April 5, 2023 at 10:34 pm Central—Wednesday’s Full Moon in Libra is the creamy filling of an Oreo cookie, connecting our primal needs with the desire for harmony with others. This lunation falls in the middle of two powerful Aries New Moons—one of them an upcoming eclipse. Like the sweet cream holding the chocolate wafers together, this Full Moon bridges the courageous and reactive thrust of Aries focused on Self with a more peaceful and relationship-centered approach of Libra.
Let’s get into it
So much has happened in such a short time. It’s a new day with Saturn beginning its reality-check in Pisces, Pluto initiating a bulldoze through Aquarius, and Mars swording through the protective and tribal waters of Cancer. All of these ingresses (planets entering new signs) occurred less than one month ago. Some of us are feeling like the tectonic plates in our lives are shifting, rearranging the continents of work, family, relationships and inner-drive. In fact, when outer planets change signs, they mirror a collective shift, such as the one we’re witnessing now with AI. The massive changes in artificial intelligence will restructure the way we work and socialize, just like the World Wide Web did beginning in 1989.
Where does that leave us today? As I mentioned above, the Full Moon in Libra connects two New Moons in Aries. Aries-Libra is the axis of Self and Other. Me-We. Mine-Ours. All Full Moons bring a culminating energy. We can experience insight now of how past behavior has contributed to present conditions. These ah-ha moments of clear understanding that often occur during a Full Moon help to close down an experience or behavior we no longer want to participate in.
Ah-ha how?
The Full Moon in Libra would have us reflect on the experience of others. A good example is the work I used to do as a UX (user experience) librarian. I would watch students as they completed tasks using the library’s website. I was continually amazed by what they would click on and the round-about ways they found information. Oftentimes, they didn’t understand library jargon so they couldn’t find links right under their mouse! It wasn’t their fault. There was a disconnection between the design and the student’s knowledge. It was my job to bridge that gap.
In the same way, the Full Moon in Libra sheds light on pain points. In UX language, pain points are the bottlenecks, friction and jams users experience with a product. When we care enough to ask the right questions and put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we’re often surprised at how off our assumptions are. The Full Moon in Libra seeks perspective. What is it like to be you? Where are you struggling and why?
Less than 1 degree in opposition of the Full Moon, Chiron play a prominent role in this lunation. Rejected by birth by his mother and later injured by an arrow, Chiron signifies our deepest wounds, the ones that we often work on for decades until we alchemize them into our medicine. The analogy of a UX researcher as the Libra Full Moon works here: it’s in the light governed by Venusian principles of peace, harmony, reconciliation and love that we identify the other’s pain points. Often times, their wounds seem to be custom tailored to match our own soft spots. This perspective can help us create better experiences for us and for them. It’s an iterative process—one that requires checking-in, modifying, trying again and then repeating the process. Cardinal signs excel at this because they are responsive. They don’t want to leave things as they are when they know it could be better.
Three of Swords
Interestingly enough, the part of the sky the Full Moon reflects her light from corresponds to the Three of Swords. In tarot, the Three of Swords is a card of disappointment and pain, often connected to misunderstanding and betrayal. This is a heart-heavy card. Yet the suit of Swords signifies our perspective: it’s our thinking about a situation that makes it intolerable, not the situation itself. If we can witness ourselves and the Three of Swords situation with a bit of detachment, we can begin to respond with wisdom instead of conditioned reactivity to wounds that belong in another place and time. Moving through the discomfort with grace offers us an opportunity for growth.
In the tarot, threes are connected to The Empress, a card of creativity, nourishment and cultivation. Nothing is lost in the 3’s. Rather, this is a composting and regeneration. Even the pain and the heartache is mixed in to create something beautiful. Like an alchemist, we can use everything.
Where’s the ruler?
Meanwhile, the ruler of the Libra New Moon, Venus, is in her home sign Taurus. Her priority is peace, stability and the ability to sink into a nourishing-secure soil that will promote comfort, sensuality and flow. From her domicile in Taurus, she can’t see this Full Moon in Libra. Her ability to manage the UX research is somewhat hindered. It’s as if she’s in charge, but has to rely on someone else to preform the tests and report back.
Venus has been going through a bit of upheaval herself as she shares the same part of the sky Uranus currently occupies. Yet, if she can stick to her principles of calm and balance, the opportunity to use new found perspective for fairness in relationships is strong.
To summarize, Wednesday’s Full Moon in Libra seeks to gain perspective of the Other as it’s sandwiched between two New Moons that focus on the Self. By asking the right questions and putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we can identify pain points to create better experiences for everyone. For some of us, understanding and iterating towards harmony is key to getting the most out of this Full Moon in Libra.
I created the images with Midjourney. The Three of Swords card was created by Pamela Coleman Smith for the Rider Waite Smith Tarot.