For each lunar phase, I chose a title, a phrase to capture the theme of each Sun–Moon connection.
For a New Moon in Virgo, a sign known for humility and service, anxiety and the desire to keep ducks in rows, a title like “Fate & Free Will” might seem pretentious, overblown, too much for this place of mutable Earth.
But as soon as we begin exploring the web of connections woven into this New Moon, we’ll see the theme is entirely appropriate.
The New Moon arrives at 7:00 am EDT Thursday which will be just before dawn in my time zone. The Moon is dark tonight as I write, the sky clouded so only a few stars look down. The mountains will most likely be shrouded in fog again in the morning.
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Sun and Moon will meet at 25 Virgo, close to the end of this sign and within the third decan. If you’re not familiar with decans, they are (as the name suggests) ten degree divisions within the thirty degrees of each sign.
The decans themselves have themes, showing how the meaning of each sign develops from its inception at 0 to completion at 29. My reference for understanding these divisions is Austin Coppock’s book, 36 Faces.
In the third decan of Virgo, we confront and are asked to accept the end of all material things. Our bodies, everything in the natural world around us, and indeed in the manufactured world, will eventually disintegrate and disappear.
The contemporary world treats death and decay as things to be avoided at all costs, yet life could not exist without them.
Virgo in its quiet practicality knows this. Accepts this. Virgo doesn’t seek to transcend the realities and limitations of life. She simply want to make things as workable and as pleasant as possible.
This New Moon is not alone, not by a long shot. First there’s the trine to the Capricorn group: Saturn, Pluto, and Jupiter.
So the ordinary, day-to-day focus of Virgo is tied to the powerhouse driving the incredible energies surging through this most challenging year.
Trines are ease, flow, support. At this New Moon, we will find ourselves choosing our orientation.
Are we going along with the dominate paradigm that says capitalist economies are more important than people or the Earth? Are we ready to support the status quo? Are we following the guidance of leaders on whom we’ve depended for years?
Or are we choosing a different kind of guidance, the kind that emerges from the Earth itself, from an ethic that includes justice, balance, and inclusiveness?
If you follow my work, you will likely know which way I lean. It’s worth noting, though, that this trine from the New Moon to the Capricorn group does not in itself determine our choices. It merely points to the fact they will be made.
The New Moon is widely opposite Neptune in Pisces. This is a waning aspect, both Sun and Moon having already passed their exact oppositions. Neptune’s influence is pervasive, though, and will still be felt.
Neptune cannot in itself predict what any of us will choose. This planet of intuitive guidance and also confusion, of glamour in the magical sense, of creative inspiration, lends itself to conspiracy theories as readily as to glorious visions.
New Moons are beginnings, times to think of planting seeds. We see already how the seeds we choose for this new cycle are strongly influenced by what has gone before.
This is reinforced by the Sun–Moon square to the Nodes of the Moon currently at 24 Sagittarius and Gemini. The New Moon is a fated moment, not in the sense of being rigidly predetermined but in the sense that wherever we find ourselves and whatever we choose will resound, will influence everything around us.
Retrograde Mars in Aries, sitting with Black Moon Lilith and Eris, is inconjunct the New Moon. This fiery trio pushes awkwardly but insistently against the prudence of Virgo. Do something, Mars shouts. Do it now.
And of course Mars and company square the Capricorn group, doubling down on Mars’ edginess with the Sun and Moon. This won’t be a comfortable time. We’ll likely feel an itch to know something, decide something, DO something, even as we know the time is not yet. Soon, but not yet.
With all this fate floating around where’s the free will?
There’s one more aspect pattern that could be missed in the general melee. Uranus at 10 Taurus forms a sesquiquadrate to the New Moon and to the South Node of the Moon. Which means Uranus sits at the apex of a Thor’s Hammer.
This is a bit of a game changer because Uranus is the planet of individuation, the force who says, be who you were meant to be. Be who you were born to be.
If we view fate as all the influences that brought us to where we are today, then where does free will even come from?
Uranus says, free will is the unique combination of those influences that make each one of us a radically individual expression of life.
No one ever anywhere is exactly like us. Only we can bring this combination forward into the world.
At this Virgo New Moon, late in the sign, fully aware of how close we stand to many endings, some desired, some feared, we are invited to take our place in the dance.
It doesn’t matter how exalted or humble that place might seem. It doesn’t matter whether we feel prepared, or competent, or anything. It only matters that we step in.
We’re invited to bring our best self to this dance of life. Every day, but especially at this New Moon in Virgo. Step in.
The astrological charts are my own. The images in this post include the title,
adapted from the autumn leaves by Timothy Eberly,
and the following images:
the hands by Toa Heftiba,
the figure in red smoke by Elti Meshau, and
the dancers by Philipp.