by Dana Gerhardt
|
This New Moon brings a total solar eclipse—which you can see if you you’re in southern Africa, sailing on the Indian Ocean, or in Australia. Everywhere else you may feel it, as a dramatic acceleration or sudden turn of events in the houses it aspects in your chart (where eleven degrees of Sagittarius and Gemini fall). What happened to you during the last solar eclipse at this degree, in December 1983? This can provide a clue to the intensity of this eclipse for you. Since eclipses are often felt in the weeks before they actually occur, you may already know! Jupiter also begins its retrograde motion this New Moon—over the next four months it will seem to be moving backward, from Leo to Cancer. If any inflated ideas or too much righteousness developed while Jupiter was direct, that can be corrected now. Jupiter’s retrograde is an opportunity to revisit our personal code of ethics, making sure our actions are in line with our core beliefs. Some say that Jupiter withholds its gifts when it goes retrograde. Another view is that it allows us time to properly plan even bigger opportunities once it goes direct. Think about the future you’d like to see in the houses that Jupiter transits (Leo/Cancer) and rules (Sagittarius). Reflection now can remove obstacles later! |
“I want the cat off my lap,” writes Poet Ginger Andrews, “my dishes done, my headache gone./ I want my husband’s fishing pole off the dining table,/ his sandshrimp back in the sand./ I want my oven cleaned,/ my kitchen floor mopped./ I want somebody else/ to pick up every single pile of dog crap in the back yard.” *
I’ve got a list like that. Maybe you do too. And the Sagittarius New Moon says: bring ‘em on! All the cranky details of your life can be transformed this cycle—if you can change your mind. A Pluto Mercury conjunction joins the Sun, Moon and South Node in Sagittarius. You might find yourself sucked into familiar, obsessive, even fanatical thoughts (and that trine to Jupiter may not help—as Jupiter makes everything bigger). Even if the dishes get washed, the Excedrin kicks in, or the laundry room gets clean, that probably won’t fix it this cycle. Those are Gemini solutions to Gemini problems. In the season of Sagittarius, you need to take everything to a higher plane. You need to ask yourself what’s really going on. Name the higher truth. Change the way you’re looking at things. You need to expand your mind.
Oh boy. Another list of things to do. But I don’t mean it that way. Transforming your mind should be fun--like freeing a horse from the stable, to gallop across green pastures, feeling giddy with the joy of movement. How do we do this when there are floors to sweep and wars to worry about? First: Ascend. Beam up. Climb the highest hill or building in your town, scan the horizon, let your lungs fill with fresh air, relax in a wider space. Or imagine you’re floating on the wings of an eagle, looking down on your world. Look again at the details that are overwhelming you. Do this long enough and your mind will change. Second: Rehearse your gratitudes. Being thankful alters the mind as much as sitting in the higher spaces. Listing your gratitudes is a powerful prayer. Be thankful for the anonymous hands who built your house, who planted the trees on your street, who sat in a factory and made your shoes, for everything and everyone who brought you where you are today.
What should you grow this cycle?
Astrology typically answers
“what” questions by looking at houses. Look to the house of
your birth chart where the New Moon falls: here’s your personal
seed bed. This is the place you usually “do Sagittarius.”
Every year at this time, you renew your quest for a more meaningful life.
This is the area of experience that keeps returning you to higher truths.
This is where you’re a seeker and an optimist. Each year, during
the Sagittarius New Moon cycle, you have a unique opportunity here… but
you must give yourself the space to wander. Freedom, even if it’s
just a quiet moment drinking tea all alone, can lead you to what you’re
seeking. (If you’d like to explore this is greater depth, you may
enjoy my seasonal/new moon workshop, Twelve Moons.
Email
me if you’d like more information!)
- The daily moon sign, phase and aspects...
- "At the New Moon refresh
your animal nature, senses awake, happily, simply aware of being alive..."
(Today's
Moon)
- Meditate on the Lantern of Inner Knowing, with Pythia...
- The Work of the Season, with Dana: Bring New Meaning to Your Life...
- Join us for a Full Moon ritual on December 19.
"The black-and-white winter backdrop, as well as the silver moon, are the perfect screen for our colorful, subjective imaginings and projections. Thus it is a time to momentarily put aside our everyday strivings and peer into the reflecting pool of our psyches. Because the essence of Sagittarius is the search for truth and higher knowledge, the message inscribed in the heavens this New Moon is that the pearl of wisdom lies within...."
(New Moon Meditations)
"Magic beans don’t come with labels, but serendipitous Sagittarian encounters usually contain the following transcendent ingredients: Space to roam. A willingness to explore foreign ideas. A thirst for truth. Certainty that life means something. With these ingredients, your personal beanstalk grows, adventure beckons. ..."
Season Teachings