1:32 pm  AHST 12/12/2023
  3:32 pm    PST  12/12/2023 
   6:32 pm   EST  12/12/2023
  11:32 pm   GMT 12/12/2023

A New Moon is a time of new beginnings, the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. This chart has some very clear messages to us about how to focus our energies in the coming month ahead. It’s quite a powerful month of changes, many of which are internal, and thus it’s a time of introspection and forging new habits, mental as well as physical.

First of all, this New Moon happens less than 8 hours before Mercury goes into retrograde motion. So the “new beginning” energy is strongly influenced by the three week retro period of going within, being more sensitive to the inner workings of our psyche, letting go of our mentation, our thinking about everything that we think we are, and using more sensation-oriented ways of solving problems, sharpening the use of our intuition as a barometer for taking action. Mercury’s placement in Capricorn brings the flavor of practicality and usefulness to the kinds of inspirations we receive during this time, as the New Moon’s challenging square to Neptune (our deep unconscious dream-self) cautions us to avoid escapism type of fantasies and to focus instead upon how we can accomplish living our highest ideals.

This chart also contains no planetary bodies in Air signs, signifying again a shift away from thinking that we can change our lives just with our thoughts, and moving toward the intuitive side of our psyches, which Sagittarius rules. Mars is still next to the Sun and Moon, its energy amplifying this New Moon’s Sag. focus of dealing with our beliefs, the hidden substructures of our world view and its reality-influencing effects on our lives.

The tightest aspect (angle formed) to the New Moon is a 150˚ angle called an inconjunct to Uranus. An inconjunct is an angle of adjustment, the need to stop and take a second look. Uranus is the major energy of change, happening often through sudden disruption. So this New Beginning may well include some surprises in our lives that at first don’t appear to be fortunate, but then turn out in the long run to become just that. Watch for the sudden shift in things to happen when you least expect it.

This New Moon forms a harmonious angle of a trine (120˚) to Chiron, the wounded healer. This is a Moon cycle of going within, letting go of our assumptions, and directing our attention to what needs to be healed in our world — both personal and global. When we look at what most strongly interferes with our creativity and bringing our light out into the world, working with those elements is where we can effect the most change in ourselves this month. And with Venus in a trine to Saturn, this strongly suggests that changes can happen by expressing our creativity—through art, dance, music, gardening, cooking, writing, acting, anything that takes us out of our personality and ventures into realms of the imagination. This is the way through to healing.

In order to make these changes more permanent, we need to find creative ways to structure our lives to plan and make time for creative activities. We have to take the punishment out of the word discipline and instead realize the positive aspect of Saturn, which is that through application and adherence to setting aside time for what is healing for us, we effectively form new habits that allow for desired changes to happen.

Both the sign Sagittarius and the planetoid Chiron bear images of centaurs, half human and half horse, which points us again toward the side of ourselves not just ruled by thought, but toward a wisdom born of a more wholistic understanding of ourselves, as an equal part of an intricate biological ecosystem, not separate from other life forms. Centaur wisdom is grounded in a balance of our head and our heart, and serves as an image of the blended nature of what it is to be a human being. With the darkening of the light happening now, Winter Solstice approaching, and Mercury retrograde pushing us to go more internal, finding guidance from our deeper selves, through whatever ways work for us, is essential to anchor us to what brings light into the darkness, to what opens our hearts to possibilities of renewal and healing.