In the earliest hours of Wednesday, September 20, the New Moon in Virgo arrives. This New Moon is quiet, unassuming, careful, and much concerned with the details of healing, mending, and taking care. This is a time of respite, when we attend to our needs and the needs of those closest to us.

In the early hours of Wednesday, September 6 (3:00 am EDT), the Full Moon in Pisces arrives. She will appear most full in the sky overnight tonight, September 5, sailing through the cosmic oceans.

Monday, August 21, a total solar eclipse arrives with the New Moon in Leo. This New Moon eclipse happens at the end of Leo, the sign of courage, creativity, playfulness, joy, and the heart, of kings and megalomaniacs, childlike joy and childish demands for attention, heart-centered creativity and small-ego craving for an audience. Light and Shadow inextricably mixed.

The Full Moon in Aquarius arrives Monday afternoon, August 7. We’re in eclipse season now: This Full Moon will be a partial lunar eclipse. As we enter this shadowy time, it’s almost as if this lunar eclipse is a shadow, or perhaps a mirror, of the total solar eclipse arriving in a few weeks. The Full Moon falls at 15 Aquarius. The Sun is at 15 Leo, which means this is Lughnasadh, one of the four great fire festivals of the ancient Celts.

Early Sunday morning, the New Moon arrives at 0 degrees Leo. This is the opening into fixed Fire, the sign of courage, of the heart, of joy, playfulness, children, theater, leadership, and creative expression.

Overnight Saturday, the Full Moon in Capricorn arrives. The official time is six minutes after midnight, so, July 9 in my Eastern time zone and July 8 in time zones west of me.

Capricorn is the Old Goat. Saturn-ruled, this sign of the water-goat is traditional, fixated on rules, determined, and absolutely committed to physical reality. The Moon, whose home is Cancer, is not so happy in Capricorn, but she is grounded and full of grit. This is a no-nonsense Full Moon.

The Full Moon and Pluto will be very close together, one degree apart and moving toward an exact conjunction that arrives two hours after the Full Moon itself. Since Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008, he’s been uncovering rotten foundations in Capricornian things, including financial institutions and markets, governments, physical infrastructure, and the earth itself. Fundamentally, Pluto is about power: Who wields it, what its limits are, how we use it best or face the consequences of its abuse. …

At the New Moon in Cancer, looking inward is emphasized. We’re in deep waters. Emotions are strong. Staying inside our castle with the drawbridge up, the portcullis down, and the moat stocked with something lethal could feel perfect.

Tomorrow morning, Friday, June 9, the Full Moon in Sagittarius arrives, which means this Moon will look most full tonight.

Following the very-close-in New Moon we felt a few weeks ago, this is a minimoon, farther away and appearing smaller. This Full Moon is also low in the sky, so her color will be richer. She will embody her sweet names: Honey Moon, Full Rose Moon, Strawberry Moon.

Sagittarius can be a sweet sign. This is an optimistic, generous, expansive energy, keen to explore what is different, bizarre, unusual, and deep. This is a gypsy Moon, a philosopher, an explorer.

Opposite Sagittarius is Gemini, where the Sun sits with Ceres, the fierce maternal energy of glorious green growing things. Where Gemini is breadth, the far-reaching need to network, Sagittarius is depth.

Think of Gemini as the sharp young crow who brings shiny things home. Think of Sagittarius as the wise owl who studies the assemblage carefully, wresting meaning from the varied things of the world.

At this Full Moon, you might be called away. Depending where the Full Moon falls in your chart–find 18 degrees of Sagittarius and Gemini to locate her axis–you might be drawn into philosophy, religious systems, deep ponderings about politics and the social order, or far travel.

Where do you long to understand things deeply? Where do you seek a unifying theory of life? Where do you just want to cut loose and immerse yourself in something completely foreign and wonderfully strange? All these are Sagittarian impulses.

Bilbo Baggins was very Sagittarian, especially for a hobbit. He understood what traveling meant: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

We’re standing at the

Thursday afternoon, we welcome the New Moon in Gemini. Arriving at 3:45 pm EDT, this New Moon belongs to Mercury, patron of traders and thieves, fast talkers, jugglers, and tricksters.

Mercury is interested in both sides of any question and happily adds a third, then a fourth. Hermes, god of the crossroads. Thoth, inventor of language. Lugh, the many-skilled.

Although all these gods are male, Mercury holds gender lightly as well. Fluidly androgynous, Gemini is the sign of duality, polarity, and quick change.

And we were so enjoying the quiet stability of Taurus. Do we really need more change these days?

Perhaps not, but we live in interesting times.

Before looking at the gifts of this New Moon (and there are gifts), let’s look at the sky. The Grand Trine in Fire continues to dominate the heavens and brings the incendiary changes we’re experiencing.

Uranus the revolutionary and Eris the chaos goddess move slowly through late Aries. Venus and Pallas Athena are close together and moving toward Uranus and Eris. See what’s happening there? Venus, Eris, and Athena are all on fire and moving toward Uranus, the force pushing us to claim our power and light up the sky.

Venus is also challenging Pluto in a square. Yes, transformation is happening. Yes, the sacred feminine is rising up.

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Saturn continues retrograde in Sagittarius, trining Uranus. Saturn’s usual function is to put on the brakes. He likes to point to tradition and ask everyone to consider the consequences. But as this fiery connection to Uranus drags on, it might feel more like that moment when hitting the brakes sends the car fishtailing toward the cliff.

Completing the Grand Trine is the North Node of the Moon in late Leo. This is the point of unfolding, the place where the future comes into being. The link here reflects

This Wednesday, just before 5:45 pm EDT, the Full Moon arrives. This is the Scorpio Full Moon. Sitting at 20 Scorpio, the Moon opposes the Sun at 20 Taurus and will look most full in the sky on Wednesday night.

Scorpio is fixed Water. Here, still waters run deep. Scorpio knows who has skeletons in the closet and where the bodies are buried. Scorpio knows all kinds of secrets and rarely tells. This sign loves to know things, all kinds of things, in all kinds of ways. Knowledge is power and Scorpio loves power.

During this Full Moon, a window opens. We may see things, learn things, possibly things we would rather not know. We may also connect with hidden ways of knowing, for Scorpio is interested in these too. This is the sign of the occult, of psychic connection, of what cannot be seen or understood with the ordinary senses.

Surely this blooming, burgeoning time of Spring is not right for a Scorpio Moon! Everything is budding, leafing out, ready to be seen and appreciated with our physical senses. Why should this secretive, shadowy energy show up now?

The technical reason is that Scorpio opposes Taurus, who as the patient gardener is tending this time of new growth. The underlying truth is that all the bright new growth of Taurus potentiates everything Scorpio represents. When the world seems fresh and new, we need the reminder of what lies beneath.

The Full Moon is closely connected to Pluto, ruler of Scorpio and the great alchemist who brings transformation to all things. Pluto is retrograde, not too unusual for this outer planet, but still a reminder that we need to pay attention. Important things are happening. Pluto will trine the Sun and sextile the Moon, flowing energy to these two in a way that emphasizes the connection between above and below, the seen and the unseen, the open and the hidden.

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Check you birth chart. I always say this. You don’t absolutely need to, of course. Understanding the Full Moon itself is helpful. But when we know how a particular set of transits–in this case, an intense Full Moon–will touch our birth chart, then we can anticipate how the energy might show up for us. This is a time for transformation and it can help to know how and where change might happen.

What’s intriguing about this Full Moon is the kind of double pattern we see in the sky, both sides of which point to big changes.