NewMoon Notes - September 22, 2006

By Christine Payne-Towler
NewMoon September 22, 2006

NewMoon, 2nd one in Virgo, 4:45 am
Solar Eclipse 5:07 am PDT
Equinox 9:03 pm PDT

Ahhh, eclipse weather again!  Isn't it exciting?   

The last time we were in this position was during the two weeks between the FullMoon and NewMoon of March.

Regarding the NewMoon at the end of March I wrote:

"What would be in common for everybody everywhere is the need to evaluate what we are willing to heal, sacrifice or move on from about our past identities (mutable Virgo and Pisces) so that we can move forward into our futures with better focus and undivided will (cardinal Aries and Libra). Apparently this is a two-stage process that will take all spring and summer to get to the bottom of.  Therefore, for the sake of everybody's peace of mind, I would advise using this spring blast of fresh energy to open up the topic and get the interior conversation going, but don't expect to even get to the bottom of your treasure trove of "issues" until the cycle has manifested its other half at the end of summer."

And here we are, marking the closing round of the cycle, taking this moment to inventory the spring and summer's haul of insights and awakenings. This NewMoon, in Virgo for the second time in a row, represents the consummated kiss of the ego with the psyche, after our long period of bright days and outgoing activity. What use have we made of our potentials during this period?

At the outset in March, the NewMoon in Aries made us feel 'shot from guns'.  All that fresh potential and opening space for change yawned wider every day. As the days lengthened through the end of June, it seemed the vista could only widen, admitting of ideas grander and nobler than any before.  But then the longest day was passed, the nights have started creeping in earlier every evening, and now we can feel in the crispness of the evening air the promise of fall to come. Already in my neighborhood the most temperature-sensitive trees and shrubs are starting to turn colors. It's harvest time in the urban gardens.  So what will we be bringing home from our fields of endeavor this harvest season? What fruits did we cultivate during our growing season this year?

Earlier this month the FullMoon of September 7 was conjunct with Uranus in Pisces, giving us each a special little zap of genius and chaos to remind us that the past is falling away at lightning speed, undermining our old excuses and the wimpy halfway efforts that marked our childish past of "trying".  The perfectionist light of Virgo spotlights murky, swampy Pisces and challenges the unformed parts of our character to firm up, come to a point, make a stand or otherwise define the higher ground and claim it. 

Only you can know what you have done with these last two weeks between FullMoon and NewMoon, but I would wager that within that time period you have had at least one clarifying moment of heightened lucidity. Whether you enjoyed this peek into the void or not, try to let that moment serve as a tipping point, a reorientation event, wherein you gather up the momentum established during spring and summer and point it towards the One Thing Needful now, as the Sun is leaving Virgo and entering Libra this Equinox. This NewMoon defines the bull's eye of the target for the upcoming fall impulse, describing for each of us a clean 'first moment of the rest of our life' if we will let it.

It might be wise to examine the house where this 29+-degree Virgo NewMoon falls in your birth chart, noting also whether it has any formal relations with the planets as they were arranged at your birth. Because of the triple-whammy of the NewMoon eclipsing at the Equinox-point, there might be repercussions rippling forward into future time, in which case you will want to remember this poignant moment and the promises you made to yourself from the vantage point of clarity it offers.

Getting back to this collective chart, let's unpack the Conjunction of Venus, South Node and NewMoon.  This configuration hints at a powerful "test for asleepness" coming up.  The South Node is all about releasing what you have built up an excess of, letting go of outworn programs and identifications.  Venus will tend to seduce us into focusing on areas where everything is hunky-dory, the areas where order, harmony and efficiency are already established. It is comforting to keep those aspects of life in view, but is it functional in a Virgo way to allow ourselves to believe that at this moment we should simply 'trust the flow'?  In the sign of Virgo we are better served to keep our wits about us, stay at our most alert and watchful, following the eminently practical dictum that 'a stitch in time saves nine'. Just to be safe, under the influence of this moon, don't go to bed with significant chores undone tonight, or any other night this month.  If you absolutely must leave yourself leftover work for the morning, make an outline, a list, or some notes so you won't lose tomorrow's intentions in tonight's dreams.

