New Moon, New Year!

The New Moon in Aquarius arrived overnight, and it's time to make wishes and set intentions. (This being a reminder from your friendly neighborhood astrologer.)

My New Moon Aquarius wishes

With Aquarius, thinking outside the box is always good, so I created a digital collage to represent my hopes for this New Moon, leaving lots of space for the cosmos to fill in the blanks.

Writing, blogging, creative play, transformation, fluidity, inspiration, and the unexpected are all themes for me now. What are you calling into your life? Be bold!

The Moon will soon slip into imaginatively dreamy Pisces, joining the mystical party already in full swing: Neptune, Chiron, Mars and Mercury are already there.

The Pisces Moon will oppose my natal Moon in Virgo, and I'm here to tell you oppositions are not always bad. My Virgo Moon can feel a bit squashed and invisible––the Pisces Moon seems to bring me out of myself, take me on a tour of the outer stratosphere, and give me new images and thoughts to ponder. Add in the creative mojo of an Aquarian New Moon, and who knows what I might do today?

Now that we've moved into the waxing cycle, everything begins to expand and grow. Tonight and many nights to come will be rich ones for dreaming––look for healing dreams (Chiron), big dreams and creative dreams (Neptune, Aquarian New Moon, and lots of Pisces), and personal dreams (lots of personal planets moving through Pisces now). Have your dream notebook handy this week.

The Moon is void of course now, until she enters Pisces at 4:19pm EST. So if you haven't made those wishes yet, best wait until after 4:30. This evening through tomorrow morning will be great for setting intentions. Just after noon Monday, the Moon goes void again until she pops into fiery Aries just before 9:00 pm EST.

The best of this innovatively eccentric and long-sightedly humantarian New Moon to you!
    

New Moon in Aquarius: Answer the Call

Druidcraft Tarot ... reborn!

New Moon in Aquarius
February 10, 2013 –– 2:20 am EST

Overnight Saturday, the New Moon in Aquarius arrives.

Herald of Spring, beginning to the new year for the Chinese and the Tibetan people, the year of the Water Snake ... a magical doorway!

Each New Moon invites us to set intentions and make wishes, and in Aquarius, we're called into a new vision. The new year brings rebirth, a theme sounding loudly with this New Moon.

Sun and Moon meet at 21 Aquarius, in a very tight square to the Nodes of the Moon, the karmic pathway in the chart. Squares to the Nodes can be read as a challenge, or a missed step, on our life path. At this New Moon, we're checking in:

Are we feeling clear on where we're headed? If not, this is a wonderful New Moon to ask for clarity.

If our vision is clear, but commitment is lacking, set intentions to follow through, to take the steps we know we need to take.

The Nodes of the Moon mark places where eclipses occur, and the Solar Eclipse back on November 13, 2012, fell at 21 Scorpio, where the North Node still resides. There may be a special resonance between this New Moon and whatever emerged for you back in mid November.

Look in your birth chart to see where this New Moon falls. The house of the New Moon indicated the area of life in which renewed visions and clarity can be expected––or where they will be welcome. What planets or points do you have around 21 degrees? These will be touched, and also drawn into the influence of this New Moon.

For me, this New Moon is complex. Appearing in my 6th house very close to the 7th, the Sun and Moon will conjunct my Descendant, oppose my Ascendant-Pluto-Moon conjunction, square my Midheaven, trine my Mercury-Neptune conjunction, inconjunct my Uranus-Jupiter conjunction, and sextile Eris. Someone's got their finger on my reset button!

If this New Moon makes complicated aspects to your chart too, fall back on asking for clear sight, straightforward guidance, and the long view.

Aquarius is masculine and yang, fixed Air, stubborn, committed, objective, far-seeing. So it's interesting this is the year of the Water Snake, feminine and chthonic.

Goddess energy is strong with this New Moon: Venus, also in Aquarius, squares Saturn in Scorpio, an archetypal challenge of masculine and feminine.

The asteroid goddesses create a series of intricate patterns around Saturn as well: There are three yods forming. Ceres is at the apex of a yod with the North Node and Juno at the base; Vesta is at the apex of another with Saturn and Venus at the base; and Saturn is at the apex of the third with Vesta and Pallas Athena at the base.

