Today is the full moon.

Full moons are significant because they symbolize a center-point in a growth cycle.

Growth cycles are circles, never-ending or beginning, a continuum of todays informed by yesterday.  This feels good to me because one way of looking at this means that wherever you are in your understanding of your life and the larger tides is right where you are meant to be.

In other words we don’t need to wait until everything lines up to do soul work.  We can start right here, right now.  It’s starting that counts.  Everything that happened behind us is a part of our make-up.  It is sitting just under the surface, all that material. We can use it to better know and therefor work with ourselves.  All we have to do is begin.

Envision a circle.  Now on that circle move backwards by Half, one whole arc behind you.  That was the last new moon.  Whatever is going on in your inner-life during the new moon shows itself in your outer life on the full.

When you hear people say I’m frustrated, must be the full moon–this is actually true.  What it means is that some part of you and how you relate to your own inner life isn’t being brought to the light, is resisting the natural tide of nature.  This is a very normal, very human thing to do.  We are programmed to believe we don’t live in connection with Nature.

That could not be further from the truth.

Sun and Moon Symbols

One of the symbols of the moon is private awareness, in other words the inner-life we keep quiet to ourselves.  The sun is the outer life, the personality, who we are to the outside world in ‘the light of day’.  It covers as well what we grow and build and take part in, how and what and who we use to identify ourselves.

Full moons reflect the sun.  It is a lovely combo of both inner and outer.  So full moon is the reflection of the power we draw from the private, inside part of us to feed who we are and what we are making real in our public life.

Imbolc

The new moon two weeks ago is known as lunar Imbolc.

Imbolc, which is the Celtic name, is known in other traditions as Candlemas, purification of the Virgin Mary, Bean-throwing, Brigid’s moon, Chinese New Year, or Sap-rising, to name a mere few.  It is the time of first light in the season of dark or winter, when the fire of creation or fertility is resparked.

This is significant because in every society based on a winter-hempishpere, there is a marking of the new moon of February.  New moon time is when the sky is the darkest.  Because the new moon is a dark moon, and representative of what is dark or private inside of us, the new moon of February is often a very challenging time.  As the old saying goes, it is always darkest before the dawn...Well Winter, the season of dark or inner, private-reflection, is at its fullest on lunar Imbolc.  It is in fact that tension that strikes the first spark of spring.   When that first spark, that light, that stirring of sap waking up in the trees or bear yawning from deep in his cave, first snaps to life it also marks a time of waking up to what is darkest or most private within us.  It is often this moon that privately reflects our biggest fears, shortcomings, challenges, or areas we are ashamed of or afraid to see.

Meaning tomorrow’s moon will bring further real-life insight on those very issues.  Because what was private under a dark moon is now brought to light under the full.  Whether out in the open–at work, home, financially, in relationships, or from an inner-place of awareness.

Taking quiet time for inner, private reflection can help us work more knowingly with these issues moving from inside to out.

Tune in tomorrow for more on how this is also effected by Mercury Retrograde.