“May you live in interesting times.” Such a coy phrase that says so much without betraying anything at all. What better way can you bless and curse someone simultaneously?
In my assessment, we are living in very interesting times.
On June 20th, 2016 just one day before the summer solstice, there will be a second Full Moon in Sagittarius. The lunation cycles are of course much bigger than just your personal experiences, for they represent the ten thousand rhythms which govern the life and death on this planet.
And under the light of this Full Moon in Sagittarius, the wide-eyed visions of many prophets, mystics, and visionaries will be recalled. Just as last month’s Full Moon in Sagittarius awoke a revolutionary outcry, an ecstatic illumination, this month’s Full Moon in Sagittarius will bring apotheosis.
It Is Finished
Last month’s Full Moon reading was inspired by the first movement of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. This first part of the epic poem moves through gestures of greater and greater strife, illuminating the tension that builds up when freedom is fervently chased after but never found.
In tragedy, martyrdom, and suffering, their “bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon.” At this point, in the poem, the world seems to collapse…it is over…it is finished.
“with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies
good to eat a thousand years.”
This Full Moon in June represents a culmination of what has happened over the last two weeks. Think back to June 4th, when there was a New Moon in Gemini. This influence most likely stimulated your mind to wander, to travel into terrains as yet unexplored and to feel a calling towards revelation…apotheosis.
This meant breaking character and exploring a multitude of perspectives that you may have been formerly ignorant about. Thus, this Full Moon in Sagittarius will bring forth revelations that will force you to become more nimble-minded, seeing life simultaneously as both a blessing and a curse.
He Descended Into Hell
This second Full Moon will occur at 29 degrees Sagittarius opposing theSun in Gemini and Venus at 3 degrees Cancer. With two Full Moons in the sign of Sagittarius this year, suffice it to say that the themes of religious fervor and the thirst for revelation have led you to see your world with fresh eyes. Whether your visions more resemble the Quest for the Holy Grail or the Medieval Inquisition is entirely up to you.
In Howl, Part II, Ginsberg changes his tone entirely, having been crucified by the unfeeling world, the poet’s voice emerges from beneath the finality of death, stronger and empowered with the knowledge of who his tormentor is.
Moloch, an ancient demon to whom children were sacrificed is revealed to be the true Spirit of the Age! A voracious god that demands eternal sacrifice of all that is most dear to the human heart: our love, our poetry, our children, our visions of a better future. Moloch, whose demonic name has been evoked in Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and in Fritz Lang’s dystopic film “Metropolis” should be well known to us all.
Under the light of the Full Moon, Moloch’s hideous face will be seen manifest in skyscrapers, prisons, factories, banks, madhouses, technology, governments, media, money, and bombs. Moloch, “whose mind is pure machinery” remains indifferent to all human pain.
“What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!”
Considering that this Full Moon represents the grande finale of springtime, the energetic fire of Sagittarius will evoke indomitable passion, aggravation and restlessness.
Since this Full Moon is concurrent with the ongoing Mutable Grand Cross, you will feel boundless in your desire for potent experience. If your search for meaning in this life has been well directed, then you will discover many lost treasures of wisdom.
If you have become lost in delusion, then you will run around in circles, tormented by the unfeeling gaze of Moloch. Whatever your experience, find the courage to face the darkness and prosecute that which seeks to grind you down into food for a mindless machine.
“Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!”
Though Howl describes the societal conditions of post-WWII America, stifled in the Cold War’s pressurized conformity, a grand vision such as this remains resonant today. What change, hope and progress has been made in the face of:
“Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!”
Allen Ginsberg first saw “Moloch” one evening when he was out in the streets of San Francisco on peyote. In his hallucinations he saw the city lights and the buildings take shape as, “robot upstairs eyes & skullface, in smoke….” These were the visions of a madman, but thankfully, a true poet has the strength to give into madness and live to tell the tale.
Image Source – still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
In modern and post-modern industrialized society, where everything has been sanitized, mechanized, and automated, finding your humanity is nota requirement. All the virtues of enjoying a good life are now extraneous at best. Being wrenched from any consistent opportunities to enjoy pristine nature, to believe in the honor of another person’s word, to know real loyalty and love has left most people lost in nihilism and insanity.
To one degree or another, global economic interests have swallowed everything and have corrupted our lives irrevocably. In the poem, Ginsberg acknowledges his part in this machine when he says,
“Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness / without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! ”
Who can say that they have not been frightened out of their natural ecstasy? When this revelation arrives, who does not erupt in outrage?
A full life is meant be lived in communion with all that is evolving, gracious, and beautiful. Everyone is born knowing this, but so many live completely divorced from natural ecstasy: from their dreams of a better world, from the warmth of the sun, or from any light at all.
As the last Full Moon in Sagittarius set the stage for what you would be willing to fight for in order to preserve the sanctity of your spirit, this Full Moon offers you gnosis as an alternative to madness.
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
Image Source – Marylin Monroe reading Leaves of Grass
It is in these revelations of horror that Ginsberg bleeds for us all.
But the blood of a poet contains divine inspiration, imbuing you with the courage to heal your bleeding heart and find the natural ecstasy that your life was always meant to be in devotion to. These pains can become your strengths. These sorrows can become your greatest reasons to love.
He Ascended Into Heaven
Fortunately, as this Full Moon at 29 degrees Sagittarius begins to wane, it will quickly change signs, entering Capricorn and opposing Venus at 3 degrees Cancer. Venus in Cancer will influence you to feel softened by the fragrant blossoming of renewed love.
In the third and final part of Howl, Ginsberg demonstrates transmutation, the resurrection of the light. His self-consuming rage gives way to the renewal of love, an integration of the agony and the ecstasy of revelation. To his dear friend, whom he had once shared an insane asylum with, he declares:
“Carl Solomon! I’m with you in Rockland.”
The poet has become the voice of the reassuring mother, soothing, rhythmic and stronger than all of the subsequent madness and pain. He has gone to hell and back, but he emerges with a fully realized and loving heart.
He continues to speak to Carl Solomon in a voice of unconditional love:
“I’m with you in Rockland
where your condition has become serious and is reported on the radio
I’m with you in Rockland
where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses.”
The poet sees that even when the human spirit is ground down, as Carl Solomon’s had been inside a mental asylum, even when ecstasy is lost and the senses are destroyed, there is something there which still deserves his unerring love. Ginsberg offers his vision of the human soul, something which cannot be destroyed by any level of demonic oppression.
“I’m with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night.”
To know that someone loves you enough to always have a home waiting for you is all that a wanderer needs. Let this Full Moon in Sagittarius teach you that the end of any great quest leads back to home.
In this life may you find the one, or the many, who will always have their doors open for you.
<3 Aeolian Heart <3
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