Spring Equinox: The New Seed

eggs!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Eastern Daylight Time

Tuesday, March 20
Spring Equinox:
Sun enters Aries 1:14am
Moon semisextile Mercury (Aries) 1:41am
Moon semisextile Uranus (Aries) 4:10am
Moon conjunct Chiron (Pisces) 9:00am
Moon opposite Mars (Virgo)10:25am
Moon square the North Node (Sagittarius) 12:46pm
Moon sextile Pluto (Capricorn) 2:05pm
Moon sextile Jupiter (Taurus) 4:56pm

I want to share the chart for the Equinox, Spring in the Northern hemisphere, Fall in the Southern, and a hinge of the year in all earthly places. Note the amazing geometry of this chart, with its overlaid squares and triangles.

The Sun moved most decisively into Aries, closely aligned with Mercury and Uranus. The Sun at the Aries point highlights where change is happening, where new fire is alight, and here we have mind and communication, and the revolutionary trickster, ready and waiting.

Look for the Aries point in your birth chart: Which house holds 0 Aries? What upheavals are you experiencing there? What world-flipping new ideas are showing up? Where is your life force, your libido, your desire, glowing?

This is vital––literally!––and yet there is a context here that needs to be woven.

Notice how most of the planets are clustered on one side of the chart, with Mars standing alone on the other side. This is a basket pattern. Mars, the handle, takes on added importance.

Not only is he the handle of this Ostara basket, he is one point of the Grand Trine in Earth (with Pluto, Jupiter and Venus) and one corner of the Grand Cross in the mutable signs that includes the Nodes of the Moon as well as the Moon, Neptune and Chiron in Pisces.

Mars is holding a lot of important threads here, so it's good he's in organized, detail-oriented Virgo. We can be sure no one will be forgotten, no energy left out, all ducks will be lined up. And yet ... Mars in Virgo is no speed demon, is still retrograde, and rules Aries. What's up with that?

Aries likes to act, ACT NOW, jump in with both feet, no holds barred. With the Sun, Mercury and Uranus aligned, we could feel a big power surge to DO something. Mars retrograde in Virgo, with Saturn retrograde in Libra and Mercury retrograde in Aries join together to say, NOT YET.

Something vital has now been seeded, and needs time to grow. The power of the Grand Trine in Earth offers us a strong connection with natural cycles of growth and development, the ability to allow life to unfold without interference, the willingness to wait and watch.

The Grand Cross creates the container, the alembic in which transformation will occur. This container is anchored in Virgo and Pisces, the Earth and the cosmos, and includes the karmic life path, the Moon's Nodes.

This is the time of the anlage, the primordial seed from which something new will come. We cannot see its form yet, and opening the container will mar the process. With the coming New Moon, we will plant seeds and nurture them, allowing them to grow with the best support we can provide.

The alembic is an alchemical vessel that transmutes what we put into it. Another translation for 'alembic' is 'still,' and so we imagine ourselves heading into the hills with the trickster Uranus, setting up our copper coils and tubs away from prying eyes, fermenting the mix and hoping for a tasty and potent brew––uisce beatha, the water of life!

Happy Equinox Morning to all.