Aries Full Moon- The Courage to become who you are

It’s been a little while since I have written anything here, largely because I have been engulfed in what really was an opportunity of a lifetime, travelling to Chicago for the United Astrology Conference and spending two extraordinary weeks immersed in astrology, running an OPA Peer Group and learning from some of the best astrologers in the world, talking astrology from morning until night and being surrounded by people who speak the same language that I do.I’m sure if you follow me on social media, you have seen some of the posts! But underneath all the excitement, I also found myself thinking a lot about me as I was immersed in an interesting collective energy.

I’ve been questioning who I  am now as an astrologer and how I want to put myself out into the world? Who do I want to work with? What do I really want my work to say? What parts of the astrologer I have been still fit me, and what am I ready to leave behind as I move into the next phase of my life and work? There will be more on this soon as a rebrand is in the works but still percolating.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that I have returned home asking these questions just as we approach a very interesting Full Moon in Aries on 27 September in Australia

Because Aries is fundamentally concerned with the principle of I. Who am I? What do I want? What do I need? Where am I going? What am I prepared to stand up for? But, as always with a Full Moon, there is another side to the story. The Moon in Aries sits opposite the Sun in Libra, creating one of the most important polarities in astrology: the self and the other. Aries says, this is who I am and Libra asks, but how do I exist alongside you?

And during this Full Moon, especially with some of the supporting astrology, I really think this is what we should be pondering on: How do we remain true to ourselves while being in relationship with another person and understanding someone else’s needs, perspective and experience without abandoning our own? Where is compromise healthy and where have we compromised ourselves so much that we have begun to lose sight of who we are?

These questions become even more interesting because the Moon is sitting very closely with Neptune in Aries, and Aries and Neptune are, in many ways, strange bedfellows. Aries is the principle of the individual. It is self-agency, desire, motivation, instinct and the right to exist as a separate person. Neptune is almost the opposite; it dissolves boundaries and connects us to something greater than ourselves. It is compassion, imagination, spirituality and our longing to merge with something beyond ourselves, with another person, an ideal, a belief, a community or with the collective itself. And so perhaps one of the deepest questions underneath this Full Moon is: Can I remain connected without disappearing?

Because Neptune and Libran energy as well can blur the lines, and we can merge with another person so completely that we lose touch with our own needs. We can absorb the expectations of family, become the person our partner needs us to be or the person our clients, our audience or our community, our social media feed expect us to be. And increasingly, in a world where we are constantly exposed to other people’s voices, opinions, fears and beliefs, we can even begin to lose our sense of ourselves within the collective. Where does my voice end and everyone else’s begin or my voice begin as a true representation of who I really am?

And Neptune can add another important layer during this Full Moon because it can have us idealising, romanticising and even projecting, and it can make something feel extraordinarily real before we necessarily have all the information. That doesn’t mean our feelings are wrong. In fact, I think this Full Moon may bring some very real feelings such as anger, frustration, longing and restlessness and the desire for freedom to the surface. Or the feeling that something simply cannot continue in the way it has been.

But perhaps the invitation is not to immediately act upon every feeling, but to become curious about what sits underneath it.

If we feel angry, what is the anger really asking us to recognise? If we suddenly want to leave, what part of us is feeling trapped and if we desperately want someone else to change, what might we need to change within ourselves too? This is where the Aries–Libra axis becomes incredibly rich psychologically, because so much of what we encounter through another person can also reveal something about ourselves.

There is another fascinating pattern occurring around this Full Moon. The Libra Sun is forming a Grand Air Trine with Uranus in Gemini and Pluto in Aquarius, while the Aries Moon and Neptune connect positively with both Uranus and Pluto, creating what astrologers call a Kite pattern, with the Aries Moon and Neptune at its focal point. In simple language, this very personal question of identity is happening against the backdrop of enormous collective change.

Pluto in Aquarius is transforming our relationship with power, community, technology and the collective. Uranus in Gemini is beginning to revolutionise how we communicate, think, learn and exchange ideas and Neptune in Aries is beginning a much longer conversation about identity, individuality, belief and what it means to be an autonomous person while still belonging to something larger than ourselves.

And now the Aries Full Moon invites us to question, who am I within all of this?  

Who am I becoming in a world that is changing so quickly? What belongs to me? What have I inherited or absorbed or assimilated from the collective and what am I now ready to consciously choose?

Mars rules Aries, which makes Mars particularly important in understanding this Full Moon, and Mars is sitting at 29° Cancer, right at the very end of its journey through that sign. Cancer is emotional, protective and instinctive. It protects what it loves. But sometimes our protective mechanisms become so familiar that we don't even realise we are using them. And sometimes we continue protecting the person we once were long after that protection is actually necessary.

With Mars at the final degree of Cancer, there may be something emotionally reaching completion. Perhaps the Aries Full Moon also knows that we cant keep doing this in the same way and as Mars prepares to move into Leo, another question emerges:What do I want to create instead?

Questions for this Full Moon

Rather than thinking of this Full Moon as demanding dramatic action, I think it offers us an opportunity to become very curious about ourselves.

Sit with some of these questions and notice what comes up:

• Who am I becoming, and does the life I am currently living allow room for that person?

• Where have I compromised myself in order to maintain connection, approval or peace?

• Where might I be projecting something onto another person that actually belongs to me?

• Am I responding to who someone really is, or to the story I have created about them?

• What am I feeling very strongly right now — and what is underneath that feeling?

• Where have I merged so completely with another person, family, community or collective expectation that I have lost touch with my own voice?

• What old emotional protection or defence mechanism am I ready to stop carrying?

• If I stopped asking what everybody else expects from me, what would I choose next?

Perhaps most importantly: Can I be completely myself and still remain genuinely connected to you?

I don't think this Full Moon is necessarily asking us to choose between Aries and Libra, between independence and relationship, between ourselves and everyone else I don’t feel astrology asks us to choose one end of a polarity. it asks us to integrate them.

To know ourselves deeply enough that we can meet another person without disappearing into them and to recognise another person's experience without abandoning our own.

Sometimes it is simply having the courage to say: This is who I am now.

I will be travelling to Croatia to celebrate upcoming milestone Birthdays with my bestie. I will be back from October 22nd, so if you want an update or to discover what is going on, book in now at www.aspectastrology.com.au