New Moon in Aries

This is early tomorrow, the 16th April – around 3 am UTC.

A new moon in Aries is a slate-clearing event and a rebirth. New moons symbolise new beginnings, and Aries, as the start of the astrological year, is about birth. This is the time we see the new spring growth zooming up out of the ground in the Northern hemisphere. It's always a bit of a shock to me how fast it happens.

Shock and surprise are big factors in this particular Aries new moon. It's more zingy with sudden born-again energy than usual.

For one thing, we have Mercury in Aries stationing direct the day before the new moon on the 15th April. This represents a release of pent-up mental energy. There are still blocks on communication, as Mercury will be squaring Saturn in Capricorn for the rest of April. There will be an imperative to be very clear and correct in the way you express yourself, and to rein in your hotheadedness. But it's definitely an improvement on the Mercury retrograde scenario, which involved a ton of frustration and pent-up violence.

The most important thing about this new moon, though, is that it is tightly conjunct Uranus in Aries. And Uranus is known as “the awakener” - a planet symbolising revolution, upheaval and lightning insight. Combine that with the urgency and self-starting drive of Aries, and you get a burst of pure autonomy and bravery.

So the month this new moon ushers in is all about YOU and what you want, going forward – and it's not supposed to be the same old stuff you've always wanted. This is the time to make space for something radically new to enter your life – something which, compared to what's gone before, might look quite weird and unlikely.

To that end, I'd advise a bit of ruthless spring-cleaning – internal and external. You have to get rid of your useless old garbage before you have the space for the new and weird. I think stripping down to the essentials is the way to go here.

This is the last new moon in Aries where Uranus is also in Aries until the 2090s, so it's a big deal. On the 15th May, Uranus will enter Taurus, the sign of physical stability and possessions – at nearly the exact time of the new moon in Taurus, no less. The roughly 7-year transit of Uranus through Taurus is likely to bring a lot of turbulence to the physical structure of our lives: to our money, our possessions, and our values. If you're very attached to your possessions, your physical/emotional comfort, your habits – I think this transit will be pretty distressing for you. You won't be able to hold on to these things. We are in for a bumpy ride, and the bedrock solidities we rely on are not going to hold up so well.

This is why I think it's so important to get rid of what's inessential at this time. It's practice for Uranus in Taurus – the point is to get skilled at letting go of things.

The autonomy and go-it-alone spirit of this new moon is also good preparation for Uranus in Taurus. It's important to get very clear in yourself as to what you want and where you want to go. Having a strong core of self and being unafraid to strike out alone is crucial when the external solidities are no longer reliable.

To that end, I'd advise you to make some sort of artefact about what you want at this time. Aries is visual, so a drawing is good, or a collage made of images cut out of magazines. Put your desire (and it has to be about what YOU want, not what you think you should want or what you want for others) into some sort of concrete, visual form, and then put it away for a a few months. It's surprising how well this exercise works in clarifying what you want and opening up the paths for it to happen, and it is potent magic at a new moon in Aries.

We have a lot going on this month. Chiron shifts signs the day after the new moon, on the 17th April – he's moving from Pisces into Aries, so it's more Aries action. Chiron in Aries is about a wound to our sense of self, a feeling that we have no right to exist – and the consequent need to build the strength to be ourselves and occupy our own space in the world. I think this ties into the symbolism of the Aries new moon pretty well. It can be hard to muster up the bravery to do your own thing in spite of your insecurities. But it's what we'll be learning to do over the next 9 years of Chiron's transit through Aries.

On the same day as Chiron moves into Aries, Saturn stations retrograde. And then a few days later on the 21st April, Pluto stations retrograde. Both these planets are in Capricorn, the sign of worldly status and achievement. I think this denotes blockage and delay in our ability to forge ahead and get things done. Don't be discouraged if you hit roadblocks; use the delay to refine your plans.

We'll have a Mars-Pluto conjunction on the 26th April, and this is a bit troubling. Mars and Pluto together make a focused, brutal energy – a kind of blood lust or killer instinct. It is utterly ruthless in going after what it wants, and you can use this to your advantage, but I'd be careful and avoid angry people and conflict scenarios at this time. Violence can escalate fast, and with Pluto involved it's all-or-nothing, a fight to the death.

Mercury in Aries will square Saturn in Capricorn exactly on the same day, and it looks quite tense – it may be necessary to bite your tongue hard to avoid saying something that will trigger violence.

On the same day, though (26th April), the moon in Virgo will trine the Mars-Pluto conjunction and sextile retrograde Jupiter in Scorpio. This looks very beneficial for internal excavation work: getting to the root of your pathologies and cutting them out.

So it really looks like the best use of this month's Mars-Pluto energy (and retrograde Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto) is to focus on your internal work. Mars-Pluto allows for focused intensity and ruthlessness, and you can put this to work in culling anything in your life that needs to die – relationships, habits, addictions, attachments, whatever.

This leads in to the full moon in Scorpio on the 30th April, where the tension between holding on to our security, staying habit-bound and comfortable (Taurus) will be facing off against an uncomfortable drive for intensity and transformation (Scorpio). I'll write about it closer to the time, but it looks like more preparation for Uranus in Taurus: it's all about holding on vs. letting go.

I think the things to learn this month are: how to let go of what's inessential, which is most things. And how to be centered in yourself in the midst of instability. Both are qualities Uranus in Taurus will demand of us.