7:35 am  AHST 03/02/2022
  9:35 am   PST   03/02/2022
  5:35 pm   UTC  03/02/2022

"We are in what feels like a moment of paradigm shift."

Heather Cox Richardson, historian, political writer.

When I looked at this New Moon chart, I didn’t just say, wow, I said wow, wow, wow! I have not seen so many exact conjunctions in a New Moon chart in my many years of looking at them. First, the Sun, Moon and Jupiter. Then Venus, Mars and Pluto all conjoined at 27˚ of Capricorn. Mercury and Saturn exactly conjoined at 19˚ Aquarius. These kinds of charts are doorways, cosmic billboard signs that are letting us know that important changes are happening. This New Moon is a really important doorway that can prepare us for what is coming in April, the very rare conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces, one that hasn’t happened since 1856. Around that time Emerson and Thoreau were writing about the importance of Nature in the lives of human beings, and were part of what was called the Transcendentalist Movement, which spoke of the intimate relationship between physical and spiritual realities and the possibility of manifesting freedom for all human beings.

Astrology is the study of the relationship between the physical universe and the archetypes that predominate at any one time. Right now, at this important moment in our history we are being given a chance to once more fall into the old patterns of fear and aggression, which, for example, is one in which the US continues to build up weaponry at an alarming rate, (the US by the way makes more weapons every year than the rest of the world combined. Yes, combined), or to take a step beyond our old paradigm and into a world where healing and respect are the predominant modes of being.

Sun/Moon/Jupiter together are one of the most fortunate conjunctions in astrology. This would be the time that most astrologers would say to start something, a business, a project, a relationship or partnership, because it has a high likelihood that it will succeed. Jupiter, the expansive force, in Pisces the sign of imagining, asks us to dream well, that is, to imagine what we’d like to be the outcome of our desires. For ourselves, and for the world as well.

At that 27˚ degree Capricorn mark, which is the degree of Pluto in the natal chart of the US in 1776, Pluto has returned in its orbit of 246 years to that point, reflecting to us the question of how we relate to being “the most powerful”. Pluto is the god of the underworld, where true wealth resides, not just money, but the awareness of how to use power wisely. And that lesson must be learned in order for humanity to survive. The power that Pluto represents is so great that the ego’s temptation to abuse is it incredibly seductive. We have seen, especially in the period since the end of WW2, how the US has become imperialistic, using the Military Industrial Complex to take over the resources of smaller countries around the world, once again destroying Native peoples for its own gain. Now with Putin as a reflection of its own invasive drives, the world being shown the effects of power grabbing, of the vast inequality of the rich and the poor, the fight between the powerful and the humble. Mars and Venus together with Pluto on that 27˚ mark speak to the need for justice, for the equality of not only of men and women, but of the masculine and feminine forces in all of us, the inequality of which is vividly portrayed in Ukraine right now. World response to this is showing us now where we are headed, that we are all aware that the all-powerful patriarchy has become a caricature of itself. And how true power is not about who has the most guns.

Another exactitude in this chart is Mercury and Saturn at 19˚ of Aquarius, Mercury being our thoughts, and Aquarius being our philosophy, conjoined with Saturn’s directive toward discipline and self-scrutiny. This asks us to take a long, hard look at what it is that we believe in, knowing that our beliefs shape and create the world in which we live. Uranus, ruler of Aquarius, forms a challenging right-angle to Mercury/Saturn, which is the reminder that we are in a paradigm shift, the old beliefs and ideals versus the innovative need for change. Uranus, however, is exactly in a sextile (60˚ aspect) to the New Moon and Jupiter, which favors the innovative side, especially if it has to do with the preservation of the fragile balance of life on Earth (Uranus in Taurus).

We are being prepared for the rare Jupiter/Neptune alignment on April 12th, with Venus joining them the last week of April. This is a powerful alignment of the archetypal feminine, and the link to our collective spiritual renaissance. The spiritual connection must be kept alive within each of us. Most of us don’t fully understand the importance of this at first. Without this connection, we lose our sense of value, of what is important, of what sustains life here on Earth. We lose our way in the world, and wander aimlessly, depressed, while the river of sustenance to quench our thirst for meaning runs somewhere far away from us. We try to reach it but get lost in the noise of civilization, of distraction, of wars, of trauma. Perhaps this is what madmen who wage wars want for us, to forget our connection to Spirit, that Divine presence within us that tells us we can all live together, peacefully, and even lovingly. That there’s no need to give over our lives, our money, our beliefs to an outer authority.

It has been foretold time and again for hundreds and thousands of years that this would be a time of purification. The Native peoples of America have known about it, and have told every successive generation this prophecy. We have to change our values. We have to change our priorities, we have to let go of artifice, and become aligned once again with the wind, the water, the Earth herself. We have been in love with fire, and war, and aggression, and Fire has its place, but to favor one element over the others means we are out of balance. The fires that have consumed the verdant sweetness of the areas all up and down California, are reflections of our loss of balance, the predominance of masculine over feminine energies in our belief systems.

It is interesting that there are no planets in the element of Fire in this “birthing” chart. We take note that there are other ways of making things happen rather than through burning, firing our way in to force things to happen. This is the time to become aware of the power of imagination, of intent, of how David can defeat Goliath, of how, like tiny Pluto way out in the nether reaches of our solar system, what appears to be the most subtle of influences can be the most powerful.

Please take extra care to meditate, find quiet time, to get in touch with your inner voice, the one that loves you unconditionally. This is a very powerful time to dedicate yourself to your highest ideals.