An Aquarius New Moon

Glucose crystallization under 1650x magnification

(photo credit: Josef Reischig CSc., 2008)

If you looked at the image chosen to head up this blog and thought ‘gosh, that’s different!’ then you’re on the right track. Aquarius is all about that which is different and the energy of change. Anything which changes the status quo, anything which gets us to change, any moment in which we see things differently or get a new perspective on something – that’s Aquarius.

The February 2013 Aquarian New Moon takes place on February 10th (UT/+0 time) at 7:21 in the morning. It’s position? That would be at 21 Aquarius, a continuation of the series of New Moons at 21 degrees which started last November with the Solar Eclipse (a form of New Moon) at 21 Scorpio.

Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn and now Aquarius, this is the fourth of five New Moons which will be at 21 degrees of successive signs, with the series ending next month at 21 Pisces.

There isn’t all that much written about these ‘sequences’ of New Moons, but being one never shy in the postulating department, I will start out by observing the obvious: 21 degrees is a degree between 20 and 29 in all signs, meaning this is a ‘3rd decanate sequence’ which is about input and feedback. Some of that will be as obvious as the oft-heard statement in American politics, ‘elections have consequences’…and some of it will not be so obvious, as any New Moon sequence is about initiations and starting anew, or starting a new phase of something, whether that something is a new plan, a new job or something more esoteric like starting to consider that maybe you’ve been wrong all this time about something.

Backing up a bit (perspective-wise, which seems apt given we’re talking about Things Aquarian)…this is also a sequence which begins in the zodiac’s 3rd quadrant of all things personally interactive, and ends in the zodiac’s 4th quadrant of those things global and while affecting the ‘me and everyone else’ part of life are also those things which draw us into…or exclude us from that life around us.

On the astrological level, it really couldn’t be any more plain: this is a time which is about, or which asks us to consider life in terms of others, what we are doing in this world, how our world is operating, what opportunities may exist ‘out there’ and what the problems and challenges are – not just ‘out there’ but in terms of how I’m interacting with others and that whole giant ‘out there-ness’ of life.

Also interesting to note…as noted, this sequence began with a New Moon/Solar Eclipse at 21 Scorpio. When this sequence ends, we will then get one month (April) with a New Moon at 20 Aires (still a 3rd decanate ‘worldly’ degree) and then we will get into the wonderful world of 2nd decanate emotional degrees beginning with May’s Taurus Solar Eclipse at 19 Taurus.

If you’ve been into astrology for a while, you begin to see its many patterns. We have four elements: fire, earth, air and water, but only three modalities (methods/habits of action): cardinal (directly active), fixed (conditionally active) and mutable (variably active).

We also have the two upper/lower hemispheres of the zodiac…

 
…and the left/right of the zodiac wheel…

 …which when overlaid give us the four quadrants and their basic meanings.

Similarly, we have the 360 degrees of the entire wheel broken down either into twelve signs of thirty degrees…

…or the eight phase lunar cycle where each phase is 45 degrees long…
 

…which when overlaid gives us the zodiac with it’s horizontal and vertical axis plus the four ‘cross-quadrant points’ at 15 degrees of every fixed sign indicating where we move from the learning phase into what we might call the ‘doing’ phase.

(Just to pause here…if you’re someone with any planet or axis at 15 degrees of a fixed sign, you know that attribute as an area of life indicating an ongoing internal discussion we might as well entitle ‘should I?' Your tendency is to say ‘no,’ but that isn’t always the right course, right? I feel your pain, trust me!) 

The reason to bring this theory into the discussion is because this idea of what signs (plural) a sequence may fall into (or even connect by transit) has everything to do with understanding what area of life it’s going to affect and what the dynamics are. They will certainly change for you on an individual basis as you may not have Aries rising. Your Scorpio (for instance) may fall in the lower half of your chart, which becomes another ‘layer’ to add on to the interpretation.

