New Moon in Tropical Aries & Sidereal Pisces 21 March 2023, 11:23 am MST: the Light of the Heart

” In the Light of calm, steady Self Awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles without effort on your part.” ~Nisargardatta

All symbols are understood by their opposites. In yoga we seek to understand spirit through matter. In order to attain mystical perfection of the body and the attainment of all its capability, we renounce the human condition of suffering and focus upon the power to surpass the realm of duality.  The power gained by renouncing worldly pleasure exceeds the pleasure we have renounced because we gain a new perspective outside the polarity of opposites: we perceive the peace and harmony that worldly participation occludes. This is the personal awakening that propels worldly evolution. Patanjali illuminates 5 ways to achieve this new paradigm, this “rupture of plane” in the sutras: faith in the way of Yoga, energy, memory, samyama (remember? dharana, dhyana and samadhi) and wisdom.  There are two other ways that are not emphasized by most interpretations of the sutras: devotion to God (Isvara or the Self) and sheer unmitigated desire for liberation.

Consciousness is saturated with direct and total intuition of pure Being. It is the air we breathe.  It is not the simple emptiness of consciousness that Patanjali directs us to, but the total absence of objects in consciousness which liberates purusha (spirit) from prakrti (matter). He describes an unconditioned state that is no longer “experience” because it has no sensory content nor intellectual framework (for in this state, consciousness is no longer related to the world it creates). The Self achieves freedom, autonomy and relation to itself alone, no other objects can be present in this state.  “Human” consciousness no longer functions as it returns to its constituent elements and is redeemed by the primordial medium. “The yogi possesses themself in a stasis whose sole content is being,” says Mircea Eliade in Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (p.94). This is no mere “knowing thyself” it’s an entirely different category of existence. It’s a transmutation of the egoic “I” self into the universal wholeness of all that is.

The long and challenging road articulated by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras is meant to liberate us from the suffering of the human condition and return us to the unconditioned state.  His methods and techniques are antisocial and anti human: solitude, chastity, stillness, even the breath is ordered and held, the thoughts are fixed to a single point and the senses are restrained.  All of these methods are employed and repeated continually in order to put an end to multiplicity and fragmentation. This radical discipline is what is required to reintegrate, unify and make whole.  In withdrawal, the yogi makes a cosmos within from a chaos without.  A fair number of yogic and tantric practices are intended to synchronize profane life with the celestial bodies and cosmic rhythms. There are rhythms, phases and cycles on all planes of biomental life: this is the map to oneness.  The sun and moon measure time and make an infinity of diverse objects whole. Indian mystical physiology is based upon the Ida (lunar) and Pingala (solar) channels in the human body.

The vernal equinox on the 20th of March (today!!) describes a balance point in the seasons.  It’s one of 2 days out of 365 when the length of day and night is equal. It’s also one of two points in the sky where the ecliptic (sun’s pathway) and the celestial equator (projected from earth’s) intersect. So intersection and balance occurs in the tropical system in Aries: the archetype of the ram, the symbol of initiation, incarnation, intention and the first sign of the western zodiac. In the sidereal system it occurs in Pisces: the dual archetype of the fishes, the symbol of imagination, compassion, spirit and the last sign of the zodiac. In antiquity, the equinoxes were celebrated with lunations and all of these symbols and archetypes taken together seem to be pointing toward a radical rebalancing of the individual with the unified, universal whole. I feel hopeful about the mediumistic quality of this moon and the visionary possibility of equalizing the egoic, individual “I” of Aries and universal, oceanic “we” of Pisces. It feels like the rupture of plane that Patanjali describes to me, like we might be able to see the whole through the sum of its parts. What concerns me is how that might happen.  Is the end justified by the means in conscious evolution? Will the austerity, discipline and renunciation be worth it to heal our perception of the world? Will it work? What form will the renunciation take? Can I trust this process?

“With the capacity to analyse and dissect, we think we will understand. Do you understand the flower by tearing it apart, or do you understand it when there is no division between the intellect, the ‘I’ and the heart? No division – like when you look at a flower, you look at it completely, with your whole being, not with the intellect alone.” ~J. Krishnamurti⁠

From Public Talk 2, Saanen, 20 July 1969⁠

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Moon in Aries:

The feeling of uncertainty can make you solve problems faster than is natural. Do not rush as if there was a deadline. Try to slow down so that you can decide what you want to do and proceed at your own comfortable pace.

Organs influenced by Aries Moon Sign:

Organs: Head, teeth, tongue, striated muscles, penis, gallbladder, arteries, blood.

