New Moon in Libra: Open Mind, Open Heart

dancers in motion

New Moon in Libra
October 15, 2012

Tomorrow's New Moon in Libra is brought to you by peace, harmony and beauty, with additional support provided by creativity, relating and abundance.

Really! This New Moon, arriving at 22 degrees Libra, offers an opening in the spiral of time to reflect on all things wonderful about life, our lives, and the values we cherish and want to expand.

Because this New Moon occurs late in Libra, the Full Moon that will illuminate its seeds falls in Taurus (rather then Aries, the sign opposite Libra, and the sign of last month's Full Moon). It happens that Libra and Taurus are the two signs ruled by Venus, making this goddess the patron saint of this lunar cycle (to mix a few spiritual metaphors). She's a rich goddess whose gifts include the sensual pleasures and beyond, to include the networks of relationship that enfold us.

At each New Moon, we begin again. Entering the dark Moon time, something is released to become fertile ground, and something germinates. I write about this as a time for wishing and intending, for working with the forces surrounding us rather than seeking to impose our conscious will.

Astrologer Dana Gerhardt goes farther into Moon mysteries in acknowledging that sometimes, maybe more often than not, we can't see and don't know what seeds are splitting open at this time, and what might show up in our gardens afterwards. (Find Dana's wonderful writing about the Moon at astro.com and available as ebooks on Dana's website, Mooncircles.)

Dana suggests the New Moon as a time of allowing, and this month's New Moon in Libra invites that approach especially. Underlying the New Moon is a Grand Trine in Water of Saturn in Scorpio, Neptune in Pisces, and Ceres in Cancer. Trines in Water carry us into flows of emotion and intuition. This one links Saturn and Neptune, leading to manifestation. The presence of Scorpio and Pisces lets us know we're in deeply psychic and insightful territory. The goddess Ceres (Demeter) in nurturing Cancer offers protection.

Libra energy reminds me always of the Beauty Way, the prayer of the Diné which says we walk in beauty, beauty before us, beauty behind us, beauty all around. This New Moon surrounded by powerful Water allows us to see, in the dark, the wonder of our one precious life. Even in times of great challenge––sometimes especially in such times––we walk in beauty.

Jupiter the philosopher remains reflectively retrograde in Gemini, widely trine the New Moon, and squaring Venus in careful Virgo. Mercury in deep Scorpio is inconjunct Jupiter and sextile Venus. Edgy connections here, drawing us in to analyze our values, to look beneath the surface of our relationships, to reexamine our ideas of abundance.

The transformative signature of our time, the Pluto–Uranus square, is energized at the New Moon by a trine from Mars in optimistic Sagittarius to Uranus in fiery Aries. When we allow energy to move, change happens easily, visibly, and quickly.

Saturn's move into Scorpio put him in mutual reception with Pluto in Capricorm––they each inhabit each other's signs now, another aid to positive, necessary change.

As always, look to your birth chart to see where this New Moon will fall and what it will touch. These areas of life may be the fertile spots from which new seeds will emerge. Making wishes and setting intentions is worthwhile.

And for this New Moon, add in the "yes, and" of improvisational theater ... let's support the actors on stage with us, and build on their intentions as well as our own. Yes to the Sun and yes to the Moon. Yes to Venus, yes to Saturn, yes even to Uranus and Pluto and the great changes flowing in their wakes. Yes, and yes, and yes again.