This is the natural turning point of the calendar year as we reach our halfway mark and, especially within the astrology of this particular year, we can see that everything is about to change. Before getting into the true implications of the second half of 2024, I'd like to first review all that has transpired since the New Moon in Sagittarius on December 12th and the ingression of the Strength and numerological 8 year.
Around the time of this Full Moon, I am entering the final month of teaching at a private school.
I so wish that I could say I loved this experience, but truthfully, I have spent many car rides home bawling my eyes out, humiliated, stressed, very ill, and on the brink of quitting. The only thing that kept me steady was the veggie cravings menu at Taco Bell and the knowledge that I was saving for a cross country move and that, it would be very financially stupid of me to quit so soon. Saturn is currently transiting my 5th house and it has manifested as being understaffed in a school of too many young children, several with behavioral needs that I have not been trained for.
This is Saturn in Jupiter's sign– too many // all alone. Attempting to tame chaos. Learning to swim by being shoved into the deep end. Saturn in Pisces is like trying to maintain stone as acid waves crash and erode away at your stability. I realized at some point in this process that whatever perceived sense of calm and confidence I held before this job was not real if it could be unraveled so quickly by a small child. I found myself raising my voice, becoming very angry in ways I never have before in my adult life, let alone in a child care setting. While I am ashamed of these reactions now, I don't think they were completely unjustified, some of these children were violent, completely out of control. I often come home with bruises and scratches.
I was searching for some other way to manage my "problem children" while simultaneously being told by family members that I should work somewhere else, I have felt so disenchanted by my lack of creativity, I could not find a solution to this behavior.
There is one child that I am responsible for in the afternoons. He is there for long hours, starting before me and often not leaving the school until I do. By the time he is in my care, he has progressively become crankier and more emotionally volatile. One day he was brought to me literally kicking and screaming, wanting to leave the room so badly that I had to have another teacher restrain him while I locked the door. The director of the school saw me struggling and came in through another door and, just like the woman in the Strength card with the unpredictable, wild animal she approached him calmly and put her hand on his writhing, sweaty, angry back and said "I love you." and she pats, "I love you." and she stays and he cries and she says, "I love you." and when he was calm again, she left without another word. He plays until his mom comes to pick him up. I cried on the way home.
When a child hits another child, or spits at you, or poses to pee on your materials, or thrashes uncontrollably, or draws blood by scratching you.... the immediate response that bubbles up is decidedly not "I love you" it is "No!" or "Stop that!" or "What is wrong with you?" or "If you can do this I will give you..." I had never thought of dissolving all of this rage with "I love you." I am embarrassed that I had not, but I realized that I had been feeling threatened and unsafe myself. I was seeing myself in real time at a younger age screaming or crying and being met with violence, not love. It is weird to reverse the roles and know that it is your responsibility to find a different way, but not actually knowing what the right way is. Not to mention– this is not an exact science, "I love you" outright like this does not work every time, but finding ways to say it in your actions does.
I stopped raising my voice, I softened. I started singing to the children when I want them to be quiet or I ask them to help me water the plants when they are bored or I hug them when they are running around the room or we play a game when their bodies are unable to stay still. I am not perfect but I can see so clearly that this was my first lesson in true Strength. Letting brute force fall away and seeing these scary wild animals for what they really are: tired, lonely babies that just want to go home. It is hard being the person they do not want to be with, you have work harder to earn their trust for that.
This is the difference between the Jupiter in Pisces transit (2021-2022) where I had children that were seemingly easy, unchallenging, quick to love, ones that reminded me of myself in all of the good ways and the Saturn in Pisces transit (2023-2026) where I am being challenged to love even the most difficult children. Saturn in Pisces says, "Of course you did well when it was easy, but will you give up now that it isn't?"
So, what were we influenced by in the first half of this year? Jupiter in Taurus approaching Uranus. Saturn conjunctions with planets in Pisces including Mars, our other malefic. The nodal axis through Aries-Libra along with the eclipses and Chiron on this axis.
While the nodal axis and transiting Saturn will not change, Jupiter will. Since Jupiter both rules and will square Saturn, this is a notable turning point in the trajectory of the year. Jupiter's ingression occurs the same week of the Full Moon in Sagittarius, our other Jupiter ruled sign. This is a Full Moon where we will see a culmination of Jupiter in Taurus ruling Saturn in Pisces themes, it will be at the very final anaretic degree of Taurus at the time of this lunation. The 29th degree of any sign is one of fate, karma, and mastery of the sign. It can be quite destructive but simultaneously cumulative, much like the nature of a Full Moon. The Full Moon in Sagittarius may illuminate any final Jupiter in Taurus lessons, gifts, and well-earned badges of wisdom.
The luminaries confront. They undeniably illuminate. That is why a Strength year (associated with Leo/the Sun) requires us to do the hardest thing of all: Confront the shadow, our desires, our instinctual reactions. Confronting identity because that's really what all of this is about, right? Who do you want to be? The Full Moon integrates this turning point by joining the nature of the wild animal within (solar) and confronting what we have been nurtured to be (lunar). Except, we are shifting. We're no longer dealing with Jupiter in the sign of comfort and stability (no wonder many of us have been learning how to be the rock in a climate-change-turned acidic ocean) we are now redirecting into an entirely new archetype.
When I think of this Full Moon and Jupiter's ingression to Gemini on May 25th, I conjure the image of the biblically accurate angel.
We may have an idea of what divinity looks like– perhaps, the angel depicted on the Temperance card (ruled by Sagittarius) in Tarot. The angel in Temperance is human-like, easily digestible to us, a jovial fathering image. What does divinity actually look like? Is it like the biblically accurate Seraphim? Scary, weird, difficult to understand and make sense of? It is the same with all truths. True love, true security, these are not usually "easy" or "pretty" things, they are complex and nuanced as we may already be learning in the Strength year. We are entering a collective time of heightened complexity when Jupiter enters Gemini and begins to square Saturn in Pisces. We may begin look closer at the truth and see lies. When we do this terrifyingly hard thing– looking into the eyes of the Seraphim, we are open to learning new things. If we might paint the difference between Saturn in Pisces ruled by Jupiter in Taurus versus Saturn in Pisces ruled by Jupiter in Gemini, we might imagine and ponder the Hanged Man in the church with its fate decided by the oh so sure of himself Hierophant versus the Hanged Man suspended between two lovers, parties, or entities with opposing views. Instead of Jupiter indulging in power play, it’s power is divided— again, the rest of the year is complex.
I imagine the Full Moon in Sagittarius as the Priestess ritualistically closing Jupiter's journey through Taurus and the initiator who propels us into Jupiter in Gemini's story. It may do this in its obvious archetypal way such as sending us off to a far away land or it might do this more metaphorically, containing us and transporting us into a new experience.
Use this time to notice what chapter is closing, reflect on all you've learned. Be open to what is beginning, it will be integral to this next journey.
Happy Full Moon.
Your friendly neighborhood astrologer,
Katie
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