The height of this moonth’s cycle comes with the full moon arriving overnight Thursday to Friday, the 27th to the 28th (exact at 12:18 am ET, time zone converter), and offers a revelation about how the lunar energies initiated on the August 16th new moon are developing. The new moon, guided by its association with Strength, invited us to embrace our wild love despite fears, to act with courage. 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 Pisces associated with the Tarot’s Moon card. With this double lunar illumination, we can look with eyes attuned to mystery and imagination at our wild love and discover new depths.
This version of the Moon is from Rachel Pollack’s Shining Tribe Tarot. The bow and arrow in the moon connect this card to Artemis who is a Goddess of the moon, wilderness, and childbirth. In the Greek pantheon Artemis is depicted as a young woman and gets less attention than her brother Apollo in hymns and myths. But Artemis is a name of unknown but ancient origin. In Asia Minor’s Ephesus, Artemis’ temple was one of the wonders of the ancient world, and her statue shows a powerful woman, a Great Mother Goddess figure.
The mountains in the card form what is known as a Winged Artemis. In such manifestations the Goddess was seen in the land itself, certainly not separate from it. Other symbolism in the card reference passage graves in France, resemble the shape of Hebrew letters, and take inspiration from Australian imagery as well as prehistoric monuments in Ireland and Brittany. The complex mix is intentional. Rachel Pollack, through the image, is pointing us toward the idea that the moon is complex, and in many ways more complex than the sun. The sun is constant and its light direct, but the moon is born, grows, triumphs, and dies over and over again. Moon light shifts and what we can see along with it.
Rachel says that the Tarot has both solar and lunar aspects, writing:
It makes sense to learn the symbolic meanings and to analyze the way the cards fit together. But we also need to spend time with the pictures without explanation and look at them, let them seep into us and arouse emotions and visions.
The full moon invites you to do this kind of gazing at any card that you are working with in this lunar cycle. Let yourself get a little lost in the images and see what new surfaces. If you have been working with the new moon Courage reading your love might show you even more wildness, even more depth, even more that you could have imagined.
Sidenote: I am very excited for this weekend’s Shining Tribe Exploratorium where we will explore the origins and inspirations of the deck. Details are here.
To encourage a revelation as we continue 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.
~ 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 Moon 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 love are you willing to get lost in? How to embrace the mystery of your fear and move forward anyway? What does the full moon light reveal to you of your courage? How can you let this shine? 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 September 7th offer your gift to the world.