>> An interesting line of thought for you: Do you Struggle to Sleep During a Full Moon? A Scientific Explanation.
>> Plus, a ritual for you to practice tomorrow and/or the next few days: Drawing Down the Moon. A Magical Ritual.
>> And: 3 Ways to Capture Full Moon Energy. You know, for good measure.

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*”Whether it’s science or magic, if it’s of fun benefit, enjoy!” ~ ed

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“Fire on your house
There’s fire on your house
I stand by and watch it burn
You brought this on yourself
You brought this on yourself
I stand by and watch it burn, now.” ~ Trevor Hall

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We may have been feeling the burn lately with all this fiery, heated astrological energy.

Maybe, relationships built on faulty or precarious foundations have crumbled. Old structures and identities may have been eroding beneath our feet.

Fire is an elixir though. An alchemist. A purifier. A transformative energy.

Fire makes new soil from deadened growth. Many things have been lit on fire this year, whether we were ready for it or not. And maybe a deeper part of us was ready for this. We have been preparing for this on a soul level, no matter the looks and feels of our ego minds trying to “make sense” of it all.

The skies right now are illuminating and mirroring to us these fire energies. Mars (ruled by the fire sign Aries) has been retrograde in the sign of Aries since September 9th of this year, and will continue to pull us back into introspective, more sludgy-feeling but reflective energy nonetheless, until November 13th. Mars rules our yang, masculine energies: the action-taking, assertive, forward-moving, take-charge energy.

Mars is the planet of action, so when it shifted into retrograde, we may have felt a dip in our energy reserves. A feeling of dwindling motivation to “get things done.” This isn’t bad. But for many of us who thrive on productivity and distraction, we may have been trying to battle our less-than-optimal-feeling energy, rather than tuning into its wisdom: the wisdom of slowing the f**ck down.

Retrogrades are not bad. They may get a bad rap, but they really are for our own benefit. Energy needs to go out as much as it needs to return. To come back. Masculine and feminine energies are needed. We all have both, no matter our outward identification.

Planets are energies too—some more masculine-oriented and others more feminine. Retrogrades grant us the opportunity to slowwwww down. To balance. To return to the self. To reflect. To pause. To inquire. To realign. The more we try to fight these energies, the more chaos ensues. So, we might as well heed their lessons, no matter how uncomfortable we may feel.

Mars rules Aries, and being that it is retrograde in this sign means that this energy is getting even more focus.

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac. The leader. The take-charge person in the room. The act-now-think-later person in your life. Aries is all things passion, fire, and drive. Aries individuals are action-oriented creatures.

They are more self- and identity-oriented than other signs. This doesn’t mean they don’t care about others. They do. They just want you to be the best self you can be! Even if that means critiquing the way you are presently doing things, or how you are living or not living your life. (As an aside: we all have Aries energy in us to some degree, as we are all zodiac signs; this is not meant to point out or critique you specifically Aries sun signs.)

Aries people have a laser-like ability to focus and hone in on what needs to change—and change now. They can be impatient and impulsive. They can lack sensitivity to those more watery, feeling signs. But they truly do believe they are helping you, and they want to help you get out of your own sh*t. Their prime motivation is to inspire, to ignite, and yes, to burn sh*t down if need be.

Associated with the ram, Aries can be known to not back down from a good battle of the egos. They actually are a lot more sensitive than they would lead you to believe though. They will go on the defense or into wounded mode when they are on the receiving end of criticism. Nothing hurts an Aries more than a direct blow to their sense of foundational self. And, nothing bolsters them more than acknowledgment and praise for a job well done.

This Aries energy is amplified in the month of October. The Aries full moon, also known as the Harvest moon, is landing in the sign of the ram at 9 degrees on Thursday, October 1st at 5:05 p.m. EDT. This is the first full moon of the month; we will have another one on October 31st.

October will bring in a lot of intense and pointed energies. No more wasting time or energy. The Aries full moon is conjunct to asteroid Chiron (the Wounded Healer) also in the sign of Aries. This full moon will be illuminating any wounds and our direct portals to healing related to the self. This is an opportunity to come home to the authentic self, the one hidden beneath judgment and shame, waiting for us to reclaim its wholeness.

