The Moon was fully eclipsed on Sunday and will spend this week waning through its gibbous phase, until it arrives at the last quarter of its cycle on Sunday, September 14th, when it reaches the horns of Taurus, the Bull.

So here’s some fascinating stuff about about September 14th, bearing in mind that while the Moon is at last quarter in Taurus on that day, the Sun will be in the last degrees of Leo.

It begins with a holy secret involving St. Francis of Assisi, after his death. It was revealed to Francis that he was granted an afterlife task that once each year, he would be given permission to go own to Hell and gather the souls who had aligned themselves to his pattern and rule of life in order bring them to the realm of the spiritual Sun. This would shorten their probation. And here’s the interesting part, he was allowed to do this every year on September 14th.

Francis lived from 1183 to 1226.

About 100 years later, the poet Dante completed his Divine Comedy, in which he travels to the underworld guided by the ancient poet Virgil. He does not encounter Francis there, but later, when he has risen to the sphere of the Sun in the heavenly Paradise, he encounters Thomas Aquinas, who speaks to him of St. Francis. And note, Dante died on September 14th, and was buried in a Franciscan basilica.

What is it about September 14th that might reveal why this is the day for journeying to the depths to bring something up to the light? The Sun is moving through the later region of Leo stars, and if you consider its zodiacal degree on that day, there are clues: Astrologer Dane Rudhyar described this degree of zodiac as an experience of the “luminescence of dawn in the eastern sky.” He goes on to say that while the rainbow marks the end of a crisis, early dawn indicates the real beginning of a new period of activity. It is as though we are aglow with promise, which is the mood of dawn. And every day has its dawn.

So now let’s consider September 14th, 2025. The Moon will come to its last quarter near the star El Nath, one of the two stars that mark the tips of the bull’s horns in Taurus. El Nath means the butting one, while its companion star, Tianguan, means celestial gateway. Immediately for me an image comes to mind, of Dante and Virgil descending to the underworld and approaching the gate to the city of Dis. Virgil realizes they will not be able to pass through this gate without heavenly assistance. This is Canto IX in the Inferno, and it marks a critical moment in the set up of Dante’s narrative, and how, as a poet, he transitions from ancient gods and heroes to the Christian era.

A mighty angel descends, bearing a wand:

Ah, the scorn that filled his holy presence!

He reached the gate and touched it with a wand;

It opened without resistance from inside.

I imagine the “wand” as the butting horn in Taurus, where the Moon comes to its last quarter on Sunday, activating it like the Angel in Dante’s epic, to open the celestial gateway that let’s the dawn’s true light shine into whatever darkness needs lifting within us.

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