7:23  am  AHST  3/21/2023
10:23 am    PST   3/21/2023

  1:23  pm   EDT   3/21/2023
  5:23 pm   GMT  3/21/2023

New Moon and Equinox Together

There's a lot happening at this New Moon juncture. This New Moon happens just hours after the Equinox on March 20th. The moment of the equinox is celebrated by many civilizations on this planet as the beginning of the New Year. Equinox is also the beginning of the astrological cycle which begins with 0 degrees of Aries and ends with 29˚ of Pisces. That the New Year happens just hours before this New Moon in Aries signifies a great movement forward into a new era, especially with all planets now in direct motion.

The energy of Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, is the energy of initiation, of taking action. It is a fire sign and is symbolized by the soul’s first entry into physical reality, a birth archetype. As you can see in the chart, The Sun and Moon are joined by Mercury, Chiron, Jupiter, Vesta, and Eris. As stated in the Full Moon in Virgo blog, this is a powerful combination, all in the take-action sign of Aries, the sign of new beginnings.

Pluto Moves into Aquarius

But wait, there’s more! An all-important shift of Pluto into the sign of Aquarius is about to happen two days after this New Moon. When Pluto changes signs, major historical events take place. Pluto went into Capricorn in 2008, which was when the last financial crisis happened. Capricorn rules our institutions, governments, the structures of our society, and since our culture is predominantly money-based in its values, that is where Pluto, the transformer, sets to work. Now as it changes signs once again, Pluto in Aquarius will set to work on the ideals that sustain our culture, our deeper awareness of the falsehood of money and the materialistic values that underpin our political and religious institutions. And as Saturn, ruler of Capricorn, has just entered the sign of Pisces for the next 2 years, it is shifting emphasis into Piscean values, which are about sharing, the importance of spiritual values in human interchanges. Saturn in a mutable water sign also speaks to the dissolving of the established order, as we are seeing just days after Saturn’s ingress into Pisces, with major banks in failure.

About 250 years ago when Pluto last entered the sign of Aquarius (1777-98), revolutions were happening, notably the US was in its first throes of independence, but also it was the time of the historic French revolution. There was a shift away from monarchy and toward a beginning of a true sense of social conscience, the idea that when resources are shared, there is enough for everyone.

But since we were then, and still are, so entrenched in the old ways, we have far to go before that realization takes root. Pluto’s inexorable influence brings deep unconscious issues out for us to deal with. The god of the underworld’s “job” is to expose us to what needs to be dealt with so that we can eliminate what no longer is useful. And that almost always feels like something is being taken away from us. Although upon closer inspection, or with time passing, we eventually see these changes in the light of knowing they were a necessary part of our evolution.

Mars in the “Head”lines

In this important chart of the New Year, Mars in Gemini is square (at a 90˚ angle) to Neptune and the New Moon, challenging the ways in which we think and talk, and how we're moving ahead. Mars and Pluto are at a 150˚ angle, called an inconjunct or quincunx. This is a cautionary angle of a need for adjustment between these two energies. In this case, it’s Mars, our personal egoic take-action energy, and its higher octave planet Pluto. In the face of these revolutionary changes that are occurring, we must be careful not to react from our egoic stance, and to recognize that what may be taken away from us, in some way is serving a greater purpose. This is where the rubber meets the road, where we are faced with putting our spiritual ideals into practice. No facile affirmations will make Pluto’s transformational changes less painful to bear. But a deep inner awareness of the major changes that are taking place in our lives can help us to frame our experience in a useful way. What’s most useful is to share our stories in community with each other, to know we are not alone, and in sharing, to hear how we are resonating with our fellow humans on this twisty-turny journey through the Earth School of karmic lessons.

The Aquarian Ideal

Pluto in the sign of Aquarius calls us to develop a true sense of community, not just personally but globally. With our planet and its climate in dire need of healing, with our need to make changes that support all life, we, all 8 billion of us, cannot escape this valuable next step in the evolution of consciousness. Aquarius also rules high technology, which is already changing how we live in the world. But the values that we hold are what determine how that technology is used, and Aquarius asks us to evaluate those ideals. 248 years ago, the ideology of democracy was reforming how people would be governed. In this next round of Pluto in Aquarius, we need to deepen our awareness of the imperfections in our systems, to truly begin to work together planet-wide. Pluto will make a dip into Aquarius from the 23^rd of March till June 10^th, then retro back into Capricorn, to finalize its job on governing systems worldwide. When it re-enters Aquarius for the next 20 years on January 20, 2024, it will exactly conjoin the Sun, at 0˚ of Aquarius, a blending of the opposites: the brightest of light and the darkness of our underworld shadow.