The height of this moonth’s cycle comes with the full moon arriving on Wednesday, the 16th (exact at 11:56am ET), and offers a revelation about how the lunar energies initiated on the February 1st new moon are developing. The new moon, guided by its association with Persephone who is shown on the Shining Tribe Tarot’s Star card, invited us to renew ourselves with an alchemical mixing of hope and rage. Out of the full moon revelation about this developing energy, we are issued an invitation to return a gift to the world in the final weeks of the lunar cycle.  

The exact moment of the moon’s fullness comes in the sign of Leo associated with the Tarot’s Strength card.

Nancy Antenucci in her wonderful new book Tarot Rituals opens her Strength ritual prompts with these descriptors:

• Confronting feelings long hidden from conscious thought
• Honoring all feelings
• Nonreactive responses
• Liberating passion from fear

She then suggests an imaginal journey into the card where we are invited to move about as a giant cat to connect with our animal bodies and the wisdom that is contained there. (I do highly recommend you check out the book for more on Strength and all the other cards. This is not a paid endorsement; I am just a fan of Nancy’s work!)

Strength and the Star are such beautiful and necessary partners. The power-from-within Strength is what we need to engage with arises from Persephone’s Star: the stream of rage and the steam of hope.

The Strength that honors all feelings is what can help us channel the rage that rises when we open our eyes to injustice, personal betrayals, the impact of systems intentionally or unconsciously designed for harm. With Strength we might instead stuff the feels deep inside to fester or let them explore out into the world hurting others.

The Strength that liberates us from fear is what can open us to hope. Hope is what we aspire to, not what we have. Hope is always in the future and our movement toward it is never assured. We have to work for what we hope for without knowing if it will ever be achieved. The poet Kathleen Aguero calls it the hard work of hope. Here are a few lines from her poem with that title:

[Hope] gathers the last of its strength

and breaks through to the surface

the way a laboring woman, stinking,

exhausted, summons one last grunt and push

to force the baby into the world

where it takes its first, sharp breath.

Bringing one baby into the world or working with others to create a whole new way of being in the world will demand we channel our rage, protect our hope, and gather our strength to birth it.

To encourage a revelation on these themes as we journey through this moonthly cycle, you are invited to one, some, or all of these practices:

• Moon bathe by sitting or lying under a window or outside on the ground. Let go of your thoughts and soak in the light. Or you might take the inspiration of this feline-connected moon and turn your moon communion into a prowl or a “dance.” Face the moon and lift your heart toward it. Feel the moon (seen or unseen) energy flow into your heart area and let that spark a movement. Let that movement lead to another. Let your thoughts flow away and follow instead the promptings of your body led by the moon.
• Take out any reading or your reflections from the new moon and look at them in a new light. How does your understanding of the cards shift now that time has passed and light has shifted? (If you haven’t done a reading yet, no problem, just do it now under the light of the full moon. You can try the one from the new moon.)
• Bring out your Star and Strength cards from your Tarot deck and connect them to your new moon reading / reflections. You could place/imagine these cards on either side of your reading or above and below, and then look at how they add meaning into the story your original cards offered you.
• Reflect on questions such as: What messages are coming from my body? How can I befriend them? What enrages me? How can I channel that rage? What is my highest/deepest/most secret hope? How can I work for it? What is the hard work of hope that I am called to do now? You could, of course, pull cards as responses to any of these questions. You may want to engage in Visio Divina to find the layers of wisdom within the cards.

When you are done, remember to offer gratitude for what you have received. Consider what gift you now want to return to the world. Pulling a card for guidance on the gift is always a fine thing to do. In the coming weeks and before the moon returns to dark around February 28th offer your gift to the world.

Be sure to be on my list to receive future of these moonthly missives.