The full Moon on October 12th is at 18º Aries, conjunct Eris, which is also conjunct BOTH Black Moon Liliths (Mean & True). If that wasn’t enough, the full Moon is also semi-sextile Ceres. Sun is conjunct Saturn so the four dark goddesses, plus the full Moon are opposing the patriarchs. Wow, if this isn’t a recipe for a battle between the pagan cyclical goddesses and the linear solar gods I don’t know what is.
Eris may be a little far off the moon for my liking at 3º34’, but with the whole dark goddess cluster I think we are justified in stretching the orbs a little. The shape of the chart is quite dramatic, like a shard of glass pointing at the ole devil Saturn and the Sun. Of course the Persephone myth is hard to overlook when you have Ceres, Moon, True & Mean Lilith and Eris around 18-22º. Indeed anyone with those degrees in cardinal is going to be really hit hard by Persephone themes with this Full Moon.
The Full Moon conjunct Yrsa
The full Moon is on asteroid Yrsa (10′), who (according to Scandinavian legend) is separated from her parents as a child, but then when grown falls in love, and marries a King who turns out to be her own father. In one version of the tale she is raped by him and has his child. Another, on finding out the true identity of his Queen, the father kills himself.
It’s uncanny how this asteroid fine tunes this moon to hone in on the part of the Persephone myth where Pluto (or rather the patriarch) abducts Persephone from her mother. With Lilith in the picture all the worst taboo, baby stealing, raging avenging female aspects also come into play.
The girl is separated from her parents, but what should’ve been a happy reunion is spoiled by the fact incest has been committed. The sorrow here is profound and there is great guilt even though in one version of the myth it was unintentional.
Full Moon conjunct Lamda Andromeda
Andromeda is the chained princess. In the heavens she is placed next to her mother and father Cassiopeia and Cepheus the king and Queen of Ethopia. Some of her stars overlapped and used to be part of constellation Pegasus. So Pegasus is nearby ridden by Andromedas hero Perseus who rescued her from Cetus the seamonster. Fixed star Lambda Andromeda is in the princesses hand holding on the chain.
Andromeda is a complex constellation and to me represents various stages in a woman’s life in the course of self-actualisation. The initial impression of the chained princess is one of a helpless and vulnerable girl chained to Saturn’s rock ready to be devoured and/or rescued by Perseus the solar hero. But what is interesting is how she got there in the first place. Her vain mother the queen boasted Andromeda was more beautiful than any sea nymphs.
The nymphettes complained to Poseidon who in revenge flooded Cepheus’s kingdom. The only way to stop this destruction was for Cepheus to sacrifice his daughter to the sea. The myth of Andromeda is interesting because it follows the theme of father/daughter relationships so far highlighted in this Full Moon. The chains for me are symbolic of Saturn and the father, but also family ties. This myth also beautifully mirrors the themes uncovered in the aspects. Saturn (Cepheus) conjunct the Sun (Perseus) opposing Andromeda (Eris) semi-sextile Ceres (Cassiopeia)
In all of this Andromeda is powerless, a pawn, and subject to Saturn’s karmic payback. The best thing the princess can do is not struggle, for the metal cuffs will cut into her flesh. Her hand is holding onto the chain, working with Saturn, not against him. Yet this Moon shows Eris clearly opposing Saturn and Eris is not the kind of goddess to quietly acquiesce like this star in Andromeda. Like Persephone/Eris, Andromeda is a survivor and goes onto marry Perseus. What of her greedy and vain parents? They are turned into stone (Saturn) by Medusa’s head – Algol, a fitting punishment I think!
Full Moon Tarot – 5 of Cups
In the celestial tarot this card is Ophiuchus, which I like to call the Lilith constellation. The card shows when the split between body and souls has widened and the imbalance has created a healing crisis. This card echoes the healing brought by taking poisons (medicine) in small doses of by biting the forbidden fruit, which could be sex or drugs.
Adolescents tend to go through a phase of experimenting with both of these and often these taboo substances are the very thing that loosens the chains to parental brainwashing and control. In traditionally this card describes feeling let down and disappointed in love, but one could have had unrealistic expectations in the first place.
Full Moon Keywords
Sacrifice, incest, taboo sex, baby stealing, forbidden fruit, sexual healing, rites of passage, teenage angst, midlife crisis, yearning to break free, bound by karma, cutting ties, healing crisis, petrification, self-actualisation, transformation, loss of virginity, rude awakening, waking up and smelling the coffee, surrendering to fate, feeling fated, and eye for an eye, payback, revenge, vendettas, just desserts, breaking the mould, rebelling against family values, hell-raising, disappointment, separation, feeling gutted, feeling bound, soulmates/cellmates, karmic contracts, armoured feelings, conditional love, controlled feelings, feeling trapped, being between a rock and a hard place, exiling oneself, putting up shields, escape through mind altering drugs, serious emotions, dark dreams.
