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This week, the full Moon takes place in future-oriented Aquarius as Chiron retrograde continues its descent through the underworld.
Full Moon in Aquarius
Of any phase of the Moon, it is the full Moon that most often stops us in our tracks. The way she places herself on display. The way none of her is hidden. The way she lights up the space around her, acting as a celestial torch. In astrology, the Moon has a beautiful connection to the body, to our memories, to our inner world, and to our emotions. While she is full, what was not previously seen within us comes to the surface to be illuminated.
The month begins with a full Moon in Aquarius on August 1, 2023, welcoming us into a new space of culmination and surrender, release and ending. While the Moon is in this sign, life has a somewhat magical feel to it.
An objective, wisdom-sharing air sign, Aquarius lives in the mental realms. It offers perspective. It lives outside of the societal structures and collective consensus that come and go. It purifies our thinking processes and clarifies our sentiments. It invites us to observe with neutrality as we move through the emotional waters that the Moon so gracefully represents.
As the Moon takes us into the subconscious of our mind and body, Aquarius brings an opportunity to read the currents of what lives within us with clear perception, space, and objectivity. The upcoming full Moon in Aquarius reminds us that our emotional worlds also live outside of structures and consensus. They have their own rules. They have their own needs. They have their own desires and their own requirements for nourishment. And it is only through bringing the worlds that live within us to our awareness can we then tend to them.
Chiron Retrograde
Known as a minor planet, comet, or asteroid, Chiron was discovered in 1977 and is relatively new to our study of both astronomy and astrology. In mythology, however, Chiron holds much history and wisdom. A centaur who was abandoned at birth by his mother, Chiron grew into adulthood feeling unloved and unwanted. His journey is a powerful one, however, as he built himself up and began teaching combat to some of the most well-known Greek heros. Despite his wounds, or perhaps precisely because of them, he created his own path to power.
One day, he was accidentally wounded with a poisoned arrow and began learning and even mastering a variety of healing modalities. Chiron studied with such fervor and gained such knowledge that he began teaching healing arts to the gods, although he was still unable to heal his own wound. Chiron became known across the seas as a teacher, psychic, philosopher, and “Wounded Healer.”
In evolutionary astrology, it is suggested that the role Chiron plays in our life and the wounding it represents are what we came into this life with as wounds or karma from past lives. In psychological astrology, Chiron is regarded as wounding from childhood. Either way, there can be a felt experience of a core wound with Chiron. Yet as shown by his story, the archetype is also a portal into deep wisdom, healing, compassion, and value. As the famous Persian poet Rumi once said, “the wound is where the light enters.”
Chiron retrograde has begun moving through its apparent backward motion, which will continue through December 26, 2023. During this time, it invites us to explore these wounds. It invites us to turn our awareness and acceptance inward on what needs to heal. And it invites us to reframe our experiences, perceptions, and relationship with those wounds, knowing that it is here that we can access our greatest wisdom.
Your Invitation
The full Moon reminds us that it is only through awareness that we can find acceptance. Awareness of self. Awareness of all of self. As the full Moon illuminates the night sky, revealing all of herself with nothing hidden, she invokes the same sentiment from us so that we may hold that awareness and bring acceptance to all parts of who we are.
It is through acceptance that we allow for the shift that is waiting to take place within us. Perhaps the psychologist Carl Jung was speaking to this with his often quoted words, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.”
Chiron retrograde sings a similar tune, providing a key that needs to be brought into our awareness. A key that unlocks compassion, wisdom, knowledge, and healing.
As Chiron retrograde and Aquarius influence the full Moon, the invitation is to take a step back and witness through a different lens. There is an observant lens within our mind’s eye, and when we look through it, we start to understand the tides and crashes, waves and movements of our emotional waters. When we look through the lens of Aquarius—of neutrality, objectivity, curiosity, space, and clear perception—these emotional waters can speak clearly to us.
Learn more about the influence of astrology in your life, including astrological events the Moon cycles, your Sun and Moon and rising signs, how journaling can help you connect with the current influences, and more with Jordane Maree at Girl and her Moon.
About Our Contributor
Jordane Maree is the founder of Girl and Her Moon, a platform and community exploring Soul through the lens of astrology, tarot, and energy healing. She is a writer, intuitive astrologer, energy and soul guide, and host of Girl and Her Moon, The Podcast. She is inspired, every single day, to be the mirror for you to see all that you truly are, you in all your infinite abilities, in total expansion, in infinite opportunity and love.
