A New Moon of Meditation and Contrast

Thursday's New Moon and Solar Eclipse, coincident with the very beginning of the month on the West Coast, slightly later in the morning hours for the East Coast and Europe, has the makings of an extremely potent lunation, bringing up matters of great spiritual import, as well as presenting contrasts of illusion versus overwhelming doses of nuts-and-bolts reality, starting introspective trains of thought rumbling through our materialism-soaked mental landscape. This configuration has a lot going on: the extra-strong pouring in of energy represented by an eclipse; Mercury, freshly in retrograde motion, in close conjunction with expansive Jupiter, thus magnifying its impact; the Sun and Moon in close aspect with Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; this latter is highlighted by Uranus and the new planet, Eris, in close conjunction, less than a degree separating them, making for a poignant combined symbolism of individual liberty and strength of will. Then, finally, we have the forming partile square between Saturn and Neptune, strongly emphasized by the New Moon degree in close square and opposition to each one; a configuration of antithetical energies emblematic of the restrictions and limitations of this physical world (Saturn) versus that which symbolizes realities beyond the physical (Neptune). All this provides rich food for thought as we enter into this meditative month of intense introspection that closes an extremely passionate summer and opens us up to the ending segment of a climactic year.

As we navigate the above astrological energies, there is also a strong component of service being expressed. This is because the New Moon takes place in Virgo, representing, in its highest nature, true purity of purpose. The choices before us, in the midst of an increasingly global society, are stark, and involve precisely the dichotomy that is summed up by this powerful set of aspects, namely the prioritization of Spirit over materialism, or its reverse; it is up to each one of us to choose, with the gravest of consequences should we not choose wisely. One of the fallacies of these fractious times is the illusion that our individual actions have no discernable import, stacked up as they are against the massive millions that collectively determine the mechanism of support for governmental and corporatocracy policy. Paradoxically, however, the dealings of each one of us do matter. Every person is a hologram for the society at large, their individual actions radiating out in wider and wider circles touching everyone else around them.

With the collision of archetypal energies represented by Neptune in square with Saturn so powerfully invoked, we are dealing, on both individual and collective levels, with the multiple meanings thereby involved. This is represented by, on the one hand, illusion and potential confusion versus the puncturing of illusion discovered by coming down to harsh reality. On another side could be found the concretizing of fantasy myth by means of practical application. A different side of the coin might represent experiencing a spiritual impulse that ascends to actualization, although not without difficulty, over the more normal mundane considerations of business as usual. The many other potentialities of this fecund symbolism include taking the idealism of our best and most child-like moments and making use of this generous and truly compassionate attitude to change for the better the situation of the concrete physical world around us.

The Sabian Symbol for this New Moon eclipse supports the paradoxical tenor of these times. It is, for the 10th degree of Virgo, "Two heads looking out and beyond the shadows." This reminds us of the way that we are all, in some sense, in struggle with the shadow-side of our multi-level personalities, exhaustively discussed in the modern practice of depth psychology initiated by Freud and Jung at the beginning of the previous century. There is a way that we are simultaneously transcending the darkness within us and also caught by it. Marc Edmund Jones refers to mankind's "intellectual genius on the one hand," versus "exceptional mechanical sense in everyday practical realms on the other," and goes on to state, "inner and outer facets of reality are merged in the effectiveness of [our] judgment ... bringing the various phases of human enterprise to some unity of common purpose." May we all be so blessed.