by Robert Wilkinson
This article covers significant aspects, degree symbols, and other important factors in this month's Taurus New Moon chart which will bring us a “cosmic visitation” that will help us stabilize what has been slowly and steadily developing since early March.
This Lunation, like the last three, falls within the "anchoring" occupied span of degrees running between Pluto in Capricorn and (now) Venus in Gemini. While Saturn in Libra and Mars in Virgo are outside the occupied area, taken as a whole it shows that the triseptile span between Venus and Pluto is juxtaposed with the septile span between Mars and Saturn. This considerably changes the overall Jones pattern from what it’s been the past month.
Last month we had a "Locomotive" Jones Pattern, with Mercury RX leading the Lunation. Now we have a Splay Pattern, with Mercury conjunct Uranus leading the Lunation. A Splay has planets at wide angles to each other, and shows widely divergent activities that hold together around a center.
To quote the Master who gave us these “whole chart” patterns,
”This suggests highly individual or purposeful emphases in the life, where the termperament juts out into experience according to its own very special tastes…. It makes its own anchorage in existence… this classification is marked by (a) rugged resistance to pigeonholing, either in the neat conventional compartments of nature, or in the idea-pockets of … associates.””… it reveals the idea of persistent emphasis on individuality… and reveals a very intensive personality who cannot be limited to any single steady point of application…. (the) temperament (is) inclined to be particular and impersonal in its interests.” (from “The Guide to Horoscope Interpretation” by Dr. Marc Edmund Jones.)
Mercury is direct at 5 Aries, still in its “Shadow zone” created by its recent retrograde. It is conjunct Uranus at 7 Aries. These two planets leading the New Moon shows that the next 4 weeks will be filled with innovations, renovations, and revolutionary ideas and perceptions that help us synthesize much that’s been awakened over the past two years. This will open our imagination while showing us how to live our lives on multiple levels simultaneously and “find fulfillment and happiness” in various realms of life.
Overall, the general theme is that through the very strong forming Grand Earth Trine made by the Lunation with Mars and Pluto anchoring the chart, we can expect a lot of stabilization and/or harmony in practical matters, where things that have been on hold for several months (thanks to the Mars retrograde) can now move forward according to plan. Other supporting factors show a time when we combine faith with practical works and can accomplish a lot while having a fairly good time of it!
Since June 2011 we’ve said goodbye to many old things, and are now able to experience the indestructible parts of our lives, personality, and Truths. During the past 11 months many new initiatives have been launched, and even though some have been a bit daunting, it’s a new time and way, so relax into it, since it’ll be with you for a long time.
Since January 2012 we’ve been finding balanced perspectives that are helping us come to philosophical completions, and with this Lunation we will experience some form of “cosmic visitation” that will incorporate the previous “cosmic visitation” experiences and opportunities promised by Jupiter in the Aquarius New Moon chart of 3 months ago. Given that this Lunation on that cosmic point is part of the Grand Earth Trine, whatever is coming should be easily understood and harmonizing on basic practical levels.
Remember that in reading a Lunation chart (as well as a horary, inceptional, electional, or any event chart) the forming aspects show things to come, while separating aspects show things already past. This New Moon makes several very good forming aspects, along with all the other planets as well.
The most powerful forming aspects the Lunation makes are the trine to Mars, sextile to Neptune, and trine to Pluto. Again, this will bring cosmic influences into clear focus, helping us be practical in executing plans we’ve formulated these past several months, and move beyond old fears. Overall this Grand Earth Trine anchors great things, and the sextile to Neptune should help us work productively on getting intuitive flashes about our process relative to a larger collective evolution.
Other primary forming aspects include Mercury conjunct Uranus square Pluto, Venus quintile Uranus biseptile Pluto, Mars tredecile Jupiter, septile Saturn, quincunx Uranus, and trine Pluto, Jupiter triseptile Saturn and semisquare Uranus, and the looming Uranus square Pluto. Overall, a few major adjustments helping us get focused and see things symbolically while attaining a new stability, and a healing or reintegration that helps us rely on our “ancestral wisdom” and see the continuity of our evolution from a wider angle of understanding.
The major aspects dominating this Lunation (besides the Grand Earth Trine) are Mars septile Saturn and Venus in the Gemini zone of the Grand Irrationality bringing the Gemini Solar Eclipse of last June back into play via Venusian experiences. I discussed the 7 hot zones of both the Grand Irrationality and the Mars septile Saturn in the article Astrology in April 2012 – The Grand Irrationality in Motion Boosted by Mars septile Saturn, so please check it out to see if one or more of your planets falls in one of these 14 “irrational” zones. While many are at critical forks in the road of their lives, making key decisions that will affect their destiny for months and years to come, overall this very weird time is also strangely soothing thanks to the Earth trines.
