Tuesday's new moon at 0º Aquarius marks the last new moon of the lunar year of the Wood Horse as well as the first of the 2015 calendar year. The feeling of one phase ending and another beginning is really emblematic of the Aquarius New Moon chart, as well as the energy of this winter season, and in many respects, 2015 as a whole. When I look at the charts for this winter season and observe the development of current and incoming astrological trends, there are a number of immediate standouts. Working from the most obvious to the more subtle:
- The Uranus-Pluto Square which was exact for the 6th of 7 times around the Winter Solstice, a major astrological cycle that has been working us in profound ways since 2012, are sticking close to each other and having their final joust just as the winter season closes on March 17, 2015. We feel an increasing sense of urgency as this call for revolutionary change in our personal lives and in the world bears down on us in these final months. This winter season is like laboring for the gold of the alchemical fire. We've been working this energy for a long time, and in a big way during the 2014 year of the Wood Horse. Deeply threaded beliefs are being worked out and unraveled in society at large and within ourselves. The true impact of this alignment will continue to unfold for years to come. Nonetheless, we remain in the final clutches of the deep, ongoing cooking process -- anxiety, uncertainty, and instability are real and unavoidable. Change is upon us, and the best thing we can do this season is direct our minds, wills, and hearts toward positive and evolutionary directions. Have faith in their significant and positive outcomes -- and know that the stress will abate considerably in a few months.
- Saturn's Sagittarius Ingress and dip back into Scorpio this summer -- Saturn represents structures and material matters and therefore his travels through the signs often impact cultural feeling in a big way. This year of 2015 receives Saturn's first messages from his more optimistic, hopeful, idealistic Sagittarius transit. This ingress is about the ideas we want to build our life around and our process of hearing, telling, receiving, and giving THE TRUTH. These are the truths, of course, reflected upon and revealed through our deep passages in Scorpio, the sign of death, rebirth, and profound merging with intimates, family skeletons, and mystery itself. In 2015, we will return to meet Scorpio for a few months before uniting completely with our Sagittarian visions. In the current and coming months before the retrograde cycle, we are working quite a lot on developing our initial ideas about moving forward, but we won't have the official go ahead until later in the year after we've finished our Scorpio work once and for all.
- Exit Wood Horse, Enter Wood Sheep -- The Wood Horse has come and gone with swift intensity! Last year's energies from both an Eastern and Western astrological perspective were profound, changeful, and chock full of huge life events, and spiritual growing pains. Whereas previous years, the changes were felt profoundly within, this past year was jammed with action -- and it hasn't really relented as it normally does come January. This coming New Moon feels very much like the Wood Horse's last labor of love. With Uranus meeting the south node and Pluto squaring the nodes last week there is a sense of deep, emotional, profound, BIG release. The Wood Horse year has had us working! No matter what area of our life we looked at, we have worked our butts off!! And for what grand purpose? If we follow the perspective of the Horse, it was so we could have greater freedom, self expression, and independence in our lives. This remains true, even if we still feel shackled or that the past year was burdensome -- sometimes it's beneath the shackles and burdens that we are able to find the seed of true freedom that we would have never known existed otherwise. This New Moon is that seed. The "Firing" process I spoke of with reference to the Uranus-Pluto square and deep Saturn Scorpio work with commitments are starting to crystallize. Let go, in a BIG way, to clear the deck for the softer, more creative, nurturing and developing vibe of the sheep. The barrier between what we deeply want and what is possible has become a lot less stable. Take your work horse, and march right through that big ole pile of bull ;)
- Energetic Preview of the Mutable T-Square -- For me, a big game changing piece in the coming Sheep & Monkey years (end of 2015-2016), is the mutable T-Square that is to form between Jupiter in Virgo, Saturn in Sagittarius, and Neptune in Pisces. This is the next BIG phase of energy adjustment coming in, and it will provide a totally different feeling from the past few years which have been about discovery, awakening, development of consciousness and taking initial action towards change. Through this, there have been very real, physical, psychic, and emotional trials. My initial feelings about this coming formation are that they bring with them a test of the mind's ideals and the struggle between practicality and spirituality. Logistics, thwarted implementation, discovery of false truths, intense & prolific confusion, and the dissolving of previous beliefs. Our readiness for the incoming time is dependent on our willingness, now, to unhinge ourselves from any aspect of our lives which negatively suppresses our individuality and openness to new and resonating information. This month Mars in Pisces makes its aspect to Saturn (last week) and Neptune giving us an initial hint of the struggle to make the elusive, beautiful dream world a reality. It is an interesting image, actually, to think of normally energetic Mars ambling through the slow, undecided watery sign of Pisces (as he does every two years) -- the reminder here is that not all things are gained by doing. Some, are gained through surrender, through receiving, and through insight.
