With the momentary solar balance of the Vernal Equinox 1 now behind us, we can return full attention to our wonky, asymmetrical lives and gambol unreservedly, like newly pastured lambs on wobbly legs, toward spring in full bloom and the aching promise of summer beyond.

Baaaaa...

Nonetheless, a bit of calming equinoctial influence might be helpfully retained in the symbolic balanced scales of this weekend's Libra Full Moon. Should we wish to access the opportunity, astrological tradition suggests this is a great time of year to contemplate our personal intent towards others and our immediate natural surroundings. As spring rolls into summer, the next three months are the most fertile for enacting positive intentions into heartfelt realities whilst healing old wounds en route. It’s a time for planting seeds and weeding out thorns, both literally and metaphorically, in the hope of a bountiful harvest later in the year.

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.

(Paramahansa Yogananda)

The Libra Full Moon is always a verdant window through which we can swing into spring: Easter bunnies, chocolate eggs, green shoots, blossom, and all. Easter, like many major religious festivals, has its roots in Pagan observations of the natural world from back in the pre-selfie days. The title Easter is said to derive, unsurprisingly, from the name of Eostre, a northern European, pre-Christian goddess who appeared as a rabbit or hare. What's up with that Doc?

The Libra Full Moon is always a verdant window through which we can swing into spring: Easter bunnies, chocolate eggs, green shoots, blossoms, and all. Easter, like many major religious festivals, has its roots in pagan observations of the natural world from back in the pre-selfie days. The title Easter is said to derive, unsurprisingly, from the name of Eostre 2, a northern European, pre-Christian goddess who appeared as a rabbit or hare. What's up with that, Doc?

Or possibly the name stems in part from the Sumerian goddess Ishtar 3, hung naked on a stake by her enemies, subsequently resurrected, and ascended from the darkness of the underworld (or winter, as might be interpreted). The stories of mythical virgin-born sons (sun) on crosses (equinox points of solar equilibrium) overcoming the powers of darkness at this time of year are legion. Horus 4; Mithras 5; Sol Invictus 6; Dionysus 7 and the rest. Take your pick and give 'em a wiki.

More contentiously, I am reliably informed that the Cybele Cult 8 was originally founded and practiced on Rome's Vatican Hill long before Christianity was a twinkle in a virgin's eye. Cybele's lover, Attis 9, born of another virgin, died and was reborn annually at the first full moon after the spring equinox. This spring, the Pagan festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday 10, rising to its crescendo three days later in a big old party celebrating his annual resurrection. Sound familiar?

To this day, Easter is a movable feast. Despite the Catholic Church's official line on astrology as heretical, Easter Sunday is always marked as the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. Who knew?

For those looking for a less religiously dogmatic but nonetheless considered response to the maelstrom of current world events, a welcome purpose might be found in consciously developing the capacity to filter truths, half-truths, and allegories from the barefaced lies. To some degree, we are all involved in our own little mythologies, games of self-delusion and denial. We tell ourselves the stories we want to believe, which rarely accord or align with the objective neutrality of circumstance. It's an overused (particularly by my treasured neighbour, Lenny) but still pertinent adage: Life is what it is.

However, our perception of life is ours and no one else's. It's a personal narrative we have the power to dictate through every thought, word, and action. And yet, too often, we plump for a story line that others would happily write for us as they attempt to drain and use our inherent power and energies for their own personal gain. We should perhaps be wary of giving up the rights to self-determination cheaply...if at all. Complicit acceptance of a distorting web of deceit serves no one, particularly if woven by those in power, sitting at its center. The resulting bleeding hearts, bodies, and battered planet surrounding us are in discomforting plain view.

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

(George Orwell)

Is it possible to ignore the messages we're constantly fed by self-righteous politicians, broadcasters, social media, press, and the seductions of Hollywood as perceived societal norms in favor of listening intuitively only for the truth? It can be heard in spring birdsong and the gently warming breeze in the trees; children laughing in parks and gardens after a winter indoors; the sounds (if not always the words) of fraternity, community, and domesticity; and of life evolving in every living cell and fiber, intelligently at its own pace with scant regard for the little, and too often destructive, ideas of man. Time for a recalibrating weekend walk in the woods, perhaps?