These organs are now more sensitive so provide them with extra care. https://www.astro-seek.com/

ONE DAY AFTER THE EQUINOX IN A WEEK WHERE 4 PLANETS CHANGE SIGNS

New Cycle CUBED!

Tropical New Moon in Aries

The sun and moon in Aries make an out-of-sign square to the ram’s ruler Mars in mutual reception to Mercury.  While this combination usually heralds clear, decisive communication and action, the messenger god Mercury is combust and preparing for a loooong stay in Aries when it retrogrades on the 21st of April. It is also in an out-of-sign square to Pluto, in transition to Aquarius, dredging up the distant past and shadow material. In a week like this one, when 4 planets are changing sign, we are all affected by burning communication problems and many conversations about toxicity, trauma and ongoing environmental/atmospheric obstacles are bound to arise. Gaslighting is at an all-time high decibel in the public domain. We have receptor cells all over and within our bodies and the situation is LOUD. Take time, when you can, to decompress before reacting or responding and consider the impact of your words on others.  The masters of the game of propaganda will be doing so, you can be sure.  Take it all with a grain of salt and maybe use it as grist to polish the facets of your inner truth. Hear the body when it speaks.

Aries proclaims, “I am.” naming itself as an embodied spirit that emerges unbidden from the unseen. With Mercury weakened and joined by Vesta, Jupiter and Chiron, the initiating fire, while spreading, is softened in its dispersal and allows for the opportunity of understanding how “I am” includes the both/and whole.  Defined by its opposite: Libra, Aries might declare,”I initiate with consideration for others” as Kim Marie of Evolutionary Astrology would say. This particular moon reminds us that “I am” includes EVERYTHING and has the right amount of directed fire to help us find that internal cosmos through disciplined inquiry.  Sitting with the subject/object problem that has led us to this moment of profound polarization at a moon like this one? It could be the perfect storm for unity to emerge. At least this inertia will propel us in that direction.

Whatever we learned in 7 months of Mars in Gemini will square the sun/moon conjunction on the 21st, then roll out of the line of fire and into Cancer on the 25th. Mars is like a cocked and loaded verbal gun in the final degrees of Gemini. It’s not really, well, safe, lying there on top of the TV under water. The pool is electrified, there’s an undertow and who knows what happens when you fire a gun under water. There is a need to incorporate calming meditation into any action, if you catch my drift. That gun will very probably be fired, since Mars is frustrated from its recent retrograde and loooong stay in the sign of duplicity (Gemini).  Find a righteous cause to get all feisty about if you notice the frustration is building or starting to make you feel antsy. Cancer wants to build connections, so Mars will impel that. I suggest we use that steam to power our practice, commitment to presence in the here and now, humility and self-honesty. 

Mars in the last degrees of Gemini will lend the stamina and focus to champion the things that lead us out of this perpetual separation, if we can identify them.  If we use the energy toward radical self honesty and transformation, even better. Just make sure you know you’re packing heat and commit to controlled demolition, preferably of your own demons. If all else fails, sex helps. Mars is also in Square to Neptune in Pisces and this trickster energy can transform through play and through lightheartedly exploring solutions to problems that are fun and  transformative, but it can also be opportunistic, so have a plan or you may become a pawn in someone else’s plan. I see this as a rare opportunity for Mars to be aware of others, where it is usually self-centered (nothing wrong with that, but when it’s all the time, it’s unbalanced).

From Evolutionary Biology

With Pluto in an out of sign sextile (opportunity) aspect to the sun, moon and Jupiter, we are free of the 15 year Capricorn visit for a minute, as the planet of regeneration prepares to move into Aquarius on the 23rd. The last time Pluto changed sign was in 2008 and, if you recall, many of our monetary concerns from that time are present once again. Power has been building underground. Aquarius is an air sign, so its domain is thought and communication of ideas between the individual and the masses. With Pluto here, it represents a new or transfigured way of communicating between the microcosm and the macrocosm, the subject and its object. This will inevitably involve the connection between the collective consciousness and the technological realm, possibly even the collective power and the technological power.  I have all sorts of opinions about this which I will not share here, from my experiences in academia, but I will say this: AI will only ever be a simulation.  It does not have prana and we do not know how to impart that divine gift without the use of our bodies.  So this transition may have lots to do with sexual union and I feel our deepest fears about sentient robots are unfounded. Smart robots are dangerous enough, however, and I could be wrong.  Still, I think the tech-bros are just trying to stay relevant, intimating that bigger computing = sentience will go the way of the smaller atom = creation. We just don’t have that power outside our biology and we haven’t mastered that, so fear not, imho.