The message counseling heightened attention to detail is couched in terms of a warning, because the North Node currently opposes everything in that Virgo bundle, and Pluto makes squares with both sides of the nodal axis from Sagittarius.  (Yes, I know, there are some more things to say about Pluto, and if you read to the end of the article, you'll hear my opinion on the decision taken by the International Astronomical Union in early September.) Meanwhile, Pluto is still representing something to many humans, so we'll talk about it much the same as we did before the change).  Taking Pluto as an esoteric influence -- being the overlighting guidance-system for the Mars/Venus signs as a whole  -- we might intuit this mutable t-square as asking the question "how fast could you transform yourself and your life if there was a need to? If the circumstances around you were to turn your cozy, known reality inside out, would you be able to roll with the punches?"  This is a perfect question to be asking at the culmination of the Virgo season, and one that could put you on the fast track to knowing your priorities if you would take the time to try and answer it.  At very least let's remember that a major preoccupation with Virgo energies is accountability. Know where your vital information is, total your columns and confront the bottom line, take inventory and update your assumptions. If no appreciable change comes of the effort, fine. If on the other hand you should manage to catch yourself before making a grave and unfixable mistake, so much the better!

Interestingly enough, that Mars/Mercury conjunction in Libra, which follows the NewMoon, might already be offering one approach to answering the above question. Mars and Mercury together point out an important survival priority -- that is, at the onset of Fall, the most effective strategy for surviving the winter is to bond with your community in the activities that everybody can agree on. The message here is, be willing to spend brainpower and sweat equity on the projects that will benefit us all. Mars is notoriously selfish (sometimes for perfectly good and sufficient reasons), and Mercury is the master of rationalizations when he wants to be. However, in Libra, they both are challenged to represent the common good, above and beyond the refrain "I, me, mine" that usually plays in the back of the mind like muzak.

Some might read that "all" to mean the whole family of humanity, but I would expand the definition to include every life form on this increasingly stressed planet.  From the migrating flocks that circle the globe in the air and in the oceans, to the millions of single-celled organisms that digest our food for us, we need to take care and be respectful, acknowledging every entity's equal right to live.   Where are you, in truth, a "we"?  To the extent you have an answer to that question, then you already know where that Mars/Mercury energy needs to be spent. And if you don't really have a readymade "we" on hand, this is a great time to ask yourself -- why not?  There must be communities of living energy somewhere in this world that you care about and identify with, whose interests you want to see furthered. Now is the moment to move from theory into action. This does not require grandstanding, self-advertisement or even direct contact with those who stand to benefit from your choices.  What it requires is the effort to empathize with and put yourself in the shoes of others. The more successful you can be in this effort, the more secure you can be that there are probably others who are moving to do the same for you in their turn.  That's the message of Libra -- we're all in this together.

Other oppositions in the chart include Saturn opposed Neptune and Venus' just-past-opposition to Uranus.  The Venus event is waning out of the mutable signs by this time. However, while the aspect was exact (20th-27th of August) it might have put some people into shock from Uranus' sudden dissolving effect upon Venus in Virgo's prickly and exacting vision of perfect symmetry and mathematical precision. It's important to remember that in Virgo, the imagination is capable of envisioning the most precise, exquisitely nuanced and elegant developments. However, the very approximate and sloppy nature of matter itself will often frustrate that desire with loose ends and rough transitions. If you can keep an eye on that vision of perfection, but also allow for some dropped stitches and crumbs in the carpet, you will probably be able to move out of your old attachment to ultimacy and find satisfaction from doing the best that is possible under limiting conditions.

This has to do with everything in Virgo, not just the Venus but the NewMoon and South Node as well. Don't let the fact that life is imperfect dent your zeal for doing a great job on whatever you set your hand to!