But in this case, what I was really getting to was the idea that a lunar sequence, this series of New Moons we’re in is not just a matter of moving from a ‘personally interactive’ 3rd quarter mode into a more ‘universal’ arena (personally or professionally, individually or as part of a group)…it’s also about the idea that ongoing lunar cycles have a pattern of their own which here I’m typifying by decanate, or ‘thirds’ of every sign.

The first decan (degrees 0 through 9) of any sign is where the sign manifests physically and through  actions taken or not taken. The second decanate (degrees 10 through 19) are where any sign manifests itself on the emotional level. (And yes, this does include air signs!) The third decanate is where we have to let go of (emotional) control and deal with reactions, input and where what we do (or are) fits in the ‘big world out there’ of others and their opinions, works and whatnot.

This ‘decan theory’ (which I promise can get even more exotic if we get into Vedic astrology and dasas)…the decanates alone, that ‘one-third, one-third, one-third’ of every sign, against the whole of the zodiac is very much like the difference between four elements and three modalities.

The patterns repeat. As it happens in astrology, so it happens in life. Whether we’re talking about microcosm/macrocosm, those who do not learn from history who are thus bound to repeat history or the solar eclipse cycles of our life, whether it’s the integrated geometry of a sunflower…

The spirals of a sunflower

(photo credit: L Shyamal, 2006)

…or the artistic dance of electrons or a Foucault pendulums which in its measured swings responds to Earth's every revolution.

The Foucault pendulum in Valencia

(Daniel Sancho, November 2005)

No matter where we look, patterns repeat.

And thus they are there for us to learn from.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

IF in all of the above I have caused you to think about astrology or existence or time’s passing even a little bit differently, you have just experienced Aquarian energy. And even IF I have annoyed you all to tar with all of the above and you’ve been sitting there saying ‘will she just get ON with it?’ I have also stirred the Aquarian quotient.

The energy which would create change, whether it presses on us (as impatience) or it’s experienced as discovery is Aquarian.

Lunar cycles – like the Nodes of the Moon – cycle backwards. If you were to look at the year 2012 you would find it started in with New Moons in the first decanate which then moved backwards into the 3rd decanate, making 2012 a year which we started very much ‘in our Self’ but which evolved to become all about that greater world, asking us what we were doing in that world and testing how well what we were doing and who we are works in a world which itself evolves day by day by day by day.

The planets (life) move up the number scale…our experience of life takes us through a series of experiences which ‘bring it home’ to us and which are represented astrologically by cycles which move “backward” or down the numerical scale (and if you’re talking about the lunar nodes, our symbol of relationship interactions moves backwards through the signs).

The poetic way to say this is that the more we see, the older we get, the more we understand how young we really are.

Doesn’t that remind you of some of the older (and wiser) people that you know?

And for those who are a bit more scientific, the counting down while counting up theorem is familiar to you, too. You call it spin-counterspin. Like breathing in and breathing out, this simultaneous entwining of time and space and movement and counter movement is the thing of electrons, of generational interactions, of the very double helix which makes up DNA.

There’s even a Double Helix nebula.

A false-color image of the Double Helix Nebula

(photo credit: NASA-JPL-Caltech/M. Morris (UCLA), March 2005)

As opposed to 2012, year 2013 is beginning with New Moons in 3rd decanate worldly degrees, but which as of May will shift into 2nd decan degrees, a pattern which will endure through March, 2014. Extrapolating from what we know about 2012, this suggests that while the first couple of months of 2013 (including this February-March lunar month) are going to have us very concerned with the ‘condition’ of our life as a whole, both as ‘our’ life and as we think of that life in terms of people and the world around us.

Once we get to May (actually beginning in late April, but…) the issue will be all about how we feel about life: our life in particular and life in general as it’s going on around us.

And now for the astrological specifics, which I trust will expose greater value in all we’ve discussed.
This month’s Aquarian New Moon is at 21 Aquarius, a degree which as we’ve discussed is all about dealing with life, the world, input from others and so on. The lore for this degree refers to difficulties which stem either from lackadaisical attitudes, lack of understanding/qualification and/or plain old exhaustion – all of which can be ours, or be encountered in others. 

