Full Hunter's Moon

The Full Hunter's Moon fills the night sky tonight at 12:52 a.m. with the brightest full moon of this entire year. With the leaves falling and the deer fattened, it has always been a time to hunt for the sustenance required by ancient peoples and this brightest of night light aids in that quest as part of nature's plan.

The Moon will be at a perigee later, the closest point at which it orbits around the Earth, tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. As a result, we can expect a strong gravitational pull and very high tides.

Gravity may be the weakest of all of the fundamental forces, but it never goes away. It may weaken with distance, but it is always at work. That fact is not only the primary driver of tides, but there are many other factors that it effects.

We are all aware of the emotional tug the moon and its gravitational pull seem to have on us as humans, and even animals seem to respond in stronger and often more negative ways around the time of a full moon. As women, we can feel this force internally, as our own 'monthly tides' seem to pull in and then flow out. There is a sense of connectedness between us and our lunar companion, one which we often fail to recognize.

Our own planet rotates under its constantly shifting tides, which is why high and low tides are always moving about, rolling in and out. More than just water is pulled up by tides. Earth's solid self actually stretches, too. And Earth's gravity lifts tides on the Moon, raising relatively small bulges in the seemingly solid satellite. So, how could we not expect some effect on us, as part of the entire biosphere of this living, moving, almost breathing force?

This full moon, astrologically, is a 'Full Moon in Taurus'. Taurus asks us to recognize our instincts that can help or harm us or others. This month, our Full Moon in Taurus and our Sun in Scorpio, are part of a mystic rectangle, which also includes Pisces/Virgo and Saturn in Virgo. This opens the doorway to breaking down the barriers to seeing reality as it is, and not how we, as its actors in all of our drama and plays, seem to think that we are.

It is an invitation to drop into a state of oneness of all manifest experience and to gather with others of like-mindedness and the understanding that all of life does not need to be so intense.

This is the Full Moon to consider the possibility of letting go of cognitive distortion, seeing where and how you allow yourself to be a 'victim' and how you can best understand and realize those misconceptions and distorted archetypes in daily practice.

It is also, with all of our worldly happenings, an excellent time to caretake our planet. To consider the effects of global warning and the firestorms in California. We are being made aware of the intensity of fire and of heat and being asked to lower this global intensity with our own mindsets and our own actions. Lower your personal thermostat by allowing intensity to move through you and around you instead of being caught up in its gravitational pull and being sucked under by it.

Go out into nature and become one with the leaves and the scents, and the wind and the rain. Rake some leaves, go for a walk or just feel earth's magnificence enter your emotional and spiritual core and allow that to calm and sustain you. This then, becomes our own personal 'Hunter's Moon'. The hunt for all that we need for life and living, for nurturing and sustaining.

Use the illuminated brightness, the strong gravitational pull, as the intensity within us for change, not just an intensity of emotions.

Power resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state.
Ralph Waldo Emerson