by Robert Wilkinson
Over the next 4 weeks, the New Moon in Leo indicates a time where we will link Heaven and Earth within us, and find a new “revelation of worth” that will enable us to a lot done using innovative methods to learn and teach new skills, new ways of releasing the energies of our individuality, and new rhythms of productive, balanced creativity and play.
This New Moon in Leo will stabilize all of us somehow, and right now we have so many sextiles and quintiles happening that the next four weeks will continue the major productivity and gifts that we’ve had for several weeks. Here we get to realize some long held and well-practiced element of our ambition, put on a show, find enduring elements of Being and long wave patterns showing us what’s relatively permanent in our lives, and demonstrate our creative mind to demonstrate something of our individuality.
Many gifts and unique insights and qualities will make their appearance on the stage of our lives, and these will be the gifts that keep on giving! We discovered some element of these in April, got new insights in June, and now can expand on them in highly specialized ways. This is a unique time when we can link our personalities to our Higher Self (or even our Soul) in conscious ways, and find blessings in releasing obsolete things, attitudes, and behaviors.
This will be an incredibly productive period over the next 4 weeks, where we will develop new heart strengths and find new ways of using both heart and mind to find a transcendent security in something more creative or balanced as a result of reconstructive activities on the emotional and social, as well as the individual-spiritual levels of life.
This time helps us move forward on the basis of the information and insights we got during Mercury’s recent 3 week retrograde period that ended a week ago. We got many new ways of viewing and regarding things in the last half of July and beginning of August, and now we can act with purpose in embracing a more enjoyable and natural self-expression, knowing larger and more enduring patterns in our lives.
The Mercury retrograde period was a time when we looked back in order to learn new things overlooked the first time we went through the experience, and rehearsed, researched, or took a new look at creative possibilities, or enthusiasms, that had gotten off track. Now Mercury is still in its “shadow span,” giving us a specific focus on something we’ve experienced from three different angles of understanding.
Overall there should be tremendous productivity and harmony between our Aries, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Pisces areas, with great stability and harmony already occurring in our Capricorn and Aquarius sectors via the strong separating Sun sextile Saturn at play in this New Moon chart. Really, given the overall harmony between most of the planets, and very little friction, this New Moon will be extraordinarily favorable, and will bring many a metaphoric “rainbow after the storm.”
The New Moon occurs at 26 Leo on Aug 17, 2012, 8:54 am PDT, 11:54 am EDT and 4:54 pm Greenwich (August 18 in Tokyo, Melbourne, and points east of there.) When a Lunation is on one of the angles of a chart, it is said to be particularly powerful. Among the cities covered in this column, this month the Lunation is culminating in Montreal and Rio, setting in Sofia, Cairo, Johannesburg, and Moscow, on the nadir in Hong Kong, Perth, and Melbourne, and rising in Maui.
The Lunation finds 27 Virgo rising in Santa Monica, 25 Virgo in Vancouver, 2 Scorpio in Montreal, 1 Scorpio in Washington DC, 23 Sagittarius in Rio, 26 Sagittarius in Lisbon, 23 Sagittarius in London, 4 Capricorn in Berlin, 27 Capricorn in Moscow, 26 Capricorn in Sofia, 14 Aquarius in Cairo, and 27 Aquarius rising in Johannesburg.
Moving into Asia and Oceana, we find Ascendants at 13 Aries in Abbottabad, 18 Aries in New Delhi, 14 Aries in Trivandrum, 30 Taurus in Hong Kong, 3 Cancer in Tokyo, 14 Taurus in Perth, 5 Gemini in Melbourne, 17 Gemini in Brisbane, 28 Gemini in Wellington, and 22 Leo rising on Maui (17 August.)
This is the third in a sequence of New Moons that fall in the sign preceding the Sun of the following Full Moon. This reverses the sequence of the 20 months preceding the 2012 Gemini New Moon that all had the New Moon in the same sign as the subsequent Full Moon. That pattern is now reversed for many months to come. I explain this phenomenon and what it means in the Full Moon articles, so I’ll elaborate on this new beginning that reverses “the natural order of things” in the next Full Moon articles coming in about two weeks.