Yods, also called fingers of God or fingers of fate, emphasize places where energy is concentrated and something is happening. One area of polarization in the world today focuses on the role of women and girls––our health, our freedom of action and freedom from violence, our education.

Authoritarian forces (one role Saturn can play) try to keep women down, but again and again, women rise up. Perhaps this New Moon will bring a re-envisioning of men and women, boys and girls, living together in equality, compassion and Aquarian freedom. This, too, is something we can wish for.

Remember to wait until after the New Moon arrives to make wishes and set intentions. Until then, we continue in the waning cycle of release and preparation. I will be wishing for clarity, as I think I'll need it just to understand all the messages this Moon will bring me!

Remember too to allow the Moon leeway to do as she will. The New Moon arrives in darkness, and it can take time to see the new shoots emerge. Wish, intend, breathe, let go. A new day dawns.
    

Last Quarter to New Moon: Single Point Focus

what are you focusing on?

Last Quarter Moon:
February 3, 8:56 am EST
Balsamic Moon:
February 6, 6:26 pm EST
New Moon in Aquarius:
February 10, 2:20 am EST

We turned the corner this morning, heading into the home stretch, reaching toward the quirky individuality of the New Moon in Aquarius.

We've passed the Last Quarter Moon mark and energy shifts from sharing to releasing––take stock, see what we've outgrown, used up, don't need, and let it go.

And this time around, it'll be easy. Well ... let me qualify that. It'll be easy to see what needs to go. Actually letting go––your mileage may vary.

This last half of the waning Moon phase brings us the Sun in Aquarius, clear-sighted, strong-minded, and revolutionary. This Sun pulls no punches and doesn't mess around. Is the way forward clear? All right-y then, let's roll up our sleeves.

In my last post, I pointed to the Sun squaring the Nodes of the Moon, saying we're asked to clarify our vision and apply it to our life goals. If you look at the charts here, for the Last Quarter, Balsamic, and New Moons, you see that Aquarius Sun square just gets tighter and tighter.

The Sun forms an applying square to the Nodes (in astrology-speak), one that's getting stronger. So, our vision is becoming more clear and more compelling. Inescapable, one might say. In other words, we know what we need to do.

At the same time, the focus in the dreamy sign of Pisces is increasing. Right now, we see Neptune and Chiron, who've been in Pisces a while, joined by Mars. Mercury will soon join the gathering, bringing mind and action into the Piscean ocean.

On one hand, this makes letting go easy. Pisces, after all, is the sign associated with loss and sacrifice. On the other hand, Pisces can generate a lot of fog. When we're with the Aquarian Sun, clarity is right there in front of our eyes. Step into the Piscean mists, and ... what did we want to do? Suddenly it's much less certain.

This is where the single point focus becomes essential. In photography, single point focus is where the energy of the image is gathered, where the eye wants to go. The photographer creates this focus by framing the shot and choosing the depth of focus that will bring the key element into prominence.

Pick up a camera and focus it on the vision you hold for your life. How are you going to frame the shot? What needs to be included? Where is your point of focus? Many photographers can look at the same landscape; each will create a different image. What's yours?

In meditation, single point focus is a technique for quieting the mind, reducing inner chatter. The simplest point of focus is the breath, following each inhale and exhale, calmly, peacefully. Over time, maintaining this focus becomes easier. Inner clarity and strength increase.

This second kind of focus is helpful if we find ourselves in Piscean fogginess. Are we distracted by media, food, alcohol, drugs, whatever? Are we drifting and zoning out? Are we confused? Welcome to Pisces waters ... now breathe. Follow the breath.

This New Moon in Aquarius invites us to step into our strongest, clearest vision of who we are and what we want for ourselves and our world. Exactly square the Nodes of the Moon, the New Moon calls us to commit to our best and brightest image of a possible future.

It's this bright image that can motivate us to gently, compassionately release what we no longer need. We've turned the corner. Punxsutawney Phil, king of groundhogs, has called for an early Spring. Brigid lights the fires of new growth. Let's get ready.