(placeholder)

New Moon in Taurus

Tuesday, April 21, 2020 11:54 PM

7:26 PM PDT, April 22, 2020

2:26 AM UTC, April 23, 2020

New Moon on Earth Day

As if we need a more obvious, meaningful billboard sign to confirm our suspicions that synchronicities have meaning within the timing of our lives, (which is the daily diet of astrologers) this New Moon in Taurus (new beginnings) falls this year on Earth Day (and is its 50 year anniversary). With the glut of information on how our planetary environment has benefitted from this pandemic, from clear air in cities to fish and dolphin swimming in the canals of Venice, we are being called to initiate a complete redo in this the most important of things, the ways in which we treat our planet and the humans, animals and ecosystems that are an integral part of it. And so we are in a time of initiation. It is a beginning of a time for us to join with the Earth, rather than to dominate and control it.

We’ve been writing plenty about the Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn, one of the seminal configurations of this 21st century, which this year has been joined and magnified by Jupiter. This event is a stripping away and re-evaluation of our known and relied-upon structures. The next pivotal event which will catalyze the potency of this Saturn/Plutonian era will be the Grand Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter (a once in 20 year event) at exactly 0 degrees of Aquarius (another new beginning) on the coming Winter Solstice, a powerful time in the yearly cycle of our planet where its tilt to the Sun is most angular and begins its shift toward its opposite angle in June.

Speaking of Aquarius and its ruler, Uranus — the rule-breaker and freedom-fighter — is only 3 degrees away from this Sun/Moon conjunction in Taurus, (the New Moon) making this Earth Day a signature which augurs dramatic (and even drastic) winds of change for the Earth. Shift happens, is happening around the globe. And with the upcoming Grand Conjunction at the beginning degree of Aquarius occurring this December 21st, this New Moon is in harmonic resonance with what many astrologers are thinking is yet another portal and ascent into the Aquarian Age of universal health care, universal humanitarian concerns which will change forever the way we do business on this planet.

And yet, as we know, Jeff Bezos and other billionaires like him will not go gently into that good night, will not be giving up their fortunes any time soon so that people the world over can have a Universal Basic Income. And why is that? Well, what the sign of Taurus is about is our personal VALUES. Which collectively make up our global values. Patriarchy needs to dominate, winner take all, survival of the fittest. Control and competition are basic tenets of our present system of planet-wide management. For these values to change, each one of us must change them within ourselves.

We, all of us, are in some way complicit in practicing materialistic values in the ways we structure our lives. Part of this is not our fault, and yet we are aligned with it, we have to be in order to participate in our society. But Uranus, so importantly aspected here in the New Moon signature, is the billboard sign asking us to re-evaluate where this complicity can be made conscious, where we might transform our ways, and heal our lives, feel the deep connections to Earth that we’ve been too busy to take time to feel. Perhaps it’s about planting a garden to grow our own mint, lettuce, or vegetables. Perhaps even such small undertakings can lead us to new beginnings that will take us to even deeper levels of our psyche, asking us to find a new way of working in the world, and in our relationships, ways that fulfill our hearts, and our need to make a difference in the world. Many of us have lost the connection between our daily work, and the feeling that we are making our contribution to the health of the community around us.

This New Moon also squares Saturn, signifying a challenge to the values and structures of our lives, finding new ways to live.  We may have to give up some aspect of our material comfort (Taurus) during this transformative period. Or we may find our deep-seated values beginning to change. Yet this descent into whatever suffering we are experiencing now is an important part of the journey. Through it, we will being able to bring back to our selves, our relationships, our community, something of value that we were not able to bring in or see previously.

We have been living for centuries under many illusions about ourselves and our world, about even the nature of reality. These illusory beliefs are worn out, and, truth be told, they’re killing us, and the biosphere. And what a paradigm shift such as this entails, is that many of those basic assumptions (especially the ones based upon fear, scarcity, and need for control) must be exorcised and transformed. Pluto’s intensity now is asking us to face these assumptions, both globally and personally. And Pluto’s reality, the essential truths that are contained in his realm, are immutable, and unavoidable. We do die, we are souls embodied, we are beings of light that can shift our priorities. The material world (Taurus) is our canvas to create what we imagine Life to be. And our imagining is what’s got to change.

Pluto is about to station and go retrograde on the 25th of April, and will be retro until October 4th. This yearly event signifies a period of regeneration, but also an awakening of deep unconscious material, that can emerge in rather dark and shadowy ways. Initiation is often not a cheery or happy thing. Time spent in the underworld is a challenge to our ego’s hold on reality. But there are gifts in Pluto’s world, as Pluto is also the god of wealth and riches. The wealth of self-knowledge is something no one can take away from us. It stands us in good stead, and is the ticket for entry into this newly emerging world.  

 

All charts here are using Natural House system: i.e. the Ascendant is always at 0˚ of Aries.