I overheard a conversation yesterday. A girl was on her phone, angry and frustrated, complaining… but more than complaining about her biology partner. This guy unwittingly spent 20 minutes looking through a microscope at nothing- she was furious. He wouldn’t let her look. He wouldn’t let her help. He wouldn’t let her participate. “That guy hates women,” she said. And went on to express her disgust at him looking at a blank plate on a microscope without even realizing it… Looking for something that wasn’t there.
In her mind, he wanted the power. He wanted the glory, and he had little respect for her thoughts and opinions. And more than her disdain for his behaviour towards women, she was upset because this guy was negatively impacting her education.
I’m in Oxford, and the students here mean business!
I could hear it behind everything that she was saying… I could hear her resolve and intent. This man will not stop me from my worth, from my value, and from my education.
As I looked at the chart for today’s New Moon, this conversation stood out! It was a microcosm of the macrocosm of what is going on. The conflict was between two people. Two students. A man and a woman. But it embodied a greater social conflict. And one that this New Moon highlights. It’s all about relationships, power & feminine Worth
The New Moon is at 17 degrees of Libra, the sign of relationships, balance, fairness, and justice. It is one of the signs that is ruled by Venus, the feminine goddess of love, values, and worth.
Goddess Energy and Feminine Worth
Some of the other Goddesses are with this New Moon. It is opposite Vesta in Aries and square Ceres in Cancer. This brings in the energies of being driven by your own inner passions and drives, sometimes to the exclusion of other people, as well as the inability or difficulty in nurturing and meeting our own needs based on what we may have learned from our mothers or our mothers’ mothers. It’s the lineage of women in our families or our culture that impacts how we go about resolving the conflict in relationships right now. If we learned to quietly suffer, we may rebel. If we learned to subversively use our power, we may find ourselves cooking up a witchy spell. But if we learned to be strong and empowered, we may find an opportunity for deeper learning about ourselves: how we get our needs met, how we pursue our passions, and how we operate within relationships.
As mentioned, the Libra New Moon is ruled by Venus, and Venus is currently in Scorpio and retrograde. This on its own is challenging. It makes us prone to jealousy; we may confront hidden desires, rage, and issues of trust and power. And situations will arise that bring these types of feelings to the forefront. Venus is also making a perfect square to Mars in Leo and is also square to Pluto in Aquarius, and this intensifies all of these feelings to a place where we are likely to act unconsciously.
And the weird thing… behind it all might be a sexual tension or a strange attraction that brings out the worst… I distinctly remember a boy in middle school tripping me and giving me titty twisters… apparently because he liked me???? This is the kind of energy that Venus square Mars brings up. Add in Pluto in Aquarius, and not only do we amplify the dynamic, but we also do so at a larger societal level as well.
The personal is the political—our experiences as women, with the feminine, are not just a personal problem, but a larger problem with the power structure.
A collective intervention might steam out of control.
At its heart, the energy highlights the difficulty we feel with the power of our feelings. Attraction, jealousy, sexual power… And it’s not just men… It’s the masculine within us all.
The Sabian symbol: Two men placed under arrest. Rudhyar says that this symbol represents “A breakdown in the constructive relationship between the individual and society, and the expectable result.” At the heart of it, the Sabian symbol is about facing consequences.
And that’s where Thereus comes in.
The asteroids involved at this New Moon are Thereus and Hera.
Before I go into the story of Thereus, let me first mention Hera. Hera is the goddess of marriage, but she was constantly jealous and vengeful of her forever-cheating husband, Zeus. Her appearance here with the New Moon solidifies that it is one about relationships, trust, power, and the emotions that come from them.
And now for the story of Thereus and its importance at this New Moon.
Strangely, when I looked up the myths of Thereus, Tereus came up. I wondered what the difference was. One was a centaur, and the other was a king… and though they have no connection to each other in mythology, linguistically, they are cousins: both derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root which means “to hold, keep, watch”. For the centaur Thereus, this was emphasized in hunting—Thereus was a centaur who dragged bears out of their dens and carried them home alive to his cave. For Tereus, the King, it was meant to emphasize guardianship… which is a very forgiving word for this king because his guardianship in the end was obsessive and predatory!
Since Tereus the king was also predatory, I will tell you that story, even though the asteroid is about the bear-hunting centaur… Thereus with the New Moon highlights feelings of being hunted, captured, and silenced.
