Full Moon November 2010 – A Peacock’s Tears

The Full Moon in Taurus occurs on the 21st November 2010 at 6.27pm (GMT) at 29TAu18.

The 29th degree of any sign is called an ‘anaretic degree’. As the last degree of a sign, the influence of the sign is weakening, blending almost into the next sign. Celeste Teal talks of this degree as having ‘defective vision’.

The Moon is exalted in Taurus yet 29 Taurus is often linked to the weeping Sisters of the Pleaides. Whilst these fixed stars have now slowly shifted into Gemini, the influence of them seems to still hang over this degree like a bad memory. To me it is like the heart-wrench of hearing what was once ‘our song’ long after the lies and the leaving. The heart twists. Fixed star Alconyne is associated with both blindness and inner vision. Sometimes we need to close our eyes in order to see.

This Full Moon chart has a rather confusing overtone. The Sun-Moon opposition is squared by Neptune and Chiron creating a tense t-square. The Sun and Moon are falling towards mutable signs yet bound to their still fixed status. The square to Neptune clouds the already fuzzy issue. Meanwhile, Pluto sits in a conjunction to the North Node in Capricorn, almost demanding that we deal with reality in order to fulfil our destiny. There is a sense that we are being asked to eliminate what isn’t necessary but the Neptune square may make us feel sentimentally attached to those things that are perhaps better released.

The sabian symbol for Taurus 29 is :-

A Peacock Parading On The Terrace Of An Old Castle

I still remember the day I proudly came home with a peacock feather that I had found at a manor house nearby. I propped it in the corner of my room where its iridescent feathers caught the light. I couldn’t believe I had found such treasure! But my Grandmother, a quietly spoken lady normally, almost shrieked when she saw it.

“Get that Devil feather out of here!” she instructed.

My Grandmother believed that peacock feathers should never be brought into the home. To her, the markings on the feather symbolised the evil eye and brought unhappiness, even sickness. Needless to say my beautiful find went straight back to the woods.

There is a great deal of lore attributed to peacocks from cultures such as china and India. In most, they are seen as  birds connected to God (or Gods) and considered to be a positive and protective symbol. Perhaps the superstition of the unlucky feather arose from it being detached from the bird.

But vanity is another connection to peacocks. In the image we have a beautiful refined bird but the castle is old. There is a sense that the peacock is guarding something which has long since left yet it refuses to step down and demands to be seen. The eyes in the feathers can hypnotise, leaving the observer infatuated or glamorised into believing the castle isn’t deserted.

Yet on the flip side, this symbol could suggest that we find beauty and value in the most unlikely of places, that we must learn to cherish the teachings of the past. The many ‘eyes’ in the peacock’s tail could remind us that the divine is everywhere.

And this seems to be the dilemma with this coming Full Moon. We need to look very carefully at what we are defending. We need to be aware of what is truth and what is fiction, what is real and what is illusion.

Peacock photo by Obenson on Flickr