The Virgin’s Bleeding Heart ~ Full Moon in Virgo – February 22nd, 2016

On February 22, 2016 the Moon will be full in the mutable Earth sign of Virgo at 3 degrees. Think back to the intentions you set at the New Moon in Aquarius two weeks ago. What have you accomplished towards making your dreams manifest since then?

This Full Moon in Virgo will traverse the midpoint between the waning Uranus/Pluto square, acting as a luminescent point of perspective from which you may begin to learn more about the smoldering tension that has been causing so much climactic revolution and renaissance in your life.

The Sun at His Eastern Gate by William Blake, 1820

The Sun at His Eastern Gate by William Blake, 1820

Virgoan energy inspires in-depth analysis and careful consideration regarding any persistent issues or problems because Virgo rules stratagems, healing, and the proper arrangement of minutiae. (Sorting seeds, taxonomizing particles, and untangling stubborn knots are just a few activities that Virgo actually enjoys)

With consideration to its placement between the Uranus/Pluto square, imagine this Full Moon as a perfectly positioned camera: slow shutter speed lens capturing the transformed landscape left in the wake of the evolution/revolution.

The Man Man With the Movie Camera – film by Dziga Vertov

Typically, the dynamic of the Pisces/Virgo axis is highly creative, nudging the sharp chiseling mind of the Virgin to yield to the softer seaforms of dreaming nymphs. The opposition between the Pisces Sun and the Virgo Moon can therefore summon a sentience within you that perceives the ceaseless emergence of consciousness within an infinite number of individual manifestations.

To make matters even more mystical, on this particular night, the Moon will also be opposing Neptune in Pisces which may take the night into a new territory of strangeness.

Everything may dissolve into a “stream of consciousness”, where no linear or rational causality can be found. All those lenses of the mind will fog up, leaving you to traipse along a labyrinthine path that reveals a myriad of memories and fantasies.

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Even as you swirl in an out of various levels of consciousness, the Earthen wisdom of the Virgo Moon will reveal itself as the voice of the astute mythologist, ever aware that your time-traveling imagination is on a mission to collect the lost fragments of your soul.

This Full Moon in Virgo will illuminate many of the most prominent astrological themes evoked by the north and south node, as well as Neptune and Jupiter. This Moon will surely be a portal to a “betwixt and between” realm, reminiscent of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem, “Christabel”.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

This epic poem is known for being Coleridge’s most demanding piece, as it is unfinished and has incited more controversy as to its meaning than anything else he ever wrote. Coleridge was known to say that “Christabel” brought him much distress because of the tension it brought up between his morality and his imagination: a perfect description of a Moon in Virgo (morality) and Sun in Pisces (imagination) opposition!

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The Moon, by Alphonse Mucha – 1902

In the beginning of the poem, “The lovely lady, Christabel” is the picture of purity, devoted to her father and uncomplicated in character. The first impressions of Christabel are a perfect two-dimensional description of a Virgo Moon, like a delicate flower bud rooted in healthy soil and as yet unmolested by wind, rain and ravenous predators.

The Full Moon in Virgo will be a night for initiation into earth magic, which may summon a direct communion with your shadow. (the chthonian/the qliphothic…whatever you choose to call it) Any dialogue between Virgo and Pisces (the material and the abyss) never fails to plumb the depths…so look out below!

Poetry by Alphonse Mucha, 1903

Poetry by Alphonse Mucha, 1903

Christabel’s dreams usurp her will to remain forever protected and she, the Virgin, is so stirred by her desires to marry a valiant knight that she takes to the wild woods to pour her prayers into the mutable earth.

Christabel prays to become a dutiful wife, just as you have probably prayed that you might fulfill some societal expectations. But instead of receiving a husband, she receives an introduction to the vampiric and demonic forces that lay dormant inside her.

Christabel meets Geraldine

Christabel represents only half of Virgoan consciousness, cut off from the knowledge of her duty to face evil and remove that which is diseased. This is a reminder that without exploration and integration of the shadow aspects the the psyche, ignorance will threaten the ecological health of the soul.

The siren call to wander into the darkness and pray is the seductive pull that the Sun in Pisces will have upon the Virgo Moon: one that urges fragile flower buds to open and dilate upon the mysteries of the night.

“And naught was green upon the oak
But moss and rarest mistletoe:
She [Christabel] kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.”

In Coleridge’s poem, the answer to Christabel’s prayers is not the knight that she had fervently dreamed of. Instead, it is the dark night of the soul that she unwittingly summons in the form of a lithe and beautiful woman, who says,

“My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine”

After hearing Geraldine’s woeful tale of victimhood, the dutiful Christabel does not think twice about bringing the pale and weakened woman back home to be cared for.

Virgo is the consummate healer, but without wisdom she is easily exploited.

Once safely ensconced in Christabel’s bedroom, (the angelic chamber of her virginal mind) the Lady Geraldine casts a spell upon her and opens her up to the darkness of the psyche.

When the Moon opposes Neptune, expect to more easily overtaken by enchantments of all kinds.

"So halfway from her bed she rose, And on her elbow did recline to look at the Lady Geraldine."

“So halfway from her bed she rose, And on her elbow did recline to look at the Lady Geraldine.”

Despite the kindness and virtue that Christabel bestowed, she is still violated by the demonic Geraldine. As Christabel lies in bed, watching Geraldine undress, the sexuality and innocence remain braided together until the following well-known stanza.

“…Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,
And slowly rolled her eyes around;
Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropt to her feet, and full in view,
Behold! her bosom and half her side –
[Are lean and old and foul of hue]
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
O shield her! Shield sweet Christabel!”

Legend has it that upon hearing a recitation of that passage, the poet Percy Shelley screamed and ran out of the room and continued to be haunted by hallucinations of the scene.

Don’t you wish poetry could still have this kind of power?

This disrobing of Geraldine is followed Christabel’s violation, which is demonic, vampiric, and psychologically speaking a horrifying manifestation of her own shadow.

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“Christabel” is a poem that illustrates the intercourse of souls (Pisces) and bodies (Virgo), but in this case this interplay manifests through enchantment and possession. Christabel did not know it, but her two-dimensional virtues had fostered disease due to the repression of her desires. Therefore, the encounter with her shadow manifests as a rape and a violation of all the codes of honor that she had once lived by.

This Full Moon in Virgo, with its potential to provoke a Neptunian mystical experience, is a powerful time to cleanse your psyche of anything which would seek to manipulate or violate your free will.

A Full Moon is always a time for cleansing and for clearing, but a Full Moon in Virgo contains an especially powerful opportunity to abate your magical abilities by allowing you to assess the health of all your desires and dreams.

If Christabel had known more about her desires, then the spirit that she summoned under the oak tree may have initiated her into ecstasy, rather than violation and guilt.

Dance, by Alphonse Mucha, 1898

If Christabel had been wiser about what her dreams meant, then she would have known how to summon a force that filled her with life, rather than draining it.

The Abduction of Psyche by Zephyrus to the Palace of Eros, by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon circa 1808

In a world of mass media propaganda/ surveillance/sexual exploitation and malignant political ideology, how much of Christabel’s naïveté you can find in yourself?

Are your dreams really your dreams or are they manufactured by or influenced by somebody else’s ideas?

Regard this Full Moon in Virgo as a time to really get wise to yourself. May you find your own true will!

much love to you all

<3 Aeolian Heart <3

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