As Venus is ruler of the Lunation and quintile Uranus, it is the key to understanding to how everything works these next 4 weeks. It’s on a degree of sharing information and comparing and contrasting views and knowledge, open to discussing what needs to be examined with others to come to a more well rounded understanding of core issues and new ideas.
Venus will be forming quintiles to Uranus for quite a while as it will be going retrograde in a couple of weeks. Still, this Lunation’s Venus quintile Uranus opens 5 zones of specialization, gifts, and unique conditions. These zones are 3-7 Aries, 15-19 Gemini, 27 Leo to 1 Virgo, 9-13 Scorpio, and 21-25 Capricorn. If you have a planet or Ascendant in these zones, open to unique conditions and gifts.
While the Moon is separating semisquare to Venus, Venus makes a forming semisquare to the Sun. This indicates that Venus is about as far away from the Sun as possible, and is already slowing at this time preparing to go retrograde in mid-May. This was also the case in the Aquarius New Moon when Venus formed a semisquare to the Sun but was separating from the Moon.
To note, Mercury will bring its focus and boost the prominence of Uranus square Pluto which is now about 3 degrees and getting closer by the week. It will be exact beginning in June, so heads up! That promises major disruptions and upheavals, with collisions of philosophies and ways of life dominating the public dialog. Please reference the many articles about Uranus square Pluto in the archives to learn more.
Mercury gives signs and signals, so through imagination we may be able to envision higher and wider dimensions of vision, effectiveness, and personal evolution helping us get a jump on new ways to dance with this highly volatile global energy. The primary lessons of Mercury square Pluto involve integrating potentials as we see them apart from limiting conditions, and not letting other people’s negativity or narrowness distract us so we lose our sense of balance and proportion. We must learn to order things our way, find new revelations and discoveries, and be truly independent in our judgments.
The separating aspects show reality already experienced, or things already set into motion. Aspects of note are the Lunation in a wide opposition to Saturn, Mercury quintile Venus, quincunx Mars, and semisquare Jupiter, Venus binovile Mars and triseptile Pluto, Mars opposed Neptune, Jupiter quintile Neptune, and Saturn quintile Pluto.
Mercury also makes a large number of separating aspects, including a semisquare to Venus, triseptile to Mars, novile to Jupiter, triseptile to Saturn, and conjunction to Uranus. This would indicate that we first experienced these through a Mercury lens, and now are getting the light of the New Moon that forms several of these important aspects.
These symbolize recent events, so to the degree you understand the aspects, symbols, and their meaning, you may glimpse some factors behind what's happened in the recent past. From one angle, we’ve already been through major new duties and responsibilities breaking the surface of our lives, Mercury adjustments that are showing us how to deal with the Mars quincunx Uranus (reference what I offered earlier), and numerous gifts and unique events that promised us whole new ways of seeing opportunity, Truth, idealism, and how to bring pressure in unique ways to bring about long term change that will develop over the next few months.
A New Moon sets the seed forms for what the following 4 weeks will demonstrate. This New Moon falls at 2 Taurus, “An electrical storm.” While I've given you a sense of this degree up to now, this is where we go into depth. According to Rudhyar this degree is one of “A sensing of the power and wonder of nature’s forces,” “complete transformation of the implication of all being,” and “Awe.”
In the Astrological Mandala, he says this degree involves "the cosmic power able to transform all the implications of natural existence.” He states that “Back of every natural self-expression stands the tremendous power of the ‘Soul field,’ itself but one of the myriad aspects of the Creative Word that is the origin of this universe.”
He offers that from time to time this power awakens our consciousness and personality to accept “the spiritual potentialities of our ‘higher’ celestial Destiny.” This is a degree of a “cosmic visitation” that will affect us in the future, working itself out wherever early Taurus falls in our charts.
We are told it falls in the span of Experience and it’s the second degree of the actional level of the scene of Substantiation in the Act of Differentiation. So for the next 4 weeks this Lunation will teach us how to be moved into greater clarity around our resources, values, material things, and be awakened to a higher Destiny, or at least a greater practical spiritual effectiveness.
According to Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, this degree is a symbol of our “real power for making an effective impact on events, dramatized… by a completeness of (our) inward self-mobilization.” He states that ”here there is a catharsis… mirroring the capacity of every individual for discharging the whole complex of strain in (our) affairs… clearing the way for a more genuine progress ahead.”
