The Redemption of the Aquarius Quarter Moon

The Last Quarter Moon that comes along on Saturday, May 12th, is a fascinating one, being accompanied by close planetary aspects and embodying, as it does, the Aquarius symbolism of its Lunar position to complement the Taurus energy of its Sun, and of its origin in the preceding New Moon of April 21. The dichotomy of Air and Earth implies thinking and practicality as dominant factors now, which makes perfect sense since this time of the lunation is when we reflect on the prior three weeks of the cycle and attempt to take some form of meaning forward into our next phase.

So many planetary energies are in powerful combination now. The Sun closely conjuncts Jupiter in Taurus and also forms a quincunx to Saturn, so that the urge to optimistically move forward is tempered with the recognition of inherent limitation represented by dour and responsible Saturn. The keyword for the quincunx, "adjustment" is very appropriate as well, during this time of reassessment of recent events. Venus is in Gemini, and about to turn retrograde on May 15th – and is therefore extremely emphasized – and is trine the Moon and almost exactly trine Saturn, so that a strong factor now is the thoughtfulness and the chance for redemption symbolized by this Grand Trine in the Air element. Pluto is exactly sextile to Chiron. Mars in Virgo, quincunx to Uranus and square the nodal axis, also closely opposes Chiron. With the Wounded Healer so much in the picture now, as we look back we are reminded of the wounding of our early days, from parents and peers or perhaps siblings, and the present-day after-effects of it. Like our own small version of a leaky nuclear reactor, the injury from past trauma lives on inside us until such time as we take notice and begin to change our situation.

The first step is acceptance. Once we can recognize our wounds for what they are and no longer feel they are shaming us, we can look directly at ourselves in the mirror without avoidant behavior that only compounds the situation. The next step is obviously forgiveness, of ourselves and others, followed perhaps (although this is a hard one) by the realization that on another level there is no need even for forgiveness, since everyone was doing the best that they could do in their state of personal evolution at the time. The last step might be adjustment, and here that keyword from the Sun's and Jupiter's aspect with Saturn comes fully into its own. The nature of life is to keep changing; anything else is stasis. As Dylan famously had it, everyone is either "busy being born, or busy dying" and for nature or for life itself to change, there is that constant adjustment, that feed-back loop that lets us know where we are on, and where we are off the mark. And yet the understanding of the need for adjustment is not yet enough. With that recognition comes responsibility, a responsibility to life itself, that we proceed to do something about it.

The Redemption of the Aquarius Quarter Moon

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Chart for the Last Quarter Moon on May 12, 2012

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