February full moon 2016

'Love is not a feeling. Love is a state of being... a constant moving towards something without seeing where it is moving to' - Manuel Schoch

The full moon in Virgo (22nd February) was plugged yet again into the ruthless energy of Uranus and Pluto in their antagonistically aligned agenda of global shake up and prepares us for an intense pair of eclipses (9th and 23rd March) that carry echoes of last September. This is a super-charged moon for dreaming, healing, releasing old wounds and for tuning into the airwaves of higher frequencies.

Fall-out from the explosion of the old status quo into emergency, fragmentation or awakening continues to incite reactions that can be regressive, unconscious and drastic. Uranus shakes us until it awakens the detachment and wisdom we have accumulated through many lifetimes, Pluto drags us into unconsciousness until we discover how to transform fear and desire into passionate inclusivity:

Love is the cure, for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain until your eyes constantly exhale love as effortlessly as your body yields its scent – Rumi

The full moon falls on the apex of a pattern with Uranus and Pluto called ‘Thor’s hammer’ suggesting events and decisions unfolding over the next month globally may hit hard. But on an individual level and wielded with awareness this energy can serve us well. Awareness is the strongest quality of Virgo: the very act of perceiving creates order at a level beyond conceptual mind but in the process the mind has to accept confusion. This integrates the polarity of Virgo (order-separation) and Pisces (chaos-oneness):

Vast unoriginated self-luminous wisdom space is the ground of being - the beginning and the end of confusion. - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Following on from the long dismembering influence of Uranus and Pluto which, as it wanes, leaves a landscape (both inner and outer) of no return, we are seeing a new pattern emerging since last summer. This has brought a different kind of challenge with Saturn (limitation, authority) triggering Jupiter (expansion, faith) Neptune (illusion, Spirituality) and Chiron (suffering, healing). The impact of Neptune at a global level continues in the dizzying tidal wave of refugees, desperation, no boundaries, no solution, and a reaction of compassion, overwhelm or denial.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid - Franz Kafka

Jupiter is now back-tracking through endless practical details and control issues in Virgo gathering new data on opportunities glimpsed last autumn. Not until May does it return to forward motion so practical solutions may be stalled for some time; only in July does it return to where it is now.

Over the next several weeks and then again through June - an unusually long period - Jupiter is in exact alignment with the ‘Dragon’s head’ or destiny line. Opposite them stands Chiron at the coming new moon (solar eclipse) suggesting an intense build up of energy towards a choice point that could have a big impact on our global future, especially concerning suffering and the potential alleviation of suffering. We are heading for a total solar eclipse at new moon on 9th March and annular lunar eclipse on the 23rd March. Both of these eclipses fall on points exactly opposite the eclipses of last September 2015 (between which the Greek election was held) and we will be seeing consequences and the re-emergence of unresolved issues from that period as sensitive areas in the Greek national charts get triggered over the next few weeks.

And did you exchange A walk on part in the war For a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd

At the Pisces solar eclipse on 9th March there is a pile up of the sun, moon, Jupiter, the Dragon’s head and also Saturn (responsibility or oppression) all triggering Chiron in Pisces, calling for a focus on conscious healing, since the alternative – unconsciousness - inevitably creates the re-imprinting of old wounds. On an individual level transforming pain into healing and self realisation is the journey of lifetimes. On a global level this transformation is far more difficult to achieve and right now we are witnessing how Saturn is manifesting as the urge to put up walls against suffering. This is what happens also in the psyche.

Jupiter (expansion) and Saturn (contraction) have a 20 year cycle that seems to correspond with rhythmic ‘boom and bust’ fluctuations in financial cycles; they were conjunct in 1980, in 2000 and will be again in 2020. The ‘waning square’ aspect which they are currently in (exact on 3 August 2015 and again at lunar eclipse on 23 March and 26 May 2016) indicates the tough last quarter of this cycle.

Through the challenging initiations of this transitional time we are completing a cycle of grounding our visions, testing our faith, bearing and transcending our limitations to prepare for new growth on many levels. With such a strong focus on Chiron we can assume that whatever is triggered in this period around the eclipses, whether personally or at the collective level, is where healing is needed, where fear or grasping or frozen pain is still holding us back in a sense of fragmentation. ' If we recognise that what arises now is an opportunity to release an old identity of suffering, of un-forgiveness, this period can be full of soul nourishment, a leap into a new era. Perhaps, if we can take the long view, we may start to glimpse the Neptunian chaos and suffering surrounding us from another perspective as a challenge to awaken from the illusion of separation.

'Sometimes pain is all we have; is what makes us real and gives us existence, is the earth and soil of our being, … the strange thing is that, if we are able even for a moment to let pain be, it tends to start finding its own solution as a part of the present; a part of the whole. The more we isolate it, the more it becomes a problem, and it’s only when we try to escape from pain that we are weak. When we face everything in the moment as a whole then we are invincible'.- Peter Kingsley ‘Reality’