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LAST QUARTER MOON PHASE
"Fruits of Love and Labor" Sharon Russell
Last Quarter Moon Phase
The light of the moon is waning and fading quickly as the moon moves closer and closer to the sun on her journey around the earth. During this Last Quarter Phase, we see the moon as half. It is emptying itself of the suns’ light. The spirit you had filled yourself up with at the waxing years of your cycle is moving out of your life in some important way and CHANGE will be necessary.
We are actually seeing only one-quarter of the moon’s surface, so we call this phase the "Last Quarter" even though it looks like a half-moon. Some also call it the Third Quarter.
After three years into your Last Quarter Moon Phase, the Moon will look more like this - she is beautiful is she not? .....in her quieter phase. More humble! Sweeter perhaps.
Your Last Quarter Phase will last about 3 and ½ to 4 years. To feel the energy of this sweetly declining moon phase you can go outside when the monthly Moon is in this phase. You will see it between 2 and 4 PM in the mid-afternoon or in the wee hours of the morning before sunrise. Horns to the right!
The moon’s light appears faint because it is closer to the light of the sun and the sun’s light is brighter than the moon’s. This is symbolic and teaches us a great truth about the waning side of the wheel that you are now on. The journey is coming to a close, but it is not over yet, far from it, for this is the time when the Moon, your Soul, pulls its energy inwards.
In the life cycle of a growing plant or tree, the fruit forms and then becomes full during your Last Quarter Phase. It becomes ready to harvest.
As the fruit pulls in energy from the tree, leaves which had formerly gotten oxygen from the air, photosynthesis from the sun and root energy from the earth begin to withdraw their previous way of obtaining energy.
At some time toward the end of this phase, the fruit will leave the parent tree behind and make a FREE FALL onto the soft earth.
The fruit pulls into itself everything of its past and is the CONTAINER or VESSEL of the emerging seed, pregnant with new life.
The fruits' function is to HOLD the SEED SAFELY within itself. It does this with its flesh and blood giving nourishment to the seed as it grows and matures inside the safety of the rounded fruit. Your energy goes into the fruit. The fruit of the tree or flower is the womb that holds and sustains the seeds of new life. You are becoming round and ripe and heavy with seed as the Last Quarter Phase progresses. What is of essential value and contains timeless meaning is in the seed.
No matter what age you are when you go through your Last Quarter Moon Phase, it will seem like a lot of work. The Apron of your Soul will be getting pretty worn by now.
You must cross the bridge if you wish to return home.
You are Pregnant with a New Life! You will shift gears in order to accommodate this new awareness.
It is no longer about your outward journey. It’s about the MEANING that journey holds for you. It’s about what you will carry into your next life, your next Great Moon Cycle, your next lunar phase – this is your seed or new Divine Child resting as a tiny impulse of new life inside you. Your body and Soul must protect and nourish this life just as the fruit does for its new seeds.
Spirit was born at an authentic Soul level during your last moon phase (Disseminating Phase) and now becomes pregnant with a new more improved version of itself before it has completed or perfected itself. This may be difficult to comprehend. This process is the CREATIVE PROCESS we call LIFE and it is miraculous, mysterious, and magical beyond imagining!
This is like the young woman who holds the child within her body, yet she is not as mature as she will be once the child is born and she becomes a Mother.
Your body is working with your Soul to help prepare you for a new life - so we are in the future and at the same time, we are in the past as we journey through our Last Quarter Moon Phase.
"The Sun cannot shine all the time for you. There are times when you have to create your own Light!" Shobhna RJ
It will become essential to change your beliefs and enrich your soul with new understanding and meaning. This is like being in a liminal, or 'in-between' state, where the beauty of the past,
...like an autumn day fills you with longing
and the sense of a mysterious future awaits you.
You will need to tap your inner resources to uncover your new ideas, new truths, and philosophies. It is quite common to experience disillusionment or become agitated as the need to drop old forms and make new meaning becomes more pressing.
You will have to cultivate FAITH.
"FAITH is seeing light with your heart when all your eyes see is darkness."
