by Robert Wilkinson

This expansive, enlightening, teaching and learning Full Moon occurs at 9:39 pm PST on November 22, 12:39 am EST and 5:39 am GMT November 23, and falls at the 1st degree of Sagittarius and Gemini. As the Full Moon brings the themes of the New Moon to surface, continue to find the depth connectedness and synthesized magnetism of the Scorpio New Moon and give it form and focus through taking responsibility for opening to new ways to see how to express your Highest Self.

Continuing the theme that proceeds at each Full Moon as they move through each polarity, this one gives us the ability to bring to surface the new faith and magnetism developing these past two weeks. We all broke up and broke free of some “old complexes” in September, and got a look back at old relationships to see how they shaped the enduring parts of our lives in October. We now get to “join together with the band” in new discoveries of new views.

Today’s Full Moon post will be an overview of the Lunation and some of its primary qualities. In parts 2 and 3 we’ll cover the Sabian Symbols, aspects, distributions, and patterns.

An Overview

Continuing the theme that proceeds at each Full Moon as they move through each polarity, this one gives us the ability to use expanded views and opportunities to move into a larger life to express a new understanding of what’s below the surface of everyday life. As Mercury and Jupiter are the rulers of this Lunation, this is a time for new understanding by taking a second look at what you’ve learned and what you’re here to teach.

The last Full Moon helped us get clear about what we no longer want to carry with us, including old memories and emotional responses to things and people long gone. We now get to find “kindred fire spirits” who we can teach what we know, and learn from what they know. This is a highly specializing Full Moon, with many gifts and unique possibilities, to be synthesized and integrated by the Mutable T-square and expressed through taking responsibility, or noting who is responsible for what in each particular.

Because so much ended during the Mars retrograde and the aftermath of the 2018 Summer Solar Eclipses, we’ve said goodbye to many things and withdrew from our projections on the world, and the world’s projections on us, especially in the late Capricorn and early Aquarius sector of our charts, as well as the areas of our chart between 21 Cancer and 19 Leo. We now have a technique that can help us “read the tea leaves” and know our individual spiritual place in the larger group work we’re a part of. Many things ended, or we simply no longer like doing those things any more and are now moving in new directions.

To remind you, we’re still receiving signs and signals about our ancestral (genetic) Wisdom, and new long term views based in the integrity we’ve embraced and the understanding we’ve received since the Cancer Solar Eclipse in July. This Mercury retrograde is a review of all the Wisdom lessons we’ve learned this year.

The entire last half of 2018 is a period of phenomenal growth through embracing Heart power and demonstrating it through our understanding. Add the New Moon themes of September and October as explosions directed by our “will to wholeness” which were followed by “joyous repair and reconstruction work,” and you can see a lot has been left behind, and we’ve been working on repairing what needed repair.

The Rhombus

As Uranus is still semisquare Neptune, anchoring the off-again, on-again friction Rhombus Diamond configuration, we’ll have to continue to deal with this “cutting, grinding, and polishing” quality each time the Moon moves through the middle of the mutable signs and the end of the cardinal and beginning of the fixed signs. We recently experienced the extreme grind in the middle of September, with Mercury in mid-Virgo opposing Neptune at the same time Venus was opposed Uranus, with double semisquares and sesquisquares created between those planets. This created a massive Octile frictional configuration, indicative of the widespread grinding going on at the last Full Moon, as well as this one, since Venus is now direct and opposed Uranus again for the third time.

We had a perfect complete Diamond several times last year when planets transited mid-Virgo and late Libra at the same time. However, the good news is that the transits of mid-Virgo and late Libra are now past, so the full power of the Rhombus won’t be back until next year. Still, every time any planet transits through the middle degrees of the Mutable signs and the late degrees of the Cardinal signs or first degrees of the Fixed signs the friction returns.

This long wave general agitation began in mid-May when Mars entered Aquarius and semisquared Neptune and squared Uranus, and continued through the next two Mars square Uranus aspects made in early August and mid-September. We’ve now been cut, ground, and polished to perfection in multiple areas of our lives!