There three asteroids clustered around this New Moon: Nessus, Eros and Damocles. Nessus and Eros are in the same degree, so they should be treated as a unit which fuses passionate focus (Eros) with lingering ill will (Nessus). Are you focused on some sort of ‘unbridled’ ill will felt by someone else? Or are you the source of this ill-will? Perhaps you see others – maybe family, maybe your government, maybe other people in this world – as being sources of ill-will, or at least actions and choices which will turn out ‘ill’ for you?

Damocles is somewhat in the same vein, but different in that Damocles always refers to a situation which like a lovely crystal lagoon looks so good from a distance. But as soon as we jump into deep water the sharks appear. 

One of the intriguing qualities of astrology is its capacity to manifest in different ways. So as I say all of the above to you about 21 Aquarius and Nessus, Eros and Damocles (and by the by, the nature of Eros ‘passion’ changes with the sign it’s in, so this is ‘the idea of it’)…and that all sounds difficult.

The co-rulers of Aquarius are Saturn and Uranus. Saturn asks how well we know who we are, what we’re doing and what is required in order to get the acceptance, appreciation and (oh yes) income we want from the world and Uranus is either the changes to the status quo which improve things or which create fractious, even difficult situations….or which has us wanting to just give up, walk away or not deal with ‘that’ (or ‘them’) either because we don’t want to, don’t like them or don’t want to consider anything but our own cherished ‘norm.’

Saturn is in Scorpio, so we know this month is going to bring questions which test our ability to know our own values and know-understand-appreciate the values of other people or the value of some situation or opportunity which arises, or ‘threatens’ us (emotionally) with some form of, or need to change.

Uranus in Aries is the very essence of personal innovation. Uranus asks who are you – really? and its passage through Aries throws all sorts of tests at us so we can recognize the difference between who we may want to be, who we think we are and who we are actually…and maybe how changes are needed.

(There’s a lot of issues about change in this New Moon mix – have you noticed?)

One last thing to consider – namely that this New Moon comes to us as a t-square.

With the New Moon at the ‘t’ of this square, this is something of a universal notification that (to use the vernacular) we need to get over our big, bad selves! There is something about how we are seeing life and others and this world which is getting in each of our ways. Maybe we don’t know enough. Maybe we aren’t treating others…or even ourselves with the warmth those kids in the nursery with the bug denote.

Maybe we don’t respect money. Or the natural differences between people and how they are just as apt to be strengths as debilities.

Given that t-squares move in zodiacal order, the ‘starting point’ is the North Node, Scheherazade and Huya, a combination which is all about what we need to do in order to be in functional, viable and supportive relationships with others, whether that’s on a personal or professional basis. Scheherazade is a curious image here as it’s a reference to ‘the story we tell’ which in Scorpio is most likely to be the necessity to listen to others so that we do understand what their (Scorpio) needs are and why those needs are as important to them as our needs are to us.

Huya is a reference to that which is learned at some cost, often great cost. The North Node being a reference to ‘group dynamics,’ this may be all about learning from what’s happened…or again, just listening to what others have learned.

Or maybe you need to open up with someone and tell them what’s hurt you, what’s harmed you, what you’ve learned at great cost.

The difficulty implied in this North Node complex against the New Moon is that the rule with t-squares is that if we don’t ‘get past’ our own blockades, we end up back at the beginning of the t-square. And that implies more problems, more hurt, more difficulties.

The ‘object’ of this t-square is described at South Node-Sedna in late Taurus, a pairing which is likely to be about our desire to feel good with our place in the world and the relationships we have in this world.

But…Not to rattle your chains (not much, anyway), it is worth noting that this South Node/Sedna position is in the zone of this May’s eclipse.

Are we being told that what happens now will be reflected in what happens then? Probably yes. This is something we see rather often in astrology, particularly when it comes to eclipses. First there’s a little nudge, then there’s an elbow to our ribs, then life clonks us over the head!

So maybe it’s time to start listening. What do you think?
.
.
.