The story goes that Tereus was the King of Thrace (or Phocis) and husband to Procne. He is infamous for his brutal crime: deceiving her father by claiming Procne had died to win the hand of Procne’s sister, Philomela, whom he then raped and silenced by cutting out her tongue.
I know… to hold, keep, watch – definitely predatory!
Philomela revealed the atrocity to her sister Procne through an embroidered tapestry, leading the sisters to cook up a plan of revenge. They kill Tereus’s son, Itys, and serve him to his father.
Feels very Venus in Scorpio…
When Tereus found out what they did, he pursued them with an axe. But the gods intervened to end the violence by transforming all of them into birds: Tereus into a hoopoe (or hawk), Procne into a nightingale, and Philomela into a swallow. It is said that the hawk symbolized his predatory pursuit, forever chasing the sisters he can never catch. The nightingale’s mournful, nocturnal song ensured the tragedy was never forgotten. The swallow, a voiceless bird, mirrored the tongue Tereus cut out.
The consequences are real. And at this New Moon, there may be outside intervention that imposes those consequences. It’s therefore worth it to think through the consequences to the conclusion before acting.
There are various versions of the tale, and in Ovid’s inversion, Philomela actually becomes the nightingale – and the sister whose speech was stolen is now the bird most celebrated for its beautiful song.
Philomela adds an interesting and useful aspect to the story and the New Moon energies. Philomela could not speak, but she was able to communicate with tapestry. This reminds me of the stories of African American women who used quilts to communicate information to slaves about how to escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad, and other stories of escape routes mapped in braided hair. The New Moon makes a sextile to Jupiter in Leo, which represents opportunities hidden in beauty, play, and creative expression. So while we may feel hunted and captured, within the experience lies a creative opportunity. And incidentally, asteroid Philomela is within 5 degrees of Jupiter in Leo.
The masculine and the cycles of Mars are a major feature of Binary Star Astrology. Through this work, we come to a deeper understanding of how Mars operates, offering us a pathway to consciously work with this energy within ourselves.
The New Moon on February 20, 2023, is at 1 degree of Pisces. Pisces is the sign associated with compassion, empathy, and self-sacrifice. Pisces is where we lack boundaries, have addictions, or areas that we want to escape. It’s also spirituality, dreams, ideals and unconditional love. Pisces rules water, chemicals, liquids, and shipping. It also rules all places of confinement; jails, quarantine zones, hideouts, and monasteries.
The new moon is a time of new beginnings and new moons also illuminate whatever is nearby. What is nearby? Saturn! Saturn is getting ready to leave Aquarius. While Saturn has been in Aquarius it has brought restrictions and responsibility in groups, humanitarian efforts, friendships, and our hopes and dreams. That Saturn transit was strongly shaped by the pandemic. Restrictions on seeing our friends, responsibilities to society, and authoritarian actions by the government to enforce all of this were the main themes. Freedom became a bad word!
Next month Saturn will move into Pisces and this New Moon illuminates a sneak preview of what Saturn in Pisces will be like for the next 2.5 years. The lessons will be around all things Pisces! Set intentions for the New Moon, but also set intentions for the next 2.5 years. Embrace the Saturn energy in Pisces by setting intentions for building structures them; Commit to limitations around your addictions. Set intentions for cleaning up your cleaning supplies and chemicals, getting rid of the ones that are outdated and adequately labelling the rest. Create a discipline around your spirituality; a meditation practice, sacrifice having meat or make time for church. Commit to your own confinement; schedule a silent retreat or pilgrimage. Those commitments may sound like hard punishments or penance, but they prepare us for a larger mission.
The New Moon is making an out-of-sign conjunction with Saturn currently at 28 degrees of Aquarius. Saturn is also with the asteroids Crantor and Damocles.
Damocles brings in a situation in which we feel in over our heads. In mythology, Damocles was a courtier of King Dionysius II. He envied the King’s life, seeing it only as pomp and riches. He then had the opportunity to do a “prince and the popper” switch with the king. Once there he found that along with the pomp and riches, was danger. This he didn’t expect or prepare for! Damocles warns us to be careful of what we wish for. And if we still want it, to prepare for the unexpected.
The second asteroid in our New Moon story is Crantor. Cantor is a character in the story of Theseus. The Centaur Demoleon, a brutal warrior who has no moral code and who only cared about war, throws an arrow at Theseus. Theseus jumps out of the way and Cantor, an innocent bi-standard, takes the arrow and dies. To make matters worse, there is rage, because Cantor had been given as a peace offering. This energy makes us feel like we are an unnecessary sacrifice. It makes us feel angry. We question why we or others are still fighting. And why there is unnecessary harm? It also cautions us to be aware of our surroundings. This is further supported by the Sabian symbol for the New Moon; A squirrel hiding from hunters. The Sabian symbol reminds us of the need to protect ourselves, to be aware of our surroundings and to be fast and nimble.