The next period of this “gem cutting exercise” will be as planets transit through mid-Sag, squaring Neptune and sesquisquaring Uranus. That will make parts of December and January hotter than firecrackers, with Sun moving through mid-Sag just as Mars moves through mid-Pisces, then Mercury goes through mid-Sag, followed by a Venus conjunct Jupiter in late January at 17 Sag, a degree of social rebirth.

Is the Grand Irrationality A Factor in this Full Moon?

First, what it is. The Grand Irrationality is a phenomenon we’ve been living within since 1993. Since then, we’ve been put through an extraordinarily irrational period which continues to this day. To refresh you, the Grand Irrationality is a long wave configuration set into motion every time a planet makes a conjunction, septile, biseptile, or triseptile to Neptune and/or Pluto. Septile series aspects show us points in time when our future destiny is precipitated by critical choices made in the present.

Because this configuration involved Neptune and Pluto, two powerhouse Transpersonal planetary representatives of Spirit, they have symbolized the long wave planetary crisis the entire human race has been going through since 1993. From then to now, at one point or another, everyone on Earth has experienced a nonstop energy of having to choose, at the bottom of our beings, the path to evolution or devolution, progress or regress, love or fear, joy or control. It’s why things have been so weird, irrational, and hard-edged.

The Grand Irrationality V.1 was the period when Neptune was septile Pluto. It began in 1993, was very strong and in constant movement the last 5 years of the 20th century and the first 15 years of this century. This phase has now waned, since Neptune no longer makes a forming or partile separating septile to Pluto and won’t again for many centuries.

However, we have now moved into a new phase of The Grand Irrationality! It’s not the configuration as we’ve known it since the 90s, since the Neptune part of the equation has faded into a “pulse” that is triggered after the main configuration is set into play. I explain more downstream.

Uranus began to biseptile Pluto in the Summer of 2017, briefly setting the new configuration into play. That began the current “never-ending revolution” since Uranus, the Cosmic Awakener, has hit its “fork in the road of destiny” with Pluto, the Lord of Transformation. I term this phase The Grand Irrationality V.2!

This particular larger period in time is even stranger than it was during the Grand Irrationality V.1, since this period combines Uranus’ semisquare to Neptune with Uranus biseptile Pluto. So along with the hard edge of the Grand Irrationality involving Uranus and Pluto in a 7th harmonic aspects, we also have Uranus in an 8th harmonic frictional aspect to Neptune, another of the Transpersonal Spiritual planets!

This configuration was highly active during the past two Full Moons, with the world at a Mercurial turning point given form by the Moon at the last Full Moon. During this Full Moon we have two 7th harmonic aspects to Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto. We see the Sun is biseptile Neptune, and Mars is septile Uranus. However, while these indicate points of choice and change, the Sun and Mars form semi-squares with Pluto, putting a harder edge on the energy!

That makes the Grand Irrationality V.2 not as strong an energy at this Full Moon as the Octiles formed by the three semisquares (Sun, Mars, and Jupiter) to Pluto coupled with Moon sesquisquare Pluto. This sets up an evolutionary variation to the Rhombus Diamond also active due to Venus opposed Uranus with Venus sesquisquare Neptune and the ongoing Uranus semi-square Neptune.

So besides the middle degrees of the Mutable signs and late degrees of the Cardinal signs, in this chart we also have Rhombus Diamond energy generated in the early degrees of the Mutable signs and the late middle degrees of the Cardinal signs! The Venus/Uranus/Neptune Rhombus generates a lot of friction and movement around 13-16 Virgo, while the Moon/Sun/Jupiter/Pluto Rhombus generates the frictional resonant void around 16-20 Cancer. Remember this is interactive internal and external friction that is “cutting, grinding, and polishing” those parts of our charts.

