by Robert Wilkinson
Over the next 4 weeks, the New Moon in Gemini introduces us to a time of getting to the essence of things, and seeing truth and beauty in people and nature behind the outer forms. This one echoes June-July 2013 in a HUGE way.
This New Moon is the fifth in a sequence falling at the end of their signs, and it’s also the first New Moon with Saturn in back in Scorpio! This is the first of four New Moons with Saturn in Scorpio occurring between June and September 2015.
This Lunation has a number of important aspects in play which I’ll discuss in part two. Among the most important are the Lunation just separating from a semisquare with Venus and conjunction with Mars, a septile to Jupiter and triseptile to Saturn, and a tredecile to Neptune, favoring new and uniquely favorable ideas in the collective consciousness.
The Lunation making the septile series aspects to both Jupiter and Saturn forms a “collection of light” activating the now separating Jupiter biseptile Saturn. You can find out more about that crucial aspect in Astrology in May-June 2015 – Jupiter Biseptile Saturn and Forks in the Road of Destiny. (To note, due to both planets having moved since then, the spans in that article should be extended one or two degrees to each side of what I put there.)
So we have major choices and changes related to 2013, 2014, and the recent past. Other important aspects include Mercury quintile Jupiter and square Neptune, Venus conjunct Jupiter, tredecile Saturn, trine Uranus, and triseptile Pluto. We also have Mars making pretty much the same aspects as the Lunation except one, Jupiter trine Uranus and quadranovile Neptune and biquintile Pluto, and Saturn semisquare Pluto. The one great thing is that Uranus is very harmonious, strong, and a spiritualizing influence due to its novile and trines.
We’ve entered into the long wave Uranus novile Neptune. I discussed the importance of the outer planet noviles that will dominate the landscape this year in the class “2015 – An Overview of the Year as a Whole,” so if you haven't ordered your materials yet, you may want to in order to understand the importance of what's going on this year. Email me if you're interested.
So What’s Happening?
Today we’ll do an overview of the Lunation and some of its primary qualities. In part 2 we’ll cover Sabian Symbols, aspects, distributions, and patterns.
This distributive, externalizing, agitating, mentally active New Moon occurs at 26 Gemini on June 16 at 7:05 am PDT, 10:05 EDT, and 3:05 pm BST. This one will strip away appearances, show us the way to a greater effective knowledge that could lead us to forms of wealth and power, and show us the light of the essence of things beyond appearances. We can find a more natural way of being creative with what we know or have, or perhaps play with ideas that can lead us to a vision we cultivated between August 2014 and April 2015.
This is the fifth New Moon where the Sun falls in the sign preceding the next Full Moon. This is the opposite of the “normal order of Lunation Suns,” where the New Moon Sun is in the same sign as the next Full Moon Sun. In other word, while this New Moon Sun is in Gemini, the coming Full Moon Sun will be in Cancer. Since I explain this phenomenon and what it means in the Full Moon articles, you can find out more by consulting the Full Moon articles of two weeks ago or two weeks from now.
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.
Is This New Moon “Void of Course?”
This New Moon falls at 25d 07m of Gemini. As it falls at the very end of Gemini, you may have read in other places that this makes it a “Void of Course” (VOC) New Moon. However, I disagree with most interpretations of this phenomenon, and this is why.
First, the definition of a VOC Moon is that it makes no exact forming aspects before leaving the sign. In this Lunation, the Moon and Sun make a septile to Jupiter, a triseptile to Saturn, and a tredecile to Neptune before the Moon enters Cancer. These alone negate the traditional take that this would be a VOC Moon.
Supposedly a "Void of Course" Moon shows that nothing significant will happen concerning events during the time the Moon is VOC. That is a very limited and erroneous view of an astrological phenomenon. Life is infinite and ever-changing demonstrating its robustness through "the 10,000 things" that eternally come and go in the course of an eternal stream of interrelated events. Since all that arises are part of our magnetic field within the larger Unified Field of Consciousness, how could there ever be a time "when nothing significant happens?"
So regardless of the supposedly VOC New Moons at this time in history, we must search for the meaning of the configurations since they reveal the evolving Divine Patterns in the NOW. Remember that we have the power to act or react from our center of Higher Awareness, and are not victims of astrological patterns.
As an aside, besides the objections I raised in my articles on the Void of Course Moon, historically the VOC Moon was used ONLY in Horary Astrology before the latter part of the 20th century. That would seemingly limit the validity in applying it in the other branches of Astrology, including any evaluation of a Lunation where the Moon falls in the final degree(s) of a sign. That’s why I do not consider most interpretations of a VOC Moon to be relevant in understanding what this Lunation may yield.
