Overnight, the New Moon in Aries arrives. This first New Moon since the equinox, and therefore the first in the new zodiacal year, is filled with Aries Fire. There are opportunities here for healing, but also temptations around risk taking, impulsivity, and generally acting out.
We’ll want to choose wisely.
The Sun and Moon sit together in the second decan of Aries. The Sun rules this decan, and has his degree of exaltation here. Austin Coppock names this decan The Crown precisely for the strength of the royal Sun.
The New Moon finds the throne room crowded. The Moon is here of course, but also Mercury and Chiron. All four are tightly conjunct.
The tarot card associated with this decan is the 3 of Wands, a card indicating rapid change, usually in positive directions. Mercury in Aries is a unique thinker, offering their own perspectives on life. In Aries’ second decan, Mercury can also be persuasive, convinced of their own rightness and good at communicating why others should agree.
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Now, this Mercury is dark and not available to us. Saturday evening, Mercury will reach cazimi, the moment of conjunction with the Sun that brings illumination. We might feel our minds stimulated at this New Moon, sense the promise of the cazimi, but we’ll have to wait for Mercury’s reappearance in the sky to get clarity.
Chiron the wounded healer is also here, reaching their cazimi before Mercury: on the night of Friday, April 1.
Chiron points to patterns of wounding, often ones set in place in childhood. It’s never Chiron’s desire to hurt us, but rather to point to where healing is needed. The idea is that when we see the pattern, we have the key to healing it.
But what happens when both the triggers and our minds are hidden under the Sun’s beams? I think you can guess. This New Moon has the potential to leave us feeling hurt without being able to explain or even understand why. With all this Aries, we want to lash out.
So let’s return for a moment to idea of making wise choices. Aries is not an especially wise sign. We might need a plan. In the context of the New Moon, we might feel strong urges to act. Let’s see if we can commit to making choices rather than decisions.
What’s the difference? Don’t we decide when we make a choice?
Yes, these two are very close. But there is something here that can be useful at this New Moon.
The word decision has as its roots the idea of cutting something out. Think of ‘decision’ as the opposite of ‘incision.’ Literally, when we decide, we’re going with one option and cutting the other out.
This is the sort of clean cut action Aries loves. Yes! Let’s decide!
But wait, consider choice instead. The word choice has at its roots the idea of tasting. This is quite different from cutting things out. You might choose chocolate cake tonight. That doesn’t preclude you choosing vanilla tomorrow, or even later tonight. Nothing is cut off. Options remain open.
So if you feel hurt, distressed, irritated, or angry under the influence of Mercury and Chiron close to the Sun, makes choices instead of deciding.
‘I need some time alone’ vs. ‘I never want to see you again.’
Or ‘I have every right to cause you pain because you hurt me’ vs ‘I need some time alone.’
In other words, under the influence of this New Moon, try not to do anything you can’t undo.
There are healing opportunities if we can grasp them. At a minimum, we can choose to pay attention to how we feel, what our body sensations are, over the next few days.
Maybe with Mercury hidden in the Sun, we can’t quite put words to what we perceive or how we think about it. But noticing is something. Tracking what’s going on in the body is healing in itself because we’re so quick to get stuff into words, we sometimes turn away from the body too soon.
Aries is a very physical sign. These New Moon days are great times to move, in any way open to us. To experience what movement is like. If we’ve got real spring weather, we can revel in that–warmer air, softer ground, brighter colors, the songs of courting birds.
At this New Moon, choose to connect with your body, with the Earth, with others you care about. Choose to take good care of yourself.
This is a very eventful New Moon time, also consistent with Aries energy. As I mentioned, both Chiron and Mercury reach their exact conjunctions with the Sun. Also, and importantly, Mars will reach conjunction with Saturn.
Mars rules Aries and therefore rules this New Moon. In Aquarius, Mars is more careful and organized than in fiery Aries. He can attend to plans, and pay attention to important goals.
Except that right now, Mars is reacting against Saturn. This is the feeling of trying to drive with the brakes on that was so familiar in 2020. Mars wants to move. Saturn builds a wall.
This conjunction is one of the key aspects of this month, and perhaps the spring. Mars and Saturn together can ignite conflict, or escalate conflicts already underway. This can happen in our own lives or on the world stage.
Because the Mars–Saturn conjunction happens within the New Moon phase, is already very close at the New Moon, and the ruler of the New Moon is involved, I feel it will affect the New Moon itself.
Which makes the idea of choices (rather than decisions) all the more important. Challenges surround us, in the world and in our own lives. It’s easy to feel triggered.
This New Moon is a time to feel that sense of challenge and restriction, not to ignore it. And then to make good choices about how to respond in the moment and how to seek whatever healing we need.
Title adapted from Daniele Levis Pelusi
https://unsplash.com/photos/-r9NWgXFeqU
throne by William Krause
https://unsplash.com/photos/IkYuzPneQWs
regret by Jonathan Rados
https://unsplash.com/photos/Sbxt82CsMxA
sunflowers by Gérôme Bruneau
https://unsplash.com/photos/RPmWEtZLh7U