More on Uranus Biseptile Pluto

Though Uranus is temporarily not in biseptile to Pluto, we’ve already begun to experience the radical choices and changes associated with these two planets in a 7th harmonic aspect! As I offered back in May when Uranus first entered Taurus, “… they will soon make a biseptile, guaranteed to be a very unstable and irrational time!” That prophesy has certainly played out in the news with trumpets blaring, thanks to other transits triggering these 7th harmonic non-rational energies.

We first encountered these very briefly in August 2017, and it went into nonstop pulses beginning at the end of June 2018 with Uranus again 101+ degrees from Pluto. This lasted through October when the orb became too wide. We’ll enjoy a brief return to the trielftile between December 2018 and April 2019. The biseptile comes roaring back between May and July, and again October 2019 through December 2019.

This is the first biseptile in the larger Uranus/Pluto cycle that began at their conjunctions in the mid-1960s. The waxing septile occurred 1989-1991, so this is the next point in that larger “Pulse of Destiny.” The hot zones, measured from the current Uranus biseptile Pluto, are around 18-22 Capricorn, 9-13 Pisces, 30 Aries-4 Taurus, 22-26 Gemini, 13-17 Leo, 4-8 Libra, and 26-30 Scorpio. If you have anything near these zones, your life has had some abrupt transformational experiences this Summer, with more to come over the past week and next few weeks due to Jupiter activating both Uranus and Pluto!

As this aspect was in play during the June Solstice and the September Equinox charts, it’s no wonder that we’ve had radical events, and continue to have radical events, now and into the future! This is a major fork in the road for the entire world, and things may become extraordinarily irrational at times.

As I told you at the Solstice, if things don’t make sense, they don’t have to. The only thing that matters is to know how to focus and not get distracted by the craziness in the atmosphere. Sometimes, when we keep our heads when all around us are losing theirs, we come out on the other side looking and feeling good!

Planetary Distribution

In this Full Moon, the span occupied by the inner planets (in this chart Venus at 27 Libra through Mercury at 11 Sagittarius spans 44+ degrees. This span will be the focus of broad activity in our charts. When we add Saturn and Pluto it expands the very active span to 6 planets in 83+ degrees. Our planetary spread has now expanded to more than half the signs. We hit maximum compression last March, with all planets between Jupiter at 24 Scorpio and Uranus at 27 Aries, making a very powerful triseptile between the bookends.

At this time we have the 10 traditional planets occupying 6 signs, in an uneven widespread distribution. Currently, the outer planet occupied span begins with Jupiter in early Sag, then moves through Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, Neptune in Pisces, and Uranus in late Aries, with the inner planets (except Mars) now occupying Libra and Sag, with the Moon in Gemini creating a Locomotive Jones pattern.

Now that Mars is in Pisces and Jupiter is in Sagittarius, we’re in a year when Saturn is no longer the final dispositor for all the other planets except Neptune. I’ll discuss the ruling dispositors in another article. We’re also back in a time when powerful Venus in Libra leads the Sun, showing that planet is the way to find our Light. Venus will continue to lead the Sun until the Mercury Inferior conjunction on Nov 27.

We’ve now moved into a time period of shifting Jones pattern. The patterns change mainly due to the position of the Moon, and at this Full Moon, we’re in a wide but classic “Locomotive” Jones pattern defined by the span between the Moon at 1 Gemini and Venus at 27 Libra defining the unoccupied third.

So What is a “Locomotive Pattern” and how does it work?

This type of spread, with all the planets occupying 2/3 of the signs with an empty third, creates an imbalance that leads to power if we can find the compensatory “weight” to make things move forward smoothly rather than rock side to side creating friction. Target what is needed, and provide compensatory energies accordingly.

As Marc Jones put it, “this type of horoscope reveals a balance of this sort in the life. A third part of things… consisting of a free span in experience, is set against a two-thirds part, embracing a related but limited span in experience…. The basis of the dynamic is found in the native’s resulting strong sense of a lack or a need, of a problem to be solved, a task to be achieved in the social and intellectual world around him.”