Home > Moon Phases 2011 > Full Moon October 2011.
ohhh, amazing.. Just starting to dig in to all this but getting chills already… The moon on my ic, sun on my mc… Just in the end of my trip visiting family in my home country (took the plane here on the last new moon). Seen lots of my family on my mums side for the first time in six years… Turns out there is so much libras in the family, came really close to my aunt who turned out to be an aries like me.. So many libras in my life I’m trying to get along with.. And so much more that is just amazing with the astrology, life and your predictions…
And once again you’ve done a great job whit the solar return reading u did for me in march… U said that during this time I would get answers about my childhood that people had tried to protect me from knowing before.. Sooo true… Saturn and Uranus in my first house did for sure make my early life hard, not just make me seem serious and look different and so on… Anyhow, your great Marina! Astrology is amazing and I gotta have a second look at this chart again…
Lot’s of love from Sweden…
O
Thanks Olivia. Good to hear positive feedback from your Solar Return reading. Ha ha, its funny you have the same thing going on with the Libras, if they are having birthdays this week then you also have the cheeky Crow to contend with. Its my daughters birthday today! Sun on Algorab. Lots of important Librans in my life, best friend, sister, daughter and first serious boyfriend. Then on the opposite end of the scale Mum and Dad ARIES!
Venu/Mars, 1st/7th house. I/You. Interesting polarity Aries/Libra. If you are Aries its interesting you are noticing the opposite now. I had that with Leos a while back. The Libras are obviously trying to balance you!
Will definitely report back too..not too sure myself..surely there cant be more…*throwing salt over shoulder..* this moon and T/Eris and Lilith all over my N/Jupiter and wide orb to N/Eris which will activate my Yod (from 1st house to 8th-Lilith Psyche and Neptune and Pluto 5th)..Marina my heart goes out to you with Jamie heading off again..<3
oh and squaring my nodal axis at 4/10th!
My exact ascendant is a bit of a grey area, but latest guess is that it’s 18 Aries so this ought to be a good test of the theory lol. Having my moon at 16 Aries (and apex of a yod)opposite true Lilith makes me more nervous but would a 2 degree orb lessen the impact? Theres a big fat Ceres/Persephone link between me and my daughter and i’d really rather she wasn’t abducted!
wow, directly after the new moon on my son’s birthday i had days-long crying spells…. really overwhelming. feeling like a scared ceres with him going to school and individuating in that way. watching your kid grow up can be gut-wrenching, worrying about how the world (in small and large ways) will affect him/her. i do feel we are on a bridge linking that new moon to the coming full. thinking they are very connected. last nite i had a dream the sea was overtaking the town i was vacationing in. coming up and pounding on the windows, the streets below totally underwater. we were trying to get out, which was really difficult…. i went back and read in the comments on the libra new moon that others were having watery dreams. it’s odd because i’ve never had water/wave dreams; (my mom has told me one of her recurring dreams is of a tidal wave which she describes as terrifying). my feelings right now are tenuous/fragile and apprehensive, as if something were on its way….. i was feeling a sense of impending doom/dread a few days ago, which i experience a lot, so i tend to chalk it up to demons that go way back. well, anyway the first lingering hit from true lilith to my natal one is on the 9th, in just a few days. she’s been a long time coming. hope and wish everyone the best.
oops, that will be the 14/15th for osc. lilith.
Scared Ceres!! Yes I get that totally. happening to me and people close to me right now. Very poignant. Thanks for sharing.
I’ve been having underwater dreams as well. Searching for secret hiding places – under water furniture. I see by the dream sites alot of people are having “feelings” and water dreams. Neptune has been and is back in Aquarius the water bearer so maybe that’s it. Otherwise, anxiety dreams?
I have been popping in and out a bit re: your site, but I will say it again-great background, insight, research.
Persephone has always played an important role: I know her and Pluto very well. And as ‘fate’ would have it I am about to be given a pomegranate tree…by a dark, Greek man with control issues( I am not joking that is straight up!)
With Mars 20 Cancer and moon part of a fixed grand cross (Chiron/Sun/Jupiter)all your Key Words read like True Stories.
Saturn and Pluto are in that mix too -enough said.It has never been Happy Families…my father recently had a brush with death. An illness triggered when he fell into a fire…he was burning the body of a dead horse.
All the symbolism is there..and i still can’t seem to leave my father’s house. I have been having Bad Dreams about Tortured Dogs…it does not bode well. D.
Dianne, thats all very dramatic symbolism. All resonates quite strongly with me. The greek man and the pomegranate tree though! Wow!. Sorry about your Dad though. Dead horses, thats really odd because I’ve just been writing about Eris and dead horses came into it. I was writing about Eris and poetic revenge and that scene in the godfather with the horses head in the bed…I don’t know why that came into my head. I digress..
Anyway your comment was rather spine tingling. My father has passed, but recently I have been getting much “interference” from him shall we say. It was the anniversary of his death on Sept 30th. Oh and he was Sicilian! In one version of the myth, Pluto was said to have erupted out of Mount Etna on a carriage pulled by black horses when he kidnapped Persephone.