The New Moon on December 23rd, 2022 is at 1 degree of Capricorn. Capricorn is about structure, restrictions, control, and restraint. It’s ambitious and status-oriented. It’s also disciplined, contentious and conservative.
The new moon forms a significant T-square. A T-square is when a planet is in a square with two other planets and those two other planets are opposing. Energetically this T-square is in cardinal signs, which means the energy is impulsive and action-oriented (as these are the signs at the beginning of each of the seasons). It struggles with conflict, balance, restraint and restriction, and emotion. With this T-square, even though the moon is in a sign that it’s most uncomfortable with, the key to handling this new moon, is to go into and stay with our emotions; acknowledged them, understand them, provide to ourselves any emotions that have been missing, for example, love or compassion.
The new moon is conjunct Hygiea. Hygiea was named after the goddess of health and represents the actions we take to preserve our health. The new moon is also conjunct Ixion, which was the first murder in Greek mythology. In astrology, it represents the violation of social norms of conduct but can also literately mean murder, as it’s often prominent in the charts of murderers or homicides. The new moon in Capricorn may be very Karmic around these areas, however, it’s asking us to take responsibility, have restraint and have self-discipline.
This is made difficult by the two squares that the new moon is making. The New Moon is square Jupiter, which has just recently returned to Aries. Jupiter in Aries is expanding our need to express ourselves and be who we are. We want to do this so much that we will war with people about it. We will also try to push our point with Jupiter conjunct Manwe which is at the last degree of Pisces. Manwe represents communication, but in the negative represents an obsession with logic and making a point instead of addressing the emotionality of situations. It also is propaganda, hype or the spin and being in the last degree a Pisces, this will seem like an attractive option for expression.
On the other side, the New Moon squares Ceres in Libra representing balance around food and nurturing and relationships. Beside Ceres is Osiris, which represents death or transformation and M87, which is a black hole. When someone is called an energetic black hole, they are describing the energy of this point. It represents co-dependent, dysfunctional relationships and one who is never satisfied, vine-swinging from one relationship to another to try to fill something within. Finally, Dionysus is also with Ceres, Dionysus is the partier Asteroid and represents intoxicants of all types, but particularly alcohol and hallucinogens and wild sexual abandon. If we are out of balance within ourselves, they will likely show up as imbalances in our relationships, with food and with drugs and alcohol. And as part of our New Moon T-Square, this is all fuel to the fire!
The Sabian symbol for the New Moon is “Three stained-glass windows, one damaged by bombardment”. It speaks to a breakdown in our values as a result of war. Though there are a number of wars currently being waged, consider that the pandemic was consistently described in war terms. This is a “war” that affected us all worldwide. What has been broken as a result?
At this tricky new moon it will be hard to reign it all in, but reign it in we must! Since this is a New Moon we can use the energy to set new intentions. There are three areas I would encourage:
Set intentions for creating structures with respect to how you nurture yourself and focus on impacts on your health. What is your relationship to drugs, food, and relationships? How can you take responsibility for that relationship, even if it’s been impacted by something outside of yourself such as war or a pandemic?
Set intentions for how to nurture Ontocracy (the power of your own being). Instead of looking outside of yourself, how can you tap into your innate resources to ignite self-love (and not rely on others), self-healing (discovering your own internal medicine), self-nurturance (have boundaries to bring you into health)…
Setting intentions for taking responsibility with your words… the trick is to get out of your head and into your heart. Then, take responsibility for what is there within your heart… is it anger? Is it guilt? Taking responsibility can help to shift it!
The New Moon on February 20, 2023, is at 1 degree of Pisces. Pisces is the sign associated with compassion, empathy, and self-sacrifice. Pisces is where we lack boundaries, have addictions, or areas that we want to escape. It’s also spirituality, dreams, ideals and unconditional love. Pisces rules water, chemicals, liquids, and shipping. It also rules all places of confinement; jails, quarantine zones, hideouts, and monasteries.
The New Moon on December 23rd, 2022 is at 1 degree of Capricorn. Capricorn is about structure, restrictions, control, and restraint. It’s ambitious and status-oriented. It’s also disciplined, contentious and conservative.