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| Monica Vitti in "L'avventura" |
This new moon is on the 18th February, around 11:50 pm (GMT).
It's a very important one. We are nearing the culmination of a cycle of accelerated change – and things are starting to shift in amazing, magical ways. It's a kind of metamorphosis.
The thing about metamorphosis is that it's so improbable it seems like magic. A visitor from another planet would never connect a caterpillar with the butterfly it becomes - the two stages look like two entirely different creatures. Something very mysterious has to happen to the caterpillar to turn it into a butterfly! And that mysterious place is where we're at.
Over the past four months we've had a series of new moons at zero degrees of their signs, starting with the new moon in Scorpio in October of 2014. This is not the usual run of things – it's very weird and special.
As new moons initiate new cycles, each of these new moons could be seen as opening a month-long period with an intense, sustained focus on the themes of its sign. So over the past four months, we've moved from an emphasis on Scorpio (psychological depth, purgation, transformation), to Sagittarius (new horizons and enthusiasm)....then Capricorn (solidity, realism, achievement)....and finally Aquarius (revolution, shock, the new order). Overall, it is a story of death and rebirth – the end of an old order, the birth of a new one.
The series of zero-degree new moons has coincided with the culmination of another extraordinary cycle: the historic series of seven exact squares between Uranus and Pluto, running from 2012 to 2015. The final exact square is coming up on the 16th of March, and the tension of this final looming square over the next month is just...kinda nuts.
Uranus is about revolutionary change and upheaval, and Pluto is a ruthless force of destruction and transformation. Put them together and you have a damn volcano. The last time these planets squared off was during the Great Depression, setting the stage for the second World War - and there were only five squares that time. The current series involves seven squares.
I am not going to talk about war now, because I think what happens on the world stage is out of anyone's hands – except to say that the level of intractable conflict going on globally right now really does not bode well.
I'm far more interested in what these squares mean for individual people trying to navigate their lives, because your personal stage is the place where you can have an influence. And what these squares mean, on a personal as well as a collective level, is a totally altered landscape. Again, the theme is death and rebirth. Nobody comes out of this time (2012-2015) the same as they went in.
Shock, traumatic loss and necessary transformation are the order of the day. It can feel excruciatingly painful and difficult. But there's just no way around radical change right now – it has to be faced head-on and accepted.
Pluto destroys what is rotten or outworn so that new life can grow. It's like a forest fire, consuming the deadwood and opening up space for something new. And Uranus is the spark igniting that fire – and also the new life pushing out of the scorched earth.
Another image for this is a crucible – the vessel where materials are cooked to a white heat and transformed. In alchemy, the object was to heat 'base metals' in a crucible until they were transformed into gold. In practice, no gold resulted from this process – but as a psychological metaphor it works. We are refined and transmuted by pressure and difficulty.
I know nobody wants to live inside a crucible, but that's what this time is. Resisting change and trying to cling to your old personal or psychological status quo will only intensify the suffering involved. It will do you no good now to go along with your old patterns... You have to let go of your control mechanisms and your conditioning and allow yourself to be transformed. That's how to work with this energy instead of being destroyed by it.
As if to hammer this theme home, our cycle of zero-degree new moons began last October with a new moon in Scorpio, a sign ruled by Pluto and having to do with purgation and transformation. We had the 6th exact Uranus-Pluto square on the 15th December, during the cycle. And the cycle is now ending with two new moons in Aquarius – on the first and last degrees of the sign, like bookends. We had a zero-degree Aquarius new moon last month on the 20th January, and tomorrow we have our new moon at the final degree of Aquarius – a degree known as the anarectic, where all the energy of the sign is concentrated.
Aquarius is about revolutionary change, and is ruled by Uranus...and tomorrow's new moon ushers in a 30-day cycle in which we'll see the final Uranus-Pluto square of most of our lifetimes on the 16th March.
So these zero-degree new moons over the past four months have been a re-iteration and acceleration of the main theme of this time: death (Pluto) and rebirth (Uranus). The symbolism is all about purging your life of what no longer serves you (Pluto), and embracing radical change (Uranus). The skies have been underlining this theme and pounding it home with a remarkable lack of subtlety for months...and now we see it coming to a crescendo.
--OK, so that was a long preamble on the significance of this new moon! But it's very special. We are looking at some crazy beautiful astrology here and I wish I could adequately convey how amazing and emphatic it all is...
You must change your life.
By now, unless you're totally asleep, you know what has to change.
And if you refuse change – rest assured, you'll be forced into it regardless, and it will hurt worse. “The fates guide him who will; who won't, they drag”.
Anyway, let's look at this new moon:
It takes place at the very end of the final degree of Aquarius near midnight (GMT) on the 18th February... and less than ten minutes later, at the changeover to a new day, the moon and sun will be at 0 degrees of the next sign, Pisces. So it's very hard to tell whether this is a new moon at the very end of Aquarius or a new moon at zero degrees Pisces – but the symbolism is about the culmination and dissolution of a cycle however you look at it. Pisces is the last sign in the zodiac – the place where our personal boundaries come undone, where form dissolves back into the universal.
The day after the new moon, we'll have a big stellium in Pisces: sun, moon, Neptune, Chiron, Venus and Mars. This looks beautiful, and it sets the tone for the month to follow. Compassion, forgiveness, deep faith, spiritual longing, dreams, art, romance...
