by Robert Wilkinson
Over the next 4 weeks, the New Moon in Virgo indicates a time of agitation and expansion through sacrifice and adjustment. We’ve now left the Summer of Grand Fire Trines, and are now finding discrimination about what fits where, what to do and in what order, and balanced ways to apply both soft and hard power.
This is the twenty-fifth New Moon since the launch of the Saturn in Sagittarius era in late September 2015, and that planet continues to be important in several ways, even though the Grand Fire Trines are now over except for when the Moon is in Leo. This Lunation finishes the Locomotive Jones patterns, and by the next New Moon we’ll be in a long term series of Bowl patterns.
We are told by Rudhyar that Virgo takes the energies of Leo and gives them “significant form.” We’ve now had a Summer of finding ways to express our hearts naturally, creatively, and authentically. We now enter a time of work, adjustment, sacrifice, and focus on health on whatever level we need to address. This period will bring great clarity, or at least the need for us to get clear about some things. Certainly things will come into focus!
Jupiter continues to play a major part in the skies at this time since it is forming an opposition to Uranus, pulling together and feeding the energies of the Fire Trine between Saturn and Uranus. As Jupiter also is the dispositor of Saturn, it indicates how we can get a handle on focusing and expressing the best of Saturn’s energy.
While Jupiter is in Libra, it continues to favor being diplomatic, pleasant, reasonable, and expansive in our sense of how to smooth things out. Alternately, stand up for peace, justice, what’s fair, and see what’s out of balance to find your way to contribute to the general harmony. Libra is the sign of relationships, reconsideration of proportionality, and the dance of interactivity, so keep embracing new ideals and new ideas. As Jupiter also has an influence of what we expect, imagine, and hope for, be balanced in how you express those Libra energies as you find the right rhythm of enjoying your life and refreshing your attitude in areas of universal worth and relaxation.
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 educative, practical, forceful and stabilizing New Moon occurs at 28 Virgo on Sep 19 at 10:30 pm PDT, Sep 20 at 1:30 am EDT, and 6:30 am BST, and will bring precision and clarity to our priorities. Virgo takes the outer expression of heart strength and creative Solar Fire and finds its best uses and forms of expression in Virgo.
We have now entered an entirely different Sun/Moon relationship than we’ve known for many months. The New Moon at 1 Leo was the fifteenth and last in a sequence where the Sun falls in the same sign as the Sun in the next Full Moon. There are two patterns: one with the Sun in the same sign as the Sun in the following Full Moon (New Moon between 1-15 degrees of a sign), and one with the Sun in a different sign than it’s in at the following Full Moon (New Moon between 16-30 degrees of a sign).
We’ve been moving through a time of the “normal order” of Lunation Sun placements. At the Solar Eclipse at 29 Leo, we shifted to a reverse pattern, since that New Moon Solar Eclipse was followed by a Full Moon with the Sun at 14 Virgo and Moon at 14 Pisces. This New Moon at 28 Virgo will have a Full Moon with the Sun at 13 Libra and the Moon at 13 Aries. The last time we had this “different order” was during the 16 months before the 2016 New Moon in Gemini. Since I explain this phenomenon and what it means in the Full Moon articles, you will learn more from consulting recent Full Moon articles.
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 and made pleasing in Libra, purified and focused in Scorpio, expanded in Sagittarius, organized in Capricorn, solidified into a vision in Aquarius, and ended/perpetuated in Pisces.
An Overview of the New Moon
We have now entered a time when the inner planets are beginning to cluster together, which will continue for many months to come. In fact, soon we’ll be in a persistent Bowl pattern except for when the Moon is between Gemini and Virgo. This means we’ll be more aware of what we possess and what we don’t, with an emphasis on duality. We’ll lead with the inner planet sign qualities, and finish with Uranus in Aries energy.
Because of where Uranus is, as unique or unexpected events present themselves for your awareness, listen to your inner voice to find your place in the Cosmic Choir. Here it’s useful to remember that in any choir, there are times to sing unisons, times to sing harmonies, times to sing solo, and times not to sing at all. Even when we’re not singing, we’re still part of the choir. What is your part to sing? Be as clear as you can about what you can offer to the harmony of the whole, and keep training to bring it forth!