An Overview of the New Moon
As noted, there are a lot of aspects of major importance in this chart. The next four weeks will bring a lot of diverse activity, communications, and powerful choices and changes involving many areas of our lives. Again, more on the aspects in part two. Given the powerful concentration of planets between early Gemini and mid-Leo, you can bet those sectors will be highly active over the next 4 weeks.
This New Moon will jumpstart Gemini energy wherever it falls in our chart. That's why this New Moon can yield a lot of new ideas and changes in our approach in many life areas. This can bring excellent adaptability within unique or strange circumstances.
Just remember that many things, while excellent unto themselves or even in concert with other things, may still not easily fit into every area of life. See what needs to be joined and where, and what should not be combined or forced into relationship.
Because it happens in Gemini, Mercury is the ruler of the Lunation. Because Mercury is in its home sign of Gemini, it is the final dispositor for every other planet in the chart except Neptune. Mercury as the ”final dispositor” makes it a very powerful self-referencing point of power that serves as a backdrop to all the other energies except Neptune in its home sign of Pisces.
The Gemini seed indicated by this New Moon helps us diversify and open to new information, as well as how to communicate it and act on it in a variety of ways. This Lunation is the first pushing up and out of the recent Sun conjunct Mars at 24 Gemini. This New Moon renews the past and quickens the future in many different ways.
This is the next Lunation where Saturn leads the span of signs occupied by the rest of the planets, so it still opens the Locomotive span, which also has elements of a Splay Jones pattern. I’ll discuss more about this in part 2.
Because Mars in Gemini leads the Lunation, it’s time to act! This ushers in a quickened pace of interaction and communication, with a lot going on amidst major changes. This is the final time to act on things we’ve faced off and on for 2 years, and if you know what to shape and how to shape it, it could turn out to your benefit since you’ll connect to the source of power in the Sun.
The Grand Irrationality
The reason this section is a recurring feature in the Lunation articles is because it was set into long term play by the 2011 Solar Eclipse, which is triggered each time any transiting planet occupies any of the 7 zones of the Grand Irrationality. Since then it’s been reinforced and triggered by various Lunations, planetary stations, and transits.
This Lunation finds that the Grand Irrationality is not in play, since Neptune and Pluto are too wide to be in septile. However, Venus triseptile Pluto does anticipate when the Grand Irrationality will again be constantly active later this year when Pluto again occupies 15 Capricorn in septile to Neptune at 8 Pisces. I’ll elaborate more in part 2.
For those who are new to the site, here’s a bit of explanation about this thing called “the Grand Irrationality” associated with why everything continues to be so weird. As I’ve explained many times before, 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.
Everyone has been confronting inner compulsions, continual choices that seem to have a major impact on our destiny, and occasionally irrational behaviors in others or external conditions. 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.
When the Grand Irrationality is in play, it’s a time when things don’t have to make sense. We’ve been living with it for a bit over 20 years, and will be active for a few more years to come, even though we’ve begun to be on the far side of that influence.
Though it will wane in intensity in the future, there will be enough set into motion that won’t make sense that we certainly can’t be lulled into a false sense of complacency! We’re certainly still seeing some global craziness and irrational behavior, so be aware!
Because late Autumn through mid-Spring shows Neptune in close septile with Pluto, we’ll have the configuration operating in close sequence at this time. For the next few months, every time a planet makes a conjunction or septile-series aspect to either Neptune or Pluto, it’ll create a simultaneous “pulse” that will activate Neptune and Pluto at the same time, unlike the late Spring through mid-Autumn, when we have a lag in how these energies express.
The current degree spans that trigger this transformative mass configuration are around 7-11 Pisces, 28 Aries- 2 Taurus, 19-23 Gemini, 11-15 Leo, 2-6 Libra, 23-27 Scorpio, and 15-19 Capricorn. If you have a planet or angle in any of these zones, you are making critical choices and decisions that will alter your future in important ways. And because it’s in motion due to outer planets, these are pretty much forces beyond your ability to control, even if you can always control your response to these critical events.
Neptune and Chiron at the Cusp of the Age:
I offer this segment each month to give you a broader perspective on the collective atmosphere, and the long wave changes humanity is going through.
Now that Neptune and Chiron are well into Pisces, they are no longer at the Cusp of the Age. Since they first entered the zone back in 2011-2012, we’ve been navigating through the threshold of an entirely new era that will not resemble the old Age in any way within just a few decades. 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 forty-second New Moon with Neptune in Pisces for the next approximately 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 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!