Dane Rudyar in his book, "The Lunation Cycle", called this time a “crises in consciousness”. The fruit is maturing and you are too. Your new maturity gives you ideas and insights of your own. Old values and beliefs lose their meaning.
REORIENT AND CONSERVE
Your understanding of the world changes because of the experiences you have gained. It is time to let go of old attachments and beliefs and BEGIN THE PROCESS OF OPENING TO A NEW VISION. The SEEDS OF NEW LIFE ARE WITHIN YOU and so you must reevaluate what is of value and necessary and reorient toward what can help you conserve your vital energy.
The fruit is growing large and the seeds are establishing themselves within the growing fruit.
This is WORK!
You may say goodbye to old ideas or beliefs as if they were old friends.
The falling leaves HIDE the path - there is no Yellow Brick Road to follow.
This is ALSO the stage in the plant's life cycle of the RIPENED FRUIT and the HARVEST of its fullness or flesh. The flesh of the fruit is like the vessel of a woman’s body. She has grown through her experiences, her soul is now able to hold and express more light and she has a harvest to contribute to support herself and her community. Her energy is beginning to wane, but she pulls energy from what she has learned, the heart she has grown, and the courage she has built in order to finish out this cycle.
Sometimes the seeds ripen on the outside.
Notice the tiny seeds that have formed on the outside of this strawberry - here we have an example of the old life, supporting and nourishing the new life! The seeds you now carry are a great unknown potential alongside the Mature Mother.
Some seeds ripen on the inside of the fruit away from the eyes of others.
Others may not understand where you are now as your emerging new awareness shifts and changes and comes to its' full maturity.
Your harvest may be an internal one or it may include your outer life achievements, but in either case, things that used to excite you lose their magnetism.
This is a necessary falling away so that energy can be pulled back and refocused both for the next cycle and the completion of this cycle. While the first half of the lunar cycle called for actively building new structures into your life, the second is about DEVELOPING UNDERSTANDING AND MAKING MEANING.
"Your beliefs undergo a crisis as mental and emotional tensions build."
This is a crisis in your consciousness, your inner self. The outer world reflects this crisis in some way in as much as it does not agree with the newly emerging and developing soul!
In the First Quarter Moon (14 to 17 years ago), you ADDED elements to your life in order to build a material world structure and identity. Now a shift in consciousness occurs as your internal resistance breaks down and you begin to see the world from a broader, altered, more mature perspective. You are developing your own personal philosophy based on your life experience. The crisis comes from within as you reorient your new life and turn away from old ways of thinking, old beliefs, or outworn values. This is your new maturity.
YOU MUST DEVELOP YOUR FAITH AND STAND FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN.
MUSIC click here for the "Going Home" song...
This faith is your inner light, the light of your spirit that you have been developing since this cycle began 21 years ago. It will sustain you until the next New Moon.
You may change your religion, your beliefs about how the world works, and the meaning of your place in it, at this time. Your change is deep and must incorporate you from your outer world reality to the depths of your soul. Nothing shallow will last. You question and reject what no longer seems valid. You look deep inside, inside the fruit, to the developing seed that represents a new life for you, but one that you will not actualize until the next cycle.
You will notice the “tone” of your old life beginning to drop off.
You may also notice your juicy creative energies begin to emerge at a new, more Soulful level. Your creative endeavors will help you to make meaning out of your journey. Your creativity will represent some of the seeds that are growing inside you and will give you hints as to what is to come in your next cycle. Your creative life can help you to reach a greater and deeper sense of Self and Soul.
Altar building too, with its use of symbols and images, can become a useful and wonderful part of your life as it will aid you in your personal search for meaning and give you clues to the new seed that will eventually emerge.
This was a completely unplanned altar. We, women, gathered and each brought something to put on the altar - there was no theme planned ahead of time...........hmmmmmm.
If you set up altar(s), let them sit there awhile, visit your altar from time to time and see what messages it is sending to you. Some of you will journal about your altars! As you build and co-create with your Last Quarter Moon Phase, look for symbols of your Divine Inner Child growing from within. What do you really relate to in your altar? What is mysterious to you?
You are beginning the building of THE WISDOM BODY as you MAKE MEANING. The more conscious you are that you are on this journey, the more meaning and wisdom you will be able to make.
