A Tarot Devotional for the December 2019 Full Moon

The December 10, 2019 Full Moon grants you the foresight to see 2020 clearly, that is if you’re paying attention. This Full Moon serves as a prelude to one of the big stories of next year. That is the Venus retrograde in Taurus which ushers in a new series of eclipses in Taurus and Scorpio.

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Life is a journey through the extremes of all sign polarities. But, the polarity of Taurus and Scorpio is placed firmly at the root of what it means to be human. To be human is to be an animal, a beast, a slave to instinct. To be human is to need other people as much as, if not more than food, water, and air. The Taurus + Scorpio sign pair tells the story of humans as inherently social creatures whose survival relies on both the physiological/biological instinct and the performance of social roles in relationships and society.

When you have experiences along the Taurus Scorpio axis you are offered the opportunity to clearly see how to be human is to perform—to perform your designations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality, and class within the confines of socially defined constructs. This is intersectionality. Bodily autonomy (the right to sexual and emotional autonomy,  physical safety, and self-preservation) is at the root of intersectionality. And as such, this moment demands a liberating doctrine that seeks to return bodily autonomy not just to Black women, but to everyone.

Black women are entitled to safe passage through life, free from rape, bondage, violence, and oppression of every shape and -ism. We all must examine the performances of our identities that have been named “instinct” in order to have that safe passage. That naming and framing has been used to biologically (outside of conscious human control) validate and legitimize violence and oppression of all humans, but especially women. We must innovate new consensuses that liberate us from the drives to oppress and disenfranchise each other via our designations.

You wear the clothes, both literally and figuratively, that match the designation you’ve been assigned (or chosen) because you have a survival based need to be validated as part of humanity, and as part of the family/relationships/communities in which you live. Fitting into those designations is a matter of both physical survival/safety and maintaining a cohesive sense of self. Yet, at this Full Moon, and the 2020 eclipses it preludes, it is time to come into right relationship with those designations.

Ultimately, this Full Moon in Taurus begins a season of openly challenging the personal and collective stories that define your designations because your survival and our collective liberation depends on it .

Now, on to my tarot sermon for this Full Moon…

(3 of SWORDS)
8 of CUPS
4 of CUPS
KING of PENTACLES

(3 of Swords)
8 of Cups
4 of Cups
King of Pentacles
The People’s Oracle’s Tarot for the Full Moon in Taurus

The card on the bottom when I cut the deck is the context and reference point for the rest of the cards. And the card on the bottom is 3 of SWORDS. This is the card of incisive clarity, the kind that leads to decisive action. The 3 of SWORDS discerns between instinct, intellect, and will. This is not a matter of clear desire brought about by some sentiment. The 3 of SWORDS highlights matters that require standing between the tension of fact-based knowing and intangible knowing, regardless of how you might actually feel.

Now, we lead with the 8 of CUPS and the 4 of CUPS. Cups are instinct. They highlight your relationship with your basic needs for food, safety, and shelter. They are the instinct to survive and preserve your life and body, as well as the intangible faculties that grant you wisdom as intuition.

In the 8 of CUPS you find yourself at a crossroads, ready to abandon the places, spaces, relationships, lifestyles, and habits where you’ve had a deep emotional investment. Emotional investment is skin in the game—survival based attachments and the bonds of shared experience. You have skin in the game with people and places you deem irreplaceable, the kind that humans require to survive and thrive.

  • What have you been ready to leave behind for awhile now, and how does it become apparent and urgent at this Full Moon?
  • What attachments and bonds heretofore have kept you where you are?
  • What revelations have illuminated a path towards the exit?

Yet, the 4 of CUPS offers up a paradox. When you abandon people and things in which you’ve had an emotional investment the fairy tale says that you march off into the joy of an unknown adventure. But instead, you find apathy and a loss of lust for life in the 4 of CUPS. Here you find yourself with no clear sense of direction. You find yourself wallowing in feelings of ambivalence and nihilism. You lose your reason why, the fire that motivated you in the first place, to leave behind something you once deemed so valuable. Perhaps it is a sense or reality of powerlessness. Maybe you know/you’ve known you need to leave where you are, but you’re not exactly sure where you go from here.