In 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. The article deals specifically with the first degree of Pisces, which is where the Precessional point occupies at present.
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. You can find more about what we’re going through to get to the coming Age of Aquarius in the article The Sun Enters Pisces Today Illuminating the Cusp of the Great Age, Where The Age of Pisces Gives Way to the Age of Aquarius.
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.
In this chart, Chiron is at 22 Pisces. This will help us heal anew through our positioning within collective consciousness, helping us to find a greater faith, and a broader way of seeing how we’ve succeeded in attaining a different, more “spiritual” way of life. Through our new values and the higher standards we’ve attained we will evolve into our Highest Self, and can find a more compassionate way of expression.
This continues to show us how to merge the sacred and the everyday in our lives. Of note is the Neptune is tracking where Chiron transited in 2013, and is now the exact degree where it went stationary direct in Nov 2013. That means the atmosphere is merging with the healing method and message of that time.
Over the past couple of years, we have healed through knowing what we stand for, and heard a call to a life renewal that is now front and center. We’ve had to let go of unnecessary baggage to quicken the pace in achieving some social goal, mastered something important in our spiritual quest, been offered higher responsibilities, and been shown what spiritual goals we’re fit to accomplish. Neptune is bringing these themes to the forefront in 2015.
In this chart Neptune is at 10 Pisces, a threshold where Neptune went stationary retrograde not long ago. This one shows us our mastery, and how we are no longer held to old responsibilities. This will be very evident to those who understand the new dedication they’ve stood for these past two years, and have totally embraced the new role in the collective.
Because Neptune has not experienced 6 through 10 Pisces since the 1850s, it indicates that collective consciousness in 2013-2015 has been in an “unknown zone” relative to the recent past, but somehow echoing lessons of the last period. We will now begin a review of our renewal through November, strengthening our intuition and emotional intelligence, as well as a greater feeling-connection of our positioning within a vaster field.
More on Saturn’s Universally Important Influence
We now rapidly approach the end of the Saturn in Scorpio era. For 2 ½ years, we’ve had to find ways to use Saturn’s virtues to eliminate stagnant feelings and responses, and find appropriate boundaries and a sense of responsibility for our magnetism while shedding various “skins of personality.” As noted, the first five months of 2015 began the Saturn in Sagittarius era, showing an emphasis on maturity, responsibility, and “doing the right thing,” but using Sagittarius energy instead of the familiar Scorpio energy of October 2012 through December 2014.
In this chart, there are very important aspects to Saturn from the Lunation, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Pluto. I believe these indicate unique conditions have arisen where important choices can be made despite a tremendous inner pressure from the Saturn semisquare Pluto. That semisquare shows the generally hard time many people are having right during this season.
Saturn in Scorpio
This section gets reintroduced each New Moon, since this will be a force in our lives through September. As mentioned earlier, this is the first of four New Moons with Saturn in the last two degrees of Scorpio.
From late 2012 to late December 2014, Saturn helped us see a) how we have shifted our magnetism on relationships since last Summer, and/or b) how we need to find a new view or way of understanding the losses and eliminations of the past we’ve been through. These themes have now returned for the Summer, where we are finishing the Saturn in Scorpio lessons in a metaphoric “final exam” testing our ability to be compassionate and manage energies that are under pressure.
Because of Saturn’s path in 2013-2014, through our magnetism and desires we began to demonstrate a higher level of social functioning. Now that we’ve learned what is permanent and stable in our life structures, we’ve entered into the next adventure in letting these permanent and stable factors in our life lift us to a greater vision, greater truth, and a future much more free than what we’ve known since October 2012.
Now that Saturn has returned to Scorpio through mid-September, it is the final scene of the last act of the play of Saturn in Scorpio, This has helped us all complete our mastery of magnetism and desire, eliminating what no longer worked.
We’ve found ways to get focused and clear about what structures are worthwhile and which need eliminating or purifying, and have finished the long wave process showing us how to conduct ourselves at a higher social level of interaction. This Summer will give us a last look at how to focus our individual mental-spiritual energy. As Saturn rules the bones, and Scorpio rules regenerative processes, you may want to regard the Saturn in Scorpio 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.
2012 finished our philosophical and ideological understanding in life areas related to Libra, Capricorn, and Aquarius in our charts, and in October 2012 we entered a Scorpio intensification of magnetics so we could attract what we needed and repel what was not needed. Since then, we also had Solar Eclipses in Scorpio in 2012 and 2013 involving Saturn’s energies in huge ways.
