Half light, half dark, and a decision due.
A week into the cycle the Moon squares the Sun: half lit, half dark, exactly balanced and therefore exactly unstable. The tradition calls this the crisis of action — the first real test of whatever was seeded at the New Moon. The initial enthusiasm has burned off, obstacles have shown up on schedule, and the project now demands something the seed phase never did: effort against resistance.
The square is astrology's aspect of friction, and the First Quarter is the friction built into every month. What survives it earns the right to keep growing; what doesn't was a wish rather than an intention. The phase's counsel is uncomplicated — act. Not the receptive waiting of the crescent and not the fine-tuning of the gibbous, but the plain decision to push through the first wall or admit the thing isn't wanted enough to fight for.
Anything begun here inherits urgency: First Quarter ventures tend to be born mid-struggle and be the stronger for it.
Related
- Phases of the Moon
- Waxing Gibbous — The next station: refinement
- Waxing Crescent — The faith this crisis tests
- Last Quarter — Its mirror: the crisis of release
- Moon