There are natural and spiritual laws behind the greater universe. This greater universe, or God, doesn’t function at all without Soul.
Soul is the Feminine Divine Immortal Self that YOU are.
You have your own place and purpose in this cosmic order. The supreme goal of life is not just about you either. For you have a PLACE within the order of the universe. So you are a soul with its place and in addition, you are in a place in relationship to everyone around you. And that is important too because it means you will have duty and responsibility to your family, your society, and to your planet as well as to your deepest self.
THIS MAY SEEM LIKE A VERY TALL ORDER INDEED!
When we come to the Last Quarter we must incorporate our value as an individual with social value as well. Enjoyment, prosperity, and social recognition are the results of our participation, not the aim.
So you have been on a life path, now that path becomes your harvest of goods, goods that you release to others in service, with love, mercy, and compassion. You are making meaning by all that you are and all that you do.
You will also be utilizing your harvest of goods in order to take care of and nurture yourself through the last seven years of this journey.
INDEED, IT IS A TALL ORDER!
THE POWER OF THE RUBY SLIPPERS and
Dorothy’s Silver Shoes of Understanding
Eventually, the fruit falls from the tree, Dorothy’s silver shoes fall off somewhere over the vast desert.
Did I say SILVER SHOES?
You thought they were RUBY SLIPPERS!
Here then is a little know fact about Baum’s Story, Dorothy, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
In Baum’s original version, when Dorothy’s family house lands on and kills the wicked witch, she claims the witches SILVER SHOES, not the RUBY SLIPPERS!
Hollywood made those shoes ‘ruby red’ instead of keeping to the original silver. I believe that it was Frank Baum’s intent all along, whether conscious or NOT, for those slippers to represent the SILVER light of the MOON, our Soul, and the Power it harnesses to hold SPIRIT as it journeys around the wheel of life.
Your outer light wanes but your inner light is learning to hold and maintain itself in its Wisdom Body. You actively pursue the making of meaning from your experiences and the fruits of your labor and you become more conscious.
BUT, AND.............oh, my! Dorothy is still not HOME yet!
"This seems to be taking a long time." for Dorothy to return home. Hollywood couldn't tell this part of the story, no one can, it can only be lived from your very personal, wise woman.
DOROTHY MUST HARNESS THE ENERGY of those SLIPPERS in order to let them drop! She must HOLD the POWER within herself so that she can continue HOME and complete her CYCLE of Growth. Without completion she cannot make WISDOM, she cannot fully integrate her head and heart into her life story.
Girlfriends, I never said this would be easy, but it will be mysterious and at times, enchanting, as you grow in perception, knowledge, and insight. Your senses are becoming more astute, you are developing the kind of intelligence that links heart with mind, and you are acquiring better judgment and will be able to use your subtle discernment to see elements of your life in a new light! And this New Light is the dawning of WISDOM.
Glenda, Dorothy's good witch, has revealed to Dorothy that she has had the power all along.
The power to return home to the source, to the Great Mother belongs to each of us. Eventually, Dorothy will return Home to Kansas. At this point in the story, Dorothy must say good-bye to her friends, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion as she prepares to make her final steps across the desert of Oz and back home to Kansas.
The power of the Divine Feminine can begin to fill you. As you internalize the LIGHT, the darkness grows, the lunar light continues to fade from without, and the Great Mother and Yin principle of our Universe, begins to call you Home. This can be a beautiful time to become aware of your Feminine Spirituality.
As your Last Quarter Phase continues, your old power, the power of those Ruby (SILVER) Slippers, begin to drop away somewhere over the deserts of Oz, the fruits of your labor are producing a new kind of power, the power of your consciously willed purpose. That is your power to stay awake and keep the light growing and flowing WITHIN.
By HOLDING your inner strength, by continuing to live through this difficult change of thinking, you make new meaning.
Hildegard von Bingen - your wisdom body will come from the Spirit which is now integrated throughout your body and held by your individual soul.
By the time you are through with your Last Quarter Moon, your Wisdom Body will begin to emerge. By making meaning, becoming more authentically creative, doing the give away of your harvest, participating in your social sphere, or group life, you work the processes that will build this great WISDOM BODY OF LIGHT! which will be the container for your Soul at New Moon.
