Tarot University ArkLetters: New Year's NewMoon Notes

December 30, 2005 NewMoon
By Christine Payne-Towler

Some charts are simple, in that they really aren't that complicated -- they display their nature readily because their geometry is obvious. Some are deceptively simple, in that they don't really look like big shucks until one were to study them at some depth. This chart shows the appropriate subtlety to be classed as an example of the latter.

The primary and dominating figure governing this chart is the 3-4-5 triangle between the NewMoon, Mars and Saturn. (Folks in the northern range of Pacific Time might wish to include Seattle's ASC in here, as Saturn stands within three degrees of the rising sign at the peak moment of the NewMoon).

Even for people in other time zones, Saturn still takes a focal position because he stands all alone in a vast swath of empty degrees on the rising side of the chart for the USA (he's at 10 degrees of Leo, with 90 degrees ahead and behind him standing empty of planets). Plus, as we shall see, Saturn provides one "foot" for many of the figures we will be describing in this article. One could legitimately call Saturn the "handle of a bucket", because all the other planets in the chart are on the far side of the Mars/Jupiter opposition from Saturn, leaving him to dominate the rising half of the chart (at least on this side of the globe).

Harmonic Grand Trines, as we know, are odd. Consisting of a triangle made up of segments 3/12, 4/12, and 5/12, they do not easily settle into any kind of controllable comfort zone. The square side creates stress and an awareness of problems that need solving, the trine side assumes grace and flow (therefore is sometimes seen as delusional in contrast to the square), and the inconjunct side gives that spooky feeling that a larger hand is mucking about in one's private affairs. It's a shock to the control-dominated aspect of ourselves to realize that we are not the final arbiters of our own reality! A Harmonic Grand Trine will have kind of a "comeuppance" feeling, where things that we have been burying in our own unconscious are outed to our faces, creating a kind of pained relief that the old illusion no longer has to be entertained.

The quickest-moving element of this triangle is the NewMoon, which takes its station for only a few minutes, but in doing so cements this aspect into its exquisitely tight, nearly-exact tolerances. The NewMoon in Capricorn throws a close and chummy trine to Mars in Taurus, creating the feeling that "everything will naturally turn out all right, because Mom and Dad (the SolLunar pair) are in the house." Who would argue when a strong, empowered Capricorn energy, exuding confidence (and tightly aspected to its ruler, Saturn), gets chummy with the forceful, will-abundant Mars in the generous, resource-rich sign of Taurus?

I am reminded, with a bit of wry humor, of a children's book I used to read to my kids when they were young, called "Let George do it". In it, the titled George is the person to whom everybody defers their tasks, until the situation is brought to a screeching halt when George turns up absent and nobody remembers how to take care of their own needs anymore. Perhaps this Trine suggests a loss of individual will throughout the nation, because we are all waiting for "George", the so-called leadership, to do it!

In hip-bone-connecting-to-the-thigh-bone style, the trine gives way to the square between Mars and Saturn. This side of the Harmonic Grand Trine has the itch and twitch of friction defining it. There's no getting around it -- this side of the Trine is irritated and irritating. The Mars in Taurus has his own gripes, because he's not really happy in that sign and is still trying to make up degrees he lost to the retrograde he suffered between October 1st and December 10th. He just wants everything out of his way so he can move on already!

Whereas Saturn, the Lord of Obstacles (among other titles he holds), is currently retrograde (read: "dawdling" in Mars' vocabulary), and he's already slow as molasses anyway. There's angry energies arcing between them, and they are both in fixed signs, so there's a lot of stubbornness unmitigated by any desire to capitulate and find a middle ground. Mars says "I want" and Saturn says "I should," expressing a Battle of the Titans, creating consequences for all of us mortals here below. If you have parts of yourself that are stretched across this duty-versus-desire dichotomy, expect to feel fully split and fully annoyed about it for the day.

The final side of the Harmonic Grand Trine, the Saturn inconjunct the NewMoon, smacks of paradox at very least. How can Saturn be in such an uncomfortable relationship with its own sign, Capricorn? It happens because the Leo placement in Saturn wants to use its retrograde motion to create a dramatic pause in the action, maybe to enforce a thorough re-thinking of a long-held rule for living.