Saturn, from his new compassionate placement in Pisces says: take care of those you love as you blast into the new cycle. Things will be dissolved that are no longer sustainable, so take rejection as protection and move along. He’s in a vaguely squarish trine to Mars, which again, makes me think of this fourth and transcendent state of meditative achievement called Turia in Sanskrit.  It’s this superconscious state of boundary dissolution and rupture of plane that we have all been to, but have not yet practiced or sustained as Patanjali is trying to give us the tools to do.  Some call it the peace that passes understanding and the action planet Mars has the leverage to sever us from the limitations (Saturn) that keep us bound (Saturn) to the ground of matter (Saturn).  This is so much a part of us that we fear non-ordinary states of consciousness that entice us with the suggestion that we are more than matter. Our conditioning may be all that chains us, as Patanjali seeks to prove with his detailed accounting of all the ways to transcend matter and move into spirit.  This is something I think about a lot: why does spirit want (or seem to insist) upon joining with matter?  Are they just two ends of a polarized spectrum that we have put in the alembic and are forcing to join or are they really one, truly whole? Yoga affirms the latter, then gives us the tools to find out.  Tantra goes even further and says it’s possible to liberate all beings in this way.

No certainty exists in this Aries new moon despite the overwhelming initiatory energy.  This makes for a twitchy Martian. Slow down, soldier. Make sure the awareness of self and the awareness of others are in some kind of moral balance, that the plan is well-laid and self-referenced and even then, the best way to proceed would be in curious conversation, flexible collaboration and with attention to the deeper mythologies that are grounded in right relation.  Right relation is not a doctrine or an ideology, but an instinct, electromagnetically informed, biologically felt and mentally evaluated for harm-reduction. We are learning how to release ownership with respect.  Respect means to look again, to withhold conclusion and live without closure.  Mars, the severer, probably isn’t going to feel comfortable with bridge-building, but with discipline and practice (things the energy DOES like) he can be put to work for the collective. The striking characteristic about this chart, of course, is the obvious imbalance toward the setting horizon with stelliums (stellii?) is Aries and Taurus. Stellium are 3 or more planets in one sign. This time their elements are fire and earth. It’s a palpable imbalance that is trying to be corrected here and I characterize it as a preponderance of materialism coming to meet spiritual prana.

Sidereal Chart of the New Moon in Pisces

Thankfully, the new moon in the sidereal/Vedic chart is a little less intense.  I think it’s so interesting that the equinox was celebrated at the full moon of Holi in the Vedic/Hindu tradition and it’s in September in the southern hemisphere. No wonder we are so fragmented and polarized. We can’t even agree on the time! The moon conjoins the sun in the sidereal chart in Pisces and it is joined by a combust and debilitated Mercury, exalted Jupiter, Neptune and the sun. It is the 6th and last lunation at 7 degrees of the sign since the October eclipse in Swati nakshatra.  This new moon occurs in Uttara Bhadrapada nakshatra ruled by Saturn and symbolizing the back legs of the funeral cot. It’s a time of deep emotional and physical cleansing as our bodies and minds are recalibrating for the circadian return of more balanced light in our lives. While this happens every year in the spring, this time we are being asked to grow more and grow earlier than ever before due to changing environmental conditions. Pisces registers the rising tides and wonders, am I safe? Should I be concerned? It’s a time to trust your intuition, dream until the end is good and set intentions related to creative pursuits, spiritual practice and emotional healing.

From Evolutionary Biology

This is a beautiful time when the soul (sun, Self) meets guru (teacher, Jupiter) before the eclipse on the 20th of April.  It’s an astrological new year with Rahu conjunct Venus in Aries, a signature of potent, even obsessive, unconscious desire and the evolving soul.  This powerful combination is one of the hallmarks of the years ahead. Add to this Saturn dispensing the karmic results of his 2 years in Capricorn in the late degrees of Aquarius. The planet of structure and determination has moved out of his home and is now at work in his office, orchestrating endings and drawing conclusions.  Cycles related to placements near 7 degrees of any sign will experience the weight of Saturn’s endings, for good or ill.

