Full Moon in Gemini
12/4/24: 1:14 pm HST, 3:14 pm PST, 6:14 pm EST, 11:14 pm GMT
Every lunation (New and Full Moon) since October 21st has had a Grand Trine[1] in its chart. This Full Moon is the final Grand Trine chart in that series. This unusual phenomena occurred because of several planetary bodies have been either at the end of one sign or the beginning of the next, forming opportunities for planets being harmonically in tune with each other, like strings on a musical instrument ringing together.
What’s also unusual is that since some planets were at 29˚ mark of one sign and others were at 0 or 1˚ of the next sign, they didn’t all share the same element (fire, air, earth or water) as is usual for Grand Trines. Many of the Grand Trines in these past months have had mixed elements in them.
So what we’ve been having since October is an alchemical mixing of elements and planets in trines forming configurations of harmonious opportunities that have allowed us to see beyond our traditional experiences of ourselves and our world. Primarily the elements of water and fire have been intermixed, and recently with the last New Moon in Scorpio, Uranus had retrograded back into Taurus, an Earth element.
If you think of a Grand Trine as a container, or crucible for heating different elements together, much as the alchemists in ancient days did, we are deep in the process of making a new reality for ourselves, not only personally, or even globally, but spiritually as well. These planetary configurations have been showing us how we’re literally being reprogrammed to see beyond the limitations of our outdated laws, beliefs and dogmas. If Grand Trines are aspects of “perfection” perhaps we are being asked what needs to be embraced and what needs to be let go of in order to have a more easeful and harmonious life, for ourselves and for our planet.
You can call it paradigm shift, or a merging of probable realities, but in any verbiage, this has been a period where the Moon cycles[2] are calling in opportunities for the kinds of changes that push us to question the way we look at our lives, our reality function, the very structures that we use to uphold and give meaning to our lives. We’re also being tested, as in the last Full Moon we were in addition given a rare Grand Cross where 4 planets came to tension-filled grips with each other. Crisis alongside of opportunity.
So the gods have been at it, as it were.
Two weeks ago, the Grand Water trine at the New Moon focussed on giving us plenty of emotional content to our lives, giving us floods of water planet-wide, and emotionally as well. Propelled by transformational powerhouse Pluto in a bow and arrow, or kite configuration, we’ve been jump-started into what we need to pay attention to, if we take the hints provided. Pluto has plunged us toward the depths of our shadow, asking us to feast our eyes upon that which we have most likely ignored. Where does our shadow offer us opportunities for growth and change?
Here too, in this Full Moon chart, Pluto forms a kite formation to this full-fledged Grand Water trine (nothing out of sign) involving Mercury, now freshly out of retrograde, along with Jupiter and the epic Saturn/Neptune conjunction. This Full Moon gives us a test to see how well we’ve been taking the messages from the gods to heart.
Moving Forward
Saturn’s been retrograde since July 13th, and has just gone direct this past November 27-28th. Now as Saturn moves forward, Neptune will also come out of retrograde December 10th. These two giants command our reality: Saturn rules time, commitments, limitation, and the bones in our bodies and of our society. Neptune’s domain is like a gigantic panoply of possible realities, all imaginative and creative possibilities. In Aries it brings for the next 13 years innovations and changes in our deepest principles, religious and spiritual. It dissolves old beliefs, favors innovation, and opens the collective to daring new probabilities.
At this Full Moon, Saturn and Neptune are still conjoined in the sign of Pisces for the last time in our lifetimes. When Neptune finally goes direct, all systems are go for major innovation and changes in 2026. Now, Mars in Sagittarius is forming a challenging square to these two giants. He’s kind of thumbing his nose at the old guard, bringing his Sagittarius optimism to challenge the confusion we’re in now, asking us to simplify and to go for upholding what’s important for our future, rather than getting bogged down in the plethora of too much information we are presently immersed in. (Neptune has been in Pisces since 2012).
For the next 13 years, when Neptune goes into fiery Aries (1/26/26), its heat will burn off the fog we’ve long been under, and we will begin to see clearly where we’ve been, and we can start to orient toward a new horizon.
Jupiter in Cancer is forming a gentle and supportive trine to Saturn/Neptune, giving us a last push to integrate just how important love, nurturance and kindness is, even in the face of the violence and fear that presently is the tone of our society. It’s not only important, it is the alignment we all badly need to embrace if we are to move away from fear and toward the kind of inspiration that can guide us toward a future, rather than toward apocalypse.
Jupiter and Saturn are opposite in their energies, expansion versus contraction, but when they’re in a trine, we can take advantage of this balance of energies, giving us far-sighted vision, as well as the kind of spirituality (Jupiter) or world view that is grounded and practical (Saturn) which will be essential in the reconstruction of our society, and for us all personally as well.
So at this final Full Moon of the year, and the last closing Grand Trine in a series of lunations, let’s put our ducks in a row so to speak, asking ourselves what is important in our lives, what leads us toward a sense of connection rather than disconnection, what feelings need to be embraced, and others released, and where do we need to let go of emotional baggage that is no longer useful. There’s grief here, to be sure, at what is lost, but also that grief opens the door in our hearts to be able to hold more love, for ourselves, for others, and for preserving the life of our beautiful, fragile, blue planet.
[1] Three or more planets all at around 120˚ to each other, forming a harmonious equilateral triangle around the Earth.
[2] This is a Super Full Moon, but also it reaches the highest point North and South this month that it ever gets in its 18.6 year cycle. Look to see the Moon rising far North on the night of the Full Moon, and appearing much brighter than usual.