Moon time.

This Full Moon is a lunar eclipse, which ups the ante, super-sizes emotions and drops all kinds of clues, shoes and puzzle pieces. (View the eclipse path here: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2012.html.) We last experienced an eclipse at this location in June 1993, so themes from them are spiraling back around — with a different flair.

Lots of the current fallout involve relationships, money and questions of value(s), especially ones with ties to the past, which have been popping in for a chat since Venus went retrograde at the middle of May. She’s a featured artist in this eclipse, since she is not merely cozying up to the Sun, but a day out from eclipsing him herself. (More about that at the end of this mooncast.) Her presence makes our hearts and desires even more engaged than they usually are in the escalating emotions that come with a lunar eclipse.

Whatever we’re thinking about now, we’re also feeling it. Intensely. Maybe even a little insanely, because dreamweaver Neptune is stationing to retrograde. We’re talking, too, and how. The Moon may be ruled by bigger-is-better Jupiter, but the ringmaster of this event is Mercury, the god of gab, gadgets and getting around.

Here’s why: Jupiter (the Moon’s ruler, remember?) is in Taurus, which is ruled by Venus, who is in Gemini, which is ruled by Mercury. The Sun is in Gemini, which is ruled by Mercury. The only other body in the sky making close contact to the Sun or the Moon, Mars, is in Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury. Everything leads back to the fleet-footed, quick-witted, multi-tasking, techno-friendly messenger – and trickster – of the gods.

Each of those adjectives applies in some way to the revelations, realizations, emotional dramas, door-closings and rethinking cresting under this Full Moon. We’re thinking, processing, texting and talking, running around, juggling activities, batting bits of info around and catching some of the volleys coming our way while dodging others. The level of chatter is becoming deafening. Information isn’t merely flowing; it’s bombarding us.

Have you hit overload yet? Devices and cars have, taking the hit for a number of people I know. Faulty technology is breaking down and requiring overhaul or replacement. (No duct tape fixes these days.) Faulty, outdated thinking and beliefs are hitting the end of a line, too — becoming unsupportable, unsustainable and, in some cases, inspiring us to shut them down. We’re seeing proof after proof of how life plays out according to what we think, say and believe — and how some of that is creating situations we no longer want.

What I wrote for last year’s Sagittarius lunar eclipse holds true now as well:

This Full Moon is escalating the role that our beliefs play in our experience of reality, and the role that external sources (the media, the educational system, the legal system) play in creating and directing those beliefs. The Moon’s ruler is Jupiter, the guy who ups any action he contacts. He’s pumping up the Full Moon’s developments so they stretch their limits (and our credulity), making situations so extreme they look like something out of a cartoon. There is no incentive to hold back, to moderate thoughts and words, to realize, in the moment of disclosure, the extent of what you’re saying.

Sound scary? Here’s the benefit. This is an extraordinarily revealing time. Backstories are coming out. So are people’s frames of reference, prejudices, and other aspects of upbringing and experience that color their view of reality. Resist the natural human impulse to assume that your position is Truth and the only correct one (whether it’s about your memory of an event or view on legislation), and “Aha!” moments will abound. You can learn a lot – about yourself as well as about the people in your life and on this planet.

And about the past, too. There is enormous potential now to move beyond a lot of the revelations – to bring them out of the shadows, to think about them consciously and to reclassify the role, if any, we allow them to play. We are being shown the logical consequences of the beliefs we hold (about life, about ourselves, about people, about everything).

Belief systems are the filters through which every event in our lives pass. They limit and color and determine and direct what we experience. Our filters are up for a good, thorough cleaning now.

This year, we have quite the motivation to Do Something About All This. Lunar eclipses usher people and situations out of our lives, and this one prods us to act rather than react. The Sun and Moon are pressuring Mars, the planet of push, in a dynamic configuration known as a T-square. We can’t crawl back into bed and go back to sleep to wait this energy out; Mars is in the fix-sign of Virgo and he is spurring us to get to work.

Action’s coming on the level of both the forest and the trees. The little details that Virgo prizes are coming into stark contrast. Dust and cobwebs, real and metaphoric, are suddenly visible everywhere and screaming to be eradicated..

Larger scale clean-up is also hitting the top of to-do lists. Health, cleanliness, efficiency and clearer boundaries are enjoying an epidemic of popularity, across all manner of topics. What we think about what we eat is a growing issue; just watch how many people around you are not just talking about food choices and sources, but changing their eating habits.

What comes through our information channels is undergoing a similar rethinking. How have you been redrawing lines of communication? That’s part of the mandate now. Sick of so much email? Redo your filters channel messages into categories (your inbox will look so much more manageable) and unsubscribe from all those lists and newsletters that you routinely delete without reading. Sick of name-calling, prejudice or divisiveness in your Facebook feed? Hide the posts; block repeat offenders from your feed; unfriend folks. Sick of unwinnable arguments? Stop engaging in them. Sick of the (il)logical extension of those stupid old lingering childhood beliefs? Throw. Them. Out.

You are already doing this. Rethink the last week or two. See? That’s it. You are. We’re all responding to the imperative to clean out debris. We are overwriting our programming, erasing bad sectors, defragging hard drives, upgrading operating systems and clearing our minds, memories, stories, information channels and life philosophies of sludge and more that gets in the way of our health and flourishing.

With Neptune pulling up anchor for his annual retrograde, opportunities abound to see how we have fooled ourselves or fallen for hooey, and to set up safeguards against illusion and propaganda getting in the door. Then again, we could be inviting them in. The US House has just passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that lifts the longstanding ban on government misinformation campaigns. If this concerns you, you might want to let your Senators know.

The masculine and the feminine are both in the cresting and clearing process of this Full Moon. The ultimate cosmic woman, Venus, is standing with the Sun, which is the masculine representation of the self. She’s eclipsing him the day after the lunar eclipse, a rare event that hasn’t occurred for some eight years and will not again in our lifetimes. (Watch it online via the Slooh Space Camera.) Symbolically, it boils down to this: Venus is not merely meeting with the Sun, but also moving between him and the earth. She’s upstaging the Sun. The feminine is coming to the fore and eclipsing the masculine.

Our hearts are steering what we do with the Full Moon lunar eclipse.

No coincidence, the love goddess’ consort Mars is the one taking the orders from this Full Moon. It will play out for longer than the summer, and inaugurates one of the most volatile and life-changing passages we have ever experienced.

And how do we enter this passage? Knowing your heart and mind, getting clear on what you have — and want — to do, and following through. The getting clear part may not lock in until Neptune’s clouds dispel, but it’s in the works. And no backsliding. As if that were possible.

© Kathy Biehl 2012. All Rights Reserved. You may forward this article as long as the copyright notice is intact. No part may be used or reprinted without my prior written permission. Karma, ya know.
Astro-Insight