We can use this new moon’s energy to clarify and to reject what’s not practically useful. It’s very positively aspected for setting carefully contemplated boundaries, meditation on controlling the senses, consciously defining your relationship to your emotions and thoughts and finding reliable sources of hope and optimism, both within and without. It’s a time of renewal of faith in the goodness of life and it’s an excellent time to make a commitment that is well-thought out and practical. The ruling deity of Uttara Bhadrapada is Ahirbudhnya – He is the Water Serpent and the Dragon of the Deep Seas. God of Fertility, Kundalini, Son of Vishwakarma- the Celestial Architect. This is the symbolic representation of renunciate energy, it means the death of maya and progress on the spiritual plane. It means journeying to find a new foundation, a conquest of dimension, a rupture of plane, where all that does not serve the advancement of wisdom, healing and grace is left behind as a kind of sacrifice.  Like the deep water serpent, we shed the old skin and move into a newly stabilized growth and abundance, benefiting from the trials of the last 365 days.

The wellspring of vitality is contacted by casting away a previous incarnation and adopting an entirely new paradigm.  Here Jupiter and Saturn work together for change, self-reflection and cause/solution filtering, to end past cycles and bring a type of closure not found in the tropical chart.  When the twitchy Martian reaches for his gun, the deep water serpent restrains and relaxes him, putting his mind at ease by transforming his anger into an initiation of new tasks and productive challenges that benefit the whole, not merely the one.  The wisdom of the serpent is the holistic use of energy, the shunting of effort from aggressive perfection to imaginative creation and paradigm building.  This breakthrough mental change is swiftly followed by Mercury’s station to go retrograde in Aries, where the warrior can strategize and add more discernment to his efforts.

There is nothing easy about sitting with a paradox and while this more holistic vision of the current chart is soothing, this new moon is a massive transit trigger in both ways of envisioning the zodiac. The moon’s journey over the next 10 days brings it into contact with the gandanta point between Pisces and Aries.  This karmic knot heralds a time of protracted soul growth where forces that have been accumulating deep beneath the surface of consciousness emerge.  Something new awaits, but there is a cavernous issue which we must come to terms with first, before we can reach the frontier.  We are called to investigate the barriers to discerning truth both within and without.  There is a way in which we can use a time of uncertainty to leverage and sever the bonds of the past, but our warrior focus, tenacity and desire to win will have to be present for us to persevere.  It is very difficult for us to perceive our own prejudice and confirmation bias, but this is what we are called to do, for as you, yogi, know the problem never was out in the world to begin with, the world is just a mirror you use to better understand yourself.

What fills in the blanks for you in the absence of accurate information? When you are foggy, confused and frustrated like the debilitated and combust Mercury near Neptune and life is too watery by far, too internal for good relation to the world, how do you adjust? This is a time of cosmic recalibration and rebalancing. The Jyotish tradition uses this new moon to cast the chart of capital cities all over the globe for prediction and while I am not a predictive astrologer, I prefer to remain in the axis of here and now, the chart I have seen cast for Washington D.C. looks a lot like you might guess: Mars is in the center of the chart on the Ascendent signaling military involvement over the next year, Jupiter in Pisces indicates a very spiritually oriented trajectory, Venus conjunct Rahu in Aries near Uranus adds potency to the technological revolution and Mercury in debilitation predicts governmental and market instability.  Saturn’s placement in Shatabisha nakshatra is hopeful and signals the time of the 100 healers, 100 connections and speaks to me as an omen that even though one level of change looks rocky and difficult, the common people will find each other through the turmoil and rise.

And in the end, isn’t that what we are doing when we sit to meditate, consult our oracles or read a chart? Aren’t we trying to shepherd all the loose ends and the stray pieces (psychic or personal) back toward wholeness?  At a base level this is what Yoga ask us to do: return to the mat, defragment the psyche with stillness and the core wisdom that life is good at it’s origin, that the body is a community, the earth is a community and we belong here, we are a vital part of a living system that has seen many changes and will see many more. Aries and Pisces, taken together represent the individual and the collective, and like the two fishes or the yin and yang they decry a third dimension: the outer circle of the Taoist symbol and the pool in which the fishes swim. Something new awaits, something more than gathering the pieces shattered by experience lies before us. Yoga promises that when this reintegration is complete, a new and paradoxical mode of being emerges: consciousness of freedom.  It’s not a repetition of our natural birth, this is the discovery of a sacred world, beyond profane perception.  There’s still pain, but suffering is optional here. The world still has sorrow, but despair is no longer mandatory when one can see it clearly. By adjusting our perception in this way, experimenting with the technology afforded us by antiquity in good faith, Patanjali throws down the gauntlet that we can liberate ourselves by CREATING the spiritual dimension of freedom from concepts, ideologies and conditioning within ourselves. In this way, we introduce freedom into the blind and tragically conditioned modes of life.  This is a heroic purpose and though I am not by any means perfect in this endeavor this is my open invitation for you: come chase grace with me.  The world won’t change until we see it with new eyes.

Mind your heart,

~L