Dr. Jones states “The temperament reveals a self-driving individuality, an executive eccentricity that is not … unbalance but rather is power. It exhibits a dynamic and exceptionally practical capacity which is neither the broad universality of the Splash pattern, nor the special obsession with some particularly narrowed aspect of experience characteristic of the Bundle people.

He goes on to state “The Locomotive classification is … moved more by external factors in the environment than by aspects of its own character. The point of application for the powers of the self is shown … by the “leading planet,” or the one of the two in the empty trine which forms its aspect clockwise in the zodiac, irrespective of any distinction as “applying” or “separating.”

Venus is the leading planet in the Locomotive. Find appropriate Libra ways to embrace experience with an eye to perspectives that can give you inner strength, “calm objectivity,” and a peace beyond duality through a balanced view. Libra is about idealism made real, and seeing archetypes to be lived. Because the leading and closing edge of the Locomotive are both in Air signs, keep opening your mind to more effective ways to relate to self and others, and synthesize all you find into more idealistic overviews of moving in directions that open your life to greater effectiveness.

As the Locomotive keeps things out of balance, Venus is now the front end to finding the way of initiating activity that must be accompanied by a compensatory “weight” to keep things moving forward rather than sideways. The more we work with the imbalances that can lead us to understand how to get beyond stress and be more at ease while noting the subtle changes, the easier it will be to use Venus’ energies skillfully.

Is the Sun Following the Moon, or the Moon Following the Sun?

There are two patterns; one is when the Full Moon Sun is the same sign as the previous New Moon Sun, and the other is when the Full Moon Sun is in the next sign from the Sun in the previous New Moon. We had the Sun in the same sign in both the New Moon and Full Moon between September 2013 and September 2014. We then changed pattern, and between October 2014 and May 2016 we had a “reversed pattern” of the Sun of the Full Moon occupying the sign after the New Moon Sun.

We then went back to the “natural” order between June 2016 and the late July 2017 New Moon in Leo, when the Full Moon Sun fell in the same sign as the Sun of the previous New Moon. This is the sixteenth Full Moon since then where we again are in a “reversed pattern” of the Sun of the Full Moon occupying the sign after the New Moon Sun. So we’re now in “the other” New Moon/Full Moon sign expression.

We finished the period of the “natural” order of Lunation Suns at the August 2017 Solar Eclipse in late Leo and began this other sequence, since that New Moon Sun was in Leo, but the subsequent Full Moon Sun was in Virgo. Since the New Moon offers us seeds in the first half of the month’s lunar cycle, and fulfillment in the second half, we now are in a sequence with the “Seed Light” of Scorpio coming to a Full Moon illumination through the current Sun in Sagittarius and Moon in Gemini.

Because the New Moon preceding the Full Moon always represents the seed forms that are brought to surface at and after the Full Moon, this begins the fulfillment of the theme of the recent New Moon at 16 Scorpio. You can learn more about that New Moon in Scorpio by going to The November 2018 New Moon at 16 Scorpio Pt. 1 – What’s Happening in November-December 2018, and The November 2018 New Moon at 16 Scorpio Pt. 2 – Signs, Sabian Symbols, and What it All Means.

Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend

Because Saturn is in its home sign of Capricorn for the first time since 1991, it is the final dispositor of all planets transiting Capricorn and Aquarius from now through 2023. We have now begun a year of “co-equal rulerships” between Jupiter and Saturn, since Jupiter now disposits all planets in Sag and Pisces, while Saturn continues to disposit all transits through Capricorn and Aquarius. Because Mars has been in a Saturn-ruled sign from March 17 through November 15, 2018, Saturn was a very powerful influence on all Mars-related events of that time, which of course meant Saturn was the backdrop to Jupiter in Scorpio for that entire time.

