The Snow Goose Full Moon. Also, known as the Old Wolf Moon, Long Night Moon

Look up on the night of December 22 and you will see a frosty winter Moon glowing in a blue-black sky. The Cherokee call this Moon the Snow Goose Full Moon. It’s considered a time of creative expression, expansion, and tangible blessings to those aligned with its energy. The Sun in serious Capricorn (Father Time) values action in the outer world. The Moon in sensitive Cancer (the Great Mother) honors inner work and intuition. This Full Moon reminds us that authentic power and security comes when we honor our feelings and our feminine nature. In fact, our greatest creations and accomplishments originate from deep within. Finding a balance between the external world and our personal one is the goal of the Cancer/Capricorn axis.

Demanding Saturn (the ruler of Capricorn) is conjunct the Sun and opposite the Cancer Moon, giving this lunation a sober and solemn quality; routines and chores may feel more difficult, people touchy and guarded. The Mars/Neptune conjunction in vulnerable Pisces can bring up wounds from Christmases past. Yet a beautiful trine from Venus (in Scorpio) to Neptune (in Pisces) can help in healing those wounds. The Sun and magical Uranus collaborate to bring unexpected goodwill from surprising sources. This is the season of miracles; anything can happen, including something extraordinary.

There is something profoundly private and dignified abut December; the bare trees, the silence of the snow as it falls on the frozen landscape, the pale moon rising in velvety darkness. Even in the midst of holiday parties and preparations there is something in us that longs to slow down, turn inward, and honor the sacredness of this time. During winter nature is a rest; the real work is silent and unseen.

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.” -Andrew Wyeth