2 Aquarian Full Moons, Authenticity, & Fleetwood Mac
Happy Full Moon in Aquarius! Taking place at about 1.5° Aquarius on July 23rd at 7:37pm Pacific and 10:37pm Eastern, this is the first of two Full Moons in the sign of the water-bearer this season. The second happens on August 22nd at about 29.5° Aquarius at 5:02am Pacific, 8:02am Eastern. And seeing as both Jupiter and Saturn will be in the sign of the Revolutionary from the end of this month through the end of the year (Saturn for all of 2022, and Jupiter conjunct this second Aquarian Full Moon), that's a lot of action in this part of the zodiac! (If you're interested in why there are even 13 Full Moons in a year to begin with:: Ever since the Romans switched over to the Julian calendar in 45 CE, which in 1582 became the Gregorian calendar and was refined by .0075 hours to keep us at an even 365 days each year, we've been following a solar calendar rather than a lunar one. This gives us 13 full moons in 365 days every few years...and since there are traditionally 12 astrological signs, one sign will inevitably have 2 full moons falling within its constellation every few years).
I like to call Aquarius the sign of Fleetwood Mac for their famous lyrics, "You can go your own way..." And in fact, you should go your own way if you have planets in Aquarius anywhere in your natal chart, or if a progressed planet/Ascendant/Midheaven is making its way through the sign of the genius and exile! This Fleetwood Mac song is much more aligned with the energy and needs of Aquarius than the one everyone sings when I start talking about this sign. That's right, you know the one..."Age of Aquarius." In fact, the lyrics of THAT song don't have much to do with this sign at all with their celebration of "harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding." While these qualities would create a lovely world indeed, they are not synonymous with Aquarius, but are much more Libran and Piscean in nature.
Aquarian energy invites us to live the most authentic lives possible and to show up as the most real versions of ourselves. It's kind of like the saying, "be yourself; everyone else is taken," and it really means this. A quick reference to dictionary.com gives us definitions for authenticity like, "genuine," and representing one’s true nature or beliefs; true to oneself." And while it may be easy to talk or write about this subject, like anything in life, it's often harder to actually embody this characteristic. As my teacher Steve Forrest reminds us, we were all born into a society that we are inevitably somewhat blinded by. The beliefs and traditions of our culture define our lives in ways that move us forward in a certain direction, perhaps one that we wouldn't have chosen on our own. Of course there are aspects of culture for which we can be grateful, for certainly not all of what civilization has given us is negative! Simultaneously, there is a piece of us that may be born into a specific part of the world whose values feel inconsistent with our own, and whose judgments we don't necessarily trust. And these sentiments are inherently Aquarian from an astrological perspective.
For this sign reminds us that most important in our evolution as humans is learning how to trust our own "Inner Guidance System," or "IGS", therefore learning how to march to the rhythm of our own hearts and drums in a world that truly needs us to show up as ourselves. When we do this, we are able to access the archetype of "genius" with which Aquarius is also associated. Genius here is not about being smarter than everyone else, but about seeing reality from a viewpoint that others are as of yet unable to see. I think of people like Nikola Tesla (the Tesla Coil) or Alan Turing (Turing machine) when I think of the genius of Aquarian energy, men who changed the course of history with ahead-of-their-time innovations that moved us forward as a society. And you may think of other humans who've inspired our world in ways that have moved us forward in visionarily, for there are so many who embody this archetypal energy and fit the bill here.
A Sanskrit word that comes to mind here is "upeksha," which can be translated as "having an expansive vantage point," or something similar to having a panoramic view of life. This is a necessary feature of the Aquarian spirit, one that gives this aforementioned unique perspective and invites society forward into a new way of seeing, thinking, and being. This requires an ability to expand beyond a limited or subjective viewpoint in order to see more clearly. For Aquarian energy to operate fully as itself, it needs to question reality in the form of the dominant paradigm, the current narrative, and virtually why we do anything the way that we do without first questioning it. The energy of the water-bearer is generally light years or at least a few decades ahead of its time, thinking ideas that the general public just aren't ready for. Aquarius might ask the question, "if all your friends were jumping off the side of the cliff, would you?" And usually they'd have a point, though the teenager, or quite oft, the adult, would not concede this.
Though not everyone has a lot or even a little Aquarius in their natal charts, everyone does have the modern ruler of Aquarius, Uranus, there. This planet, associated with lightning bolts that bring flashes of insight and understanding, the ability to be authentic to who we really are, and the freedom that comes with living from our innermost nature in the world, is present for us all. If we've chosen to live into it, anyway! And if we haven't, there will be a feeling of numbness, dissociation, and a zombie-like movement through life while we go through the motions that feel out of touch with who we are and why we're here. At certain times in our lives, transiting Uranus comes around to synchronistically teach us a few things for a couple of years around the ages of 21, 42, 63, and 84. During these transits we are asked to individuate even more than we have ever done before, moving away from the "comforts" of conformity and into the unknown terrain of living in a way that isn't governed by herd instinct or "group think," but one that is completely our own. This can be the most terrifying thing we ever do in the moment; yet once we allow the old versions of ourselves to completely fall away, we begin to really live from a place of truth, one in which we are sovereign unto ourselves because nothing incongruent has room to live within us anymore. It is for this freedom that Uranus exists so that we may embody its essence.
At the moment, transiting Uranus (authenticity, individuation, living our Truth in the world), is in the sign of Taurus (stability, security, and feeling well-resourced) and has been since 2018, and it'll be there until the early months of 2026. This part of us is being asked to question which aspects of ourselves we're willing to put to the wayside for the feelings of comfort and security that may not actually be real. Since Saturn in Aquarius is squaring Uranus for the good majority of the year, there may be inner conflict or internal friction that invites us to really question why we're doing things the way others tell us to rather than what feels most truly aligned with our Hearts and spirits. We're being called to question our deeper motivations regarding being complicit in a narrative that may not actually fit. We're being asked to understand what it means to live authentically in the world, even when others don't understand and question our motivations. We're being called upon to question values that aren't consistent with our own deeper ones so that we may live our truth in ways that we haven't yet, creating a world that is truly remarkable and beautiful, and perhaps even like the song "Age of Aquarius" portends. All of this for the sake of evolution and transformation, and for our ability to live as authentically and genuinely as possible, together. And as with all evolutionary astrology, the choice is always yours, in each and every moment!
May your Full Moons this season be beautiful, and may you remember the truth of who you are.
