This last New Moon of 2024, falling in the liminal space between the old calendar year and a new one which will bring great change, asks us to pause.
This New Moon at 09º43’ Capricorn is grounded deep in the earth and invites us to do the same.
In the first decan of Capricorn, we’re called to bring spirit down into the body.
This can be done as a conscious practice, in which, closing our eyes, we gather up our attention, our consciousness, from wherever it is scattered around and outside us.
If you want to try this, get comfortable, don’t be operating anything big or dangerous, and close your eyes.
Look around with your inner eye and locate your scattered consciousness.
When I do this, I see my conscious attention as tiny sparkles of light that move around in little clouds or trails. Whatever you see or feel is fine.
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With slow, calming breaths, on the inhale, bring all your consciousness back inside your body.
As modern folk, we tend to gather it into our heads, inside our skull. If you find yourself gathering into your heart, or somewhere else, that’s also fine as long as it’s inside you.
Once you sense your attention is gathered inside you, take a few deep calming breaths and, on an exhale, move your consciousness downward.
First gather your consciousness into your chest, your heart center. How does that feel? You can sit with this as long as you like.
With more calming breaths, move your consciousness down into your abdomen, where you can imagine your pelvic bones as a bowl holding your consciousness. How does that feel?
Then, with more breaths, move your consciousness down your legs into your feet. By this point, you’re hopefully feeling quiet, calm, and possibly beyond words.
Which is fine.
The power of this New Moon is not in words, memes, bit and bytes, ones and zeroes, or any of the other tiny scintillating pieces of modern life. The power of this New Moon is in stillness.
We’re invited to connect with what we know and who we are in our bones.
This bone-knowing, earth-sensing stuff is rooted in our ancestry. It is nourished by our connection to the ground on which we live and the ecosystems we exist within.
This is the kind of energy we meet within the first decan of Capricorn.
This New Moon, the Moon herself, is also way out of bounds. Which makes this New Moon a good time for extending into new experiences that feel good in a very grounded way.
We might think of this New Moon as a time to become deeply rooted, or perhaps go quiet and hibernate for a while as we are fed by our roots.
The Sun and Moon sextile Saturn in mid Pisces, who rules this New Moon. The Pisces connection brings in some dream energy, a magical connection that is reflected again in a Saturn square to Jupiter in Gemini.
We’re reminded that Earth is also magic of an especially deep and quiet kind.
Another sort of depth is represented in the New Moon chart by a mystic rectangle pattern. This rectangle features four corners that are connected around the outside by trines and sextiles, and supported internally by oppositions.
The two opposing pairs each speak to their own kinds of deep roots.
Mars retrograde in Leo opposes Pluto. Our drive to act in the world to express ourselves has turned inward and is being drawn into the deepest layers of existence and of psyche.
The Nodes of the Moon bring depth through time, contrasting as they do release into the past and grasping for the future.
Mars and Pluto trine and sextile the Nodes.
Dane Rudhyar called the mystic rectangle a container for practical magic, which is another way of describing the magic of Earth.
I’ve spoken so far about moving our energy and focus downward, of rooting deeply into quiet, sustaining, grounded places. Yet at this turning of the year, we’re also moving into a time of great change.
Venus in Aquarius squares Uranus in Taurus. If you consider Uranus to be the modern ruler of Aquarius (as I do), then these two are in mutual reception, supporting and informing each other even as the square creates a challenge.
Uranus, for some years now, as been bringing his Big Change energy to cozy, grounded Taurus. Venus in Aquarius brings heart into the sometimes chilly Big Ideas space of Aquarius.
It’s as if these two are acknowledging the depth and constancy of change, while holding hands across the divide.
With this New Moon, we find ourselves invited into a time and space of quiet connection. What do we know in our bones? What can we sense without words?
This kind of knowing comes from working with our hands and our bodies, rather than the mind. It comes from the kind of meditation that brings a quiet focus to the body. It comes from our ancestors and what they knew in their bodies.
It’s not contemporary. It’s not quick. It’s slow, steady, supportive, quiet, and rooted. It can help us create a solid foundation for whatever comes.
I’ll close with two quotes, the first from Beloved, by Toni Morrison:
“If you are to call out the past that is haunting you, let it come into the daylight, for only then can you truly know it in your bones.”
The second is from the poet Rumi, who says:
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
At this New Moon, as the year turns, we call out the haunting past, know it in our bones, and make it the foundation of our own myth.
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