New Moon in Aries: Singularity

New Moon, New Fire

New Moon in Aries
March 30, 2014
2:45 pm EST / 6:45 pm BST

One look at the chart for Sunday's New Moon in Aries tells the story: A strong point of focus on this New Moon of new beginnings, pioneering, stepping out and up into whatever is heading toward us.

This New Moon aligns with Uranus, the revolutionary trickster who shakes us and wakes us up. Squared by Jupiter and Pluto, there is no way we can miss the alchemical fire.

The Spring Equinox highlighted where we needed to clear out and clean up. Now, with the New Moon asks us to set our personal trajectory. Where are we heading? What's the direction? What's the goal? What do we WANT?

Detachment is a lovely value, and it is NOT Aries. With this energy of initiating Fire, we move directly into the heart of our own desires. This is the moment to connect with our true longings. Forget playing it cool, and turn up the heat.

Aries is passionate. Did you know we can't remember things we have no feelings about? Emotion is what moves us, what gets us going, what drives us.

So, at this New Moon, touch the core of what you feel most strongly about. How can you honor that in your life, infusing all you do with light, passion and fire?

As always, check you birth chart. The House in which the New Moon falls, and planets and points aspected by this Moon (anything in and around 0 to 19 degrees, especially if close to 9 degrees and in the cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer Libra, and Capricorn and the other two Fire signs, Leo and Sagittarius). Molly Hall offers a good overview of the impact of this New Moon through the Houses.

Our passions can definitely bring problems, so check in with those too. Here are some questions that might highlight Aries issues:

• Where am I letting my emotions rule my behavior, acting out, displaying anger inappropriately, or dominating others?

• Where am I letting my desires run the show? Where do I find myself unable to make good choices because I want something too much?

• Where am I taking unwise risks or acting impulsively in ways I later regret?

At this New Moon, we can set intentions and make wishes to channel our passions clearly and strongly toward heartfelt goals, while releasing tendencies to let anger or desire run amok and ruin our lives.

This New Moon wants its own banner saying THIS IS IMPORTANT. An Aries New Moon arrives every year around this time, so, what's the big deal?

The big deal is right there in the chart: All those triangles pointing at the New Moon, with all those transformational energies doing the pointing.

We live in unusual times, surrounded by heightened energies. The next Full Moon brings an eclipse, followed not long after by the Cardinal Grand Cross of Pluto, Uranus, Jupiter and Mars. These converging patterns bring us a singular energy, one we won't see again in our lifetimes (or for lifetimes after).

Singularities are crazy events. In mathematics, in the sciences, in technology, a singularity happens when limits are reached and we can no longer predict what might occur. This is interesting to study, but possibly unnerving to live through.

Aries, though, LOVES singularity. Aries represents the point focus of something new made manifest. At this New Moon, we align our personal energies with our own goals so we're ready to engage with whatever happens in the weeks to come.

This waning Moon time is the "READY." The New Moon will be the "AIM." The coming weeks will bring the "FIRE!". Let's make sure we've got the first two steps down, at this, the opportune moment.
    

New Beginnings and the Aries Point

The new emerging from the old

Spring Equinox
March 20, 2104
12:57 pm EDT / 4:57 pm GMT

Last Quarter Moon in Capricorn
March 23, 2014, 9:46 pm EDT
March 24, 2014, 1:46 am GMT

Balsamic Moon in Aquarius
March 27, 2014
6:28 am EDT / 10:28 am GMT

New Moon in Aries
March 30, 2014
2:45 pm EDT / 6:45 pm GMT


It's officially Spring now, after a long, cold winter. The Equinox arrived, the beginning of the astrological and agricultural year. We're finally seeing signs of Spring: Bluebirds, robins, phoebes, crocuses, the green tips of daffodils, the first shoots of woodland flowers.

This is a powerful time of new beginnings, the annual reset button, a time when new and (hopefully) exciting things come into our lives.

So it's something of a paradox this year that it's happening in a waning lunar cycle, in a time of releasing, letting go, and composting. How do we balance this?

As I look at the charts for the Equinox, the Last Quarter and Balsamic Moon charts, and the soon-to-arrive New Moon in Aries, it seems to me the cosmos is easing us into something at this time, something significant.

Now, "easing" may not be the word that first leaps to mind when we consider how things have felt lately. Maybe words like "challenging" or at least "interesting" or possibly "overwhelming" come to mind as more accurate. In times of great change, though––and we are definitely in such times––support for our transitions and transformations is welcome and (sometimes) vital.

I've written before about the Pluto–Uranus squares (as many astrologers have). This challenge between the lighting bolt of revolution (Uranus) and the slow, inexorable shifting of tectonic plates (Pluto) has already happened four times, with three more to come. This pattern is the signature of our times, signaling the depth of change, its rapidity, and the polarization it brings.

The next exact square happens as part of a Cardinal Cross on April 21. On that day, Pluto and Uranus reach an exact square, with Jupiter opposite Pluto squaring Uranus, and Mars opposite Uranus squaring Pluto (and Jupiter). In the cardinal signs, which are the initiators, the beginners, this Grand Cross opens yet another gateway for BIG CHANGE.

