A Taurus New Moon of Transformational Awareness

Friday's New Moon in mid-Taurus is exciting, in that it makes a grand trine in Earth with Jupiter in mid-Virgo and Pluto in mid-Capricorn, while these important planets are each involved in other multi-layered and interconnected declinational configurations of their own; Jupiter with Uranus and Neptune, Pluto with retrograde Mars, Saturn and Uranus. Meanwhile the New Moon makes a close inconjunct to Saturn, as Saturn squares Jupiter, coming up on exact, for the third and final time, in the last full week of the month.

Uranus is conjunct Eris, the new planet beyond Pluto, and both are involved with the position occupied by retrograde Mercury in this potent New Moon configuration, and with Chiron, the Wounded healer, in a similar degree of Pisces, so that an introspective point of view that involves the awareness of old trauma could very easily come up for us. All these outer planet alignments are accompanied by retrogrades of inner planets, bringing a meditative cast of mind to the proceedings. Both Mars, and, now, Mercury, are retrograde in their respective signs, and when Mercury stationed to retrograde motion a little more than a week ago, it was in perfect semi-sextile to Eris, currently conjunct Uranus in Aries, and also exactly sextile to Chiron. We are certainly in the transformational stew, both collectively and individually, and the deep-seated changes of this time period will, inevitably, involve giving up on old patterns of behavior that have outlived their useful applicability to our current needs.

In this intense series of interactions, it is interesting as well to examine the midpoints. The New Moon makes aspects to both Saturn and to Pluto, and their midpoint, of 1-plus Capricorn, is in partile sesquiquadrate with the New Moon degree. This emphasizes both the Saturn-Pluto parallel and also the Pluto-Uranus square of revolutionary/evolutionary change. Then, it is fascinating to note that the midpoint of the sextile between retrograde Mercury and Chiron is 22 Aries 35, the exact midpoint of Uranus and Eris in this New Moon configuration. This implies a very strong role right now for Chiron, in helping us with the necessary ongoing process of re-parenting ourselves and releasing old patterns.

Uranus in square with Pluto, signaling revolutionary realignment, the hallmark of this difficult decade, is still very much a part of the process of this year of change, and of the timing of this Taurus New Moon, with deep transformation taking place at both the societal and the individual level. Uranus and Pluto are in a square aspect that is now separated by five degrees from exact, getting larger through the summer and early fall and then lessoning toward January, 2017, when the gap shrinks back to little more than three. According to astrologer Richard Tarnas a gap of up to ten or even fifteen degrees is still a valid indicator of the continuing activity of such 'World Transits' — and this therefore takes us all the way to 2020.

The Jupiter-Saturn square is more immediate, and has more social implications than personal ones, although everyone is feeling the conservative elements within them speaking quite loudly for the more cautious approach, even as the Jupiter element, so greatly emphasized in this New Moon energy, is crying out for progress, and for moving ahead with a vast humanitarian vision for the future. This is the closing square between these two 'social' planets as they head into their next conjunction, in the first degree of Aquarius, on December 21, 2020. It is interesting to note that this timing coincides earlier in the year with the fading of the current Uranus-Pluto square, and with both Jupiter and Saturn, in forming conjunction, conjuncting also Pluto in the sky, and the U.S. Pluto, from the chart of July 4th, 1776. The rapidly moving freight train of the future is indeed upon us, and the seeds of that eventual more major set of changes are in our current 2016 skies.

The Sabian Symbol for this New Moon is characteristically fascinating as well. For the seventeenth degree of Taurus we find: "A battle between the swords and the torches." This symbol is redolent of Tarot imagery, and iconic emblematic contrast, as we have seen in the current astrology, and in another way of looking at it, pits the prospect of military might versus the enlightenment that we all crave in amelioration of our social ills. Marc Edmund Jones states, "This is a symbol of the eternal struggle between the practical necessities or transient competitions of life, on the one hand, and the motives and meanings that give them direction and order on the other." He refers to the "genuine self-fulfillment" of aligning oneself with "the magic of understanding." Indeed, while we must respect the competitive instinct that fuels the struggle for power and resources we must also, more and more, come to recognize the equal importance of serving the cause of higher mind and soul intention, as we strive for a better handle on right relationship with our fellow denizens of this increasingly small and very fragile earth-ship that we all collectively inhabit.

A Taurus New Moon of Transformational Awareness

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Chart for the New Moon on May 6, 2016

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