Join us in reverence!

Sagittarius Full Moon June 14, 2003 Sun at 23.00 Gemini Sabian Symbol: Three fledglings in a nest high up in a tree. Moon at 23.00 Sagittarius Sabian Symbol: A group of immigrants fulfilling the requirements for entering a new country. 12:16 GMT 5:16 MDT 7:16 EDT 4:16 PDT 6:16 CDT 21:15 AEST

Rituals lift us from mundane concerns and connect us to the greater flow of things.  Our MoonCircles CyberRitual is a monthly experiment in collective attunement -- to each other and the moon.  Across time zones, we collect our creative energies into a healing meditation, as a gift to ourselves and the world. Feel free to harmonize at a time of your own convenience, so that our astral voices may continue throughout the moon's waxing and waning cycles, as in a round.

Sagittarius Full Moon Meditation:
Prepare Your Flight Plan
By Jean Hinson Lall

Both Sabian Symbol images suggest something new being prepared. The tiny birds high up in their nest might be vulnerable to a fall, but are also perhaps protected by their height. In any case, they indicate fresh ideas - perhaps rather elevated ones -- that will soon be ready to take flight.

The immigrants too are on the verge of a new start. Imagine the hurdles they must overcome to qualify for immigration, then the adjustments they will have to make if they are to survive, let alone flourish, in the new land.

With the Sun in Gemini and the Moon in Sagittarius, it's time to stretch our minds, bridging the local and the universal, the practical and the spiritual.

The Gemini part of our mind deals with the neighborhood, sisters and brothers, the local scene, the practical affairs of daily life, and our creative handling of them. The Sagittarius part widens our mental scope to take in the world: the thoughts and customs of people in other countries and the higher laws, theories, philosophical views and religious principles that guide our important decisions. Gemini is the school near home, Sagittarius is the university or the remote field work site. Gemini handles the details, Sag the big picture. It can be quite challenging to focus on both at once! So this time of year can be one of mental overstimulation and strain, but also tremendous creative potential.

I'm writing this from Herne Bay, a beautiful seaside town in England where I am enacting the spirit of this Full Moon as sincerely and literally as possible. I've come all the way from my home and neighborhood (Gemini) in the U.S. to leap into the academic world (Sagittarius) in Great Britain! (I do this only for your sake, dear reader, to demonstrate these astrological principles in the most effective way possible.) I've been visiting the University of Kent at Canterbury, meeting with the faculty in the new program in Cosmology and Divination and working out how I might enroll for a Ph.D. there, writing my dissertation on the planet Uranus.

I've shown my little birds in their nest to my proposed faculty adviser (Sagittarius), and I'm wrestling with the enormous adjustments I'll have to make to spend part of each year in England while keeping my home and office running in Baltimore. Meanwhile my two astrologer friends here have incorporated me into their household and neighborhood, acting as my "brother and sister" (Gemini), helping me find the bus routes and linking me up with practical sources of help for my proposed great leap across the Atlantic, while letting me help them shop, keep house, entertain colleagues and weed the garden. On the actual day of the Full Moon we'll be taking part in a conference on "Astrology and the Academy" which is celebrating the return of astrology to universities after more than three centuries of exile.

Here's another example: ABC News Nightline recently reported on the work of Marla Ruzicka, a 26-year-old Californian who is documenting civilian deaths in the Iraq war (having already done so in Afghanistan). No official agency was counting the innocent casualties, nor was there any organized program to help their survivors, so Marla flew to Iraq, recruited volunteers and took up the task herself. She checked with hospitals, cemeteries, morgues, and military posts to get leads about the number and identity of victims, then went from village to village and house to house, condoling with the bereaved families and documenting the names and ages of the dead and how they had been killed. Her reports will ultimately go to the United States Congress, with the aim of getting direct assistance to the survivors. Marla has made the world her neighborhood, the villagers of Iraq and Afghanistan her brothers and sisters. She's using her Gemini skills (interviewing, counting, documenting, finding her way around the neighborhood) to help ameliorate problems of people far from home, as an expression of her Sagittarian values and ideals.

Now, reader, I don't insist that you go to such lengths! Just take a little time to reflect on the higher ideals you would like to be living out in your everyday life. Listen to the chirping of the tiny birds high up in your tree, the talents or ideas that might take flight and make a difference in the world. Tune in to the part of yourself that is ready to cross frontiers and learn new ways. Get ready to fly!

Look for the Cancer New Moon June 29, 2003