Whereas the NewMoon, barreling along at the clip of one degree per day for the Sun, and a whopping 13 degrees per day for the Moon, is inimical to Saturn's insistence on due deliberation. Saturn wants a dramatic pause, darn it, and some time for reframing before the retrograde is over. This NewMoon shows too much ambition, demanding to move the action towards a tangible conclusion here and now, (which is, after all, the concern of Capricorns everywhere).

Plus, this inconjunct stretches from a fixed to a cardinal sign, again a clue that the values of Saturn at this juncture are not held with the same firmness by the Capricorn NewMoon.

Capricorn needs to get its jobs done ~by any means necessary~, in respect of the blueprints and specifications agreed upon at the beginning of the project. Dramatic pauses are not on the itinerary! Hence both sides of the aspect feel like they are cutting crosswise against each other's interests, instead of being able to harmonize and find a level that's comfortable to both Saturn and the NewMoon.

Now that we have traced out the prime governor for this chart, let's look at the attendant figures that also depend from each side of this Harmonic Grand trine.

First let's look around for another figure built on the inconjunct between Saturn and NewMoon. The only such figure that contains an actual planet, rather than a calculation point like the Midheaven, has Uranus as its third leg. This is a totally oddball triangle, made up of a Leo Saturn inconjunct the Capricorn NewMoon, NewMoon sextile Pisces Uranus, and Uranus triseptile Saturn again. One might be tempted to dismiss these aspects as all being "minor," but when you think about it, the very narrow orbs of inexactitude allowed for higher-harmonic aspects like septiles and inconjuncts ensure that this figure is as strong as the more conventional same-aspect patterns we are used to tracking.

In this case, the tension and confusion created by the inconjunct rolls easily along that sextile to ignite the Uranus in a creative response to facing one's unknowns. The triseptile feeds back to the Saturn a message of creative reconstruction, recycling the blowback of past endeavors into fuel for future acts of greatness (once Saturn regains forward motion, that is.) There's a karmic aspect to septiles, in that one always inherits or receives what one has consciously or unconsciously created, time after time till we work out all the bugs. Uranus is making sure that we won't leave any of our mess behind, but that we instead design our activities such that they leave our world healthier, cleaner, and more updated than we found it.

For those in the northern end of the Pacific Time Zone, Uranus also septiles the Midheaven, which subsequently creates a biseptile between the MC and Saturn/Ascendant, demonstrating a full 1-2-3 trine of Septiles. If people are not afraid of the untamed wildness of raw Uranus in Pisces energies, this is a golden opportunity to extend your antennae and bring in the newest, highest, and most enlightening frequencies you can channel!

Looking at the Mars/Saturn square next, we see a T-square between Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. A second T-square links Jupiter, Neptune and Saturn (this aspect is eleven minutes wide in the Jupiter/Saturn leg). The only reason it's not a full Grand Square is that the aspect between Mars and Neptune is deficient by several degrees. Here's one way the chart displays its subtlety. If one is using wide orbs, that apparent Grand Square seems to dominate the chart. But if we don't fudge just to get the most obvious "average" result, our attention shifts to those aspects which are the tightest and therefore the most intense. That's the Harmonic Grand Trine between Mars, Saturn and the NewMoon, by far!

This near-Grand Square is in the fixed signs, creating a strong foundation for establishing long-lived endeavors under its influence. Fixed signs give us our stick-to-it-iveness, which is such an important asset in getting things done. And note this further subtle detail -- the Saturn/Mars square also hosts two sesquiquadrates to the Pluto/Mercury pair.

Looking a little closer we see that the Pluto/Mercury pair also mediates the square between Jupiter and Neptune. This means the entire near-Grand Square is balanced neatly upon the Pluto/Mercury conjunction in Sagittarius. Isn't that tidy? It's especially interesting because the Pluto/Mercury receives two very tight oddball aspects linking it to the Square -- a novile to Jupiter and a septile to Neptune. These act as "hinges" to mediate the tension and torque inherent in a fixed figure made of mostly squares and sesquiquadrates. To me the Pluto/Mercury conjunction highlights the power of internal acts of self-editing and meaning-generation, acts which, if taken at the right moment, will allow us to digest even tough experiences with self-esteem and grace.

There are no figures that build off the Trine side of our governing Harmonic Grand Trine, so let's keep our attention with the Pluto/Mercury pair for another moment. We came into this reading highly aware of Saturn's involvement with nearly every other planet in this chart. Now it's time to look at the other extremely strong gravity-center of this chart, the Pluto/Mercury conjunction.