Your Apron, the one you put on during your Disseminating Phase has become soiled with the sweat and dirt of what it takes to develop your Wisdom Body!
And now it is time to remember the BASKET OF SOUL that the Munchkins gave Dorothy as she took her first steps out onto her Yellow Brick Road...
Your Basket of Soul experience has filled to abundance as you have journeyed around to this place on the lunar wheel. You will continue to have many experiences during this time that will reach down into you at a soul level. As you continue to build your Basket...
You place your new-found meaning and understanding into your Basket of Soul. You will add to it from now on with every creative endeavor, every giveaway, every pain in your heart, and with every joy you make at this precious time which is like Autumn, full of beauty and slanting, fading light that heralds the end of external power and the beginning of your internal power, your true SOUL’S LIGHT!
"But all the magic I've ever known, I had to make myself."
Shel Silverstein
As we are called out to express our true selves, our fruit ripens and eventually it is ready to return to the earth. Dorothy clicks her heels together and is whisked away over the dessert, her silver shoes fall off.
Your ruby slippers (your old life form and tone) disappear somewhere over the desert between Oz and Kansas. You must and are now incorporating the power of those shoes into your inner life. That power is yours forever, not even death can take it from you.
FINDING OUR WAY THROUGH THE DARK BY Demetra George
Here is one of the books I studied to teach me about the Feminine principle in astrology.
I highly recommend this book...and all her books.... to anyone serious about the Feminine Study of Astrology....click on the title for the link.
Her latest edition is about $24 but it is worth it....it has a new cover but I wanted you to see the original which I like the best! (above) Demetra George has many useful charts, questions, and thoughtful illustrations for you!
"I do not ask for any crown but that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world, except the one within.
Be thou my guide until I find, led by a tender hand,
The happy kingdom in myself and dare to take command."
Louisa May Alcott
At the end of your Last Quarter phase, you may feel as if you are in free fall. Not much is said in Hollywood’s version of “The Wizard of Oz” about this part of Dorothy’s journey, but it can be full and fraught with crises in our consciousness and in our lives as we must begin finding our way through the dark.
And because we are not perfectly illumined human beings, what is still in the dark will become evident to us if we STAY CONSCIOUS here at Last Quarter Moon Phase. Try not to judge yourself or others as you hone your experiences into wisdom.
DESERT RUINS - we leave them behind as we drop away and move toward the Great Mother.
Dorothy is whisked across the desert. The desert is a no man's land of useless and outmoded beliefs upon which we are still living our life. What others think may matter at the First Quarter Moon Phase, (that was 14 to 17 years ago), but at the Last Quarter, IT’S WHAT YOU THINK that matters.
When those slippers (ruby red or sliver) fall off Dorothy’s feet they do so somewhere between Oz and Kansas. So indeed, does the light of the moon begin to rapidly fall away at the end of this phase as you make your Journey Home.
WANT ALL 8 MOON PHASES as cards by Sharon? FOR ONLY $36! That 's a $12 SAVINGS over buyng them seperately! and you will get FREE SHIPPING - GO HERE!
oops, almost forgot our summary:
Your LAST QUARTER MOON SUMMARY:
MOON is half empty
AUTUMN BEGINS
Harvest your fruit
Crisis in Consciousness – begin to build the WISDOM BODY
Reevaluate and revise
Turn Away From Outmoded Beliefs or Ways of Living
Pregnant with New Life - the Inner Divine Child is growing inside you
The Power of the Ruby Slippers (Silver Shoes)
COMING NEXT: BALSAMIC MOON PHASE "Dreamtime"
girlfriends,....we are journeying closer to the Moon now....
Wanting to know what PHASE YOU ARE IN RIGHT NOW? send your 1.name, 2.birth date, 3.birth time, 4.birth place to MOI: dixiegladstone@yahoo.com...it's free from me!
stay with me now, for the last is the BEST,
Dixie Gladstone
Feminine Astrology
Send your stories, questions, or requests to me: dixiegladstone@yahoo.com.....I read ALL of your emails to me!...and respond within a few days!
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