Above and beyond that adventure, we now have to face the much more powerful and lasting opposition between Saturn in Leo and Neptune in Aquarius, which is being increasingly squared by Jupiter in Scorpio as fall sets in. Saturn reached the point of opposing Neptune by mid-August, but it's not till this week that Jupiter has tightened his conversation with Saturn into a square to match the one he's already got going with Neptune.  At the end of October, the Jupiter/Saturn square becomes critical, while Neptune at the pit of its retrograde dallies around in the 18th degree of Aquarius, temporarily sidelined. Then by the end of November  '06, Jupiter blows out of square with Saturn and out of Scorpio entirely. This is good, but within a month the opposition of Saturn and Neptune comes back into focus as Neptune straightens out while Saturn goes retrograde (and then vice versa!) They don't manage to clear it up completely till August of 2007, so consider yourself warned.  All this is happening in fixed signs, enacted by relatively slow-moving planets, so it could feel like slow-drip water torture to live out, unless you are psychologically prepared. Expect it to excavate a few layers of your historical strata, to release some fossilized beliefs and identifications that need to be examined, named, resolved, and then shelved. 

Remember, just because those frozen carcasses are falling out of their ancient icebergs does not mean that the issues they represent are coming back to life. Mostly the work involved is about accepting that you have internalized some pain that will occasionally come back to haunt you. It represents life-lessons that are still vital to your sense of self, of purpose, of meaning. Move past the prickly feelings that had been frozen but are now thawing out, and start cleaning up the newly revealed territory so fresh adventures can be embraced without infecting them with past pollution.

The emotional intensity that Jupiter temporarily adds to the Saturn/Neptune opposition represents a peak moment of what is otherwise a slow but steady trend towards correcting our control-freak egotistic side (Saturn in Leo) and dispelling old patterns of denial and resistance to reality (Neptune in Aquarius). To the extent that Jupiter can turn up the heat (passion, desire) in the short run, and hasten the process via the Scorpio alchemical furnace, this will help sterilize any infectious entities that might want to crawl out of the past.  In a previous article I compared this Jupiter in Scorpio with a waste-treatment plant cleaning up a city's outpouring of effluvia.  Best practice is to stay focused on the outcome and don't get hung up on the process!

There are several strong trines in this chart, the tightest of which is in the little-bitty 1-3-4 triangle between Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune.   This is a fascinating pattern because of the subtle compatibilities that allow these three planets to easily and unwittingly irritate each other. The Mercury in Libra has big ears for what's traveling around on the community's gossip circuit. (Mercury is not retrograde, so we are not imputing any negativity here, just noting sensitivity to the "news".) Mercury passes the data on to Jupiter in Scorpio, who unfortunately does have a tendency to exaggerate the particular details that might stir somebody's emotional pot and get some reactivity going. Perhaps Jupiter's motive is positive, but that part of the message is not transmitted on to Neptune, who being retrograde in Aquarius (and feeling a little huffy about that) has a predictably chilly, ungraceful, and perhaps even fiercely rejecting response.  Mercury then has to intervene directly, using reasoning and diplomacy to deconstruct the communication and determine where the cart went off the rails. It's great that the trine contributes to the ultimate oiling of the waters, but perhaps the better solution would be to realize that "loose lips sink ships".  If there are messages to be transmitted, then carry them yourself. There's no telling when an off-center third party will stick in their tentacle and mix up the valence.  Try to envision the impact your public words will have on those not present, and you can head off at least some of this comedy-of-errors at the outset.

One other remark I want to make about that Jupiter, who is now exiting his recent trine with Uranus as he continues to pick up speed after the completion of his retrograde: he is making all of us very, very psychic this year. Notice how often you 'have a feeling' and then discover that you were right-on about it, even though you had no objective basis for your knowledge at the time.  Pay closer attention to your inner voices, hunches, and bodily sensations. As the song says, "trust the vibe". Between the recent trine from Uranus, and this month's slow rolling T-square with Neptune and Saturn, Jupiter is getting a lot of stimulation down there at gut level (in Scorpio). The result is a better ability to know what needs to be known, without having to consult the mind. This is a tremendous gift to anyone, bringing confidence in ones hunches when push comes to shove, even in the absence of outer clues to the situation. Learn to use it, and it will serve you well.

