The Moon gave way on Saturday evening, when it came to its Full Phase below the celestial equator, the furthest-away Full Moon for the year. And with Mercury and Venus now both in direct motion again, these three destiny planets support a mood of moving forward to meet the spiritual new year at last.
In addition to these three celestial bodies moving forward and on, there are three cultural traditions converging due to this year’s Full Moon: the Jewish Passover, the Eastern Orthodox Pascha and the Western Christian Easter. Each of these traditions uses a different calendar for arriving at their sacred festival days, which is why things don’t always line up. But each of these systems is aligned to Sun and Moon in relation to Earth, because in each tradition, this season brings the celebration of a cosmic mystery that happens on the stage of the Earth.
In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the triumph of Easter Sunday doesn’t come at the end of the Paradise, but at the beginning of Purgatory, a little less than midway through the journey, when the pilgrim has just risen up out of the Inferno. The message here is that we need the renewed forces of spring, the resurrection forces, to mount up to our highest greatest good.
The scene is quite tender, and is one of my favorites in the whole Comedy, when Virgil is admonished by Cato, guardian of the mountain, for attempting to ascend the mountain of Purgatory with Dante in such a condition, still besmirched with the soot of hell. The scene is much like it will be this year, with Venus as brilliant morning star in the region of Pisces, about which Dante writes: The lovely planet, love’s own quickener, now lit to laughter all the eastern sky, veiling the fishes that attended her. (Purgatory I lines 19-21)
In a beautiful, ceremonial act, Virgil leads Dante aside to where the rising Easter sun is reflected in the drops of dew on the grass, which he uses to wash Dante’s face, a baptism by nature, with the grassy earth as his baptismal font: And the dawn rose triumphant, making flee the morning breeze before her; and far off I recognized the shimmering of the sea. So we along that lonely path did move, like one who’s lost the road and seems to go with wasted steps till repossessed thereof; and coming to a place where the dew can show resistance to the sun, since day-long shade keeps the earth cool and exhalation slow, gently upon the turf my master spread both hands; and I, not taken unawares, but understanding what this purported, held up to him my face begrimed with tears; and so he brought my native hue once more to light, washed clean of hell’s disfiguring smears. (Purgatory I, lines 115-129)
Whatever your cultural tradition, the Sun and Moon have traded places and the forces are destiny are moving forward, which is always a good time for a ceremony.
I’ll close with Emily Dickinson: We all have moments with the dust, but the dew is given.
With all the very best,
Mary
Hear this episode of The Storyteller’s Night Sky on podcast at this link, and wherever you listen. And may you find fields lush with dew!