One would think that the NewMoon would pull more weight in a chart cast to the point of the Sun and Moon's exact conjunction, and certainly that spot is lit up with aspects as well. However, for sheer involvement with every planet whether directly or indirectly, I'd say it's a tie between Saturn and this Mercury/Pluto. This conjunction in Sagittarius signifies the invisible superpower granted to each one of us by our divine imaginations. With such an amazing facility at our individual beck and call, anything can be true that one can believe in and conceive of.

To quote from a prosperity seminar I heard years ago -- "If the mind is the seat of power, what does it behoove you to think? ...To imagine? ...To desire?" At the point that we become active architects within our own imaginations, we will create our world in the ways we need it to be, and it will more and more conform to our patient, shaping wills.

That being said, here are the other figures that touch into the Pluto/Mercury pair in this chart:

* The oddball triangle between Saturn, Uranus and Mercury/Pluto (triseptile, quintile, sesquiquadrate)
* The quintile/decile triangle between Mercury/Pluto, Uranus, and Venus -- very creative and inspired!
* Pluto/Mercury also mediates the opposition between Mars and Jupiter (by semisquare and sesquiquadrate)

See how profound and pervasive this concept of creative self-editing is within this chart? There is no planet that isn't directly aspected by this amazing pair with their combined x-ray vision and futuristic imagination. In the Seattle chart, it's wired into the Ascendant (by 5/11) and Midheaven (by trine) as well.

No doubt there are moments of trepidation when the curiosity of the monkey-mind (Mercury) finds his eyebrows singed off by the volcanic breath of Pluto! But once one's tolerance for Reality is increased, and the self-protective ego is cleared from the scene, this Mercury/Pluto conjunction grants us the ability to see through the current arrangement of mass and matter, and envision a better arrangement that will serve both ourselves and the world more effectively than ever.

It may shock the normalcy out of our lives, or upend the settled routine in favor of entirely new patterns. Certainly it wants to force some radical re-evaluations and cut to the quick wherever there's a trace of over attachment to what came before.

But the final result of this conjunction, if the moment is being used to its fullest, will be to demonstrate at the deepest level that each of our realities are created by our own acts of consciousness. When we can get a grip on the intimate, internal act of evaluating and assigning meaning to the moment, we will find that our experience gets sweeter and more magical every day.

blessings,

Christine

Current Phase of Moon: New and waxing December 30, in Capricorn 0 degrees, early evening (in the USA)
2nd Quarter, Moon in Aries, Friday, January 6, late-morning
Full, Moon in Cancer, Saturday, January 14, early afternoon. At this point the Moon begins to wane, or decrease.
4th Quarter, Moon in Scorpio, Sunday, January 22, early morning.
Newmoon, in Aquarius Sunday, January 29, mid- morning.

FOR YOUR RESEARCH CONVENIENCE:

TEXT LINKS

Harmonic Grand Trine - http://www.tarotarkletters.com/2005/12/new_moon_notes.html
George - http://www.rvi.net/~fluoride/000018.htm
retrograde - http://www.adze.com/astro/almanac.html#retrogrades
rule for living - http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:kvmzBb_ew_sJ:rbest.ethicalmanifold.net/archives/000119.html+rules-for-living&hl=en
deliberation - http://www.thataway.org/resources/understand/what.html
tracking - http://www.lipstickmystic.com/astro/are_newspaper_horoscopes_real_or_horoscopes_fake.html
Karmic - http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/freenet/rootdir/menus/sigs/religion/buddhism/introduction/truths/karma2.html
foundation - http://www.newtimes.org/issue/9910/99-10-magic.html

IMAGE LINKS

Milan Sladek - Dramatic pause - http://www.milansladek.sk/mimes.htm
Salmon Crossing - http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/chum/chum-2c.htm
Karma by Conejoaureo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/conejoaureo/sets/127463/
James Marsh; Visionary - http://www.illoart.com/Marsh_Stock/JM187.htm
Meaning - http://www.delta7.com/voice/questions.html

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*Christine Payne-Towler*
Research: Esoteric Tarot, Literature and Practice;
Publisher, The Tarot Arkletters
Bishop, Gnostic Church of St. Mary Magdalene
Founder: Tarot University;
Author: The Underground Stream;

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The Tarot ArkLetters are a publication of Christine Payne-Towler, founder of Tarot University Online. Christine offers classes, readings, and private sessions.