By Amanda Painter
Early on Friday the Sun and Moon conjoin in Aries for the Aries New Moon. This is occurring right at the midpoint of the sign, in a rather interesting chart. The sky right now features a strong mix of Aries and Pisces; and while that often occurs at the very beginning of this season, the mix is feeling especially striking to me this year.
Simplified chart section for the Aries New Moon, showing four conjunctions in Pisces and Aries. From top: Nessus, Venus, Neptune, Mercury, Vesta, Chiron, Sun, Moon.
I chalk that up partly to the fact that the Mercury-Neptune conjunction is still going strong, its influence seemingly all the more potent due to its level of exactness when Mercury stationed direct a week ago.
Related to that, for the last week I’ve been repeatedly confronted by a mix of my intuition being right on some things, and other thoughts and feelings — sometimes related to the same topic — being completely wrong. Heightened awareness of energetic, emotional or spiritual boundaries, particularly when I’m starting to overstep them, has been another prominent theme for me.
What has your week been like? Your personal experience of the energy may vary considerably, yet Mercury-Neptune is the background against which tomorrow’s New Moon occurs, so it’s worth considering. I sometimes think of the Aries New Moon as kind of the ‘other shoe’ to the equinox. It’s a ‘restart button’ for a shorter-term cycle (lunar rather than seasonal) that invokes, concentrates and then releases into the same energy of newness, growth and initiative.
Yet what caught my eye about this New Moon chart is that the Sun-Moon and Mercury-Neptune conjunctions are only two of four conjunctions in effect right now across Pisces and Aries. There’s also Venus conjunct the centaur planet Nessus in Pisces, and Vesta conjunct the centaur Chiron in Aries.
Taking a broad view, this mix of spiritually sensitive and imaginative energy with the fiery get-up-and-go of Aries could be a potent combination for getting some things done. What might those things be? Healing of past hurts and growth processes is one possibility, given the centaur presence. They are reliable markers for such, and for addressing ancestral material as it relates to that.
I could also see this combination as speaking of the process of bringing vision out of the clouds and into contact with vital life-force energy — whether that be through creativity, sex, or any other form of enacted agency. As in, the kind of thing that creates you as you are creating it. Any time we commit energy to tangible actions, we not only have an effect on our environment, but on our perception of who we are; in the case of activity that, say, introduces or builds a skill, we’re literally changing who we are ever so slightly.
Speaking a little more specifically about Venus-Nessus, there’s a suggestion here to be on the lookout for possible conflation between how you’re feeling (and what you’re sensing from others) now, and the echoes of any past hurts or boundary issues. In the same way that a Mercury-Sun conjunction can describe a blind spot in one’s perception, I suspect Venus conjunct Nessus might function similarly — particularly in the realm of emotions and psychic sensitivity.
With so much Pisces energy still in the sky, it could be easy to lose sight of the fact that true empathy means feeling the actual emotions of another, not assuming that what you’re picking up on through indirect channels is correct. In other words, you have to ask the other person what’s going on for them to know for sure how they feel. Don’t be afraid to give yourself that kind of reality check.
With Vesta conjunct Chiron in Aries, notice whether you’re feeling an impulse to initiate a new step in your healing process — or some form of learning or teaching. Yesterday’s Written in the Planets lists some possible themes for this aspect: who you are when you’re of service to others; the ways you can hold space for others to figure out who they are, simply by being who you are; teaching (particularly by doing); your own sexual healing (and healing of sexual identity); what it feels like to give yourself space and permission to be who you are, no matter how different; beginning a new role or new process; tending to your inner creative and/or sexual flame (especially in ways that have previously felt injured); what truly serves your personal development and healing.
Tomorrow’s Aries New Moon is also making some aspects to several minor objects: a trine to Ceres in Sagittarius; a close square to the triple conjunction of Persephone, Orius and Hylonome in Capricorn; and an exact opposition to Iris in Libra. (There are a few other objects just a couple degrees off.) While I have not quite been able to parse all of that out, it is clear there’s some support from Ceres (possibly in the form of some kind of mentorship, or perspective-broadening ‘soul food’).
The Capricorn cluster is offering a little friction you can perhaps push against, as you embark on a new phase of something after the New Moon. Iris, who in mythology was the messenger between the gods and humans (often appearing as a rainbow), suggests to me messages that may feel divinely guided but which come to you through a relationship you have with a fellow mortal.
That might also relate to a synchronicity I just noticed: tomorrow’s Aries New Moon is exactly square the Capricorn New Moon and partial solar eclipse we experienced on Jan. 5 (they’re only 8 arc minutes apart in their respective signs, in the same degree). As you engage with the Pisces visioning energy and hitch it to some Aries thrust, consider how what you’re doing now relates to the clearing, intention-setting, constructing and initiating you were involved with three months ago. Can you see any continuation, development or sense of integration? If not, the review might help to spur some ideas of what to do next to get that ball rolling.
As we go deeper into this most unusual and challenging phase of history, intelligence is the thing we need the most. That is the theme of the 2019-2020 annual edition of Planet Waves — audio and written signs available for instant access. See more information here. If you’re looking for individual signs, order here.