“Threshold,” chalk pastel by Maria Theresa Maggi
The moon is full at 16 degrees Libra in the tropical zodiac on April 5, 2023 at 9:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time. Libra is the 7th sign in the tropical zodiac, the second air sign and the third of the cardinal signs. (As I’ve written about before, cardinal signs are the leaders of the zodiac. They rule the seasons and set up initial conditions.) Libra leads the way to balance in partnership. As we cross over its horizon to the top half of the chart, we begin to learn how to live in partnership, which is to say we begin to learn how to respond. It’s often said that we may not be able to change the things that happen but we can always control our responses to them. In Libra, we begin to learn how to do that by deliberating in hopes of reaching consensus with someone. We began this lunation cycle with the new moon at the very beginning of Libra’s opposite, Aries. The first cardinal sign, Aries, leads us to action though the nature of beginning itself. Beginnings can be slow, but they rarely feel that way. We mark their arrival by what we see burst onto the scene: the moment the bud leafs out or the flower opens, the moment the baby slips out of mamma and into this world, the first cry that fills the lungs with air—the fighting spirit that gets us moving and announces we are here. We culminate the first half of this cycle of honoring that spirit of beginning with a full moon in service of putting that instinctual experience of self into an opportunity of awareness of itself through the mirror of the other.
When I went to draw something to suggest the feeling of this full moon, a scene I created in my mind’s eye from a light meditation I’ve done came to mind. In this Medical Medium information, we are asked to open a portal out onto the stars and beyond, and to envision a ball of light coming toward us that we can catch and place into our brains, where in this information, the soul resides. The head is ruled by Aries, and so it seems quite fitting to me to imagine the moon shining from the threshold of this portal to the stars, lighting the way to balance in our relationship with others.
In the tradition of the tarot, the moon card represents the past and in the herbal tarot it is assigned the herb lemon balm. Lemon balm is a gentle calmer of the nervous system and can help us integrate past damage and trauma. The full moon knows all our past sorrows, injuries and longings. When it falls in Libra, the sign of the scales, it invites us to let go of anything that keeps us out of balance with ourselves and our partners. We are then free to see life through another’s eyes, or imagine walking in their shoes, even for a moment. Without Libra teaching us to find a balance between self and other, we can’t get to that most essential of feelings: empathy. Venus ruled Libra loves beauty, and without empathy, it’s hard to find beauty in the world.
This Libra full moon has a big job to do.