He says that this is a critical moment, due to the “terror in the loss of aplomb whenever human personality rises to a moment of union with the universal forces.” He offers us the keyword of TRANSFORMATION. He states that when operating in a positive manner, this is a degree of our “genius for dramatizing both the values at hand and the potential ahead.”
So we enter a time of major transformational experiences which will be productively stabilizing and harmonizing as our personality witnesses something of our higher Destiny. While this may produce crises, the overall lesson is to overcome any lurking fear, and greet crises with harmlessness and kindness. We will certainly get to the core of many things, and any plans we have should be able to executed with precision, good timing, and simplicity.
Of the planets that rule signs, there are 2 planets in Fire signs, 5 in Earth, 2 in Air, and 1 in Water. This preponderance of Earth with a balance of Fire and Air indicates a lot of inspired, solid and stabilizing practical activity, ideas, and interactions, so it’s a great time to bring Spirit to matter! The shortage of Water indicates a lack of flow and more personal feelings, so we’ll need to bring these to our lives and circumstances the best we’re able. It’s not a “touchy-feely” time, but it is a time of intense practical activity with a lot of spurs to action as we solidify elements of a new life cycle.
Pluto in Capricorn continues to teach us deep lessons about practical, organized economy of energy and efficiency in sprouting seed forms of the new "laws of our lives" we can relax into. Be organized in finding and demonstrating your role and take some time to enjoy it! Also, through the forming trines from Mars and the Lunation, we can purify our process and life focus to be simpler, leaner, and more solidly able to rely on our material and non-material resources.
In the past months we've learned how to make many types of adjustments in perspective and how we relate to create a better world for ourselves in connection with others. Now that we're riding the waves of the new archetypal roles we began to live in 2009-2010, we can use gentle and balanced forms of will power, training, maturity, and sense of our new roles to play to move into new vistas, new worlds, new lives, and new ways of doing our Being.
The next 4 weeks continues Saturn’s ongoing lessons involving forms of philosophical completion, where we can continue to do repair or reconstruction work in some life area related to the house where Saturn is transiting. As Saturn is fully into its retrograde period, retracing the final 8 degrees of Libra, over the next two months we'll be taking a new look at lessons we've been moving into since October 2011. For the next 4 weeks, look back to late November and very early December 2011 to get a hint about what we’re all dealing with.
We now have a new set of standards and have been shown newer, more "perfect" ways to secure a better life. Now, over the next 4 weeks, we must continue to move into and with those new views and roles without needing to look back or be ambivalent. In other words “Just Do It!” (And enjoy yourself as you do!)
As I've discussed, due to the effect of the very strong Gemini Solar Eclipse of June 2011 and the equally strong Sagittarius Solar Eclipse in November 2011, we are still being liberated from the ghosts of the past, letting go of burdens we no longer need to bear while becoming more aware of the need to plan our moves several steps out. Having found what we've been looking for and opened to new ways of doing our Being, we can be more natural in our search for deeper insights into meaning and processes as we reach out to new and more complex vistas of potential interactions.
As noted earlier, Venus is now echoing that Solar Eclipse, offering us hints about the value of that which remains after these past 11 months, as well as the value of finding others to swap information and perspectives about new discoveries that have filled the void since last Summer. I’ve included links to that Gemini Eclipse at the bottom of this article.
Jupiter in Taurus counsels that we continue to need patience and the ability to keep finding gentle, simple, and stable ways to move into your new life while becoming part of the "corrective force of Nature Herself." In practicing our unique individuality we can become the answer to some collective need, whether large or small.
This is the time to do some “mental house cleaning,” detaching from and eliminating old perceptions of the ego-mind. Do mental purifications, open the windows of the mind, and follow any sense of dissatisfaction into probing the musty, dark corners of your understanding and perception so that you may apply your will to self-transformation to open to new ways of confirming what is and what is not.
This time can help us ground a higher Destiny while letting go of old ideas and perceptions so we can live a larger collective effectiveness and a greater ideal of self-awareness and self-expression. Thanks to the powerful septiles triggering the Grand Irrationality and more, there are major “forks in the road of destiny” that are now coming to life where we can find a more spiritual individuality and uniqueness.
As with last month’s Lunation, during the next 4 weeks, we’ll be thinking, then deciding, then feeling. So lead with your vision, understanding, and what’s being communicated into decisions and actions. Then after the decision or action, sit with the feelings and experience them, bringing them to the surface of your consciousness and get clear about what you’re feeling and why.