This New Moon will jumpstart Virgo energy wherever it falls in our chart. With this Lunation, we are in a time where we can and should focus our will power, and allow our personality strengths to come forth. There is great individual mental-verbal power promised by this chart, and clearly Divine Mother continues to be guiding the redemptive qualities of this time, since Venus is now conjunct TransPluto. Just don’t allow the mind to overly dominate to the degree it gets ahead of itself. Right now feelings and ideas come before action, so figure out the facts, and act in simple, deliberate ways.
The ongoing Saturn trine Uranus this year is giving us the ability to cultivate heart strength, creativity, and the Solar Fire by which we become our Eternal Light that can never be extinguished. By developing new heart strengths via the Fire trine, using Jupiter to express different kinds of power in balanced, rhythmic ways, we’ve been learning to adjust to the natural rhythm of the NOW. Those who are disciplined and mature in their adaptation have found great good fortune and joy through the Summer, and will look back on this time as blending the past with the future, the established with the innovative.
So What Rules the Lunation?
This New Moon in Virgo has Mercury as the ruler of the Lunation. This makes Mercury very strong, since it is the final dispositor of every other planet except Neptune in Pisces, which is a “standalone” dispositors of itself. So in this Lunation, we don’t have any chains of dispositors, or planets in mutual reception. (As noted in another recent article, Mercury is now VERY strong.)
You can find out more about dispositors in general, chains of dispositors, and mutual reception by going to dispositors and Mutual Reception at the link.
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, as well as subsequent Solar Eclipses whose influence continues. These effects are 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.
It’s been triggered in quite a few past Lunations, including the New Moon Solar Eclipse in Pisces 6 months ago. That means humanity at large is in for major choices and changes over the next few years, which will certainly keep things dynamic, if unstable! This configuration is set into motion by any conjunction with or septile-series aspect to Neptune or Pluto. In this chart, there is no planetary trigger for the Grand Irrationality, but it will be set into serious motion as the planets roll through 3-9 Libra, biseptiling Pluto and triseptiling Neptune.
Due to the inner planet transits moving through the mid-Leo zone between mid-July and mid-September, we’ve had the configuration triggered numerous times in the past few weeks! Yes, this has been an important Summer of “turning points” in the larger destiny of humanity. All of the 2017 triggers have been within the umbra of the late September 2016 Sun conjunct Jupiter triseptile Neptune, keeping the energy active throughout various points in this Sun-Jupiter in Libra cycle lasting through this October. Each time there’s a transit to any of the 7 zones, it profoundly affects those with a planet or angle in any of the 7 “hot zones” defining the phenomenon.
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 almost 25 years, and it will be active for a couple 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! Add its influence in Solar Eclipses that can last for years, and it’s no surprise that we’re certainly still seeing some global craziness and irrational behavior, so be aware!
Because late Autumn through mid-Spring brings Neptune into a close septile with Pluto, during those months the configuration acts as a simultaneous “pulse” that activates Neptune and Pluto at the same time. However, as we get into late Spring through mid-Autumn, we’re experiencing a lag in how Neptune and Pluto operate, since they’re now out of the septile and again approaching the sextile they made from 1942-1995.
The current degree spans that trigger this transformative mass configuration are around 13-17 Leo, 4-8 Libra, 26-30 Scorpio, 17-21 Capricorn, 9-13 Pisces, 1-5 Taurus, and 22-26 Gemini. 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. This event requires that we allow what’s been stuffed down to come up to the surface of our lives, and see how we can allow use the available power wisely.
Neptune and Chiron in Pisces
I have offered this segment each month for years to give you a broader perspective on the collective atmosphere, and the long wave changes humanity is going through. However, since they have long passed the cusp of the Great Age, I am no longer going to post this segment as I have, and will instead post the entire piece updated at key points in the Neptune cycle in the future.
Because Neptune and Chiron have been in Pisces for 5 years, 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.
The last half of 2011 helped many break out of their "chrysalis" and transform their lives and relationships. 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 Spring and Summer of 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 this chart, Chiron is at 27 Pisces. This is the same degree where Uranus went stationary retrograde in July 2009, and went stationary direct in December 2010, so we should get flashes of how we’ve been healed or mentored into our individuality since then. Chiron has not been in this “face” of Pisces since 1966-1968, and this is the next of three passes over this degree giving us a linkage between April 2017 and the last time it crosses this degree in February 2018.