  • What feelings come up as you wait?
  • How do you fill the time between where you are now and your future destination?
  • What feelings of ambivalence keep you from making clear decisions and taking the risk to move on?

Thinking back to the 3 of SWORDS that serves as a context for these other cards, remember the incisive clarity that it brings. Remember how this moment requires you to bridge the gap between fact-based knowing and intangible knowing. Stand in the discomfort of intuition where your external reality neither confirms nor denies that knowing. Learn to make peace with your instinct, understanding that it has kept you alive until now, and that your intellect must know its place in the grand scheme of things.

Finally, here is the KING of PENTACLES. A card not of fire, not of will, drive, strength, nor force. The KING of PENTACLES is dynamic, seeking to conquer and dominate. And it does so, again, not by force but by a decisive reckoning with reality, a resourcefulness that can lead you to discover your own fortitude within the confines of self-discipline. There’s no marching off into the hills of respite here, no eager gallivanting towards the sunset. No. Here you find opportunity in the material realm. Here you bring a willingness to work, to labor and toil, and to do The Work as articulated in the recent New Moon tarot devotional. You carry an authority and sense of entitlement that says “my efforts are fruitful, never shall they be in vain.”

  • What meaningful contributions towards your future do your skills provide?
  • What effort are you willing to invest towards an uncertain future, one that allows you to finally leave behind the places and spaces that no longer feed you?

And So It Is! Happy Full Moon

If you have been edified by my work, resonated with my writings, and want to see it continue, then consider booking a reading, purchasing an item or gift from my online store, donating from your heart.

The Sun in Sidereal Astrology

This is a post about the Sun in sidereal astrology. It originally appeared as a thread of tweets on Twitter.

The Sun as a golden fiery ball of gas

There are 3 primary ways to understand the function of a planet in a natal (birth) chart. And I believe they go in this order:

  1. As representative of people in your life;
  2. As experiences or events at particular times;
  3. As aspects of your becoming, rooted in 1# & #2.

Free Will & Astrology Aren’t Good Friends

Modern astrology often avoids, derides, or out right denounces predictive astrology. But that’s because modern astrology doesn’t possess the tools to be adept at predictive astrology. Plus, it’s predicated on free will which is NOT the philosophical roots of astrology at all. If you’ve followed me for awhile you’ll know that I believe we have very limited freedom of will. And I believe that free will is a tool of oppression. But that’s another conversation for another time.

The focus on individual will as opposed to a more collectivist worldview has framed the sign of the Sun in a natal chart as the most important and central part of a person’s astrological make up. This is unfortunate.

Which You is the Real You

Anyone born within the same season (30 +/- day period) as you has their natal Sun in the same sign as you. Let’s borrow from Chinese astrology to understand what a season is and how it relates to the natal Sun’s sign.

In Chinese astrology, the season of birth which is the month of birth, is important. However, that season serves as a context for the day of birth. This is like the relationship between the Sun and the moon. The Moon being the day, the Sun being the month. The season/month of birth generally defines the level of support the day master/day element has. Specifically it represents the parents, family, home and upbringing.

Now, if we translate this back to western astrology, we’ll see that the Moon is the identifying factor in a natal chart as it takes 2 days to transit a sign (as opposed to 30 days for the Sun). A person born in the same season as you (30 day period of the same Sun sign) has to be born within the same 2 day period as you in order to have the same Sun and Moon sign. Conceptually this helps us to understand that the Sun in the natal chart is not a unique identifying factor for an individual. I know this goes contrary to everything you’ve learned, but you must unlearn it.

I’m going to offer some philosophical concepts to help you better understand the Sun in astrology. Then I’ll offer some basic significations. The latter will be a result of the former.

Have You  Ever Seen the Sun?

Look at the picture of the Sun that I used to begin this blog post. Have you ever turned your head towards the sky and observed the Sun appearing this way? How does the Sun appear to your eye? Have you ever seen it as it is? A simpler question: What does the Sun look like?

All that we see with our eyes is because of the light of the Sun. Objects absorb & reflect certain wavelengths of light providing the appearance of colors. Yet we can’t perceive this light as it is. Google quantum physics & explanations of light and matter, have your mind blown.

