by Robert Wilkinson
This article covers significant aspects, degree symbols, and other important factors in this month's Cancer New Moon chart which will show us “spiritually integrated knowledge” that will free us for new adventures that remind us of the past.
This Lunation, along with the inner planets, continues sign concentrations within the usual "anchoring" span occupied by slow moving planets. Due to the shift toward Jupiter, the occupied span runs from Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces to Uranus in Aries and completes with Jupiter in Cancer. In this New Moon, the span is extended into the first half of Leo. As there is a huge cluster of planets in Cancer, it shows that area of our charts will be very intense and active for the next few weeks.
We’ve now left the “Bucket Pattern” we’ve lived with for many months, and for the time being, we’re in what is terms a “Splay” Jones pattern. In other words, the planets are all over the map! We have one or more planets in 7 of the signs, all built around the Grand Water trine of Jupiter in Cancer, Saturn in Scorpio, and Neptune in Pisces.
So What is a “Splay Pattern” and how does it work?
This type of spread, with all the planets in odd angles to each other with differing distributions among the signs, creates a “Splay” Jones Pattern. As Marc Jones put it, “the arrangement is neither even nor symmetrical,” revealing “strong and sharp aggregations of the planets at irregular points.”
Dr. Jones states “This suggests highly individual or purposeful emphases in the life, where the temperament juts out into experiences according to its own very special tastes.” This pattern “makes its own anchorage in existence,” and has a quality of “rugged resistance to pigeonholing, either in the near conventional compartments of nature, or in the idea-pockets of associates.”
He goes on to state this pattern gives a “persistent emphasis on individuality,” and the “spokelike emphases of the planetary groupings” are random, but have a “tripod” footing and approach to life circumstances. He says this pattern “reveals a very intensive personality who cannot be limited to any single steady point of application.” This temperament is “particular and impersonal in its interests,” rather than “universal-impersonal” or “particular-personal.”
This implies that affairs will be diversely spread out, some will not mesh well with others, and there will be a “hub and spoke" quality to what happens these next 4 weeks. The trine ensures a flowing, moving, consolidating quality, but the wide spread shows a wide diversity of things going on that promotes individuality.
Of the traditional 10 planets, there are 6 planets in Water signs, 2 in Fire, 1 in Air, and 1 planet in Earth. That shows a heavy emphasis on feelings, experiencing, caring, vulnerability, self-gathering while flowing through a larger feeling field, with some degree of inspiration, warmth and relatively little thinking and information gathering or being efficient and practical or organizing things so they are in our “enlightened self-interest.”
In fact, with Mars the only Air planet and Pluto being the only Earth planet, beware of impulsive thinking, speech, or conclusions, and go to your core to find practicality. We will have to find practicality and relatedness within to compensate for what's lacking externally.
Air and Earth are cool, Fire and Water are hot. With the distribution, expect feelings to run VERY high these next few weeks. Try to be as cool and practical as possible, and once you act then don’t get caught in eternal reviews and reconsiderations. While emotions may run high, Venus in Leo leading the pack offers us ways to be loving and creative in all our interactions with others.
The very powerful Grand Water Trine helps us all to experience a vaster time frame and a sense of finality as we turn various corners in our lives, with feelings of being connected on deep and vast levels. This is a time to recognize what you feel, and move that deeper and vaster feeling into action in conformity to the new life order already presenting itself. Just stay balanced in the face of those who are out of balance, and keep a sense of perspective when confronted by people who don’t have a healthy sense of proportion.
Wherever we have Gemini, Cancer, and Leo is going to be highly active, due to the presence of 6 planets in that 46 degree span between Mars at 27 Gemini and Venus at 13 Leo. If you have a planet anywhere in that area of the zodiac, you’re going to go through major changes in the part of your psyche represented by the planet and the part of your external affairs symbolized by the house it’s in.
The general theme is that we are now freed from old ghosts and old ways, and have turned a corner into new feeling patterns, new ways of life, new needs and cares, and can integrate our knowledge so we can better express our Higher Self. This one helps us to unique gifts and circumstances that symbolize a new stability in our lives, and the platform from which we will move into unknown magnetic zones. We have sensed a new dedication, and are all moving into a greater group awareness and function. Soon we will completely and finally move away from the “known and familiar” and follow our avidity into a new way of doing our Being.
