Full Moon in the Ecosystem of Union
Moon in Capricorn (The Devil)
This lunation began with a new moon in The Lovers (Gemini), and is coming into its fullest illumination now in The Devil (Capricorn). The Lovers and The Devil are The People of Wholeness who tend the Ecosystem of Union within the Climate of Devotion. In this lunation’s Moon Report, I explored the sacred tasks of these archetypal ancestors:
6. The Lovers (Holos intus): belong.
15. The Devil (Holos liberum): liberate.
Belonging and liberation are kindred. In fact, the etymology of the word “free” illustrates their deep connection in language:
Old English freo "exempt from; not in bondage, acting of one's own will," also "noble; joyful," from Proto-Germanic *friaz "beloved; not in bondage" (source also of Old Frisian fri, Old Saxon vri, Old High German vri, German frei, Dutch vrij, Gothic freis "free"), from PIE *priy-a- "dear, beloved," from root *pri- "to love."
“To love” is the root of freedom. This means that control is not love, just as conformity is not belonging.
These tasks of belonging and liberation are inward and outward facing. The Lovers help us learn how to belong to ourselves and, therefore, how to belong in relationship with others— platonic, familial, romantic and collective. The Devil helps us learn how to liberate ourselves from complacency & internal captivity and, therefore, how to be more aware of the ways we participate in and encourage oppression in relationships and systems.
The tragic freedom implied by love is this: that we all have an indefinitely extended capacity to imagine the being of others. Tragic, because there is no prefabricated harmony, and others are, to an extent we never cease discovering, different from ourselves… Freedom is exercised in the confrontation by each other, in the context of an infinitely extensible work of imaginative understanding, of two irreducibly dissimilar individuals. Love is the imaginative recognition of, that is respect for, this otherness.
The People of Wholeness invite you to consider the dance between belonging and liberation within your psyche, within your relationships, and within the broader context of humanity.
Prentice Hemphill says, “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” What does it look like to belong to yourself? What does it look like to allow others belong to themselves? What does it look like to belong with others and to yourself simultaneously? How can you nurture freedom— and, therefore, love— in the world? Can we truly say we imprison what we love? Can we truly say we belong if we are afraid to be freely ourselves?
Here, at the full moon in the Ecosystem of Union, The People of Wholeness ask: Might belonging be unlocked by liberation?
Until next time,
sara