Aries is all about the self. To know oneself as fully and divinely worthy and whole is to be in the true source of our power. Whenever we have been wounded, shards of the self get split off, misplaced, and severed off from our source of power and autonomy. We stumble around, feeling like a splintered self, rather than a full, powerful, embodied being who has clarity on who it is and where it is going.

These energies are culminating into even more pointed energy, as it will also be activating the Mars-Saturn Square and the energy of Pluto, which will leave retrograde a few days after the full moon. Saturn has also just recently gone direct, which is a window of positivity and relief. Saturn and Pluto energy have brought a lot of tension, upheavals, and chaos this last year, but only because change needed to happen. We needed to shift in drastic ways. Only the planet of structures and karma (Saturn) and the planet of death and transformation (Pluto) could do that. Easy? Of course not. Tiring and relentlessly demanding? Absolutely.

With Saturn going direct after months of restriction and hard lessons, we may feel some relief. The end of 2020 is not going to be easy. But, it will bring us to where we need to be.

This Aries full moon is a beginning point. A time to clear out, a time to expunge old hurts and wounds. To be the rainbow bridge back to self, as Chiron encourages us to do. We can alchemize any old hurts surfacing now into medicine and into healing balm for the self. It is a choice though. An autonomous choice to do the inner work. To see these outer, external triggers as pointers to unhealed and unloved aspects of the self.

Aries energy is assertion. It is drive. It is ambition. It is the know-how of what it needs to do to move forward. And, with many planets still in retrograde (especially Mars), we may not literally be moving forward.

But as Aries rules the head, maybe we are getting clearer about who and what we are. What belongs in our life and what doesn’t. With this full moon we have the opportunity to come back home to the self. To cease patterns of self-abandonment. To garner more self-respect, not in a fiery, explosive, or harmful way to others, but in a way that says, “I deserve more. I have value.” And, to say when we will not stand for something.

We all have learned patterns of self-abandonment. Through being taught that we are not okay as we are, or that something is inherently flawed about us, we learn how not to be. We abandon the self who was already so worthy of love for a more fabricated sense of self. We abandon ourselves in addictions of various substance and behavior. Not wrong, or to be shamed or judged by self or others, but to understand the why behind these addictive loops.

We have learned how to meet others’ needs by negating our own. We have learned who we need to be based on what we think the other wants.

With the sun in Libra, we are all being mirrored this in our relationships, where we self-abandon in order to receive love from another. Libra is relationship. It is balance. It is fairness. The Aries full moon focuses back on the self, not in selfishness, but in order to reclaim parts of the self and be better able to be clear and less muddied in relating dynamics. We need both. Self and other.

But, we first must learn how to stop abandoning the self who was judged and shamed. What we judge and shame in ourselves or in others remains the parts where we need to reclaim our wholeness and offer those parts of us more love, not less.

Shaming and judging never got us anywhere but more despondent, broken, and hopeless feeling. With all this fire energy, we can transmute the poison back into medicine. Transmute the pain back into pleasure. Transmute the wound back into wholeness. We all have that power. The power of the alchemist.

We are the alchemist. Our thoughts, words, actions, behaviors, energy, and vibration are all the means to which we can alchemize.

So, let’s be with this intensity these next few weeks with more awareness and understanding that who and what we are is beyond any powerlessness we may feel. We are not victims. We are growing through this as we go through this. As we stay with the self.

So, let’s go through this, not around it. Go through the fires as if they were made for us—by us. To burn. To transform. To come out the other side as the self we’ve always been and only needed to restore back to its original wholeness.

It is time to return. It is time to come home.

Come home to the self so damn whole, powerful, worthy, and lovable.

This Self is so worth saving, loving, and resurrecting.

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More about this full moon: Full Moon in Aries & other Planetary Shifts: A Heavy Mix Teaching us Patience. {October 1st & 2nd}