Because of Saturn’s path these past several months, through past understanding and practice we have begun to demonstrate a higher level of social functioning. Ultimately, over the next few weeks we will know what is permanent and stable in our life structures, and have major “karmic adjustments” that end whatever would challenge our new way of life.
Back when Saturn in Scorpio was of paramount importance when it was the handle or nozzle of the Bucket pattern for many months, we got to focus on some very important Saturn lessons and skills. As Saturn rules the bones, and Scorpio rules regenerative processes, you may want to regard the current Saturn transit as symbolizing a type of “bone regeneration,” or the elimination of all in our skin and bones that would block our ability to meet and greet others at a higher level of dignity, reserve, and “civilized” behavior. This shows us a long wave elimination and regeneration work each of us is doing in our own ways and times.
Important Aspects
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 two extremely important forming aspects.
The two major aspects the Lunation makes are a conjunction with Mercury retrograde and tredecile to Saturn. This illuminates the retrograde quality of fusing the old with the new, and introducing “new blood” into situations. As the New Moon occurs just before the Inferior Conjunction between the Sun and Mercury, please read those articles to understand more about what this Mercury retrograde New Moon is about.
The tredecile to Saturn is an aspect of serendipity, so expect some very unique circumstances that fit your gifts, or gifts that fit your circumstances. This will directly affect those with planets or angles two degrees to either side of 17 Cancer, 23 Leo, 29 Virgo, 5 Scorpio, 11 Sagittarius, 17 Capricorn, 23 Aquarius, 29 Pisces, 5 Taurus, and 11 Gemini. If you’re affected, welcome the magic that is perfect for you at this time!
This Lunation does not emphasize the Grand Irrationality. However, as noted in a previous article, it will crank up in huge ways toward the end of July when the Sun transits the Leo zone and makes triseptiles to Neptune and Pluto, activating the larger pattern. The Moon will bring it front and center on July 27-28 and August 1-2.
So we get a few weeks’ respite from this “fork in the road of destiny” configuration that the entire planet’s been dealing with for 20 years. Still, with Saturn triseptile Uranus setting a different “non-rational” pattern into motion, it’s probably safe to say that EVERYONE is going through major shifts and making important choices that will affect their destinies for the rest of their lives.
I gave you the 7 current “hot zones” where the Grand Irrationality is most active in the recent article The Grand Irrationality in May and June 2013 – Jupiter Leaving, Setting Up Triggers and also gave you the times in May and June when the planets were activating this configuration. Still, even though we’re not directly affected at present by this irrational, obsessive-compulsive, hard-edged, and weird energy field, due to Saturn and Uranus also in an irrational aspect to each other, let go of believing it has to make sense, and see what choices you must make so your future trajectory is to your best benefit.
The seven zones activated by Saturn and Uranus show us how our tradition can transmute and accept our individuality, and how our limitations can be renovated to express our unique qualities. Here we confront fear of loss with the willingness to be a pioneer in some realm where we can express our genius. The seven zones activated by Saturn triseptile Uranus are approximately 4-9 Scorpio, 26-30 Sagittarius, 17-21 Aquarius, 9-13 Aries, 1-5 Gemini, 22-26 Cancer, and 13-17 Virgo. If you have a planet or angle in one of these zones, your destiny is on the move these next 4 weeks!
Spirit walks with this configuration, as well as any major septile series aspect between the planets. The choices we make as a result of these non-rational aspects show us our “direction of destiny,” and determines if the Spirit will grow stronger and closer with you, or if you will move in directions away from Spirit. Given that most of this community is intentionally trying to live in harmony with Life, Nature, and each other, chances are that whatever you – yes, YOU the reader – are confronting will show you a deeper, richer, more powerful Spiritual life. Which is a good thing.
Other than these important forming aspects, others made in this Lunation involve Mercury tredecile Saturn, Venus binovile Saturn, Mars conjunct Jupiter (out of sign), Jupiter in the Grand Water Trine and beginning its opposition to Pluto, and Saturn sextile Pluto. Overall, these indicate a fairly benign and harmonious period, where a lot can get done, be understood, stabilized and/or harmonized, with more than a few gifts coming to many.
The Sabian Symbols for the New Moon
A New Moon sets the seed forms for what the following 4 weeks will demonstrate. This Lunation falls at 17 Cancer. While I've given you a sense of this degree up to now, this is where we go into depth.