The New Moons and Full Moons are “God’s footprints in time.” Each shows the next in the 12 phases of how things come to be each year. The cycle could be described as follows: Life energy is initiated in Aries, substantiated in Taurus, explored in Gemini, grounded in Cancer, renewed and creatively expressed in Leo, refined and ordered in Virgo, balanced in Libra, purified in Scorpio, expanded in Sagittarius, organized in Capricorn, solidified into a vision in Aquarius, and ended/perpetuated in Pisces.
This New Moon at 26 Leo, like other recent Lunations, puts the focus on learning, communicating, discovering, and perceiving new ideas and ways of relating to others due to Jupiter being in Gemini and Mercury strong in Leo sextile Jupiter and trine Uranus. Much that we focus on during the next 4 weeks will help us see enduring elements, ideas, and patterns while consolidating and stabilizing what’s been set into motion since 2010 and more specifically April, May, and June.
As usual, while Jupiter is in Gemini we’ll continue to learn more and more, expanding the truths and new potential futures opened while liberating us from ghosts of the past that were indicated in the 2011 Gemini Solar Eclipse. As Jupiter continues to dance around the degree of that eclipse, it continues to be a time of an acceleration of the eclipse effect!
This Lunation jumpstarts Leo energy wherever it falls in our chart. As I mentioned earlier, this period involves us linking our human self with our God Self (however we define that) and revealing our worth to our world. This period involves finishing some facet of our “training for perfection,” recognizing the more permanent elements in our lives, and moving into a vaster perspective connected to sharing, redemption, loving and creative expression, and realizing some long held ambition.
As the only significant aspects made by the Sun and Moon are close sextiles to Mars and an out of sign opposition to Neptune, it should be a time of major rhythmic productivity followed by a clarity around role, mission, function, and will, or confusion accompanying “a liberating ordeal.” It will certainly prove productive and favorable for those with planets between 20-30 Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius. This includes many generations, as well as those born in the second and third weeks of February, April, June, August, October, and December.
This New Moon has an individual, mental, and spiritual focus. As it falls in Leo, it is ruled by the Sun itself. That makes the Sun the ruler of all the other planetary energies in the map, since it’s the final dispositor for all the other planets. The only exception to this broad rulership is Neptune, in its home sign of Pisces.
One major factor in this Lunation is that the Moon and Sun make more separating aspects than forming aspects. That implies that whatever the next 4 weeks are about, it’s already been set into motion before now.
Neptune and Chiron at the Cusp of the Age:
I’ve given you this information in previous New Moon articles, but I figure it’s so important for all of us that it bears repeating once a month. We stand on the threshold of an entirely new era that will not resemble the old Age in any way within just a few decades. In fact, we’re already solidly in the Dreamscape, and are already seeing long wave manifestations of the ending of the old and the emerging field we’re all learning how to maneuver through.
Other than the brief look we had in mid-2011, this is only the seventh New Moon with Neptune in Pisces for the next 150 years. We had Neptune in Pisces for the 3 New Moons for May, June, and July 2011 which gave us a front end look at how Neptune will function through 2025.
Between August 2011, when Neptune retrograded back into late Aquarius, and the recent January 2012 New Moon, we were given one last look back at a greater ideal, and the changes of the last half of 2011 helped many to break out of our "chrysalis" and transform how we live and all our relationships. That is now established in the collective consciousness, as well as a growing sense of the larger light field in which all sentient Beings live and love.
If you want to know what's coming for many years to come, take a look back at the intuitions and sense of belonging to a vaster interrelated whole you were shown in May, June, and July 2011. It may help to give a sense of our collective lesson in dissolving our separateness as we finish this transition through "the Winter of the 21st Century" on our way to Spring, beginning in 2025!
During those months that both Neptune and Chiron were in early Pisces, we were offered chances to learn about bargaining and trade-offs, with the ultimate payoff a deeper and larger feeling of being connected to others. During the last half of 2011, Neptune retrograded back to 29 Aquarius, the degree where humanity was forced to emerge from its "chrysalis" as a new world is being born.
Chiron retrograded back to 1 Pisces. So those two dancing together kept us attuned to elements of this transitional span of experience for all of 2011 as we prepared to cut loose into the Neptune in Pisces era for many years to come. During 2011 both Neptune and Chiron revealed our unique part to play within a larger light/life field.
During that time, these planets at the beginning of Pisces and end of Aquarius occupied degrees representing "the Cusp of the Age," the span where the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius meet. From one point of view, where we were collectively between February 2011 and March 2012 revealed what the period of (approximately) 1990-2140 is all about in the broader context of human evolution. I suspect that future generations will look back at 2011 and 2012 as being crucial in showing long range patterns of larger evolutionary necessities.
