Full Moon in Aries, Gate 21
October 6, 2025 | 8:54pm PT
Full Moon in Aries, Gate 21: The Gate of the Hunter
Working With the Full Moon
The Full Moon is the peak of visibility, the moment when everything hidden becomes illuminated. It's not a time for pushing forward or forcing momentum. It's a time for witnessing what has come to fruition and releasing what has completed its cycle.
In the framework of the Lunar Rites, the Full Moon marks the beginning of the waning cycle, the de-manifestation phase of the Lunar process. This is when we metabolize expired stories, release outdated identities, and compost what no longer serves so that new growth can emerge. The beautiful thing about Full Moons is that these periods don't ask us to force letting go. They reveal what is already ready to fall away. The energetics of “release” in Full Moon periods make it easier to grieve, let go, and surrender.
This Full Moon in Aries, electrified by the fierce energy of Gate 21, brings a specific medicine: the release of control.
(For a deeper understanding of how this Full Moon fits into the larger arc of Libra season, read The Lunar Rites of Libra.)
Full Moon in Aries, Gate 21, Transit Chart
Additional Chart Notes:
Saturn Retrograde (Pisces, 27 degrees, Gate 36, Gate of Crisis) + Neptune Retrograde (Aries, 0 degrees, Gate 25, Gate of Innocence) Conjunct: These two planets moving backward together create an overall environment of indecision, back and forth movement, and deep uncertainty and sometimes even crisis about what's real and what's illusion. At the same time, there's a powerful urge to emerge as your new self—the soul self that's been gestating beneath all the confusion. You want to get things right, to be grounded and sure, but the invitation is to trust the process of becoming even when clarity feels elusive.
Pluto Retrograde at 1 degree Aquarius, Gate 60, Gate of Limitation: Pluto's retrograde at the earliest degree of Aquarius is stirring up global upheaval—systems collapsing, structures revealing their unsustainability, collective reckonings that can't be avoided. This collective transformation reverberates into a deeply personal need to deconstruct empire within yourself—to examine where you've internalized oppressive structures, where you've made yourself small to fit into systems that were never designed for liberation. The energy of “limitation” is the pressure that initiates metamorphosis.
Uranus Retrograde at 1 degree Gemini, Gate 20, Gate of Now: Uranus beginning its retrograde journey through Gemini is completely changing our relationship with technology, the metasphere, the internet, and how information moves through the collective nervous system. We're being asked to reconsider how we share insight and wisdom, how we understand and receive each other in an increasingly digital world, and what it means to be present when presence itself is mediated through screens. This transit asks: Can you stay grounded in the now even as the landscape of communication rapidly shifts?
Jupiter in Cancer, Gate 62: Jupiter's presence in nurturing Cancer, moving through Gate 62 (The Gate of Details), continues to add grace to even the most challenging situations. Where other transits are asking you to face hard truths and release control, Jupiter offers the medicine of care, precision, and the understanding that even small, grounded actions matter when they come from a place of genuine care.
Full Moon in Aries, Gate 21, HD Transit Chart
Gate 21: Grounded Authority without Need for Control
Gate 21 is known as the Gate of the Hunter, or in the I Ching, "Biting Through." It's the energy of decisive action, of cutting through to the truth, of knowing when and how to take control of a situation. But here's the paradox at the heart of this gate: true authority doesn't require “control”. It requires listening, follow through, and surrender.
When Gate 21 is expressed in its highest form, it's the energy of the leader who acts swiftly and clearly when necessary, but who also knows when to step back, when to trust, when to let the natural intelligence of a situation unfold without interference. It's the hunter who waits for the right moment, who doesn't force the shot, who respects the rhythms of the ecosystem they're part of.
In its shadow, Gate 21 becomes the energy of compulsive control—the need to micromanage, to dominate, to grip so tightly that nothing can breathe. It's the fear that if you're not constantly steering, everything will fall apart. It's the belief that your worth is measured by how much you can manage, how many outcomes you can force into alignment, how perfectly you can orchestrate every variable.
This Full Moon asks: Where has your need for control become a prison?
Gate 21 in the Body
Gate 21 lives in the throat and the jaw—the places where we bite down, where we clench, where we hold tension when we're trying to force something into being. It's the tightness in your neck when you're trying to manage too many things at once. It's the grinding of teeth at night when your body won't let go of the day's attempts to control.
When you work with Gate 21 consciously, you begin to notice the somatic signature of gripping. You feel it in your body before you see it in your actions. The jaw tightens. The shoulders rise. The breath becomes shallow. These are the body's signals that you've moved from quality of clarity into control and from quality of discernment into domination.
The medicine of this Full Moon is learning to soften your grip and remembering that doing so does not mean you are abandoning responsibility or leadership. Softening allows you to trust enough so that you don't have to force every outcome in order to feel safe. That sometimes the most powerful action is inaction.
This moon shows us that letting go is not the same as giving up.
The Visionary Praxis of Release / Softening
What becomes possible when you stop trying to control everything?
When you release the need to micromanage outcomes, you create space for the energy of emergence—for solutions, relationships, and opportunities you couldn't have orchestrated even if you tried. You open yourself to the intelligence of life, to synchronicity, to the natural unfolding of things that are meant for you.