Due to those Scorpio Solar Eclipses, over the past 2 years we’ve been looking back to rehearse the future after eliminating elements of the past. This opened the doors that we walked through in late December 2012, and the Solar Eclipse from November 2013 renewed the pulse. Whether we want to or not, we’ve all had to be willing to embrace a purification process, especially purifying the life of stuck feelings and desires, and open to a new game and a new way of playing that game.
The North Node
This is the seventeenth New Moon with North Node in Libra and South Node in Aries. Good for reasoned, balanced action! With NN in Libra, our greatest development is through our ability to balance, weigh, judge fairly, be diplomatic peacemakers, and generally cultivate our grace, style, elegance, and sense of beautiful forms.
We continue to be in a time of growth through learning how to live our archetypal self, growing by seeing the balances or imbalances in our relationships. In Libra we grow through understanding what is fair or unfair in what we confront, and many will find they have strong feelings for what is out of balance.
The North Node in early Libra brings a more specific focus on growth in that direction. And of course, as I’ve noted in other articles, it also develops many of the Saturn skills and disciplines we took on and learned to deal with when Saturn was in Libra between late 2009 and late 2012.
This NN degree is the same as the Moon in the March 2013 Spring Full Moon, the first of the “Three High Moons” of that year. That would seem to bring developmental energy to whatever was set into motion for the entire year, since the Three High Moons are where the new World Teaching originates in the force of Life Itself.
I’ll close today by reminding you that we’re still in the “middle passage” of the long wave friction and crashes symbolized by Uranus square Pluto indicating the global collision between a new humanity and an old slave/control system. This Lunation will help us understand that our faith in our own individualization in the past brought about realizations where we either accepted or rejected certain types of seed power.
The Venus triseptile Pluto with Jupiter biquintile Pluto will bring many blessings to those who have done the work on their hearts and/or creative self-expression before now. While critical changes may have recently occurred forcing things to a head, the next 4 weeks should bring rewards, as well as more crucial decisions about which way to go and what to do. Just show tender care as you play with ideas, and when it’s time to show restraint, do so graciously.
Mercury Retrograde!
Because Mercury is still in its shadow zone and therefore doing its third review of this span of Gemini, it is a powerful force in this New Moon. If you haven’t already, you can find out a lot more about these very important 3 week periods by getting a copy of the new expanded 2nd edition of my pioneering book A New Look At Mercury Retrograde. The first major work on Mercury retrograde ever written, it offers in-depth information about Mercury retrograde people, Mercury retrograde in the various signs and houses, and what the entire Mercury Retrograde phenomenon is about. If you want to know what we can expect from Mercury retrograde in all the signs and houses, it’s in there.
The great news is that it is again available as a paperback! Yes, we managed to get it published in time for the recent retrograde. The paperback is available through Createspace.com, so if you want the newest edition go there and order your copy. Of course, it’s also available as an ebook through Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble Nook. I've included links to both sites.
As I’ve mentioned before, it is written for both astrologers and laypeople. I have just about everything you could want to know about Mercury retrograde, including how it works, what it means, celebrities who have it in their charts, historic events that happened during Mercury retrograde, and what signs are involved in future Mercury retrograde periods.
By knowing more about 2014's Mercury retrograde periods in Pisces/Aquarius, Cancer/Gemini, and Scorpio/Libra, as well as 2015’s Mercury retrograde periods in Aquarius, Gemini, and Libra, you may see patterns in what was going on in your life, what you were taking a new look at and why, and how this "looking back" influenced your choices as you moved through past events.
Here's the link to where you can order your copy of the new edition of my ebook, A New Look at Mercury Retrograde to check out possible ways this Mercury retrograde effect could play out over the next 4 months. And here’s the Createspace link to the page where you can purchase a paperback edition of A New Look at Mercury Retrograde.
See you soon with part 2, which will cover Sabian Symbols, Jones patterns, element distribution, and a whole lot more!
© Copyright 2015 Robert Wilkinson
Thanks as per usual for all your efforts on our behalf here, Robert.
This NM cj MC, and with tr Chiron opp my Sun and tr Uranus opp my Merc, I'm frazzling myself, so looking forward to your good medicine in Part 2!
Posted by: Sabina | June 15, 2015 at 11:10 PM
Is the frazzle mars in gemini? Go go go! If so, whatever will I do with all this stamina when mars transits into cancer?
Posted by: caliban | June 17, 2015 at 04:33 PM