- 0º Point of Potency / 29º Point of Conclusion -- The new moons this winter season are falling often on the 0º and 29º points. The 0º and 29º points of signs are considered especially significant as they denote the most powerful and most weak points in the sign -- the vibes of beginnings and endings. The new moon on the Winter Solstice landed at 0º Capricorn -- indicating a huge season of creating new foundations and also a season of sweeping away deep parts of our past, as Saturn was still at the very last degree of Scorpio. The January new moon is of a similar essence, landing at 0º Aquarius with both moon and Sun residing in the EST Chart's 12th House of the deep, profound, & subconscious karma. Moving into the Lunar New Year, the new moons start the year falling at 29º of Aquarius and then a new moon solar eclipse occurs at 29º Pisces on the Spring Equinox, March 20, both of these moons setting the tone for the season of Spring and the remainder of 2015. With Saturn moving into its retrograde cycle around this same time, we can expect the Sheep's new years resolutions to be centered around cleaning up after some of the eruptions left behind by the horse, healing, reevaluating, and completing unfinished tasks in preparation for the spiritually trying expansive phase to come towards the end of the year. The peaceful sheep will want to make sure things are in order before chaos returns.
- Mercury Retrograde -- The Aquarius moon cycle will also be occurring in stride with Mercury Retrograde in Aquarius. Since the rising sign of this New Moon chart is also Aquarius with other Aquarian elements strongly thematic (Saturn aspecting the chart's Midheaven, Uranus aspecting the south node) I see this also as a moon that is really working our Aquarian ruled realms -- Our unique fingerprint, intuition, genius, Our connection to community, groups, friends, tribe-members, Social equality issues, technology, science & innovations. Mercury retrograde simply re-emphasizes the energy of this evaluative moon cycle -- the paradox of planting outer seeds for new growth through a process of inner work and deep letting go. Allow yourself to be called to your revolutionary new visions, and really feel the one-of-a-kind you -- how we all individually contribute to the people around us is the mainstay of Aquarian ideals. Being our authentic selves and knowing our authentic selves IS our service to the community.
Working within the context of all of the above, through January's new moon we see the new creation with such depth, that we are left with no choice but to make profound soul-level decisions to radically release impediments, obstructions, and obfuscations that hinder absolute freedom. All of this being done with the knowledge that it is a necessary part of our evolutionary course -- that loss and karmic release is only a temporary state. This new moon is REALLY about seeding intentions for our hidden spiritual visions and unique quest, voice & individuality, while sloughing off the uniform. We still have more to change, more to review, more to settle before we're quite ready for the complete development of our ideas... but we're starting to come into full alignment with these ideas and full knowing of what exactly we will need to address in the coming months. Right now, we're remodeling our inner home -- brilliantly envisioning exactly what we want it to look like, with an old structure falling down around us. The new foundation is being laid, but there's still some old dry wall that needs to go to the dump before we can start building. Now is the time to go crazy, be creative, and joyfully throw out the crap. Don't think about the logistics, just express yourself (that's for later anyway!)
And most of all, don't let the old house dictate what the new one must look like.