The symbol is “The germ grows into knowledge and life.” According to Rudhyar’s notes from the Marc Jones class, this degree is one of “gathering of all life values and experience in the perfectly formed consciousness,” and “spiritually integrated knowledge.”
In the Astrological Mandala, he says this degree involves "the life urge to actualize one’s birth potential.” He states this degree shows us “the process of germination,” where the seed is moving through the soil seeking the light. He says “this is a dynamic process turned outward,” where “germination is the crucifixion of the seed,” and “the seed becomes the germ.”
He continues that this symbol shows us a contrast with the preceding symbol, where “action polarizes meditation.” This symbol is about expansion, growth, and “self-actualization.” He says it falls in the span of Ingenuousness, and it’s the second degree of the actional level of the scene of Consolidation in the Act of Stabilization. So for this month we’re freed to grow, to express our Light through a more perfectly formed personality structure via the process of active integration.
According to Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, the degree is one of “the irresistible determination of living substance to press forward indefinitely and uncompromisingly in the expansion and refinement of its own special genius and identity, and thus to establish every possible phase of self-existence in more eternal lineaments.” This implies that we can expand along lines that are both natural for us, as well as expressive of our unique gifts and talents.
He continues that this symbol shows us “the concept of the philosopher’s stone, or of that sure core of immutable distinctiveness which actually constitutes self as such.” He offers us the keyword of UNFOLDMENT. He states that when operating in a positive manner, this degree is “a completeness of personal realization and self-consummation in every context of immediate concern.”
So we enter a time of actualizing some part of our “birth potential,” through the retrograde process, and can now integrate our personality more perfectly to express elements of our unique gifts and talents. This will free us to move into unknown zones of understanding, truth, and potential, where we can unfold in some way natural to what we care about. And gifts and unique circumstances are there for many, as well as choices that will individualize our destiny.
Other Influences
Pluto, the Cosmic Purifier, will be in Capricorn for many years. It 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. 2012 was mainly about being organized in finding and demonstrating ways to get beyond fear and radiate harmlessness and mature fellowship with Nature, whether your own, another's, or Nature Herself.
We’re still reviewing Pluto’s path of January-February 2013, and continue to learn how to see life as a science experiment as we find hints of a new dedication within the collective field. We can now get glimpses of a “new worldly order” and new identities, as well as new ways of communicating and using our imagination to play with future possibilities. Here we reach out to distant regions in a “trial of endurance,” but take heart, since the 6 pointed Star or Great Sextile will show us all how to achieve maximum productivity and stable understanding during the time it’s active between July 22 and July 30, with a specific focus when the Moon is in early Taurus on July 29-30. I’ll be composing an article on that in the future.
The next 4 weeks continues to be a time to open to new ways of viewing how to claim our divine power and express it creatively and without fear as we explore the natural laws underlying manifestations, and see Nature Herself as a laboratory where we learn about how our system is constructed. We can “pierce through appearances” to see the magic at the core of things, and through a “keen vision” can find or demonstrate a “universal living touch.”
The threshold pattern has been set the past several weeks for what has already begun to surface as a search for a great Mystery in our lives. This Lunation shows us a practical power around bringing beauty out of wilderness, refinement out of the uncultivated.
Jupiter in Cancer helps us quicken the flow into new magnetism, new ways of life, new duties and responsibilities, and new ideals of how we want to be within the larger collective atmosphere. You can find more by re-reading the articles on the Grand Water Trine.
As noted in a previous article, this Lunation is the tenth New Moon with Saturn in Scorpio. In 2012 we cultivated a new strength, came to a philosophical completion, and finished repairing or reconstructing something so that some final dues are now paid and old karmas left behind. We are growing into a new intensity, focus, emotional depth, and greater maturity relative to shared values, shared resources, deeper ability to commune with others as well as Nature and Spirit, and getting a more structured connection and a more powerful Spiritual linkage with others and ourselves.
We’ve now shifted into a pattern of deciding, then thinking, and then feeling. However, with Mercury in Cancer retrograde, our thinking and feeling will be very interconnected, so it’ll be important to get to what we actually feel, rather than what we think we are feeling, or think about what we are feeling.
So this New Moon shows that over the next 4 weeks we lead with decisions and actions, and then search for new information, new understanding, or a communication or reflection or remembrance that will help us to get clear about something, followed by the need to reference our feelings and what we’re experiencing as a result of those insights, memories, understanding, or vision. After we decide or act and then think, research, revision, rehearse, or review our understanding, we then need to go deep within to feel the implications of those ideas and visions.