Here's some Pisces for ya:.
Please keep in mind that beautiful, dreamy Pisces has a very dark shadow. So along with the deep-sea fairy castles and romantic longing, we are also looking at self-pity, addiction, manipulation, delusion and martyr-complexes.
Beware (and this holds true for the rest of the month) drink and drugs, guilt trips and your own tendency to feel like an outraged victim. Outraged victimhood is never the healthiest of psychological stances. Neither is trying to rescue people, or waiting for Prince or Princess Charming to come along and rescue you. That shit will look increasingly stupid, going forward...because it IS stupid. Everyone's salvation is in their own hands, no one else's.
It's a good influence for making art or music...and Pisces is also great for dissolving hardened feelings, ego issues and anger. Remember we are coming to the end of a cycle...so it's good to let go of old baggage, release your old hurts, listen to Cure songs and have a good long cry if you need to.
(sigh)
Ok, so Pisces is about the end of something. But every ending is also a new beginning, and that is what we're approaching...fast! The new beginning in this case is a fiery, impatient, imperious one – very fierce and unambiguous. It comes on the 20th February, as Venus, Mars and the moon enter Aries, the first sign of the zodiac.
0 degrees Aries is called the Aries Point, and it's like the Big Bang – the kickoff, the blast that sets a whole new story in motion. And holy crap, we'll have Venus (love, money, values), Mars (sex, desire, aggression) and the moon (emotion, need) all passing over this point on the same day, from wishy-washy Pisces to warlike Aries...
It's just nuts. Whiplash-inducing. It's like a giant cosmic “reset” button gets pushed and things are different after that. How you feel, what you want, what you value, what you love, what you'll stand for – all suddenly transmuted and white-hot.
Venus, Mars and the moon are THE relationship planets. And right now the huge Uranus-Pluto-fueled impetus for collective change is being filtered largely through the context of close personal relationships, especially romantic ones. So the shifts in relationship structures we'll see this month have far-reaching effect – this stuff is not idle romantic nonsense right now. It is vitally important and deserves our full attention.
Relationships are our crucibles of transformation these days, with the north node in Libra. Libra (ruled by Venus) is the sign of balance, harmony, fairness, partnership and right relationship. It is about bridging polarities – 'marrying' them into a workable whole. So that is what we're trying to achieve in this story – balance, peace, workable relationships, justice. But the way things are set up, getting there involves a fierce fight.
The south node, representative of what we are trying to move away from, is in Mars-ruled Aries – and this is about self-will, anger, war, going it alone. Selfishness: 'me' as opposed to Libra's 'we'. This is the path of least resistance now, and it means self-sabotage is an ever-present danger.
For the past few months, we've had the Uranus-Pluto square mixed up in a cardinal t-square with the nodes of the moon in Aries and Libra. This is an aspect pattern forcing radical change and upheaval, in relationships especially. There is a definite gender theme to it – there are historical injustices and imbalances in relationships that need to be examined and addressed. We don't get to blindly continue the same old gender-based power dynamics and games, going forward – the rot underlying that stuff has become a lot more obvious than it used to be. People are just not having it anymore.
Because the north node is in Venus-ruled Libra, truth, justice and the impetus for constructive change are with the “feminine” (and historically suppressed and undervalued) side of the equation. I am not going to talk about the epically stupid ways the “masculine” is fucking itself up these days, because I don't want to generalise too much on the basis of gender...but look around you. It shouldn't be too hard to see.
Anyway, right now this polarized scenario also contains a lot of potential for forgiveness, mutual understanding and compassion, as Venus and Mars are conjunct in Pisces. This softens the tension and bathes everything in dreamy romanticism and longing.
But all bets are off after Venus, Mars and the moon move into Aries on the 20th! I think we are gonna see some fireworks. Things go from being all mushy and idealistic...to raw and urgent and explosive. We move from beautiful dreams to difficult realities. Mars in Aries is male energy on steroids, Venus in Aries is a warrior lady who goes after what she wants and takes no shit, and the moon in Aries is temper tantrums and an inability to delay physical gratification...And I guess you can probably see where this is heading. Yikes!
Anyway, it's real. And Saturn in Sagittarius is beneficially aspecting the conjunction, so whatever this big energy shift is about for you, it should stick. Our feet are really being held to the fire for the next month, but if you stick to your deeply-felt principles and your commitments, you should come through OK.
There will definitely be a lot of testing of said principles and commitments, as Venus and Mars get mixed up with the tightening Uranus-Pluto square in the first half of March. It looks really freaking intense. Hold the line.
--On commitments: with the relationship planets in Aries, a sign known for its self-focus - please don't neglect your commitment to yourself and to your own path. Being true to yourself is of primary importance, and it's the basis of right relationship. Whatever you have to do to get along with others, you should never compromise your self-respect.
Something I keep thinking of, with Venus (female energy) and Mars (male energy) conjunct – is that our gender issues don't necessarily have to be played out in the arena of relationships. It's probably a lot healthier to deal with them internally. I'm talking about androgyny – the balance of male and female energies in each of us. Connecting internally with the gender qualities you normally project onto people of the opposite sex is a way of becoming a whole, integrated human being – you 'marry' yourself. And you hopefully get to avoid horrible relationship drama in the bargain. (See Jung's work on the anima and the animus.)
