Summary: This full moon represents a climb to a universal, communal vision of humanity’s transformation through individual struggle. Self-healing by means of internal resources despite lack of encouragement—or even downright sabotage—from so-called leaders brings a fundamental change in perspective. Friends from higher densities provide palpable support in our expansion of the heart.
Method: I use five different decks. Each deck represents a layer of meaning/understanding. Each successive layer and card builds on or clarifies the emerging narrative.
First layer: Thoth deck / Alchemical layer. Energetic foundation.
Cards: Knight of Cups, 8 of Swords (Interference), 3 of Swords (Sorrow), 6 of Wands (Victory)
We see the crab, symbol of Cancer, held aloft by an armoured knight: this is an uplifting and treasuring of feminine values by masculine authority. The Crab herself needs no external protection; she is as well-armoured as the knight. But the watery, emotional, unconscious realm she represents is usually a threat to Capricornian structure—even a small wave can destabilize a foundation.
Interference is related to Jupiter in Gemini: a confluence of contradictions and confusion that comes of too much information and not enough truth. There are competing values here: what seems at one moment “good” and “right” is suddenly pierced with the reality of circumstance.
Sorrow is Saturn in Libra: in an atmosphere of confusion, sometimes rebalance comes through horrific force, prostrating us with authoritative commands that seem unfair, wounding us to the core despite our armour. The external world marches on and we feel left in the ditch to piece together our destroyed inner world.
Victory seems an odd card to follow Sorrow. This is Jupiter in Leo, in this context a re-emergence of self-confidence. It is certainly not victory over emotional wounds or the brutality of the Saturnian structure. But it is a victory that comes from self-knowledge and experience of recovery and healing after failure and defeat: wounds made chariots.
Second layer: Astro deck / Astrological layer. Orientation.
Cards: Tenth House (Authority, 48), Eleventh House (Community, 49), Twelfth House (Introspection, 50)
Very interesting that we get these three ascending cards representing the last three houses of the zodiac wheel. This gives an impression of this full moon as a journey to higher perspective that moves outwards and inwards at the same speed.
Tenth House is about authority and leadership, and shows a figure literally ascending a mountain. Most authority figures we encounter in this world have not done any of the internal self-inquiry that leads to natural leadership, and depend on external forces to validate their “expertise” and defend their altitude. Time to question the validity of all established authority as we fan the flames of inner self-confidence, ascending to a place of self-trust.
Only then can we approach Eleventh House/Community as an emergent, lateral collective identity, unstructured by top-down authority, open to all permutations of being, unrestricted by demands for economic progress and external feints of “unity”.
The deep work we do on our own heals not only ourselves but all humanity, through the collective unconscious. Twelfth House/Introspection often entails great pain and sorrow as we come to terms with hidden or hated truths. I see a surge of such pain coming as humanity begins to reckon with the knowledge of what we have done to ourselves and to others, and what we’ve allowed to be done to us. It is sick, it is dark, and it must be looked right in the face. This requires cultivating inner strength and reaching for help from friends on the ground and elsewhere.
Third layer: Mystical Shaman deck / Shamanic layer. Symbols & Signposts
Cards: The Sorcerer (48), The Eagle (16), The Coyote (12), The Journey (29), The Child (7)
The Sorcerer represents conscious participation in working the energy of change. What I call the Aquarian Community is made up of people who dig through the layers of confusion and fear and shit for a glimpse of infinity, and who transmute wounds into insight. For us, “seeing through” is victory.
This Eagle comes in under the number 16, which is the degree of this moon in its fulness. In tarot, this is the number of the lightning-struck tower, the unexpected blast from outside a perceived “closed system” in order to break it down and allow space for something new. The Eagle also presents a meta perspective that observes “negative” processes and experiences under potentially transformative light.
The Coyote is a trickster spirit, and in this context, also a re-framer of perspective contrary to expectation. Maybe what seemed like the right path turns out to be all fucked up. Maybe what seems like a devastating end produces change that never could have been achieved another way. This is not an invitation to unwarranted pessimism or toxic positivity, but a reminder to be open to transformation even if it seems like loss.
The Journey reinforces what we see in the astrological layer: a green/blue expansion of the heart/throat chakras as we move upwards/inwards, from personal to universal perspectives of suffering and healing. We may be disheveled and dirty, scrabbling for purchase on a crumbling mountain face, but inner wisdom (the owl) provides a vision of progress through transmutation rather than literal miles trod.
The Child is here as a reminder of the unconquerable heart and innocence that cannot be totally lost, and a blessing of messy process. The destructive aspect of humanity is the festering of deeply wounded innocence hidden under layers of defences. The Cancer crab holds those wounds close, attempting to prevent further injury. The victory here is in the realization that the fully intact, perfect Child is still here, waiting to be acknowledged and invited into the healing process, offering insight through play, joy and experimentation rather than intellect.
Fourth Layer: Starseed deck / Galactic layer. Healing Wisdom
Cards: The Cosmic Heart, Earthed, The Great Severing, Water Your Garden
These cards offer reparative advice for us as we ascend, tender and vulnerable, into areas we have never before ventured. The Cosmic Heart speaks of true sacrifice—that is, the process of making sacred. This is an individual process of expanding one’s awareness, daily, into realms we feel and experience but are denied by limited worldview. There are many, many highly evolved positive entities who share our pain and sorrow and seek to walk with us as friends.
Earthed represents another reframing of perspective on what it is to be fully human yet fully divine. We may still be subject to the unfair demands of a demented socioeconomic order and unhealed other-selves, but we can find ways to meet those demands without self-degradation or forsaking the deeper truths of our multidimensional selves.
The Great Severing recalls the Interference card. This may be both internal and external: a clash of values, of long-held ideas of self/others/world, and great tension as we change under the strain. An ending of relationships, of separating from families of birth into families of choice. This all requires great expansion and softening of heart, qualities of childlike forgiveness, and openness to reframing perspective.
Water Your Garden speaks to a practice of cultivating an internal grove, a sacred cave for healing that does not block love or deny transformation, but allows one to sink into the duality of spirit made flesh. This is medicinal water full of nourishing minerals, where we find ourselves linked to both the human collective unconscious and to the love and wisdom of Higher Friends.
Final card: White Light deck. Guidance.
Card: Telepathy of Terra Mater (36)
“Terra Mater” is the living consciousness of Mother Earth, Gaia, Pachamama, the “applied genius of ecosystem intelligence”. From an ecosystemic perspective, destabilizing change is not “evil” but simply the natural ebb and flow of 3D material existence. There is wisdom to embracing fear and uncertainty as endemic to life, to embracing death as fully half of the experience of life, and to embracing joy and wonder even when they may not last. Change is constant and inevitable—but this is change moving in a spiral, not a flat circle. And it only seems random because we are limited in time, scale and perspective. The goddess pictured on the card beams forth a ray of light from the third eye chakra, a zenith-level of vision that may be too much to bear unless we approach it from an introspective, open-hearted place.
