The New Moon in Aries arrives before dawn tomorrow in my Eastern time zone, which feels like a fitting time of day for the beginning of the astrological year.
Aries is the cardinal Fire sign that initiates the zodiac round. This is the eruption of life, of light, of energy up through the dissolving waters of Pisces. We are born anew in Aries. We are pioneers, trail blazers, doers of deeds, adventurers.
This year, the Piscean waters have overwhelmed us. March brought us Mercury retrograde in Pisces and joining Neptune, modern ruler of this place of emotional depths, illusions, delusion, enlightenment, and spiritual connection. It’s likely we experienced at least some, and possibly ran the full gamut, of what Pisces offers.
We’re not out of the watery realms even now. At the moment of the New Moon tomorrow morning, Mercury has only just passed his last meeting with Neptune. Venus, now in Pisces, is moving to take Mercury’s place.
This is still a time of emotion, creative vision, dreaming, and, it must be said, illusion. The difference is that with Mercury now direct, we can express ourselves. We can speak. We can sketch, draw, paint, color. We can sing, make music, and dance.
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Indeed, emotions remain vital. One look at the New Moon chart shows the North Node in Cancer as a strong focal point. Connection, caring, and nurturance all anchor this chart, receiving the dreams and visions of the Pisces group in a wide, flowing trine.
We want to nurture our dreams, connect to our most authentic visions, and care for our communities.
The Cancerian North Node is the focus and we can also see the tremendous weight on the other side. Pluto and Saturn, the two heaviest of planets in terms of influence if not physical size, stand with the South Node of the past.
We are, at this beginning of a new trip around the zodiac, still caught between past and future.
The New Moon squares the Nodes, pushing at both past and future. Eris the chaos goddess is right there as well. We might have floated through March, but now there is a sense of urgency. A realization that we can’t stay where we have been.
Which way will be tip?
Do you remember teeter-totters? The ones in my childhood playground were made of heavy planks of wood, thickly painted. When they hit the ground, you felt it and heard it. Think of the Nodes of the Moon, South and North, as sitting on the two seats. Each wants to win, to control who is up and who is down.
The South Node has two huge rocks in its pockets, but that doesn’t mean the past will win. Aries brings the energy of the future, of what is being born. New Moons are all about new beginnings.
Still, those rocks are heavy. We might need to cut them loose. At this New Moon, we can.
Aries, ruled by Mars, is good at cutting through knots and bonds, excellent at bursting through barriers. Clarity will be needed. Clarity and commitment. What are we ready to let go of in order to move ahead?
Do check your birth chart. You want to know where Aries falls in your chart and especially what 15 Aries, the place of the New Moon, will be touching in your chart. Anything in and around 15 of the Fire signs (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius) and/or 15 of the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) will be affected. These are places where a fresh start is needed, or something new will show up.
We need to choose and this is not always easy. Tolkien called moments like these “the doom of choice,” using the older meaning of doom, which is “that which befalls” instead of the modern meaning of “fate worse than death.”
I wrote recently about improvisation and how its approach relies on a “yes, and” rather than the “yes, but” we so often default to. At this New Moon, we can say “yes, and” all we want and still need to realize we cannot have all the things.
Mars, ruler of Aries and so of this New Moon, is currently in Gemini, the sign that tries to keep lots of plates in the air at once. So we might be tempted. We might think we could figure out how to have it all. In reality (and Pluto and Saturn are all about reality), we can’t.
That’s what Tolkien, speaking through Gandalf, meant about “the doom of choice.” We choose a path, a person, a course of action, and other possible choices disappear. We have set a course and that creates consequences, not all of which we can see ahead of time.
This New Moon calls for action. Taking action means making choices. It’s time.
We don’t need to cut ourselves off from the past. The past, whether our personal past, family lineage, or history itself, has formed us and our world. It is a modern myth that we can reinvent ourselves. The past is with us and the more we ignore it, the more power it has.
A more productive alternative is to face the past, examine it, seek to understand it, heal it, and thereby transform it and ourselves. This is precisely what we’re being prodded to do as Pluto and Saturn interact with the South Node of the past.
Today, Wednesday, April 4, the South Node met Pluto. This connection created a collision between past stuff and the most powerful change agent we know. As a culmination of where we’ve been in recent months, this conjunction could have triggered a realization.
Maybe we got perspective on something we’ve been working on for a while. Maybe we understood something that needed to happen, or needed to be said, or unsaid. Maybe something new and unexpected opened up like a sinkhole and we’re now peering in.
Or we could have seen that something is done and ready to be let go.
Now, the South Node is moving away from Pluto and toward Saturn. The South Node–Saturn conjunction will happen at the end of the month, on April 30. At that point, we’ll hit a limit or possibly figure out how to bring something into a new form.
We are in a month-long journey of transformation as the South Node travels between Pluto and Saturn. Tomorrow morning’s New Moon opens a starting gate. We can have initiative, energy, purpose, and results. We simply need to choose.
There is power in making a choice. Once we set a course, we open the throttle, build up steam, and go. The cosmos is with us on this one. Go for it.