As Chiron and Neptune pass through late Pisces, we shall see echoes in the collective consciousness related to the various Uranus stations from 2008-2010, and specifically the Jupiter conjunctions to Uranus during 2010. We have been and are being shown healing and mentoring techniques that can help us deal with the larger collective atmosphere in the years to come.
Chiron transits help each of us heal anew through our positioning within collective consciousness, assisting us to find ways to mentor and be mentored in Piscean ways. This one has the themes of using our creative visualization to dominate circumstances as we stand at the end of the end of healing old ghosts. We are closing in on the end of the Chiron in Pisces era, and continue to purify and find closure, healing into our higher Self by forgiving much and enjoying even more as we experience the end of a long cycle.
Neptune shows us how to merge the sacred and the everyday in our lives. Over the past several years, we have heard a call to a life renewal, dumped excess and 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. The March 2017 Solar Eclipse in Pisces continues to assist us in releasing the last baggage we no longer need over the next few years.
2016 completed our realizations of these lessons, and prepared us to move forward. This chart has Neptune retrograde at 13 Pisces, so we’re retracing steps and getting a new perspective on how collective consciousness is now related to the themes of this degree. Neptune went stationary retrograde on this degree in June 2016, transited it again in March-April 2017, and will cross it again for the last time in January-February 2018. So as you can see, both Neptune and Chiron are giving us a sense of the transition between recent years and a future yet to show up.
Collectively, we’re now solidly launched into a newer spiritual realm, where our ego mind has been introduced to a deeper and vaster Soul realm and our testing has begun. We originally “entered this sanctuary” in the Spring of 2016, and got a review in August and September. In 2017 we’re “proving our qualifications,” as Neptune’s retrograde will move back from 15 to 12 Pisces, its SD degree later this year.
Beginning June 2016, we were introduced to a new ideal of courage and focused will power within a greater cause or dedication. That theme is back in play for the next two weeks, so continue to use your “camouflage” to do what you must without being unnecessarily exposed or hassled by the world. Worth is being made evident as part of further testing during 2017, which is opening a “Sacred Space” for each of us, where we may awaken to a greater role, let go of fear, and learn from those who are true custodians of Soul force.
Because Neptune is at 13 Pisces, the collective atmosphere is related to the quickening in collective consciousness awakened by Uranus in 2006. Though we will be finishing up some lessons related to earlier degrees in Pisces through 2017, we are now in a culminative zone, since Neptune has not been in this face of Pisces since 1852-1854. We are now reviewing Neptunian lessons from earlier this year, absorbing this information as prelude to proving ourselves beginning November when Neptune goes stationary direct at 12 Pisces.
As Neptune has not experienced this span of Pisces since the 1850s, it indicates that collective consciousness in 2014-2017 is in a zone filled with turmoil historically. Given Pluto is also in a zone where it last was in the 1770s, it would seem revolution is in the air!
Because of where Neptune went RX June 2016, it’s part of a larger phase of showing courage and valor in demonstrating our ability to focus will power to be the vehicle for Divine Will to manifest in our world. We’ve been tested, and faced forms of collective wisdom to re-affirm our purpose. Some have received revelations about God or Truth, which will be key factors in the courage we have to demonstrate and the will power we have to focus now, but with the added theme of taking a new look or finding a new understanding related to our personality’s entrance into the Soul realm.
The North Node
We’ve now entered the North Node in Leo and South Node in Aquarius era, showing our greatest development is now in a different element and mode of expression than it was before May. When the NN is in Leo, our greatest development is through our ability to love, to create, to play, to be spontaneous, and to be wholehearted in “tending the Solar Fire” that shows the world our heart’s strength and desire. Because the SN is in Aquarius, we will demonstrate these qualities through dispassion, idealism, working for the greatest good for the greatest number, and finding others in our true spiritual group of world servers.
The North Node in the third decan of Leo brings a more specific focus on growth in that direction. I believe it has been laying down a favorable growth vector that has been made real in July, August, and September as the inner planets conjunct the North Node while making Grand Fire trines with Saturn and Uranus.
We are now are going to develop through the Saturn skills and disciplines we confronted when it transited this degree (24 Leo) in October 2006, January 2007, and July 2007. That means the next 4 weeks are directly related to the disciplines and hard truths we learned and duties we assumed in 2007 that blessed us to move in a new direction in July 2015 when Jupiter transited this part of Leo.
