A Last Quarter Moon of Compromise and Reassessment

The Last Quarter Moon, taking place on Thursday evening, as we head into the final weeks of the summer, is quite a dynamic configuration that is sure to mark a continuation of the transformational impulse that has been the theme of all these recent lunations. The astrological factor of prominent Pluto is still very much with us at this juncture, with also a powerfully placed Saturn, and these important planetary archetypes are found in close, and forming, aspect to each other, in a semi-square that is within a mere 14 minutes of arc. This aspect perfects on August 13th. Pluto in Capricorn, under Saturn's rulership, is co-ruler of Scorpio, where Saturn resides, so that these two planets are quite strongly connected to each other, being additionally in what is known as mutual reception. Pluto is well-connected in this patterning, aspected by the Sun, Moon, Mercury Venus and Jupiter, so that we will have a strong hit of an almost compulsive urge to be moving ahead with our own emotional agenda. This can be expressed in the low road of instinctually grasping for control, perhaps the urgent need to break apart an existing structure that feels confining; and there is also the high road of recognizing where are stuck in dysfunctional patterns that need to change. This latter choice, of conscious personal transformation, is of course the recommended path.

The stimulus to break out of an existing rut might in fact be that we have become unbearably frustrated in playing what turns out to be a losing game. This would be so wherever we might be able to recognize this. The strong presence of Saturn, in extremely close and challenging aspect to the three so-called personal planets of Mercury, Venus and Mars, ensures that there will indeed be frustration, enforced re-dos, perhaps as extreme as at the level of blocking everything that we have intended according to the will-power of our lesser minds.

We can be sure of this because of the strong Saturn presence in this quarter Moon configuration. We find that a very close triple conjunction of Venus, Mercury and Jupiter, centering on 28 degrees of Leo, is in perfect square to a 28-degree Scorpio Saturn placement. Saturn is also precisely trine to Mars, located at 28 degrees of Cancer, the cardinal Water sign. Mars in combination with Saturn, even with this benign trine aspect, implies that what we are attempting will be at least somewhat stopped dead in its tracks, and subject to the requirement that we "stop, look, and listen" to what it is that we are attempting, and, as well, our underlying motivations.

Pluto with Saturn is a potent combination, literally the de-structuring and, ultimately, enforced destruction (Pluto) of the existing status quo versus the will to maintain it at any cost, as represented by Saturn. You are, on the one hand, committed and serious now regarding your transformational roadway ahead of you, and the means that you must employ to stick to that path no matter what. Then, from another angle, their combined archetype might represent totally, and inexorably, transforming the very structure of your life, by means slow or sudden. Depending on how Saturn is placed in your natal chart, and the house, or sector, that it occupies, that is the area where you will discover that you are undergoing the greatest change. If everything in one part of your life is indeed coming apart completely, then there is something new being born amidst the chaos and the relative uncertainties of a difficult time. Therefore wise men say, "Do not dwell on the chaos, but await the birth."

The Sabian Symbols for this Sun and Moon degree further link them with the transformational energies of Saturn-Pluto. They are, for the Sun in the fifteenth degree of Leo, "A pageant," and for the Moon in the same degree of Taurus, "A man muffled up, in a [nevertheless] rakish silk hat." For this latter symbol, Marc Edmund Jones has, "the human spirit in its inherent supremacy over all possible limitations or embarrassments," resulting in "a sure dramatization of self, a continual and effective awareness of a role to be played in life. The individual is willing to utilize whatever arises in experience, but he [or she] refuses to accept any dictation from any least part of it." The symbol for the Sun reminds us that we are always on display, showing off the fruits of our achievement. Meanwhile, for Pluto, in the fourteenth degree of Capricorn, where he resides all through this upcoming fall to the end of November, we find a complementary symbol: "An ancient bas-relief carved in granite." Jones remarks on the "immeasurable potentiality of the present moment, a recurring manifestation of all that has ever been or can ever be ... an absoluteness of self as it proceeds to express itself with a true conviction." For all of us, may this be so.

A Last Quarter Moon of Compromise and Reassessment

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Chart for the Last Quarter Moon on August 6, 2015

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