The height of this moonth’s cycle comes with the full moon arriving on Monday, August 19th (exact at 2:26 pm ET, time zone converter), and offers a revelation about how the lunar energies initiated on the August 4th new moon are developing. The new moon, guided by its association with Strength, Six of Trees, and Speaker of Trees from the Shining Tribe Tarot invited us to have the strength to sing. 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.  

Since the Shining Tribe Tarot is our inspiration this lunation, The Star figure we encounter this full moon is Persephone, whose mother Demeter is the Greek Grain Goddess, the giver of Life, and whose husband Hades is the ruler of Death.

Persephone is intensely connected to both Life and Death. She cannot choose between them, but instead spends part of the year with her mother and the rest with her husband and the dead that she serves as Queen. She is the traveler between the worlds, and as I’ve written extensively elsewhere can even serve as a messenger connecting us living with our beloved dead. As we feel the first movement toward the fall, She turns her ear toward the Dead and begins to take her leave from the Living.

In 2021 when I first wrote about Strength encounter with The Star, I had a special dream as I was contemplating this moonth’s wisdom:

I am sitting in a VW Bug, one of the classic 1960s models with two doors. Outside I see a rather gray landscape. Not an immediate storm, but maybe in the aftermath. There is a shadowy figure off in the distance that I am suspicious of. I want to take a nap so to protect myself I have to lock the doors. I depress the lock button on the first door and then test to make sure it has taken hold. It hasn’t. I have to try again and this time I secure the door. I am able to lock the other door, too, and start to drift off to sleep. Still in the dream, I wake up to find one door opening, but it is not anyone to be afraid of. It is my beloved friend Chris who died in June of 2020. She smiles and I smile. 

I was delighted to have this first dream visitation from Chris. I immediately thought of how I had locked the doors, but that didn’t stop her from entering. Fortunately, our beloved dead are persistent in contacting us even when we put up barriers.

Then as I wrote this post and was thinking of Chris, I remembered that she was a healer, a nurse. She worked in the maternity ward ushering new life into the world. An idea washed over me: the dead want to help us to birth new life out of all the death we are experiencing at this time. Having traveled from Life into Death, they know how to make a great transition, to surrender familiar forms like the body, to shape shift into something new. I imagine they see us struggling with the changes we must make to confront the climate crisis, bring an end to the wars raging around the globe, and organize our institutions around empathy instead of greed. So, they break through the barriers we have set up against them to be with us.

I am inspired by this possibility (regular readers will know it is one I have been feeling and writing about for years now), and then a part of me asks: But what does it mean we should do?!

There certainly is much to do but to ensure we do what is most centered and powerful we paradoxically might be best served by some not-doing in the days around the full moon. 

Traditionally, The Star is a card of pausing and simply being open to the grace and gifts of the universe that come freely and equally to all. If we take that pause this full moon, perhaps the energy of the beloved dead will flow through us. Remember that along with those we knew in life and genetic ancestors, our beloved dead can include wisdom teachers from our traditions, artists that have inspired us, or activists and revolutionaries who dared to dream what seemed impossible into being.

Here are a few prompts for connecting with the Beloved Dead to use or spark your own innovation:

~ Check out my Speak Soul to Soul: Communicating with the Beloved Dead.

~ If the Shining Tribe is really inspiring you, you can connect with Rachel Pollack using the deck’s images and words. The poems that start each card description have a special power for many, especially me. In the days follow Rachel’s death I pulled cards and constructed a poem that seemed to me to be a story of her journey from Life into Death. Read the poem here. Maybe it will inspire you to write your own poem with a message from Rachel for these times we are living through. (Also remember that you can join the Shining Tribe Exploratorium. Our next cycle starts up the last Sunday in September.)

~ The Lineages of Change, a Tarot deck inspired by the prophetic speculative fiction writer, Octavia Butler, who died in 2006, is finally coming into form. You won’t have it for this full moon, but you can be prepared for future ones if you back the Kickstarter.

~ Contemplate words by or images of the Beloved Dead with Lectio/Visio Divina. These could be published words by a thinker who inspires you or a letter left behind by someone you love. You could contemplate artwork of an ancestor artist or give a long loving look at a picture of one of your Beloved Dead.

When we take the pause and make these connections, we may find that we have become conduits for their wisdom on making transitions. Their wisdom and energy can become part of us and guide our action in the living world for change making. We could then be in a new kind of partnership that leads to still barely imagined possibilities. 

We could become like Persephone meeting both Life and Death with Love.

To encourage a revelation on these Star themes, 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.

~ 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 Strength and Star 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: How can I create places of pause in my life for listening to the Beloved Dead or Greater Than? Which Beloved Dead can offer me the wisdom that is needed in this moment? How can I best connect with them? What message do they want to give me? How can I be a conduit of Love? How can I help bring new Life into our times of great Death? 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 August 31st offer your gift to the world.