February 24 at 12. 30 pm, UTC, best seen in some places on the globe around sunrise or just after sunset (www.timeanddate.com for the moon rise in your location); the moon is furthest from the earth and so appears the smallest. Called Snow Moon or Hunger Moon in Native North America; yet the Tlingit nation named it Black Bear Moon because it is the time the cubs are born and so life stirs anew.
A reminder it is the Lenten Moon, the last moon of winter in the northern hemisphere before the dawning of the spring; the next full moon in Libra is after the Spring Equinox on March 25.
The February full moon marks the Festival of Lanterns, Shang Yuan the first full moon of the new Chinese lunar year, a moon that wherever you live in the world you can light red candles or lanterns to honour your ancestors and to ask Lady Moon for good luck, reconciliation and peace. In the southern hemisphere on this day you can know that in dark times of war and poverty there can never be enough light in the world.
The Virgo full moon is the Headmistress of the cosmos, demanding homework is finished, columns of figures neatly and accurately added and definitely an extra scrub behind the ears to prevent those potatoes my mother warned me, would otherwise take root there.
For she is the full moon of Hamaliel, angel of perfection and sets her exacting targets and deadlines, pointing to the unchecked details of the small print that really could have saved an awful lot of unnecessary grief, the maybe tomorrow, the oh I couldn’t possibly - as we watch others climb what we always thought was our mountain, because we didn’t feel we were good or brave enough to step beyond the safe well-worn pathways of the valleys.
So as the Virgoan moon leads her straggly crocodile of discarded dreams and unfulfilled hopes briskly across the cosmos with a, Please do not stamp on the stars with those muddy footprints, make as you look up at her light, a leap of faith, a long-feared act of courage whether to stride forward in hope to a dream you feared you might never attain or walk away without bitterness or self- recrimination from a world that no longer turns to your rhythm and your dance.
What we regret most is the path we never took, the door we never opened, so best foot forward says Mistress Moon, even on the cloudiest night or most stormy day so you are well on your new path and not covered in cobwebs of indecision by the time the next Virgoan full moon returns to mark your homework.
A time for determining what we need and want to take forward with us into the next season, recycling what is no longer relevant, useful or beneficial. Lady Virgo looks into every dusty corner to see what we are concealing in case just one day it might find a purpose but somehow never does.
At this time so many people are suffering yet we daily see the innate goodness of humankind who are opening their hearts and offering financial and practical support to strangers. Many are worried themselves about soaring costs of living but we push ever forward to seeking new solutions, maximizing new opportunities however elusive or difficult in awareness we are part of one family on whom that same full moon shines with promise.
Above all we can make this the month when we see the best in others and offer it in return. May you walk in your own light and illumine your world.