Neptune and Chiron dancing between signs on "the Cusp of the Age" had the effect of making it seem like we have all been occupying a very weird dreamscape which we'll be navigating for years to come. The trick for us is to apply our new strengths and understanding freed from the ghosts of the past, and by riding the waves of intense (but curiously steady) pulses of spiritual energies shaping our minds, we can find techniques where our efforts will lead us to forms of good fortune.
During the year they danced together in this critical degree span, they provided us a bridge to understanding the global lessons we all must embrace, and helped us graduate into a new view of how we are an essential part of a greater whole. I'll give you links to articles explaining more about "the cusp of the Age" at the end of this article.
In this New Moon Neptune has retrograded back to2 degrees, while Chiron is at 8 Pisces. This will help us heal anew through our positioning within collective consciousness. Chiron shows us how we can heal into our Higher Self. During 2012 the focus is on healing into our Higher Selves through seeing what we’re dedicated to, what skills we’ve cultivated, what “call” we’ve heard, and how we’ve quickened our striving.
For quite a few weeks we’ve had to deal with symbolic “traffic jams” in the collective consciousness, and gotten a new look via Neptune’s retrograde into the indestructible elements of our personalities. Through “a conscious handling of existence,” we have caught glimpses elements of our immortal self while “flying by the seat of our pants,” demonstrating a mastery of obscure conditions and growing into a new consecration.
During the next 4 weeks we will need to find protective mechanisms to provide a shield against aggressive social elements, and issues related to self-preservation will be the basis of greater realizations to come. We can lift ourselves to “surer foundations,” and find even deeper realizations about our place within the larger collective consciousness, with echoes of March 2012 when Neptune first occupied that degree.
More About Saturn's Universally Important Influence
Though not as prominent as when it was the nozzle for all the other planetary energies (returning for the last time December 2012 through February 2013, but in Scorpio), we'll continue to put a spotlight on Saturn in Libra, the cosmic timekeeper, since it does symbolize the ongoing lessons and limitations within the larger field of existence. Saturn will remain in Libra through early October 2012.
Saturn continues to be a very powerful influence since it is in its sign of "exaltation." That means Saturn's discipline and personal power focus is able to become very effective as it shows balance, rhythm, moderation, and reasonableness in how we demonstrate it.
What we learned from Saturn in Virgo in 2007-2009 has to be applied in forms of practical action when Mars transited Virgo in direct motion between April and early July. Now that Mars has entered Libra, we get to apply in active, balanced forms the lessons and wisdom we learned via Saturn in Libra beginning November 2009.
Saturn was retrograde between early February and mid-June 2012. This whole year we’ve been reviewing how to repair or reconstruct things from the past to come to a philosophical completion between now and October 2012. This will involve not simply reconstructing something, but also seeing things from a holistic perspective that enables us to be more well-rounded in our understanding before we enter a deepened, more intense period beginning in October 2012 when Saturn enters Scorpio, introducing a new set of lessons.
During this period of coming to a holistic philosophical view, many will be able to read meanings in symbols and things, and will move beyond knowledge into true balanced understanding. We can recognize a cosmic order in things, and use that to reorder our world. Here we perfect our integrity, and in doing so find a gift for furthering what we want in the way of a more ideal reality.
As Saturn rules Pluto in this chart, it shows that when we are confronted with the need to deal with something or someone in an organized, efficient manner, reference Saturn in Libra and the lessons of balance, justice, proportion, and moderation in judgment you've been learning. Naturally, the usual Saturn keywords will be crucial to effective behavior - patience, discipline, organization, patience, maturity, wisdom, patience, authority, responsibility, and of course, patience.
So as you open to the eighth New Moon of 2012, take stock of what you've been learning and put it together in a larger holistic understanding. In 2011 we learned about karmic consequences from a wider angle of view, while playing by the rules of whatever system we've been dealing with, or acting within, showing as much balance, grace, and equipoise as we could, given Saturn's penchant for heaviness.
We are all learning a lot about Dharma during Saturn's stay in Libra, as well as what we should not be trying to prop up through a misplaced sense of responsibility or obligation. If we run into roadblocks or delays, it should tell us a lot about patience, as well as what limitations and burdens we can live with and what we cannot.