2017 and 2018 were an extraordinary period, due to Saturn trine Uranus dominating most of those years. Their 2017 Fire trines stabilized Electric Fire and distributive “Fire by Friction,” which led naturally to the 2018 Earth trine helping us ground our efforts in practical ways. These helped us blend the past and future, the established with the innovative, and make the structure of our lives unique.

By the next New Moon, Saturn will be in a powerful serendipitous tredecile with Uranus, helping us find perfect interactive gifts and circumstances showing us specialized unique qualities in the Saturn-Uranus “dance of individualization” in our lives. I cover a lot of their dance awakening us to using our power to create our destiny in conscious individualized ways in my book Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend. Saturn helps us give form and structure to our quest for Self-realization, and in Capricorn, teaches us how to construct an “organized personal structure” to the Uranian energies making our spiritual life come alive.

It was written for both astrologers and non-astrologers. Even those with little or no understanding of astrology will benefit from understanding why you had to make certain choices at crucial times that shaped your life in profound ways.

Each time you read any section of this book you will find new insights about your power to steer your personal evolution. You will understand how to throw off all the attitudes and memories which have held you back from finding and living the life and purpose. Through your journey of self-discovery, you can find ways to live your life on your own terms, and fulfill your purpose for being alive as an Eternal having human experiences!

If you’ve haven’t already gotten your copy, you can go to the Createspace page and this should be all you need to order your copy. It’s also available on Amazon and as an ebook on Kindle, so if that’s more to your liking, go for it! I’ve been told people who live outside the US can get their copy much faster by going through Amazon. If you would, whether you’ve gotten the ebook or the paperback, please write a review on the Amazon site, since the more reviews, the more of a boost they give it.

On A Final Note

See you in the near future with parts two and three on this Full Moon precipitating major transformational changes in our lives, helping us bring forth unique gifts and qualities that will fill the voids left by what we’ve left behind up to now. This one is extraordinarily expansive and instructive, with connections to be made, discouraging tendencies to be mastered, and seeing below the surface of things. We can glimpse our larger field of effective action while also discovering news views, interpretations, and renewed interests.

Pay attention to what your “bodily wisdom” is telling you; while it may seem that some activities are “dominated by fate,” in fact it’s just an exercise in prioritizing and organizing some practical necessities so we can get ready to spring forward in January. Don’t waste energies getting aggravated by too much going on, don’t push things past your endurance, take time to meditate and recuperate after activity, and take a new look at how and what to communicate, teach, or learn.

Though there are quite a few frictional aspects, there are also a lot of specializing aspects. By what is broken apart and put back together, many things can be integrated while impractical things and means can be left behind. Though the energies may seem to spin out of control from time to time, remember that many things are “tidal” right now, so learn to feel which way the tides are flowing and you’ll make progress despite the imbalances, cross currents, and general inner and outer friction of the Rhombus Diamond within you being cut to perfection!

Up to now, many things have come together, and we stand at the threshold of the Sun conjunct Jupiter, showing the expansive Light of the coming year! The old forms have fallen away, we’ve repaired what we could and let go of the rest, and do not have the same magnetism we did even a dozen weeks ago. This is another look back to achieve a larger vision of our freedom, our possibilities, our quest, and what we’re here to learn and teach.

This is an expansive, adventurous, initiatory Full Moon, with many blessings and gifts despite the friction. Though the pressure is on in certain parts of our charts, remember it takes pressure to turn carbon into diamonds. And the more skillful we become in dealing with life’s aggravations, annoyances, disruptions, and unexpected diversions, the less these are a problem in the future, and the more we are able to keep our cool in the midst of the generic atmospheric conflict. That way we can fulfill our destiny and enjoy the journey!

Sagittarius dances with life, love, humor and freedom, and we’re on the threshold of Jupiter’s year to shine! The coming weeks and months will open many lives to better things, so keep laughter in your heart as you move into the future!

I’ll see you soon when we’ll discuss Sabian Symbols, aspects, and other important chart factors.

© Copyright 2018 Robert Wilkinson