Moving on, the less-exact trine between Saturn and Pluto is already close enough to register  -- even according to my tight orb system -- but it won't reach critical mass till the upcoming holidays. From then on, versions of this aspect (with retrogrades intervening from both sides) will be happening straight through next year, until this very time in 2007 when Saturn finally leaves Leo. It will be all fire, all the time between these two for quite some time to come. Will you love this trine, or grow to hate it?  Only your own conscience knows for sure.  If we aren't each deploying our strongest sense of responsibility, sobriety, duty and maturity, while being honorable and principled to the best of our ability, we will have nobody to blame if we don't like the results we get back.   

And while we are on the subject of this Saturn/Pluto trine, take a gander at how the North Node relates to each end of it. You would be looking at a Harmonic Grand Trine here if it weren't for the fact that the Node contacts Saturn with a biquintile instead of a quincunx.  I take this to mean that the usual hint of paradoxical, touchy, ungrounded energy that comes with the inconjunct is being replaced by a more creative, humorous and flexible energy, allowing some lightness into the process and giving space for a wider range of positive combinations. For this we can thank our lucky stars!  Anything that can help Saturn and Pluto lighten up is a good thing. Try to cooperate with this impulse and stay open to a range of alternatives, rather than being too quick to settle for a "yes or no" version of reality.

From our reading above we can see that Saturn is going to be throwing his weight around most of next year, by opposition to Neptune and by trine with Pluto, all the while complicated by his and their various retrogrades.  We know that Neptune and Pluto (and Uranus for that matter) are different than the sub-Saturnians because they are invisible, therefore subtle and archetypal and operating on a totally *other* plane of consciousness. Nevertheless, they still seem to constellate effects upon the visible planets they engage with.  If Saturn, the classic authority figure and patriarch, is going to be subtly juiced by these dynamic and persistent influences, I'm willing to guess that we will be seeing some serious testing of our leadership at every level of culture, from the local to the international.   On the personal level, be wary of setting yourself up as an authority unless you truly have the skills and the stamina to carry the load.  It looks to me that we are entering a time of fierce confrontations with natural consequences, which no spin machine is slick enough to paper over or erase.

To wrap up, the central theme drawing my attention this month is the tightening square between Saturn and Jupiter, each end of which is wired up with both Pluto and Neptune.  This is the ripening of the opening square between opportunity (Jupiter) and obligation (Saturn). These two planets had one of their every-20-years conjunctions in May of 2000 (remember?). This is when we are expected to balance our choices between what we "should do" and what we "can get away with". The results will not show immediately, but long-term consequences will reveal their roots in the end, so make your choices wisely.

Further, connecting these four moving bodies together creates a totally irregular but complete 4-sided figure like so: Saturn squares Jupiter, who deciles Pluto, who septiles Neptune, who opposes back to Saturn.  All of the planets in this chart except Uranus appear within the sweep of this figure. Jupiter's incipient t-square (which peaks in late October) acts like a drawn bow, ready to shoot all that stored energy from the Leo/Aquarius opposition right into space -- Taurus space, that is.  This tremendous potential is aimed right at Nature, our bodies, our land and our core survival resources. 

The symbolism all but screams: Get back to basics and be sure your bottom line is covered. Keep it simple, but think it all the way through. Bond with your tribe and attend to the commonweal. Think about what will get you through the dark part of the year and then make arrangements to lay those resources aside, right now, before you need them.  See yourself coming, and there will be less to regret later, as times get more challenging.

PLUTO'S DEMOTION

Here's the cherry on top: Some remarks about the "demotion" of Pluto.  (See the very sweet and humorously melancholy article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090101793.html
if it's still available by NewMoon). 

From antiquity, the hermetic approach to cosmology expresses the zones traveled by the planets as "spheres" or "shells" rather than "orbits". This is because from antiquity each planet was seen as being embedded in its own nested, transparent rotating wheel that carried it around its own separate heaven. This is where we get the visualization of "wheels within wheels", which the astrologers shared with the Cabbalists. Historically, one would think of the planets as occupying belts or bands occurring at various intervals from the Sun.  This is in total harmony with the ancient Hermetic Cosmos, which from antiquity has projected nine such Spheres (in Cabbala they are called Sephiroth) interlocked around a central body.

