Welcome to eclipse season! Overnight Wednesday, our second New Moon in Aries and the first eclipse of 2023 arrives. This is an intense, creative, fiery time we’re stepping into.
Let’s take a look.
It’s Tuesday. It’s worth noting the Moon is already in Aries, having left Pisces about 9:00 pm Monday night in my eastern US time zone. The Moon sextiled Pluto in Aquarius right away.
By now, this Moon has sextiled Venus and is just past the square to Mars. The Moon will conjunct Chiron, Jupiter, and Eris before joining the Sun.
The Moon is our messenger. As you see by this series of aspects, she is collecting quite a bit of information and also catching a lot of feelings, on her way to the New Moon eclipse.
We are right there with the Moon. Some of us will be more sensitive than others, depending on our birth charts, but you can’t miss an Aries Moon in conversation with lots of other planets. Emotions are already running high and hot. Make sure you are taking good care of yourself and those around you.
We’re in a phase from now until mid May that many astrologers recognize as disruptive. Things are changing. We can’t see their direction or magnitude clearly, but we feel them.
It’s not just the eclipse. It’s cazimis and retrogrades (hello, Jupiter and Mercury), planets changing signs, the Nodes of the Moon about to change signs, and especially Pluto sitting in the first degree of Aquarius. Pluto has stationed, which means, they won’t move any farther. Pluto turns retrograde May 1, as we are between eclipses.
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Pluto squares this eclipse. This is a very tight square, less than a degree, so even though it is out-of-sign, the end of Aries to the beginning of Aquarius, it still counts. This New Moon solar eclipse didn’t need any additional intensity. Yet this is exactly what a stationing Pluto square the New Moon brings.
The Sun and Moon will be at 29º50’ of Aries. This is the final, intense degree in the sign of cardinal Fire. Please note signs of the zodiac do not blend, or get all mushy, as they reaching their boundaries. They get stronger and more focused.
This eclipse happens in the most intense place Aries has. Both the Sun and Moon are strong at this time. The Sun is exalted in Aries, lifted to an elevated position (as if the Sun needed that). The Moon is strong because she is in mutual reception with Mars in Cancer.
Mars rules Aries, where the Moon is. The Moon rules Cancer, where Mars is. They’ve done a house swap and have each other’s phone numbers. If the Moon needs a fire extinguisher in the middle of the night, she’ll call Mars. He’ll know where he stored it. That’s mutual reception.
It’s also true that Mars rules this New Moon from a place where he feels constrained and weak. Mars prefers direct action, without having to worry too much about others. It’s not that Mars is always selfish. He’ll do things for people, just not emotional, Cancerian things. He’d rather run into a burning building than sit down and talk about feelings.
Yet feelings will come up at this New Moon, passionate, chaotic, feelings.
The last decan of Aries is ruled by Venus, who happens to be in Gemini. With Mercury currently stationed at 15º Taurus, these two planets are also in mutual reception and therefore supporting each other.
Mercury is barely moving in the sky right now and also in a slow-moving sign. One challenge with this New Moon eclipse, is that Mercury would really rather stay quiet, have a glass of wine, read a book, and go to sleep early that process eclipse chaos.
Venus on the other hand is ready to party. She feels creatively and passionately inspired and wants to talk about it. A lot. Together, Mercury and Venus can balance each other. Mercury can gain energy and some capacity to think and process from Venus. Venus can remember that she loves Taurus, loves slow, dependable things.
As rulers of the eclipse overall and of the decan in which the eclipse occurs, Mars and Venus have a lot of room to play in the eclipse chaos. Fiery emotions, spirited creativity, and the interplay of masculine and feminine archetypes has me thinking about several things.
First, what does this Aries New Moon and solar eclipse at the North Node, with its intense desire nature, tell us about what it means to live as our unique self, fully authentic, embracing our true nature?
In the classical world, the word “virgin” conveyed this quality for women, often for a goddess, because women in the social roles of those societies were never independent. A woman was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother–defined always by her relationships to others. Yet there were goddesses who were said to be virginal, which meant not a lack of sexual experience but that they were complete and self contained without reference to anyone else.
What if each of us could do that, across all gender expressions, all ways of being? What would it be like if we could just be who we are?
Second, Pluto will be intensifying our perceptions and our emotions in deeply psychological ways. We may find ourselves confronting buried aspects of our psyches that we usually prefer not to see.
Pluto might bring up issues around gender, representation, and authenticity. Freudian and Jungian psychology both hold that each of us has within both masculine and feminine archetypes. Having a good rapport and balance between these two is considered a mark of good emotional health.
What if there are more than two options here? What if there’s a range of expressions across the two axes we might call masculine and feminine? Is there an entire field of choices we have yet to explore?
Third, how will all of this be reflected in the larger world? There are many ways this could show up. Let me focus on gender issues and authenticity as one example.
Remember, feelings are and will be running high. We humans tend not to respond well to chaos. Aries people do a lot better with chaos than most, so maybe we’ll get a boost there, but we really prefer things to settle down and and not change much.
Because this New Moon happens so late in Aries, both the Sun and Moon will quickly leave the sign.
The Sun will enter the slow, steady, dependable and also stubborn sign of Taurus just four hours after the New Moon, which will perfect the square with Pluto. This will bring Sun-in-Taurus issues of comfort, security, sustainability, and the idea of what is “natural,” up against Pluto-in-Aquarius issues around what it deep, true, and authentic, which means bringing up things Taurus would prefer not to see.
Pluto is the modern ruler of Scorpio, which is the sign opposite Taurus.
A traditionalist and conservative might say, we need to keep to ways of living that are natural, normal, and ordained by god. I want to be comfortable in my home and in my life. People who want embody some wild, crazy idea they have of what gender is make me uncomfortable, so, those people should not be allowed to do that, at least not in public.
This is what repression looks like. Pluto is not a fan. So this Aquarian Pluto might say, there are higher truths here than just doing things as we always have. If we look at history and the natural world with an open, uncensored gaze, we’ll see a wide variety of expressions of what it means to be human, let along what it might mean to be male, female, any number of other ways of being. Your comfort should not come at the expense of someone else’s authenticity, or their life.
It’s possible this eclipse season will bring stories about gender, expression, and authenticity into the news all across the political and social spectrum.
On Friday, April 21, still within the Full Moon phase, Mercury stations retrograde. Mercury’s journey will happen entirely within the sign of Taurus. The direct station will be May 14. How does a slow, reflective Mercury help us, or challenge us, during this time?
While this will definitely depend on our birth charts, I will offer two possibilities.
One is, we are flooded with emotions, have not made eclipse self care plans, and get overwhelmed. Our mind feels slow, stodgy, and unhelpful, so we give in to our emotions and act out. This will probably show up as arguments, which can be with other people, or entirely internal.
The other is, we do have self care plans. We lean into Mercury’s quiet, reserved, thoughtfulness. We remember to ground ourselves by getting out in nature, walking, gardening, or taking care of our bodies with massage or other modalities. We will still feel lots of emotions.By allowing ourselves to slow down and focus on grounded, physical activities, we can perhaps avoid overwhelm.
This eclipse will not end with the New Moon phase. Whatever comes up for us will continue to unfold over the next six months at least. And our next Full Moon is also an eclipse.
I’m suggesting we work with Mercury retrograde and all the other planets that are or are about to be in Taurus over the next weeks. If we avoid narrow-minded and stereotypical thinking, and instead focus on the hands on, feet on the ground, slow pleasure of Taurus, we might just be able to process, move on, and enjoy the time to come.