As noted in previous articles, Saturn continues to usher in allies, friends, fellow truth-seekers, more balanced views, and corrective actions as techniques for community building or group awareness. The transfigurations in our actions and relationships we've gone through since January 2011 have led us to do forms of "repair work," where we confronted the consequences of past actions, whether our own or another's. The repair work could as easily be in the realm of our inner self as in outer affairs.
Saturn in this Lunation chart is at 25 Libra, the degree where it and Mars made a recent conjunction. It’s now on its way through the final sector of Libra on its way to Scorpio. Rather than reinvent the wheel, please reference the article http://www.aquariuspapers.com/astrology/2012/08/astrology-in-august-2012-mars-conjunct-saturn-in-libra.html Astrology in August 2012 – Mars Conjunct Saturn in Libra To find out more about the quality of 25 Libra, since it will be in play due to the conjunction for about 2 years.
A Little More About the Recent Past As Prologue
When Venus first transited the Gemini zone of the Grand Irrationality in the third and fourth week of April, it triggered that long wave influence, as well as set off echoes of the Gemini Solar Eclipse of June 2011 which also fell in the Gemini zone of that powerful configuration. We went through the second phase of that influence with more “irrational” destiny-producing developments (which could be good or bad, depending) when it next occupied 14-18 Gemini, as well as when Mercury and the Sun also transited this zone, between May 31 and June 10.
We saw further major developments related to these “forks in the road of destiny” allowing us to be liberated from the ghosts of the past in the last half of July. Now Jupiter is and will continue to be close to the Eclipse degree through Spring 2013, so we are definitely in a zone of major teachings, opportunities, or some other Jupiter expression from now through late November this year, as well as in April and early May 2013. Prepare for major developments!
The Grand Irrationality is a direct influence during this Lunation due to Jupiter triseptiling Neptune. As long time readers know, the Grand Irrationality is a long wave non-rational influence that has put everyone on Earth on the unceasing edge of major choice and change, confronting inner compulsions and outer irrational behaviors. It is why things seem to have an unending hard edge, why so many choices are continually thrown in our faces that require immediate attention, and why reason seems to fail at critical moments of decision.
It’s a time when things don’t have to make sense, nor will they for some time to come. The only thing that matters is that we learn how to ride this ever-changing wave of very strange and weird human experience, and not get lost in our own obsessions, compulsions, and the general irrationality of our times. There are numerous articles in the archives about what this is all about, and how to deal with these very strange energies, so please take a look if you are so inclined.
Last year’s Gemini Solar Eclipse that triggered the Grand Irrationality for years to come has liberated all of us from some elements and ghosts of our past, freeing us from old preconceptions and chains of mental slavery. That intense activation of June 2011 has shown as hectic intense bursts that often made no sense during the past year, and the current “off and on” patterns of other planets in irrational relationships is forcing us to choose wisely.
We have now been challenged to find ways to liberate ourselves from unhelpful views and attitudes while staying on track with the new elements arising from the numerous conjunctions to Jupiter in Aries that have presented themselves over the past 16 months. In this Lunation, Jupiter continues to bring us information, understanding, higher perspectives, and different Spiritual awareness while it occupies Gemini.
As I made clear for many months, Autumn 2011 was a time to cultivate the "plants in our garden of personality and life" that is what we’ve been drawing on to substantiate a new reality and set of values in 2012. Between June 2011 and February 2012 we experienced three "cosmic visitations" that changed our lives in big ways.
Jupiter expanded that theme in the 2012 Aquarius New Moon, accelerating a major transformation time that has had wide-ranging effects throughout the first half of 2012! As the Taurus New Moon in late April fell exactly on that same degree, in May many experienced spectacular developments related to the past times that Jupiter occupied 2 Taurus!!
Last August put us all through "a liberating ordeal," leading us to be freed from old social rigidities and finding joy in fellowship with new associates with whom we can work and play. Since then we’ve been practicing a new freedom, with efficiency sky high due to Mars in Virgo between November 2011 and July 2012.
This Lunation shows us how we’ve linked the human with the Divine in our lives, so keep the focus on how to find confidence and/or spontaneity in expressing that linkage in creative and enjoyable ways. If appropriate, claim the inner child-like innocence and play you once knew, and see the worth revealed and released through your individual spiritual nature.