That will lead you back to new information, new vision, new ideals, and new understanding upon which you can do your next set of decisions and actions. Then again name what you’re feeling. That way nothing will get bottled up through underuse, and you can move through experiences with power and clarity.
If February’s Lunation taught us about about surrendering to a greater purpose, March’s was about making that purpose ever-clearer through us experiencing the indestructible elements of our lives, personalities, and Spirit. We had to let go of ambivalence so we could flow out of the old into the new to embrace a new life. Now we can be electrified into a new awareness of potential, make critical choices that will affect life areas involving Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces.
As Venus and TransPluto (Percephone/Parvati) rule this Lunation, and they’re in a forming quintile, we should see important manifestations of “Divine Mother” energy throughout the next 4 weeks. Look for discoveries that redeem a promise, or show a wider or more diverse way of communicating compassion, forgiveness, and redemption through heart power and sharing information. With Mercury ruling Venus in Gemini where it is, we have three zones of a Great Quintile. I discussed this about a third of the way into this article. Expect special conditions and gifts involving Divine Mother energy setting the backdrop of this Lunation into motion whenever any of those 5 zones are transited.
Mars now moves forward, picking up speed and making things practical and efficient through its trine to Pluto. Curb excessive worry or criticism, be practical in your assessments and pay attention to details. Get a plan that works well and then stick to it. This is a time of high anxiety for some, and intensely productive work for others. Try to begin to explore your new sense of purpose by opening your mind to new ideas, new likes, and new appreciation of non-rational understanding. Let go of controlling or excessively narrow relationships that leave you feeling tied down to rigid likes and dislikes, and see a new way to relate to yourself and others.
This is the stabilization of recent beginnings, where the process that began Summer 2010 will get grounded and take on greater solidity. Between November 2011 and February 2012 we went through three "cosmic visitations" and two revelations of a new way of being that rendered our old patterns obsolete. We now have been prepared, and have seen the way to a new life and a new consecration. The next 4 weeks will make those “cosmic visitations” real in our lives in multiple ways.
So move on easily into a future that was grounded in preliminary ways in the last half of 2011, and stick to your plan as it’s going to move forward quickly now that Mars is direct in motion. Be your “natural self,” come to new understanding of what has been developing by purifying your ego mind and use your imagination to see a newer synthesized way of being and living in multiple realms simultaneously.
This is a time when our faith, coupled with simple, practical, and economical works, will move us gently and enjoyably into a more secure future, even if there are some cosmic events that shake up our minds and lives. From here the pace continues to accelerate significantly as we all move toward humanity’s rendezvous with a higher Destiny in June and July!
Here are the articles on the June 2011 Gemini Solar Eclipse and the November Sagittarius Solar Eclipse so you can see some of the continuity between these two celestial events, and take a look to see what's ended since June.
Articles on the Gemini Solar Eclipse:
Astrology in June 2011 - On The Threshold of A Partial Solar Eclipse at 12 Gemini
The Solar Eclipse at 12 Gemini June 1-2, 2011 Pt. 1 - Who Does It Affect and for How Long?
The Solar Eclipse at 12 Gemini June 1-2, 2011 Pt. 2 - How Will It Manifest?
Articles on the Sagittarius Solar Eclipse:
Astrology in November 2011 - On The Threshold of A Partial Solar Eclipse at 3 Sagittarius
The Solar Eclipse at 3 Sagittarius November 24-25, 2011 Pt. 1 - Who Does It Affect and for How Long?
The Solar Eclipse at 3 Sagittarius November 24-25, 2011 Pt. 2 - How Will It Manifest?
© Copyright 2012 Robert Wilkinson
Hi Robert, thanks for a wonderful post,
starting on Mon 23rd April is the nine day and nights celebrations of "NAVARATRI " for the Divine Mother in her aspect of Lakshmi (1st three nights) Durga(2nd three nights) and Saraswati( last three nights)according to Hindu/Vedic principles this ties in with your reference to the Divine Mother energies influencing us for the next 4 weeks.
This festival is very important in the Hindu calendar and women and girls fast for these nine days and nights eating only at sunset so as to absorb as much of the Cosmic Energy of the Divine Mother.
Love and Blessings
Kay
Posted by: Kay | April 24, 2012 at 03:52 AM
Brilliant. Thinking-deciding-feeling-understanding. Reason-able compassion. You rock.
Posted by: jan | April 24, 2012 at 10:44 AM