This planet remains a paradise of living diversity, sadly compromised by human actions and perception, experienced too often as an unimaginative, mono-cultured hell. There’s a strong argument to do what we can under this Libra Full Moon to find creative balance in our own lives, so that we may contribute in some small way to the greater life that benefits All. Clarifying our own thoughts and motivations in mindful silence can be a wonderful starting point. The time-honored practice of lighting a candle last thing at night, before evoking feelings of gratitude for the indefatigable benevolence and beauty of life, is well documented. Why not give it a go?

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

(The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare)

For ultimately, undeniably, we're in the mess we have made, together. If by our collective endeavor—through our thoughts, words, and deeds—we can tip the balance of humanity's scales from negative to positive, from destructive to creative, we will have made a difference to the wider picture. One might even consider it a meaningful purpose. It's a simple method and yet the tangible means through which we can change our immediate world for the better.

Such straightforward methodology has notable opposition in the marbled lobbies of the rich and powerful. Neoliberal ideology has swept any sense of collective responsibility under the bulging carpet of capitalism, an economic system founded on the spate of colonial looting launched a mere six centuries past. It sought to turn shared resources into exclusive property, transforming natural wealth, labour and money into commodities that can be accumulated.

The basic premise for those with access to power (or a personal army to enforce the law of ownership by violence) was to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few while condemning the masses to a culture of serfdom that pertains to this day. In his book, The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism, the author George Monbiot describes neoliberalism as the most recent face of the capitalist doctrine: “Justified as a means of creating an enterprise society, it has instead delivered a new age of rent, as powerful people monopolise crucial assets, from water to housing to social media.”

Monbiot maintains that capitalism’s chief detractor over the last 150 years has been democracy, a set of politically constructed checks and balances aimed at countering the worst aspects of fascism, rising to prominence in the aftermath of Hitler’s defeated Nazi invasions during World War II. Is it any surprise, then, that the current guise of the capitalist project seeks to dismember government and destroy democratic hope? “As hope evaporates, the far right sweeps into the political void, enabling capital to invest once more in its earliest solution [fascism]. Neoliberalism, in other words, paves the road to fascism and serfdom.”

Where are the political voices standing up for human well-being and the living planet? Environmentalists are cast as terrorists, and socialists as malevolent fundamentalists. Currently, they too seem to have been swept under that same bulging carpet, cowed by the right-wing rhetoric typified in Margaret Thatcher’s 11 famously neoliberal assertions that “there is no alternative”. If the political classes aren’t to be trusted to prevent further lurches toward a geopolitical landscape of dictatorship and suspicion, then those of us condemned to merely survive this ‘new age of rent’ must seek every opportunity to speak up for the values of democracy that provide a credible, equitable alternative. True days of liberation depend upon it.

People have to liberate themselves, because liberation is not a single act. It’s a question of eternal vigilance. Otherwise, you’ll just become enslaved by someone else.

(Norman Finkelstein)

Should you wish to explore further positive, practical ways of contributing your voice to a more balanced planetary recovery plan, you could do worse than take a look at the inspiring work being facilitated internationally by Global Citizen 12 – a campaigning activist organisation seeking justice and equity for all peoples and the ecosystems upon which we depend. It might provide a liberating step in the right direction.

References

1 Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). March equinox.
2 Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Ēostre.
3 Cartwright, M. (2014, September 2). Ishtar. World History Encyclopedia.
4 Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Horus.
5 Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Mithraism.
6 Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Sol Invictus.
7 Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Dionysus.
8 Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Cybele.
9 Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Attis.
10 Through Eternity Tours. (2024, March 15). 7 Pagan festivals we still celebrate today.
11 Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). There is no alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher matters.
12 Global Citizen. (n.d.). Global Citizen.