In ancient times, the central body was seen as the Earth, but nowadays we know it's the Sun.  That left three Spheres outside of Saturn's orbit, which were explained in slightly different ways in different eras. Usually the list included the zodiac, backed by the Starry Heavens (the Milky Way), completed by the Primo Mobil or Prime Mover, which though invisible and unmoved, imparted motion to all the lower spheres through the will of God.  As an alternative, the Mantegna Trumps leave out any central body, listing the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, then skipping the Zodiac but including the "Eighth Sphere" (Octava Spera, the astral, starry realm), 9th sphere Primo Mobile, and the 10th sphere Prima Causa.

It was the traditional idea of "three spheres outside of Saturn" that inclined us to naively assume that Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would tidily complete the picture of the Solar System. These clichés are very persistent in the human noosphere -- we forget them and then call them back over and over through the ages.  In the process they shape our thinking and perceptions so much that we don't always see what's actually and factually out there. For example, where in this sequence would the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter have fallen? Nowhere, because we couldn't see it up there!

We certainly do not live in the universe that was idealized by our ancestors, science has long since seen to the demolishment of those myths.  Nevertheless, we have looked for ~and seen~ meaning in these maps for many, many centuries, and so by all the laws of collective consciousness, *there's something there* for us even still. Therefore I see a "real" psychological function being expressed by the thing once called the Primo Mobile, which has later been rationalized to Pluto. 

In my own thinking, I see all the named planets as the "faces" on the bands or zones they represent.  The names represent mythic characterizations that express a certain kind of energy. The energies are most focal at the points in space where the manifested planet (or ball of ice) appears, but the significance of that named mythic entity also permeates its entire orbit, just like an electron is seen as occupying its entire band at once. In astrology as in particle physics, there's a logic to seeing these bands as being fields sometimes and as being particles other times, depending upon one's need at the time.  A ball of ice makes as good a "particle" to me as a ball of rock, so in either case I have no problem using Pluto as the "face" on the 10th Sphere.

Plus, I have always resisted the desire of modern astrologers to warp out the traditional rulership system by jamming the Outer Planets onto the signs so arbitrarily.  I have not seen that any major new information has been added to the historical system with the imposition of these planets onto the zodiac, especially as we haven't even see Pluto go once around the zodiac yet!  I prefer the approach of esoteric astrology, which attributes each Outer planet to the job of overlighting conjoined sets of sub-Saturnian planets. From this approach Pluto is the governor of the Mars/Venus signs (issues of incarnation, life and death), Neptune governs the Mercury/Jupiter signs (issues of the mind and consciousness), and Uranus governs the Sun/Moon/Saturn signs (limiters/releasers of the bonds of time and space).

In short, nothing much has changed for me.

blessings,

Christine

HOW TO FIND YOUR NORTH and SOUTH NODES
http://www.cafeastrology.com/northnodetables.html

 

CURRENT MOON PHASE GUIDE

Current Phase of Moon: NewMoon and Solar Eclipse 29+ Virgo,  spanning the sunrise Friday September 22; Solar Eclipse 5:07 am PDT, Equinox 9:03 pm, PDT.
  2nd Quarter, Waxing Half Moon at 7+ Capricorn, early to mid morning, Saturday  30th.
  Full Moon at 13+ Aries, Friday October 6th,  mid to late evening. At this point the Moon begins to wane, or decrease.
  4th Quarter, Waning Half Moon 20+ Cancer, Friday October 13, late afternoon to early evening.
  NewMoon and Solar Eclipse 28+ Libra, across the midnight hour between Saturday October 21 and Sunday October 22.

_______________________________

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

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Image Links:

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Alchemical Furnace - The Waste Treatment Process: http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10326867&wwwflag=2&imagepos=8 Hand-coloured woodcut from the 'Origin of Things' section of the 'Margarita Philosophica' ('The Philosophical Pearl'), by Gregor Reisch
Wheel of the Year: http://www.yewgrove.demon.co.uk/image.htm
Summer Perfection: http://www.reneesgarden.com/seeds/packpg/veg/spinach-perfection-p.htm
Average Jane, "Mirror Mirror": http://www.buzznet.com/featured/?id=2475751
Milton's Spheres: http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/boe/boe10.htm
Kepler's Schematic for Grand Trines:  http://www.calendersign.com/en/to_precession-666.php