Living Liberated Time
Aquarius Full Moon | Thursday 8.11.22 | 8:35pm CST
Thursday hosts a full supermoon in Aquarius, after a powerfully tense several weeks. This energy is about a transitional breaking point in our journey. Wherever we’re going, today’s moon calls us to transform the methods we use to get there. The quality and the experience of our journey is changing.
It will be helpful to remember as we make changes to our current journey that most of life is journey, with occasional arrivals at goal points. Focusing too dramatically on distant goals is tempting for Aquarius, but that is because Aquarius tends to enjoy dissociation from the present. Questions we want to ask during this full moon are: how can I enjoy arriving to each moment and challenge within the journey? How can I use my ideals to water my garden without forgetting what else the garden needs for its growth? Does the garden need pruning, harvesting, maybe a little conversation or time spent in joy and relaxation?
This full moon conjuncts Saturn and squares Uranus, so currently we are identifying more with theprocess of integrating Saturnian gravity and maturation. We have the chance now to welcome radical change while challenging the impulsive volatility of Uranus. We can slow down for this full moon, honor our limitations, and let go of control. Instead of control, try honoring commitment and intention.
The Aquarian element of this time calls us to craft new definitions of liberation. What does liberation look like when it is not predicated on hierarchy, exploitation, or the flattening of our differences? What is liberation that is predicated on respect, limitation, and the bonds that tether us to one another in all our highly differentiated selfhoods? For now Leo season continues, and Venus has freshly entered Leo, so one thing we have to remember is that our liberation depends upon our capacities to affirm one another and ourselves.
This is a culmination of a tense summer storm that has taught us how to navigate and hopefully even welcome instability where we have historically been least comfortable with it. Mars will finally begin moving off this tense fixed axis (nodes and Uranus in Taurus/Scorpio, Saturn in Aquarius, Sun and Venus in Leo) by August 19 when it enters Gemini. There it will move until late March ’23 due to the retrograde at the end of this year. This will open up a 6 month chapter of questioning what we fight for and how we fight for it, as well as how we move toward our desires through language.
What we want to do now in preparation for this transition is to integrate our agency and our desires into how we make plans for change. What do you believe about your ability to shape change? What do your behaviors tell you about your beliefs about shaping change? Can you bring the two closer together?
While we are in the business of welcoming change, it would be wise to look to our beliefs about time because Saturn, whom this full moon tightly conjuncts, is the lord of time. Thanks to the ongoing Saturn Uranus square since last year, we have been pretty continually reveling in the gift of queering time.
We already know that the past is something we often experience as real in the present, but in his book After the Party, Joshua Chambers-Letson makes the point that the future is already alive in the troubled present as well. He helps us remember that we cannot deny the present of the past or the future, both of which are embedded within it.
What does it mean to identify what you want for your future and how you want to feel? What if the only thing between you and what you want is a construct of time put in place by a ruling class that wants to control your time? What if nothing real separates you from now and then?
What if you imagine what you want and how you want to feel, and you begin living it and practicing it now? Try this in bite-size increments first. Spend an hour living as if there was nothing between you and the reality you want to live. The time to live your liberation is now.
As we open doors to this deep register of liberation, remember that the lunar conjunction with Saturn indicates a need for real, clear boundaries with those around us in order to have the capacity to create this kind of liberated time.
Prentis Hemphill’s wisdom applies: “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” Nedra Glover Tawwab also helps us understand what a boundary looks like: “Boundaries are expectations and needs that help you feel safe and comfortable in your relationships. Expectations in relationships help you stay mentally and emotionally well. Learning when to say no and when to say yes is also an essential part of feeling comfortable when interacting with others.”
With this Full Moon give yourself the gift of affirming your experience, your desires for change, and the boundaries you find when you look within. The more you do this for yourself, the more you can do it for others.