The New & Full Moon Forecast: Full Moon (3/8/12)

Astrologers Isha Lerner and Tara McKinney join forces to offer their complementary interpretations of the New and Full Moon phases each month – Isha from the Western perspective, Tara from the Vedic. Isha’s approach draws upon thirty years in her practice of Western astrology. Tara’s approach employs the ancient Vedic system of 27 “Lunar Mansions” (each 13 1/3 degrees wide) which are oriented primarily around the stars (sidereal), the constellations and our Galactic Center. Please join us every couple of weeks for the latest guidance from the Great Lunar Goddesses of both Western and Eastern traditions.

Full Moon in Leo: March 8th, 2012

From Total Independence to True Relationality

By Tara McKinney

The Full Moon at 24+ degrees Leo (sidereal) on Thursday, March 8, is at the apex of a fiery Grand Trine with Pluto in Sagittarius and Jupiter in Aries. The Full Moon in Leo always carries with it the flavor of strength, virility, nobility, pride, dignity, creativity, self-reliance and fierce independence. This particular Full Moon is also heavily seasoned with a transformative Plutonic emphasis originating from very near our Sagittarian Galactic Center and the Spiritual Warriorship of expansive Jupiter combined with Martian Aries.

Along these lines, the Sabian Symbol for this Full Moon placement describes the need for “total independence from our surroundings and utter self-reliance” as we enter more deeply into spiritual levels of experience and attainment:

A Large Camel is Seen Crossing a Vast and Forbidding Desert

Keynote: Self-sufficiency in the face of a long and exhausting adventure

The camel here represents a living organism that is able to sustain itself independently of its environment at the start of a trying journey. The organism carries within itself what is absolutely needed for survival. At the deeper human level of consciousness, it is easy to see the value of self-reliance and self-sufficiency as one enters the occult Path leading to a more dynamic and inclusive realm of existence.

The camel carries water within its body, and it is said that the dromedary is able to utilize the matter stored in its large protuberance as food. The suggestion here is that in order to be released from bondage to the “old world” we should be completely self-contained emotionally; having absorbed the mental food which this old culture has given us, we are ready to face the “desert,” nothingness, Sunya…until we reach the “new world.” We need TOTAL INDEPENDENCE from our surroundings and utter SELF-RELIANCE.

According to the channeled insights of the Sleeping Prophet, Edgar Cayce, typical past-life associations with the Moon in Leo placement stem from lifetimes as: members of royalty or high ranking officials in ancient or modern Europe; great artists involved in the creation of the grand cathedrals and churches of Europe, as well as the ancient temples of the Mediterranean world; and/or pyramid builder in the mountains of South America, the Mayan plains of Central America, and of course, Egypt. As the portal of this Full Moon opens wide, we may expect to be drawing upon collective memories of such times in order to accomplish our own 21^st century equivalents of the great cathedrals, temples and pyramids of old.

Adding a deeper layer to our understanding of this Full Moon at 24+ of Leo, according to the Vedic system of Astrology, this Full Moon placement falls within the Lunar Mansion known as Purva Phalguni. As I have explained in previous postings, the 27 Lunar Mansions of Vedic Astrology are at least five thousand years old. Forming an ancient backdrop to the twelve constellations of the zodiac, they tell the story of the Sky Goddess as she dances through the sky in her various manifestations, linking the cycles of the Earth with stellar reference points deep in the galaxy.

Five thousand years ago, the Lunar Mansion Purva Phalguni, or “Sacred Marriage Bed,” occurred at the time of the Summer Solstice, combining the energies of Venus and the Sun, and marking the marriage of the Sky Goddess to her divine consort. The symbols associated with this Lunar Mansion are the male and female sexual organs: the lingham and the yoni. From the sacred marriage bed of Purva Phalguni, descending souls are said to receive their dharmic marching orders before taking birth.

The Vedic perspective on this Full Moon placement strikes me as more balanced and timely, given the combination of Venutian and Solar energies described, as opposed to the undiluted Solar energy represented by a consideration of the constellation Leo alone. Is it ever possible to be totally independent from our surroundings and utterly self-reliant, after all, or isn’t that notion part of an old paradigm we are currently in the process of outgrowing? It seems the time is ripe for the archetype of the rugged individual to finally and fully give way to the relational metaphor of the sacred marriage of divine masculine and feminine principles.

As the Moon comes into its Fullness on March 8, take some time to reflect upon your own progress out of the prison of false expressions of “self-reliance” and into the new world of true relationality, mutuality and interdependence. Perhaps the “dharmic marching orders” we are receiving collectively at this time are about nothing other than this.