The primary way that we perceive the light of the Sun is via the Moon. The Moon reflects different amounts of the Sun’s light at cyclical intervals based on the spacial relationship between the Moon, Earth, and Sun.

In astrology the Sun is the mind, sight, and perception. You cannot see the mind. You cannot see sight. And you cannot perceive perception. Much like you cannot take your eyes out of your head and look at them. The very nature of the mind and perception is that you cannot turn it back on itself to see it. Just like you cannot see the Sun as it truly is, you cannot see the mind.

The Sun is the light that illuminates allowing perception. It’s consciousness, and the lens through which you see yourself—not your physical body, but the concept of yourself held in your mind. The Sun is the concept of your self, the idea of who you are that you project into the world, and that you seek to see reflected back to you.

There is no you without your body. When there is no body, there is only the idea of you which is different in everyone’s mind. What is the body in astrology? It’s the Moon. And we know that the Moon is about family, mother, your home, your tribe. It’s the social and physical means by which you come into being.

Identity is a funny thing. Social science and philosophy ask and attempt to answer questions about how identity is formed. We know that identity is formed in society/social setting.

You and the concept/idea of who you are (SUN) comes into being via your body, your mother, your tribe, your family, society (MOON). There is no you without things.

Going back to my comparison to Chinese astrology, it’s clear that in a hierarchy of planets and points that most uniquely identify you and your life, it is the Moon and it’s relationship to the Sun that gives a complete and unique picture. This is why I see astrology as a social science and a tool of divination. It very clearly articulates the nature of human life, the self, and how it comes into being.

But, if you believe that who you are is something that exists in this rigid form, separate from your relationships, family, and society, rather than emerging from those things, then of course you think that the Sun is the most important planet in the natal chart.

The Sun as a Gear of Time

The Sun is the father, significant men, and authority figures. It is your mind, the concept of how you perceive your self, the lens through which your mind perceives the world around you. The Sun is how you think of yourself, yet it says nothing of who you are and what you do out in the world.

The Sun says nothing of how others see you. No one can see your mind, and you can’t see theirs either. It says nothing of how you function and the roles you play in life. Implied here is that your self concept/idea of yourself is formed and reinforced by your body, your family and upbringing, your tribe, and the society in which you come up.

The very 1st time the Sun returns to the position where it was when you were born, there have been 13 Moons/lunations. That’s 13 cycles of New & Full Moons, 365+/- circadian cycles of sleeping and waking. If the Moon is the body, this is 13 cycles of nourishing and nurturing that body.

At that time you answer to your name, and you have come to understand whether or not needs you have and express will be fulfilled. Will someone answer when you cry? Do you experience familiar smells and sights? Is your world one of plenty or lack? Are you touched and played with?

All of these things have to do with the body. And the orientation of your body to the world around you and the people in it are what forms the first ideas of who you are. This is the relationship between the Moon and the Sun in your natal chart: how is the idea/concept of yourself formed?

You have no identity when you are born. You have no idea or concept of a self or who you are. It is something that develops over time. And every time the Sun comes back to the sign and degree where it is in your natal chart, you enter a new season of becoming aware of this self. That time is around your birthday each year and we call the chart cast for that moment your solar return.

The season of your birth, the Sun sign in your natal chart, is indicative of the outer world circumstances in which you were born. It is a transiting moment of time for your mother as well. And what is the mother, the Moon in your natal chart.

Wrap your mind around that!

Sidereal Astrology Forecast – May 2018

Here is your monthly sidereal astrology forecast for May 2018. We are well under way, but there is plenty in this video to help you navigate the rest of this month.

Watch the video forecast for May 2018 on YouTube.

Major sidereal astrological configurations for the month of May, 2018.

  • May 2 – Mars in Capricorn (View the video horoscope for the 6 month Mars in Capricorn Transit on YouTube.)
  • May 8 – Sun OPPOSITE Jupiter
  • May 9 – Mercury in Aries
  • May 12 – Mercury SQUARE Mars
  • May 14 – Sun in Taurus, Venus in Gemini
  • May 15 – New Moon in Taurus
  • May 23 – Mercury OPPOSITE Jupiter
  • May 25 – Venus OPPOSITE JUPITER
  • May 26 – Mercury in Taurus
  • May 29 – Full Moon in Scorpio