This doesn't mean becoming passive or directionless. It means learning to discern the difference between aligned action and forced action. Between leading with clarity and gripping out of fear.
The vision this Full Moon offers is one of learning how to access embodied sovereignty without control. It’s about honing the ability to stand in your authority, to make clear decisions, to take decisive action when needed, and to release the outcomes without collapsing into anxiety or self-doubt.
The Libra Season Context: When Control Becomes Performance
As a subarchetype of Aries expressed in the season of Libra, Gate 21 also invites us to examine our relationship to Control in the context of relational dynamics, our felt-sense of worthiness, and in how we relate to our place within larger systems.
Sometimes Gate 21 can show up as people pleasing tendencies, lack of boundaries, persona distortions (think: social media, in the office, at networking events and parties — are you being your authentic self or the version of yourself you think people will want to hire or trust?).
This gate also teaches us that Control is often a performance.
It's a way of proving to ourselves and others that we're capable, that we're worthy, and that we deserve to take up space. We control outcomes to maintain an image of competence, of having it all together, and of being the one who can handle anything even though we all have limits and internal boundaries.
The shadow of Gate 21 teaches us that this kind of performance is exhausting.
When we're constantly managing how we're perceived, constantly adjusting to maintain equilibrium in our relationships and responsibilities, we lose touch with what's actually true. We trade authenticity for approval and we sacrifice presence for perfectionism.
This Full Moon in Aries—direct, raw, unapologetic—cuts through the Libran tendency to smooth things over, to make everything look balanced even when it's not. Aries energy doesn't need to perform. Aries embodies authenticity and authority. It doesn't people-please. It acts from instinct, from clarity, from the knowing that sometimes disruption is necessary for truth to emerge.
The question this lunation asks is: What are you controlling to maintain an image of who you think you need to be in order to be loved, paid, respected, chosen?
The Political Is Personal
We're living in a moment when the structures of power and control are visibly crumbling. Governments shut down. Systems that once felt stable reveal themselves as fragile. The collective agreements we've relied on to tell us how the world works are being renegotiated in real time.
This is Libra's domain: the realm of laws, justice, agreements, and the social contracts that hold societies together. And as these structures falter, we're being asked on a personal level to examine where we've outsourced our sense of safety, worth, and authority to external systems.
Check your energy here.
You cannot control the world stage. You cannot force stability in systems that are inherently unstable.
What you can do release your grip on the need to have it all figured out. You can stop performing certainty when you feel uncertain. You can let go of the identities and roles you've clung to for validation and return to the quiet authority of knowing what's true for you and what is your work to do, even when everything around you is shifting.
This Full Moon is not asking you to become more powerful by controlling more. It's asking you to become more powerful by releasing the need to control at all.
This moon is ask you to let the higher forces do their work and to focus on what you can do and how you can lead from a right size view of your medicine, your gifts, and your path.
Go Deeper: Questions for Release
The below questions are invitations for deep, honest inquiry—questions to sit with, to return to, to let work on you over the coming days.
On Control and Authority
Where in your life are you gripping so tightly that you've stopped being able to feel what's actually happening? What are you afraid will fall apart if you loosen your hold?
What does your body feel like when you're in a state of control versus a state of clarity? Can you identify the somatic signature of each?
If you released the need to micromanage this particular outcome, what would become possible? What intelligence might emerge that you haven't been able to access because you've been too busy forcing?
Where have you confused leadership with control? Where have you been over-functioning, over-managing, over-explaining because you don't trust others (or life itself) to meet you?
On Worth and Performance
What are you trying to prove by staying in control? Whose approval are you trying to earn? What do you believe will happen if you're seen as someone who doesn't have it all together?
Where have you made your worth contingent on your ability to manage, produce, or maintain a certain image? What would it feel like to be valued for who you are rather than what you can control?
What relationships, roles, or responsibilities exist in your life primarily to maintain an image of balance or success? What would happen if you let them go?
On Release and Trust
What expired story about your capacity, your worth, or your role are you ready to compost? What identity have you been performing that no longer feels true?
If you trusted that you didn't have to force every outcome, what would you do differently today? This week? In this season of your life?
What does it mean to you to lead without gripping? To act decisively without needing to control the result? Can you imagine what that might feel like in your body?
Bringing It Into Everyday Life
This Full Moon isn't asking for grand gestures or dramatic releases. It's asking for you to fine tune your awareness of the small, embodied choices you make throughout your days.
Notice when your jaw clenches. When your shoulders rise. When your breath becomes shallow. These are your body's signals that you've moved into control mode. In those moments, pause. Soften. Ask yourself: Am I acting from clarity, or am I gripping onto control out of fear?
Practice releasing outcomes in low-stakes situations first. Let someone else make the decision about where to eat. Let a project unfold without micromanaging every detail. Notice when you clench and feel ungrounded in the base of your body and begin, 1% at a time, to unclench.
As the Moon wanes over the next two weeks, pay attention to what naturally falls away when you stop holding it so tightly. Not every “problem” you loosen your grip on will completely disappear. Some things will simply reorganize themselves into a more sustainable format.
This is the work of the Full Moon in Gate 21: learning that true authority doesn't need to grip for control. That sovereignty and responsibility for your life is not the same as control. That sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is release your hold and trust the intelligence of your own becoming.
