The December Full Moon Is A Good Time To Reflect On Failures

Do you know what Geminis love? Geminis love information. In this way, they are not dissimilar to their polarity, Sagittarius, who love information just as well but differently. While Sagittarius leaps and bounds toward the accumulation and transmission of knowledge, Gemini collects what is in circulation and makes of it something contextually meaningful and personally applicable. Both mutable, Sagittarius sets about relating through the exchange of large ideas and philosophies while Gemini relates through the communication of shared values and creative goals. What does that mean for the December 2019 full moon?

When both constellations take precedence in our night sky, when the sun's in Sagittarius and the moon's full in Gemini, we are called to examine the many ways we hold information, how it hinders us and how it helps us. We are called to examine the ways we over-saturate ourselves with facts and call those facts wisdom. The myriad ways we fail to be present for ourselves and others by over-estimating what we know and refusing to attend to what we feel.

As someone who loves information, let me be the first to admit that it's often what gets me into trouble. Small trouble, like boring people out of their minds with facts, details, and options they don't need. And, big trouble, like trying and failing to control the outcomes of painful situations through over-intellectualizing. That is, trying to know the whole of something from a distance so that I don't have to feel it and live through it. Like many children raised in an immigrant family, I was encouraged to grow up quickly and spent much of my life assuming that feeling old and wise was the same thing as being so. And, like many children who had to grow up fast, I find myself more keenly aware, year after year, of all the things I failed to learn in the self-protective posture of acting like I knew it all. Personal wisdom, it appears, is a life-long process, not simply inherited through familial fortitude or found in a self-help book — although there are keys and tools we gain from every text and teacher that guide us toward it.

A full moon is the accumulation of a moon cycle that began with the new moon. The November 2019 new moon in Sagittarius, it was ambitious, far-reaching, and idealistic. Our new moon asked us to dream big, shoot far, and begin the hunt. What is the hunt? Looking far and wide for what will ultimately sustain us through a long and arduous winter. What sustains us must go beyond basic survival and toward the sacred. There are forces, after all, that are larger than the ones we know on this earth. Planetary, divine, ancestral, they move in accordance with their own calendars. Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius, moved into Capricorn early this month. There, the planet of expansion and luck found many of our influential planets already situated: Venus, Saturn, and Pluto. Capricorn, a sign known for her tenacity and reverence for a strong ethos, is not uncomfortable housing the planets of love, discipline, and shadow work. Nor does she mind Jupiter adding to the fold. Capricorn understands that these planets, aspecting Earth, function as principles of humanity. She holds these principles with a firm hand and applies them toward the building of a new structure — a new world.

Under this Gemini full moon, we are tasked with recognizing how we have succeeded in honoring those principles and how we have failed to do so. The moon is full, but the job is far from done. Which is not to say that we are not situated well, or that we have not accomplished some of our goals. Rather, we stand in the light of reflection and review, attempting as best we can to ascertain where our blueprints have gone according to plan and where they must be adjusted to reflect our resources. What you thought you knew about yourself, your capacities and limits, and what you found out. Here, there is space for grief around what could not be actualized, space for grief over imagined futures. The truth is, you can't build a new structure on top of a faulty old one, can't nurture a relationship if you're over-committed and exhausted, and can't follow your star if you're lost in a light-polluted city. When what you've envisioned has only gotten you so far and what you yearn for feels out of reach, what you lack in personal resources you make up for through collaboration and collective care. Reach out and touch faith, in each other.