A Numinously Neptunian New Moon

The New Moon taking place on the late morning, afternoon or evening of April 18th, depending on location, is an active one, with plenty of outer planet emphasis, particularly the mystical presence of Neptune. The Sun and Moon, conjoined in late Aries, are in wide aspect to Neptune while Saturn remains in square. Mercury, located in the following sign of Taurus, is in close sextile with Neptune. Venus in Gemini adds to this emphasis, being in close square with Neptune and in mutual reception and semi-sextile with Mercury. This combination implies that at this important juncture that begins the next lunation cycle, the strictly logical process of cause-and-effect thinking that forms the greatest part of our awareness will be only one part of the story; unconscious process is being brought forward to an unusual degree of prominence as we contemplate life and love.

Besides the intense Neptunian influence upon this lunation, Saturn is also implicated, being closely aspected by Uranus and as well by the Sun and Moon. Uranus and Saturn make a sesquiquadrate to each other that gets closer over the remainder of the month and into the early days of May. The antithetical combination of Saturn and Neptune, and also of Saturn and Uranus, brings up the theme of the nuts-and-bolts reality of day-to-day life versus in some manner coming into touch with the ineffable. We are normally only peripherally aware of what goes on inside us, in the vast area of unconscious activity that noted psychologist G. G. Jung was able to document in the early years of the preceding century. In his work he related this internal process with other-dimensional spiritual realities that surround us, in the form of numinous presence, angelic guidance that is available to us when we can find the time and the inclination to tune in.

Mars, ruler of the Sun and Moon, and located in Taurus, is square Jupiter and in close and forming trine to Pluto. The transformational activity represented by Pluto is thus still very much with us as we go about our business and yet reflect on deeper matters. The analogy is the pruning of a rosebush. There may well be some part of our habitual activity that we have outgrown and that we need to let go of, in order that we might more fully flourish. The death of even a small part of what we have grown used to is of course difficult to accept, and yet that acceptance leads to the greater health of our entire life structure. This is the paradox and the evolutionary conundrum that we face.

We therefore more fully inhabit our existence when we can recognize the presence of Spirit in the midst of daily reality, guiding our steps. We need to keep our lives in order and maintain our checkbooks, and yet with another simultaneous piece of our awareness remain willing to honor also this unseen realm of mystical reality that transcends and underlies the ordinary details of life. When you achieve some taste of this very different sense of balance, you could echo the realization of singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn who in his hit "Wondering Where the Lions Are" was able to acknowledge that "some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me."

The Sabian Symbol for this New Moon also presents us with this same point of view, for it is "A celestial choir, singing." Marc Edmund Jones references "a gift for the effective articulation... of eternal realities through which all people find themselves at one." We win when we can open to the idea that the magical and the mystical indeed surround us, pervading and guiding our experience, granting power to our everyday life.