So get it in gear, and then go get new information or new ways of seeing things, and then feel your feelings and check in about how you’re experiencing those thoughts, or that information or vision you are remembering but aren’t quite complete. This period requires some reflection and research, but avoid second guessing your decisions or the facts at hand. Make a decision, get the view you need without going over and over and over those decisions and actions, and then just sit with your feelings.
A great Life Mystery has begun to beckon each and all of us. Search for it. We are in the heart of the passage. Allow the revelation to present itself so your mind may be illuminated by the feeling-wisdom of your Soul. We are offered the ability to find a new stability, a new way of being with other people, a new way of living what we care about, and a new way of flowing with feelings rather than fighting them or ignoring them.
We’ve now entered a time of very open and expansive growth through decisions and actions. We are now free to explore new ways, new paths, new feelings, and new cares. Stay balanced, allow the traditional to accept new energy or vitality, and grow toward distant horizons.
Here are the other two New Moon articles for quick reference:
Here's part 1 about this Cancer New Moon: New Moon in Cancer pt 1 - What's Happening in July-August 2013
Here’s part 2 about this Mercury Retrograde Cancer New Moon: New Moon in Cancer Pt. 2 – How Will This Mercury Retrograde Lunation Affect Us?
Here are some articles explaining the Grand Water Trines that are followed by Cardinal T-squares.
Astrology in June 2013 – Grand Water Trines Breaking the Ice Jam!
Astrology in June 2013 – The Grand Water Trines in Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces Continue
Astrology in June, July, and August 2013 – Grand Water Trines, Cardinal T-Squares
Here’s Jupiter in Cancer
Besides the 2011 Gemini Solar Eclipse that triggered the Grand Irrationality for years after, we’ve also had a couple of other Solar Eclipses since then that continue to affect all of us. Here are the articles explaining the "Ring of Fire" 2012 Solar Eclipse in Gemini still playing out on the world stage and in our lives in major ways!
Astrology in May 2012 - On The Threshold of an Annular Solar Eclipse at 1 Gemini
The Solar Eclipse at 1 Gemini May 20-21, 2012 Pt. 1 - Who Does It Affect and for How Long?
The Solar Eclipse at 1 Gemini May 20-21, 2012 Pt. 2 - How Will It Manifest?
The Solar Eclipse at 1 Gemini May 20-21, 2012 Pt. 3 - Signs, Sabian Symbols, and What It All Means
Since November and December 2012 brought inner planet transits very close to the degree of the November 2011 Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius (which is still in full force), and the Gemini Eclipses have opposed that Sagittarian Solar Eclipse, here are some links for you to compare and contrast how they are similar and different:
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 2013 Robert Wilkinson
re: "If you’re affected, welcome the magic that is perfect for you at this time!"
oh Robert! Serendipity? Gifts? magic? ohhhhh I can soooo use that right now! and you said 2 degrees either side for planets and angles? (so I have 4 affected!)
and what about aspects to the North Node? or to any other house cusps,(besides the angles) if they are exact conjuntions?
plus then the triseptile for 1 planet and 1 angle &
so then "serendipty" and "destiny" are affecting the same planet and angle!
re: "so expect some very unique circumstances that fit your gifts, or gifts that fit your circumstances"
I....or rather we, from what I've ascertained from talking with people....as soooooo ready for that!
thanks!
Christy
Posted by: Christy | July 10, 2013 at 01:05 PM
"Jupiter in Cancer helps us quicken the flow into new magnetism, new ways of life, new duties and responsibilities, and new ideals of how we want to be within the larger collective atmosphere"
Very much happening, and on target. Upcoming solar return July 29th. Interested on how the star pattern will affect. Jupiter return this year. As for the span.. Is affecting Venus(house three/cancer..11 degrees). Mars and Jupiter (house 4/cancer, 14 and 19 degrees). Sun and Mercury Rx, conjunct in Leo, (house 5, and 3 and 7 degrees).
Side note, dealing with wildfires close to where I reside. Great challenge to stay centered, focused, and like within the eye of the storm.
Love and Light, Thank You for all you do!
Nancy
Posted by: Nancy Robinson | July 10, 2013 at 02:25 PM