A New Moon of Surprising Compassion and Passionate Activity


Posted on December 10, 2015 by Henry Seltzer of ASTROGRAPH.COM
 

Friday's New Moon in Sagittarius has it all; the outer planet archetypes of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are activated, along with Venus, Mars and Jupiter. These planets are triggered by each other, and by the Sun and Moon in conjunction at 19 degrees of Sagittarius. The most startling aspect is the near-perfect opposition between Mars and Uranus, within a few minutes of a degree of exact, and with the Sun and Moon in trine with Uranus just to add a little icing to the cake. And of what does this desert surprise consist? You could say startling events and activities and you would not be far wrong. Uranus represents nothing if not the unexpected, the departure from the straight and narrow, the sudden enlightenment of individual epiphany that is uniquely your own, and that dawns upon you in the midst of other more ordinary pursuits. This leads me to comment that the most important thing that you can do for the next few days and weeks — perhaps over the entire thirty-day cycle of this New Moon — is to pay attention.

We have quite a lot coming at us over the weekend and for the remainder of the month. All this outer planet activity can be summed up in the phrase: transformational intensity. We are individually each discovering another piece of who we really are, underneath the surface layers of our personalities, and are striving in varying degrees of urgency to achieve a greater helping of that hidden and yet so important part of ourselves, beyond the conditioning and false persona that has perhaps been our story ever since emerging from childhood. And in many ways we all are still striving to fully emerge. As a result, this is the time to really look closely at everything that you say and do, and that others around you say and do, in attempt to tune in very definitely to what your inner self has on offer. Intuition, another keyword for Uranus, is with us now in large supply, and to fully benefit we need to heed this vital information arising from deep inside ourselves.

The above commentary is due primarily to the symbolism of Uranus, in combination with the New Moon and Mars, and as well in forming square to Pluto. This storied combination of Uranus square Pluto, the hallmark of our decade, comes to within two degrees of exact later on this month of December, and within less than one degree of exact by mid-January, as the New Year of 2016 heralds the next stage of our ongoing adventure in growth and personal evolution. We are therefore in for massive transformation on both an individual and a collective level, right on through to the year 2020.

There is another important outer planet square to consider, shorter term, also prominent in this New Moon configuration. That is Saturn square Neptune, highlighted by the New Moon and by Venus in aspect to each end of this powerful collision of archetypal energies that shows up in the navigation of these trying times, both individually and in the surrounding culture. The first peak of the aspect has recently taken place, with the next still to come in the spring of 2016. Richard Tarnas has characterized such periods of these 'world transits' as being operable, for a square, with an orb of ten degrees on either side, and this puts the remainder of the effective period for this aspect to about a year, through all of 2016 and then fading away, with a brief relapse, in 2017. The implications for this square are two-fold: that on the one hand, Saturnine conditions of conservatism and contraction will be emphasized over more spiritual considerations, overriding any generous impulse with fear and pessimism. We have seen some of this already on the current political scene. The other side of the coin is that Neptunian compassion will have sway, softening the conservative approach and introducing in the midst of seeming difficulty the grounded manifestation of a true sense of oneness. And for this we pray.

With Mars and Venus so thoroughly implicated in this potent configuration, and with Jupiter in extremely close aspect to the new planet, Eris, as is also Neptune, a semi-square, we have before us a quite personal mandate that we take all this in, on an individual level, and that we make a meaningful and powerful stand now, as symbolized by Eris, for what we most deeply and sincerely believe. The time has indeed come when each individual voice counts, in full measure, and must be heard.