So when we roll back to look at the Equinox, arriving during a waning lunar cycle when we're getting rid of stuff we don't need, we can think, hmmm, maybe I need to put more energy (Sun in Aries) into clearing the decks and making room for what's showing up.

Astrologically, the Spring Equinox arrives when the Sun reaches 0 Aries. This opening degree of Aries is called the Aries Point, and indicates where new things come into our lives.

Check your birth chart to see where 0 Aries falls for you, by House and aspect to major planets. As an example, my Aries Point falls in my Eighth House exactly opposite my Sun, which says important new stuff shows up in my life as deeply transformative experiences (8th House) that shake up and transform my sense of who I am (Sun opposition) … which for me is about right.

At today's Last Quarter, the Moon in pragmatic Capricorn squares the Aries Sun, a combination that says, yeah, there's lots of new energy here (Sun in Aries) but what are you going to DO with it? (Moon in Cap)

A few days later (March 27), the Balsamic Moon in Aquarius lines up with Venus, also in Aquarius, to say, ok, what are our core values? What's the grand plan? And … since this is a Balsamic Moon … what needs to get kicked to the curb so it can happen?

When the New Moon arrives on March 30, it will be in Aries, only 9 degrees away from the Aries Point, and conjunct Uranus the trickster revolutionary. Here we are invited to begin anew, to give birth to ourselves in a new form. This is the personal rebirth that will help set the stage for the Cardinal Cross about three weeks later.

Aries is a bright, fiery energy that wants to move, to act, to blaze new trails, set new marks, and reach them all. To have Aries show up in the waning time gives us a boost (or maybe a boot!) to get moving on what needs to shift.

See where Aries falls in your chart. Invite in the new energy, and use the Spring fire to clean out the last of winter and make space for something new and big. It's time!
    

Full Moon in Virgo: The Particular

Sewing in the Garden by Henri Martin

Full Moon at 26 Virgo
Sunday, March 16, 2014
1:08 pm EDT / 5:08 pm GMT

Tomorrow's Full Moon in Virgo will shine her light at a slant, in the way side lighting makes the subject pop out, highlighting the detail Virgo loves.

Opposite the Sun, awash in diffuse and glorious Pisces, this Virgoan Full Moon points out something we really need to see. But even as She picks out the telling detail, this Full Moon does her best to be compassionate and calm.

We're swimming in some pretty choppy seas these days. The strong cardinal T-square of Pluto opposite Jupiter squared by Uranus continually throws transformational opportunities our way. (Ready or not, here they come!)

Saturn, retrograde in Scorpio, trines the Sun while squaring Mercury in Aquarius who trines Mars retrograde in Libra––plenty of stop-and-go there. We think we have The Plan (Merc in Aquarius) only to have some hidden factor show up (Saturn retro in Scorpio) or realize we need to make room for someone or something we'd overlooked (Mars retro in Libra) and then things get confusing (Sun in Pisces).

Now, that's not the only way those energies can combine, but the key factor is, they ARE combined, so things we thought were certain and set (Merc in Aquarius again) turn out not to be (any or all of the other players) in some important ways.

How do we fix it? ("It" being whatever we're working on right now.) The Full Moon will show us.

Stephanie Austin, writing in The Mountain Astrologer, reminds us that the Virgo–Pisces opposition is like the particle–wave situation in physics: definitely a both–and but we can only see one at a time. Pisces is the wave, a word so ancient it comes from what it is: the Old Norse vagr for moving billow of water. The fact that it's also linked to the Gothic weg, which means tempest, reminds us waves aren't always easy.

Particle comes from the Latin particula, which means "little part," the smallest bit of the whole. Particular comes from the same root, and Virgo is nothing if not particular.

The thing is, we often don't like "particular." It feels critical, too pointed, fussy––all the things we tend not to like about Virgo. Writing at virgo magic, Emily Trinkaus brings back an earlier view of Virgo as the sign of the Goddess.

She reminds us that goddesses were often keepers of sacred waters, in rivers, in pools, in the Grail. These Piscean waters were filled with creative and intuitive inspiration, and also dangers.

It was the role of the goddess of each water to serve as a gateway, protecting not only the water, but anyone who would come to taste, or bathe. She knew these waters were powerful, and specific, detailed actions were needed to encounter them safely.

Check your birth chart to see where 26 Virgo falls for you, and there you may find a message from the goddess at this Full Moon. Her gentle, if inexorable, side light will show us something we need to know, something we may need to do or be aware of, so we can move into our transformations safely.

Virgo is the sign of seat belts, warm sweaters, and an extra little snack for a reason. As anyone who's gone camping knows, there is NOTHING as wonderful as an expected pair of dry socks, or the bit of chocolate you forgot you had, on a cold and rainy night.

At this Full Moon, I'll close with Emily Dickinson, whose attention to precise detail seems fitting:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth's superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.

Emily Dickinson