An Interesting First Quarter Moon

Sunday's First Quarter Moon takes place in Virgo, a mutable Earth sign, while the Sun in square remains in the later degrees of the Air sign of Gemini, the sign where it started a week prior with the onrush of the New Moon. This is therefore a Gemini cycle, tinged with the element of Water, especially since the Sun is preparing to enter the Water sign of Cancer with the advent of the Summer Solstice next Thursday evening, June 20th — early Friday morning on the east coast and in Europe. In addition to the Sun, both Mars and Jupiter are in Gemini, with the Sun conjunct Jupiter within two degrees. Meanwhile Mercury and Venus are in parallel with these planets in Gemini, and are now nearing a perfect conjunction in Cancer. In the contrast presented by the square of Sun and Moon, and the optimism of a prominent Jupiter, we have presented to us in these mid-month skies a contrast of Gemini versus Cancer, Air and Water, Thinking and Feeling.

These represent of course the classic pair of opposite functions proposed by the seminal 20th century psychologist C. G. Jung, along with his other pair of Sensation and Intuition. It did not escape him that he had found the psychological equivalent of what was known from antiquity as the four elements of Astrology. In positing these opposites of Thinking and Feeling, the head and the heart, he determined that when one of these was a dominant function the other would be driven into the unconscious. In his view, the unconscious served in part as a compensation factor for one's more overtly conscious mode of operating. To make the opposite process more conscious was an important developmental aim of his psychology, the goal of Individuation: becoming more whole.

Venus is quite prominent in this monthly cycle, having participated in a grand trine with Saturn and Neptune at the time of the New Moon, and she now remains square to Uranus and opposite Pluto as she nears her conjunction with Mercury. We are thus engaged in connection with each other in perhaps new ways, participating in an intensity of focus with regard to the important relationships of our lives. In this we are trying for the possibility of making them better, and ourselves, as a result, more whole. We have at our disposal both our culturally conditioned over-reliance on the mental function that enables us to think our way through our activities — and also the often-neglected feeling tone that is the truly vital component of empathetic connection with others. Can we truly feel what another is going through at any one moment of connection, or can we at least attempt to? Can we make heart contact a part of our normal process of relating? And can we bring to bear, as we live our fragmented 21st century lives, both our mental powers and as well a more heart-felt sense of communication and connection?

On a societal level, as in our personal lives, there tends to be an emphasis on thinking over empathy, as witness the recent news that has come to light about gathering information at the expense of personal privacy, or the extra-judicial killing of persons who are perceived as threats rather than as human beings. As individuals we are challenged to swim against this current, opposing by our very style of being those countervailing forces of separation and alienation that seem to run rampant in today's world. By taking a stand we can make a difference. But first we have to take the stand.

An Interesting First Quarter Moon

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Chart for the First Quarter Moon on June 16, 2013

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