This NN degree is the 24th degree of Leo, which we are told is "An untidy, unkempt man.” In "the Astrology of Personality," where Rudhyar uses the original Dr. Jones' class notes on the symbols, 24 Leo is said to be a symbol of “Spiritual emphasis at the expense of outer refinement,” “interior focalization of energies,” “self-abnegation,” and “character.”
In the Astrological Mandala, he says this degree involves “an interior focalization of energy and consciousness at the expense of all forms of outward activity and care,” showing the training we need in “intense concentration” if we want to have transcendent experiences and any sense of “God consciousness.” He states we must “learn self-discipline” if we want to reach the goal of “true Yoga.”
He says this is a technique to reach an envisioned goal, with the “means” being “total concentration.” He says it falls in the span of “Interpretation,” and it’s the technical degree of the emotional-cultural level of the scene of Release in the Act of Stabilization.
According to Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, the degree is one of ”the complete self-obsession which human individuality may exhibit” in terms of “an insensitiveness to every exaction or reward of the world.” He speaks of “the values of an inner refining of self and a need to use and exalt rather than hoard the physical and psychological possessions.”
He tells us “paradoxically enough the bringing of reality to center is a development and sharing of its potentialities,” and offers us the keyword of IMPERTURBABILITY. He states that when operating in a positive manner, this degree is "an ease of outer accomplishment thanks to the inner intensification and increasing sensibility.”
So the North Node, our line of greatest evolutional development, indicates these next 4 weeks point to growth via an intense focus on the inner rather than the outer, not worrying about superficial things and appearances, and using what we have to refine ourselves to a more perfect discipleship.
These will express through the South Node at 24 Aquarius. The themes are self-conquering through finding genuine dispassion, and see our experience from a broader angle of understanding and use it wisely.
Summing Up
I’ll close today by reminding you we are in a VERY energetic period due to the recent Total Eclipse! Some are being given a mantle of power, while others are finding their lower ego inadequate to prop up their illusions. While many things continue to be taken away, this is providing us space in our lives to adjust for better physical, emotional, and mental health.
With so many planets in Virgo, there is a lot of work to be done. We had a lot unveiled during Mercury retrograde, and had to find new ways to look at things and different ways to do whatever needs to be done. Many things have radically changed the past several weeks, and we now can move forward, knowing that even as one hand takes something from us, the other hand gives us exactly what we need.
As you know, ever since the Solar Eclipse in Pisces “the race has begun,” and there’s no time for hesitancy or unnecessary considerations. Do what needs to be done quickly and efficiently, and let the ghosts of the past flow down the time stream. Forgive much, let go of much, give away all you no longer need, and await the revelation to come.
We now have experienced a more natural or creative self-expression, and the dawning of a new day that will last for many weeks and years to come, so enjoy the lightness and brightness. We now have glimpsed a greater Selfhood, and had opportunities to expand our hearts, our Light, our Fire, and our inspiration.
Because the theme is still front and center, what are you expecting, and why? An old life has already ended and is dead and buried, and a new way of life has been revealed to each of us. The chaotic past has now moved down the timestream, and there are new opportunities as well as old promises to be redeemed. Be the Light of your most powerful Self, demonstrating the power of your personality as you move through apparent “crises,” and say goodbye to the past that’s already gone.
See you soon with part 2, which will cover Sabian Symbols, Jones patterns, element distribution, and a whole lot more!
© Copyright 2017 Robert Wilkinson
Dearest Robert,
What a beautiful and illuminating post!
You are amazing! We are all so blessed to have you
Be our Light. Thank you!
Love,
Dee
Posted by: Dee Kelly | September 18, 2017 at 04:47 PM
Just Love this:
"Listen to your inner voice to find your place in the Cosmic Choir."
I woke up today first healing my body - and then trying to figure out
how to make (physically/mentally) better decisions in future.
And I feel honoured to have this experience.
It seems I need to spend a lot of time a lone - My way to go.
Solo of quiet? - Let's see...at least with only small voice.
Posted by: helina | September 18, 2017 at 07:33 PM
Wonderful and inspiring ! Thanking you with deepest gratitude for your brilliant gift of knowledge so generously shared .
Posted by: Natasha Von | September 20, 2017 at 03:59 AM