Jeffrey: The Full Moon in Libra on April 17 occurs with the Sun at 27 Aries and the Moon opposing it at 27 Libra. And as always, Full Moons are a culminating energy, bringing issues into awareness, and with the Aries-Libra axis, it’s a lot about “me versus you, my needs versus our needs.” There’s this balance between “what I want” and what the relationship or the other needs. And with the Moon in Libra, there’s a more emotional emphasis with the light shining on the relationship.
Michelle: At the Full Moon, something will likely pop for you, and because this has been a Full Moon in Libra, it’s probably focused on relationships, whether it’s your relationship to yourself or to other people. And that may also be a relationship to finances as well because Venus, which rules this Full Moon, also deals with finances. So that should be simple enough except that Pluto retrograde plays a pretty major rule in this Full Moon. He’s caught in the crosshairs of a skirmish between Mars in Aries and Saturn in Libra. In astrology, we call this a “T-square” in which Pluto is at the release point. He’s right between the two opposing planets. Who’s gonna win this big fight, Mars or Saturn? you may wonder. And it’s a pretty fair fight because they’re both pretty strong adversaries. Mars rules Aries so he’s in his sign. Saturn is exalted in Libra, but Saturn’s retrograde, so my money would be on Mars. But if you were to take this adversarial energy and examine it at a deeper level, Saturn retrograde seems to be saying, “Let’s look at it this relationship or idea or whatever it is from a new angle,” and Mars is saying, “Let’s take it in a new direction.” So in that sense, there’s really no argument. Both planets are after fairly similar objectives.
So if you’re encountering people who appear to oppose you in some way, you may actually be closer in alignment than you realize, if you can open your mind to seeing the unity in all things. But we still have this issue with Pluto smack in the middle of the two planets. And depending on how you handle your Pluto energy, Pluto has the chance to either mediate the Mars-Saturn opposition or to make it even more volatile. After all, Pluto intensifies and sometimes erupts things when a relationship is unfit, in order to stop feeding energy to something that simply doesn’t work anymore. So on a personal level, ideally what would happen is that Pluto gets you in touch with the deep need to change something within yourself. And that something may have just come to your attention at this Full Moon, but chances are, it’s been there for a long time. So it may be helpful to know that the degree to which you’re willing to clean out your inner junk is the degree to which you can keep things from spinning way out of control at the Full Moon.
Jeffrey: We have this powerful T-square with these three planets that probably have more to do with “will” than any other. I remember when I was first studying astrological aspects that this particular trio together can be either really dark and destructive or really powerful and authoritative, depending on the consciousness of the individual who has this particular combination, because Saturn can definitely bring out the negative in any planet that it touches. It has this very leaden quality, but it can also help to bring a degree of discipline to take this powerful Mars-Pluto energy and channel it towards achieving great things. So with the Moon in Libra at this time, even though the Moon is too far from Saturn to be considered a conjunction—I think it’s like 15 degrees away—there’s light being shown on that area of the sky, and so I’m curious, Michelle, if you would consider Saturn to be strengthened in some way or that the issues around working hard to create some kind of balance within our relationships is being accentuated?
Michelle: I would absolutely agree with that. And I think actually there are some astrologers, and I think they are more of the classical variety, that would actually consider the Moon and Saturn to be within orb of a conjunction. I think it’s Demetra George who allows an 18-degree orb where the Moon is concerned. I think it’s a little bit of a wide orb myself, but I still think that you’re right, bearing in mind that light is coming from the Moon. It’s literally lighting up the night sky and that area, not too far from where Saturn is, and it certainly does put a focus on working hard at or strengthening the foundation of a relationship.
Jeffrey: Yes. And yet our conscious will, which would be symbolized by the Sun, is very much in tension with the impetus towards negotiation because the Aries Sun is very much self-involved, especially as it has been conjunct Jupiter, which would expand our own sense of self-importance. So then we can now expect some degree of conflict possibly showing up in our love lives or with colleagues or clients. In negotiating what is it that I need? versus what is it that you need? How can we achieve some sort of balance or compromise while Pluto maybe just wants to unbalance or expose the underpinnings of the relationship, the secrets that have been swept under the rug?
I was recently watching the beginning of season one of Modern Family, and there’s definitely a few members of the family that would rather repress and just keep things in and not talk about them; whereas Pluto is really saying, “Okay, Saturn in Libra, I understand that you want to keep things on a civil level and not rock the boat too much and go through your social niceties, but you know, there are things going on in this partnership that have not been explored and maybe if we do bring it up to the surface, we can have a more authentic connection.”
Michelle: Saturn crystallizes the energy that it touches, and you can get stuck in a pattern such that it just doesn’t work anymore. If we think of Saturn as a strong piece of granite, you don’t necessarily want your relationship as hard and stuck as all of that, so Pluto will insist on some shifting from Saturn if the relationship has fallen into some kind of a dead-weight pattern.
Jeffrey: Yes. It’s a little bit like a jackhammer destroying concrete.
Michelle: Yes. It’s not necessarily pleasant, but again, it really depends on the consciousness of each person that’s dealing with this energy. You know, you can either really blow it up and get angry and have a good knock down fight or you can resolve to really address your shadow stuff and bring it to the light.