An Extremely Powerful New Moon

Sunday's New Moon in Scorpio is a very interesting configuration, just about the most powerful and intense that we have lately seen. An eclipse is in any case a more potent lunation, being an exact line-up of Sun and Moon, in terms of declination as well as zodiacal degree. Most astrologers feel that the effects of an eclipse last for six months or more. If so, the next six months will be extremely intense indeed, since this configuration, and also that of next month's Winter Solstice and the New Year chart for 2014, presage a difficult passage of time to come in the year ahead.

The reason that the energy of this New Moon is so strong is that the Uranus-Pluto square is exact at this point in time, at about 9 ½ degrees of Aries and Capricorn. This is the planetary alignment that defines our decade as being in many ways like the sixties, when these two powerhouse outer planets were conjunct and when revolutionary protest against a disquieting establishment status quo was in the air. In this case, there are seven such exact alignments, from 2012 to 2015, with this one, which perfected two days ago on November 1st, and the next, of April, 2014, representing the fourth and fifth. The New Moon degree is 11 ¼ and so the aspects that it makes to Uranus and Pluto, a quincunx and a sextile, are less than 2 degrees away from exact, which is quite close. The New Moon is also trine Chiron, the Wounded Healer, in Pisces, which occupies the same degree, while Mars is opposed to Chiron. The November monthly has delineations of this potent combination for all twelve signs.

The recent October 4th New Moon, while not an eclipse, also made a strong chime with Uranus, Pluto and Chiron. In the U.S. headlines for this time period we of course had both the unprecedented shut-down of the government over the issue of national heath care, and the massive failure of the government's own health care web site to perform adequately. Now, in this new instance, and with Mercury still retrograde, we will likely see fresh developments of a difficult nature in both these areas. Furthermore, since the debate over the debt ceiling has been postponed to January 15th and February 7th, 2014, we are also likely to see more problems between warring factions in Washington during the early months of the new year.

Another major social issue of these fraught times is global warming, with scientists and environmentalists on one side of the debate, calling for action regarding carbon emissions, while corporations that stand to lose short-term profit grouped in opposition. In a related series of events regarding corporate image versus public and planetary health, the news is out that the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan is still leaking massive amounts of radiation with no end in sight, and with dangerous instability threatened. Two and a half years after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that sent three reactors there into dangerous meltdown, the public is finally being told what is going on.

All in all, these are extremely intense times for our nation, our earthly environment, and ourselves. In our individual lives we are evolving past our own barriers to right and correct action, including political action. In the spirit of the Age of Aquarius, it seems that we must now all stick together or we will surely be stuck separately.