Whats going on in your “Fathers house”, by that I mean the astrological 4th house in your chart. Saturn transiting there right now ?
here men burn dead animals to get rid of disease, lyme tic etc., it’s a practice people don’t talk about, but a matter of survival. The father also figures with female idenity, not as much so with sons. I mean women often have idenity issues from his death, a son’s bereavement is more the loss of an equal.
I’m reading The pathways to Bliss by Joseph Campbell. He says the mom’s are the physical bringers in but the dad’s seed the children by giving the society direction and their role in it.Then by the ages of 12-20 they are ready to push off in self sustainable momentum. It’s fascinating and when I looked at my own deceased father in that way it was pretty on. He believed in socialism, change and black white equality. Born 1911. Tauras.
Like many daughters I resisted much of what he said and paid dearly. As I head into my late 60′s I am beginning to get it…
The first postive endearing speech of him standing in the water like a heron with his long willowy legs brought an actual heron eyeball to eyeball 3 ft away from me as if nature’s intelligence responded well. The tree ruling tauras’s up to May 12 is the willow and when I saw my early 15ish pic. tall slender awkward, my comment was “why didn’t they name me Willow”. Now with this Nov. emphasis on Power and Politics I know it’ll be me working it out with him some more as he haunted me – telling me those two guys I was hanging with were into politics. He knows I’m not.
I didn’t care then but now I shun one of them for that reason while at the same time suddenly hero worshipping Layton’s life time work who formerly meant little to me. Suddenly it’s moving me.Father knows best. lol
I have Ceres at 23 deg. Aries and Eris at 15 deg. Aries. Both are in my 6th house. Ceres is Semisextile Sun (which is on Algol). Off to dig into my astrology books. Wonder if this is why I dropped down to part time at work last week? I welcome any insight
With the Occupy Wall St (and other cities) picking up massive momentum, I read into this as a call to stay peaceful and non violent while still speaking your truth.
Moon on my Chiron, Saturn on my Uranus, activating the opposition. I don’t usually use either planet, and things are complicated by also having natal Saturn at 19 Gemini and Sun at 19 Taurus (and natal Juno at 19 Sagittarius) but whenever I get a chance to evaluate my stance on the outer planets by making empirical observations, it’s exciting!
Hi Marina, great in depth article on the Full Moon in Aries! I am being hit pretty good today. My Sun and Merc are both 16 degrees Aries in my 3rd…which this FM hits, my rising sign is 17 Cap and TrSaturn is opposing my Sun,Merc, and squaring my rising. Natal Neptune is in my 9th at 28 Libra, so…. Meanwhile, my lovely 3 degree Libra daughter, has her Moon in 15 degrees Aries and she was born on this Harvest Full Moon in Aries! I just think something is about to happen…but what can it be? (ps. I love your articles and just need to say how much I love the Goddess aspects of them which you are so brilliant at…when you gonna write a book about them, eh?
xxx Shawn
Good to hear there is some call for a Dark Goddess book! I have plans for atleast three books based on my blogs so far. At the moment I’m finishing off the Lilith book. Congratulations on your Libra daughter, wow what a powerful birthchart she has then. Lilith conjunct Eris, that’s alsmost as nuts as my Libra daughter with Lilith on Algol. Astrologers/Tarot people must breed witches eh?. lol
Sorry Marina, my daughter was born in 1996 with that Full Moon in Aries then! (sorry, I left out the year!) But yes, something about that is quite powerful/magical for our daughters, eh? xxx Happy Full Moon! Aaawhoooo!
Phew! To be honest I’m glad to hear it wasn’t THIS year as I was going to say, anyone born under this moon is going to be a handful and a half!! So yes,happy Full Moon
I must say it’s been a fantastic one for me so far despite the dramatic aspects. Lots of insights and witchy inspiration!
Thanks so much for the great detailed article! Just what I was suspecting…
Looking back, (It is now New Moon), I could tell there was something dark and heavy about that night of the 12th.
My 6mo. old (teen in cat years) girl kitten wandered into the yard of my neighbor 3 doors down. She NEVER goes beyond our yard… Frightened by 3 loud dogs there, she ran up a tree. The neighbors picked her up (after getting the dogs into the house) and placed her beyond their fence: onto the big golf course!!
I cry when I see(in my mind’s eye) her white siamese body shining in the dark – without being able to find any cover – and becoming prey to an owl. She was like a child to me: never have I bonded this much with a Feline Being before. This experience will haunt me as long as I live. I do not have proof of this, only an intuitive told me these details, but it matches with my own previous intuitive assessments.
Your analogy of the story of Persephone hit me right in the heart.
(
This kitten was born in Aries… I am also a mother of an adult Aries daughter, who always felt like a Persephone to me. (We had some real close calls during her teen years)…
I console myself daily thinking that there is NO such thing as death, so the owl and this angelic kitten needed to blend their energies – if I look at it from a higher perspective.