An Introspective Aquarius New Moon

Tuesday morning's New Moon in the very first degree of Aquarius is a very interesting lunation, unique in my memory, because it is accompanied by a retrograde of Mercury that lasts throughout the ensuing cycle, when you take the period of the retrograde shadow into account. Mercury stations the very next day, early on Wednesday morning, so that even at the timing of the New Moon things will be lively in the way of missed connections, mechanical breakdown and all the usual symptoms of the Mercury Retrograde period. We have all the rush of energy that accompanies any New Moon, especially strong in the very first degree of its sign, in combination with the introspective feel of mentally oriented Mercury moving backwards. Those with Mercury retrograde in their natal charts are less affected, although most of us will feel the subtle pull of these two antithetical cosmic pulses.

As this year lets us know, and as every year at this time reminds us, we are drawing ever closer to a valid Aquarian Age realization that we are all on this planet together, every ethnicity and every philosophical stance, occupying the tiny lifeboat we call the Earth. This is the undoubted subject matter of much of our deeper reflection at this time, as we move ahead with a practical and yet contemplative stance drawn from the inside of our minds and hearts. Mercury stations in opposition to expansive Jupiter, standing alone in half the sky, and therefore greatly emphasized in this New Moon configuration. Jupiter is in turn precisely bi-quintile to the radically transformative energies of Pluto in Capricorn, the sign that Pluto has occupied since 2008 when the banking system stumbled worldwide, causing the most significant financial crisis since the 1930s. Of course, we are also in the midst of a time when Uranus, the visionary ruler of both the New Moon and Mercury, remains in square with Pluto, signaling further evolutionary change at an individual as well as on a collective level. The square remains less than a degree away from exact for the entire next month of the retrograde period. We might want to reflect on where we in our own lives could indeed make an important difference, a contribution that, while it will not single-handedly save the world, might at least represent movement in the right direction.

Jupiter in Leo can symbolize runaway ego or self-aggrandizement, and yet in its higher octave, Leo becomes the selfless attainment of mastery, the symbol of a vital connection to humanity wherein everyone contributes by putting his or her shoulder to the plow. We are all of us struggling to come to such a vision for ourselves and for our world as we move into a century that will demand from us all that we have to give, in a truly individual way that yet allows our global society to flourish. Our collective growth in understanding makes this concept a distinct possibility, a potential that exists in imagination and that must yet be realized in terms of concrete action in alignment with our highest goals for our Self.

The Sabian Symbol for this New Moon in the first degree of Aquarius offers a reassuring emblem for stability. It is "An old adobe mission," a California symbol for continuity of social structure and for carrying our institutions forward into the future. Marc Edmund Jones relates this to "effective breadth of vision and a respect-compelling depth of character." Nearly simultaneously, the Sabian Symbol for the degree where Mercury stations the next morning, the eighteenth degree of Aquarius, has also something to tell us, being "A man unmasked." The lesson here might be that it is only by seeing past the surface persona of your personality, and thus exploring your deeper self, that you truly come into your own selfhood in an evolutionarily expanded way, leading you toward a future that you can actually live with; and for.