Today is the New Moon in Aquarius, a New Moon to be reckoned with, a New Moon that is a new broom, a fresh wind, a new dawn, a fresh start.
This is not only a New Moon but the beginning of the new year in many cultures that use a lunisolar calendar. Chinese New Year and the Tibetan Losar begin tomorrow, Friday, February 12, with many people in East Asia marking this as the beginning of the Year of the Metal Ox.
If we look at the year so far from the perspective of Western astrology, we might find ourselves agreeing with the lunisolar calendar, that this New Moon feels more like a clean break, a new beginning, than January 1 did, this year.
One glance at the chart shows why. There is a tremendous focus in the sign of Aquarius, the fixed Air sign so decidedly aimed at the future, on creating visions and crafting plans, on building community that is principled and balanced and inclusive.
Clearly, we’re meant to take a deep dive into Aquarius with this New Moon.
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Aquarius is the eleventh sign of the zodiac, following Capricorn and preceding Pisces, the three signs that make up the winter season in the northern hemisphere.
Historically, Capricorn and Aquarius were both ruled by Saturn, the one who sets boundaries, builds walls, shows us the limits of what is possible. Saturn champions responsibility, hard work, patience, tradition, authority.
But these two signs are the not the same. We don’t just slide from one Saturnian space to another. Between any two signs of the zodiac, there is a divide, a decided, in fact rather dramatic shift.
Despite the lingering concept of ‘cuspiness,’ there is no blend, no mushy indistinctness between the signs of the zodiac. It’s a bit more like falling off a cliff.
So what happens when we move from Capricorn into Aquarius?
One characteristic is the same: We are in both signs in the realm of the collective. This is a pattern that does grow and develop as we journey through the zodiac. We begin with the extreme individualism of Aries, the new singular being born into the world. Through the signs, we become more aware that we’re not alone. There are others around with whom we share this world, whether we like them or not.
Capricorn and Aquarius are signs that focus on human collectives, before we’re invited to consider the much wider, deeper, cosmic collective we encounter in Pisces. Specifically, Capricorn and Aquarius share a focus on how human collectives are structured and maintained. In other words, how we build and maintain our world.
(Let me say that Capricorn and Aquarius are not the only signs concerned with societies and how they work. But these two are the traditional Saturnian signs. And right now, we’ve moved from an intensely Capricornian time into this amazingly Aquarian New Moon, so these two are my focus today.)
In Capricorn, we encounter the impulse to build structures that will endure. These structures emerge from a desire to address human problems but then can get hijacked by the impulse to acquire and maintain power.
This is wildly oversimplified, but consider what happened in the Neolithic Revolution, which was the development of settled agriculture: A shift that seemed to offer greater food security became the foundation for modern city states and hierarchical power structures.
As that happened, we might notice that the value of the individual became subsumed in their role in the collective. The masons who created the great medieval cathedrals over multiple generations may have carved their initials into hidden faces of the stone, but the cathedrals were not about them, but rather monuments to a society that transcended them.
You might guess where I’m going with this. Yes, it’s Uranus, the revolutionary, the eccentric, trickster planet who champions our birthright to be who we are as unique individuals.
Uranus is the modern ruler of Aquarius. Discovered during a time of revolutions, both civil and religious, that radically altered the Western world, Uranus shifted the conversation from what we owed to society into what we could make of ourselves.
The idea that every single human being has inherent worth was radical. It still is radical. We in today’s world still fail to fully embrace and acknowledge and live as if all of us are equally worthy.
This is an idea–Aquarius is an Air sign, the element of ideas–that continues to unfold for us as a world.
So I would say that the future orientation of Aquarius is part of this shift from collective power structures to individual agency.
Consider the whole idea of planning for the future. It implies (among other things) that the future can be different from the past, which is not a big focus in Capricorn, where the emphasis is on tradition, sticking with the tried and true, and not getting too fancy with the big ideas.
The concept that we can plan for a new future, that we can make real change, is a radical idea. The thought that each of us as individuals can contribute to this new future in unique and significant ways is likewise modern and radical.
And the assertion of individual worth and agency, the idea of self determination, is perhaps the most radical of all.
Sometimes, this idea of self determination becomes self justification: Whatever I can get away with is fine, because I can do what I want. But this is not going to create a society in which everyone has a chance.
Aquarius also introduces the idea of personal responsibility. If our individual principles and values determine our behavior, we’d better know what they are.
In Capricornian hierarchies, if I am doing what the king told me to do, that justifies my actions. I was following orders. I was doing what I was told.
In an Aquarian world, that’s not good enough. We need all of us, each of us, to be responsible for what we think, what we choose, and how we act.
So on the collective level, we’re between these world views. We kind of like the idea that we get to do what we want. We’re less enchanted with having to be responsible for what happens when we actually do that.
The trap of Aquarius can be the idea that we can do anything. That if we can envision it, it will happen. This is a major failing within some modern spiritual traditions, to believe that reality has no power outside our own idea of it.
For me, this level of self determination is delusional and dangerous. It denies any shared reality in favor of an extreme form of individualism. It’s a way of avoiding personal responsibility for the impact of our life on other lives. It removes the collective focus of Aquarius in favor of a totalitarian individuality. We might imagine ourselves as gods, but we are not. We’re human.
So this New Moon invites us into a consideration of this complex set of ideas about who we are and how we live in the world.
Which is the value of having Mercury retrograde right in the middle of this Aquarian lineup.
At this New Moon, we know we cannot continue with things as they were and are. We know radical change is essential. Where we struggle is with specific plans of action and with our own responsibility to change.
So, where is Aquarius in your chart? This is where you are feeling the winds of change at this New Moon. This is where you are invited to step into a wider understanding of your own agency, your own choices, your own power.
It is also the place where we are asked to consider our personal responsibilities. If we don’t like how this particular sector of life is unfolding for us, well, change is up to us., change that begins within ourselves, built on our values and goals, but also moves out into the world in ways what engage us in communities.
Happy New Moon in Aquarius. Happy New Year. Let’s create a new world that works for all of us.
The astrological charts are my own. The images in this post include the title,
adapted from mountain heights by Malachi Brooks,
and the following images:
cathedral by Angel Luciano,
together by “My Life Through A Lens”,and
change by Ross Findon