We acquired some of the assets we needed while Jupiter was in Taurus from June 2011 through June 2012, and stabilized a growth pattern. Now we’ve begun to receive rewards from the invisible world for our faith, and this one will show us finding fulfillment in performing some function with social values. Many will find a “ghastly emptiness at the end of the quest,” but I would think that would only apply to what the ego mind manufactured that had no real permanence. For most who read this, put on the show! You’re probably more integrated than you’ve thought before now!!
Over the past year, Jupiter has shown us a new life dedication, how to find hope in the face of coldness or barrenness, and how to cultivate purity of heart and faith in a transformed future. We were also shown how to use knowledge and skill to anticipate the future, allow a new quality of being to supersede an old lesser order, and through releasing elements of the past, find our "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow" where we have accepted the Divine workings that show us who we are and who we aren't.
Jupiter went direct in motion last December, launching our 2012 Jupiterian adventure. During the last 7 1/2 months, we’ve all had opportunities to open to larger ideas, larger opportunities, larger understanding, larger ways to look at resources and values, and larger futures. We originally entered this phase of concretizing a better life between early June and late August 2011. We got a different perspective from August through December, and in March completed the third pass across the first 11 degrees of Taurus.
This helped us demonstrate mastery of what Jupiter's been teaching us in terms of opportunities to enter into a creative partnership with Nature Herself, and could see where we can naturally "pour ourselves out" into some way to manifest our Soul. So contemplate the wreckage of the last half of 2011 as necessary to make space for the future growth of the new initiatives and expansions originally set into motion between March and May 2011.
Things should have become more solid and stable since late February, which opened new worlds and new discoveries in June 2012. Now we continue our individual mental-spiritual discoveries, and get to claim some things that have been hidden up to now. Just keep sharing perspectives and discoveries with others, making sure to check them to ensure they are as they seem.
Overall, due to the mix of Aries, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Libra, Capricorn, and Pisces energies, this will be a very eclectic, spread out, and diverse New Moon period. The emphasis of planets in Leo and Libra may make for some rapid interpersonal discoveries and interactions that will lead to sudden and important developments in the next few weeks. Relationships and communications are definitely favored, so take heart and mix with others while honoring your linkage to Source.
During the time this Lunation is in force, we can now see recent reflections, reviews, rehearsals, and returns from a much larger angle of view, and know what’s relatively permanent and what’s not. This time should be very harmonious in restoring a healthy balance to our lives, where we can find a form of “transcendent security” and ease into a role we’ve already practiced and are ready to play.
The line of growth is through imagination that will lead to a greater, wider vision of who we are able to become, and a greater, wider, more open and free future. We will all grow through allowing ourselves to be quickened into a more vibrant response. With Mercury leading the Sun and Moon, this Lunation promises new ideas, new insights, new creative thinking, and more natural self-expression.
In the next part of the series we'll discuss the various aspects at play in the chart, as well as some important degree symbols and other interesting elements affecting all of us for 4 weeks to come.
Here are two articles related to "the cusp of the Age."
Neptune Then, Neptune Now - The Cusp of the Age of Aquarius
Neptune Retrograde Into Aquarius - A New Look At the New Age This one has links to articles related to this theme, so enjoy following the breadcrumbs through the woods of time!
© Copyright 2012 Robert Wilkinson
Astrology is like a deep ocean ... anybody can get knowledge through going deeply in water and get some drops of nectar of this divine knowledge.
Nice blog. Keep it up.
Posted by: Stanley | August 16, 2012 at 04:32 AM
Dear Robert,
Every word in the text sounds as summary of my dilemmas and struggle in the last two years. Your words bring comfort. Thank You.
Posted by: Dragana | August 16, 2012 at 04:47 AM
Awesome article, Robert. My path is illuminated with your astrological light of reason!
Mahalo dear teacher!
Posted by: Elah | August 16, 2012 at 01:15 PM
This is conjunct natal mars, and i have to say i am really over the mars and uranus impact ive had, i dont do mars energy well at the best of times, still you have as always, inspired hope Robert, thanks
Posted by: Debbie Eastick | August 16, 2012 at 09:00 PM
Pure and masterful, I loved this Robert. I,too, have natal Mars conjunct this new moon, in the 12th. And that reiteration on the Neptune Chiron material is so right on! A friend of mine with Ascendant at 10 degrees Pisces and I with Ascendant at 10 degrees Virgo resonate especially with this slow transit. Thanks, once again.
Posted by: jo garceau | August 17, 2012 at 02:08 PM