The Aries Full Moon highlights courage and new beginnings — with the former helping us to take steps into the latter. This Moon at 20° Aries squares Pluto and also Saturn. It is a celestial grouping that smacks of fear or dread threatening to take hold of consciousness as we try to take practical steps for going forward with new plans. With Pluto, Saturn, and the South Node in an earth sign, certain fears or worries may be grounded in the reality of past experience. However, the Aries Moon emphasizes the need for a fresh start, despite concerns of repeating whatever may be feared.

Fear often fuels a negative fantasy about what might happen; all seems real enough in the imagination and yet is, in essence, just a mental projection. If we think about an old-fashioned style of movie projector, where a switch is turned on and the film starts rolling, we can also imagine the switch to turn the projector off — which might be a positive use of outer-planet power in action, especially with film-related Neptune trine Mercury! Meanwhile, Jupiter in Sagittarius’s close trine to the Moon also underlines the cleansing power of fire. As Jupiter is the planet of truth, the deeper cosmic message may be that the past does not automatically have to repeat itself. We may support this process by finding new ways to clear out memories of old experiences, particularly any that were once painful or otherwise troublesome.

It is worth noting Jupiter’s conjunction with dwarf planet Ceres, associated with the natural world as a source of physical and emotional sustenance. Stronger arguments could emerge for including more natural foods and materials in our everyday lifestyles. There may also be further evidence for anything with a toxic (Plutonic) edge no longer being viable in the future, including plastic, which is already controversial. In Greek mythology, Pluto equates to the figure of Hades, and Ceres to Demeter who wished to rescue and protect her kidnapped daughter, Persephone, from Hades’s clutches. Zeus, the equivalent of Jupiter, brokered a deal to assist the women, but also to keep Hades happy: Persephone would have to spend time in the Underworld only during the parts of the year coinciding with autumn and barren winter. The rest of the year, she could be with her mother, above the Earth. This led to Demeter’s willingness to allow crops to grow again, which forms the basis of ideas around the different seasons.

The tying-in of the Moon — representing the universal Mother figure — with Jupiter and Ceres repeats the already resounding message of how important the Earth and its natural resources are and how it makes sense for us to give greater care to the Earth. Yet Saturn and Pluto remind us that we need to somehow embrace the dark side! We could consider instances where synthetic materials still have a place, so that we can respect the usefulness they possess: Everything has a purpose, within the right context.

None of this will necessarily prevent arguments over what we should actually do, though, as indicated by the Full Moon’s square to the Capricorn planets. We may have to weather more storms, particularly where male energy and traditional (Capricornian) ideas are pitted against feminine sensibility and innovation. Since Neptune sextiles Saturn, there may be a blurring of boundaries in an attempt to cover something up, or maybe it’s just a manifestation of perceptions changing. The sextile is arguably a softer aspect than the square; therefore, although it may represent some sort of challenge, it does not have to signify something inherently painful or negative. Saturn’s sextile to Mercury is also suggestive of ideas previously rejected or ignored now being more readily accepted. Mercury is in the water sign of Scorpio, so there may have been a gradual seepage or drip-drip effect that now, finally, gains ground.

This article is from the Mountain Astrologer, written by Diana Collis.