DAY: 7 - 11.5
PHASE ARC: 90º - 135º

Keynote: Crisis in Action - Overcoming Inertia.

The Lunation Cycle has unfolded to a moment of sharp contrast and duality. The face of the lunar disc is seen in the afternoon and evening sky. At sunset, the lunar disc reigns at the meridian — half-illuminated, half-dark and unseen. The light and dark forces are for a moment equal.
      With the First Quarter phase comes a pitch of increasingly organized individual activity. In his seminal work The Lunation Cycle, Dane Rudhyar gave this phase the keynote crisis in action. It calls for well-organized and forceful activity. Activity must be focused and forceful during this decisive phase because we are now challenged to free our minds and activities from the pull of inertia, along with psychological and social pressures to maintain the status quo — all of which may culminate in an inability to rise to the call to action sounded by the First Quarter phase. For whatever reason, failure to act clearly and forcefully now will have significant repercussions on the unfolding cycle of activity.
      Much depends on how successfully one has met the earlier call to action during the Crescent Moon phase a few days ago. If you were able to advance your Lunation Plan by pushing ahead productively and mobilizing your resources, you should be attuned with the rhythm of the cycle. Definite, visible progress should now be made and a clear course set for the fruitful development of your Lunation Plan.
      While the first quadrant of the Lunation Cycle — the New Moon and Crescent Moon Phases — featured subjective, spontaneous activity, the second quadrant the First Quarter and Gibbous phases bring willful expansion and increasingly organized activity. Now is the time to achieve a productive routine and to build the framework and organization required for the realization of your Lunation Plan. Around the waxing trine, about 36 hours after the First Quarter Moon, you will know you have a plan, and that it holds the promise of fulfillment. But it is vital not to slack off, self-impressed with the mere promise of success. On the other hand, self-doubt and hesitation may set in, perhaps due to a lack of resources or inadequate support from others, or perhaps because things aren't preceding as well as expected. Either way, go on! Now is the time for intense and sustained work and activity!
      Social pressures and personal challenges experienced during the Crescent Moon phase — or an inability to act and move forward when the cycle called for it — may have retarded your progress. Fear usually stands behind a failure to act or to make good use of cyclic opportunities. A personality conditioned by fear constantly seeks affirmation that its fearfulness is justified. Such a personality is attracted to anything or anyone who at once supports a fearful attitude and provides a "technique" to avoid the bad things that are surely out there waiting to happen to anyone who acts. There is a kind of astrology especially designed to fulfill the fearful needs of such individuals, and its modern representatives have managed to make just about everyone afraid to do anything during a Mercury retrograde and during a "void-of-course Moon." All that mounts up to a lot of time during which we shouldn't do much, and during which our cars, computers, transportation and lines of communications are not to be trusted and are liable to breakdown! All such fears entirely lack statistical support. Representatives of this paranoiac view may cite a few bad things which have occurred during a feared Mercury retrograde or void-of-course Moon, but what about the things which don't go wrong?
      From the above, it should be clear that to use Lunation Planning successfully, one needs to keep focused and on track. Lunation Planning helps us attune ourselves with natural rhythms and to work with them. It helps us develop our own inner sense of what is needed and appropriate at any given time and circumstance — which is where the "watch-out for Mercury retrograde and void-of-course Moon" syndrome fails.
      If you were unable to make a push ahead during the past few days, you may now be experiencing a "crisis in action," and it is now crucial to move ahead in a willful and decisive manner. In other words, the sort of conflict and difficultly traditionally associated with the square aspect has not to do with anything inherently "bad" about the aspect itself, but more to do with our fearful response of avoidance toward any movement or activity which tends to upset the status quo, opening the door to unknown possibilities. Now is the moment to go on — regardless.