New Moon in Aquarius: Brave New World

On Monday, February 4, the New Moon in Aquarius arrives at 4:03 pm EST. This breath-of-fresh-air New Moon has in her hands strands from varied sources. How might we weave these together into a new cloth?

First, this is not an eclipse of any kind, which feels pretty good. It’s been a tough week and, indeed, a tough month. This New Moon offers a still place, somewhere to breathe and gather our thoughts.

This Aquarian New Moon firmly orients to the future. We are now, clearly and decisively, finished with the Leo–Aquarius eclipses that began in August 2016. Whatever was lost or gained, however that series of eclipses changed us, is now complete.

This finishing up of a particular eclipse cycle is one of the strands offered by the New Moon. Some of our intentions and wishes can reflect what we learned and how we want to move forward.

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This New Moon is also the Chinese New Year, indeed, the New Year for all cultures what follow a Moon-oriented calendar. With celebrations of light and life happening across the world, we are caught up in hopes for the future.

The lunar calendar is a farming calendar, oriented to the planting of crops as good weather arrives. Naturally, as a new year approaches, we review the past, but once the New Moon and New Year arrive, the focus is on the time ahead with many hopes for good luck and good fortune.

This is the Year of the Pig, a sturdy, hard working creature easily aligned with all the Capricorn energy in the sky this year. Perhaps you participate in some of the traditions surrounding the Chinese New Year. If so, this is yet another strand offered by the New Moon.

This year, the Aquarius New Moon is also the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc, one of the four great fire festivals.

The Celtic calendar divides everything into halves, one light, one dark. The year from Beltaine to Samhain is the light half of the year. From Samhain to Beltaine, the dark half. And then, each half is divided into halves. Imbolc arrives halfway through the dark half of the year and signals the turn toward the light.

We sometimes refer to Imbolc as the beginning of spring, but in many places, it is not. Astrologically, it is not. The astrological Imbolc arrives when the Sun reaches 15 degrees of Aquarius, which is the fixed Air sign associated with the middle of winter.

Perhaps I am being pedantic here, but the middle of winter is not spring.

Instead, Imbolc is, for me, the promise of spring. Think of this, if you will, in terms of yin and yang. When yin reaches its maximum, yang is potentiated. Likewise, maximum yang potentiates yin.

Another metaphor is the pendulum. At the very moment a pendulum reaches its farthest point in one direction, it is swinging back toward the other. At Imbolc, we reach maximum dark. Therefore, in that moment, we turn toward the light.

This is the time when the Cailleach gives way to Brigid. The Cailleach is a crone, yes, and she is more. She is the fierce old woman. She has power and she doesn’t much care who gets hurt, if they get in her way. She is mischievous. In fact, she sometimes seems to relish causing havoc, danger, and damage.

Much like winter does.

She throws stones around, building up mountains or tearing them down. She can be gigantic and monstrous, or show up at your door, looking for a place by the fire to warm her old bones. She has that beauty that comes after much time has passed. The beauty of endurance.

Brigid today is a complex figure who combines pagan Celtic goddess with Christian saint. Beneath both, we sense the power of something deeper. Like the Cailleach, Brigid has pre-Celtic roots. She may be linked to a goddess of the land who took the shape of a bear.

There is a star involved here. Arcturus, the fourth brightest star in the sky, rises over the horizon as spring approaches. Named “the guardian of the bear,” Arcturus, like Imbolc and Brigid, is a harbinger of spring.

What is more yin than a mother bear deeply asleep in her lair, so lost in dreams she does not even wake when her cubs are born? Bears, disappearing in fall and reappearing in spring with cubs, are magical indeed.

At Imbolc, the Cailleach feels her power waning. Brigid, in her most youthful form, emerges. Again, we ask ourselves: What is waning in our lives? What new forms are ready to be born? This is one more strand we can weave into our New Moon wishes and intentions.

This New Moon is a powerful time for wishing. While we set intentions at each New Moon, we see here signs that give our words extra strength. For one, the Moon and Sun are conjunct Mercury in an Air sign. Words are energized.

For another, Neptune and Saturn are sextile each other, each in their own signs, which gives them power. They are each at 15, semisextile the New Moon, flanking the Sun and Moon on either side.

If you look at the chart, you will see what I mean. Find the New Moon at 15 Aquarius. Look to the right and to the left around the circle, at Neptune at 15 Pisces and Saturn at 15 Capricorn.

Neptune is the planet of dreams in her own sign of magic and dreaming. Saturn is the planet of form in his own sign that works long and patiently to create form. A sextile between these two has the power to turn visions into reality. In other words, to make dreams come true.

Remember this is a double-edged sword, this power. At this New Moon, be careful what you wish for.

It’s worth noting that Venus entered Capricorn not long ago. The planet of creativity and beauty and relationship is now in the sign of hard work. Again, visions can become real.

Aquarius is a visionary sign, an idealist and a philosopher, forward thinking and innovative.

Heaven knows we need positive, hopeful visions these days. Yet we also need them to be real. The original use of the phrase “brave new world” is in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, when Miranda sees other human beings for the first time.

She has lived in a magical world with her father, a world that protected her but was a very limited version of what the world was really like. As the play ends, her father sets magic aside to rejoin the world of princes and politics, giving his daughter a wider, richer future.

Aldous Huxley’s book of that name presented a rather different view. He showed a truncated, limited society in which a drug-induced happiness replaces the full experience of being human. We value the pursuit of happiness, but at what cost?

This New Moon ushers in a new world. One that calls for bravery, no doubt. What balance between fantasy and reality are we seeking? Please note, I do not automatically equate “reality” with technology or even science. Indeed, some forms of technology can take us very far indeed from anything real.

The question remains. It is especially relevant at this New Moon.

What do I mean, what do you mean, by reality? How much of it do we want? In what form? And what are the limits of our choices?

As we integrate the past and step into our own brave new worlds, what are our intentions? Perhaps one important wish is that we share our individual strands and weave them together into a beautiful pattern for communities of the future.