Aquarius New Moon – Reinvention

We have a New Moon in Aquarius on 24th January 2020 at 9.42 pm GMT at 5° Aquarius. The Sun (and now Moon) are in square to Uranus, making the energy feel erratic, unpredictable but also can bring some surprises. But with the Sun now in Aquarius and out of the Capricorn after party, we can begin to breathe and feel a lighter, more social vibe. Aquarius is a fixed modality, fixed air – intellectual energy.

This New Moon gives us a flavour of the upcoming Jupiter-Saturn in Aquarius, which begins December 2020. It’s also about our self-healing capacity, where we are sending our energy, our accountability and creative force. A New Moon ritual is a good thing at this New Moon. And how we put ourselves at the centre of our lives so we can have agency over our journey will amplify in 2020 and 2021.

With Uranus as the ruler of Aquarius squaring this Sun-Moon conjunction, this high voltage energy can spark new synapses and bring about new ideas and creative new patterns. It’s the perfect time for the higher mind.

This is also the first New Moon after the powerful Saturn-Pluto conjunction, so it’s bringing this lift to our energy, this energising quality, giving us a sense of our creative capacity. It’s about our thoughts and our thinking. It’s a time for mindfulness. Sending positive thoughts and energy into our reality. I don’t usually go on about affirmations and intentional thinking, since it’s less my personal thing, but actually the more you purify and get clearer in yourself, the more responsibility and impeccability you need with your thinking, since your intentions can instantaneously manifest in your life.

Accountability and impeccability go hand in hand. As you discover your potent power and creativity, you come into a reverence, a humility, awe and total harmlessness. As you increase your own capacity to move forward in your dynamic, creative fulfilment of your purpose, you see that same capacity in others – all others. This presence of a creative force, present in all beings, works to increase your vibration further. Then the acceleration can really happen.

This brings you into union with others. You see how very little actually divides us. How we are all on the same path, at different stages, learning different things. Some of those things are more ‘acceptable’ in society or in the current ‘spiritual’ milieu. There’s a lot we polarise through pseudo psychology – that puts a spiritual brush over the top and gives it a layer of truth.

I’m for questioning everything. I keep a very open mind, but this has been hard won, a huge trial. We are in this space collectively, especially around this New Moon, taking our belief systems to the next level. We energise whatever we choose. We can energise polarisation, separation, others being wrong, blame, others being of a ‘lower, negative frequency’ (which will become your reality) where they are still learning. Or, you can open up and have the belief system that there is beauty to learn through everyone and every experience.

Every one, whatever they do, whomever they are, are teachers, IF we are open, free and clear enough to receiving the teaching. That teaching might come slowly, over many years, or quickly, but the more open you are to being taught the more you will deepen your understanding of reality, rather than existing superficially on the surface, with an illusion of what you believe reality to be.

For me this New Moon is also about our collective humanity, sisterhood, community, connection, oneness. Seeing each other as souls that are learning, growing and developing. This is how we need to develop on the inside. We also need to have this approach within, with ourselves, being at peace within – attained through awareness of the conflicting parts, that are equally growing and learning to cohabit our being. With all the outer Aquarius technology – of connection, through social media – we have lost site of our inner technology. Let the electricity flow through the spiritual synapses.

The Lunar New Year (ie. the Chinese New Year) begins the 25th January. This year it’s the Year of the Metal Rat. Chinese traditional wisdom holds that success and prosperity are the result of careful planning. That would make sense with all the confluence of Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto (and many other minor planets) in Capricorn this year. Capricorn is the master planner and strategist, but we are moving out of linear processing, so we need to move beyond this.

So in honour of the Chinese New Year, I thought I’d include some Human Design transits for January, which integrates the mysteries of the I Ching. And according to the Human Design system, the New Year begins on 22nd January, just before the Chinese New Year. You see, while 31st December is the end of a calendar sequence, it is not the end of the solar cycle and since we are dependent on the Sun and we live within a solar-conditioned field, it doesn’t quite work for setting intentions, and reinvention, for the New Year.

The Human Design System brings together the chakra system, astrology, and the I Ching. When we look at the way the Sun operates in terms of the Human Design System Mandala, we see the I Ching’s profound relationship to genetics. DNA and the I Ching not only use the same alphabet, they actually also speak the same language and if they were to exchange information, they would understand each other perfectly.

In the HD system, this year 2020 the Sun enters the 41st Gate (41 Hexagram out of the 64) on 22nd January, and genetically, this is THE only initiating codon (genetic babble). Put in another way, if you imagine genetics written out as an alphabet, the very beginning of any genetic sentence would begin with the 41st Gate. It’s THE initiating force. So as the Sun enters the 41st Gate on 22nd January, we initiate a new human experiential cycle. This is our New Year – the East got it more right.

Interestingly, around 31st December 2019 we have our calendar New Year, as the Sun enters the 38th Gate. The opposition to the 38th Gate is the 39th Gate, Obstruction, which is the card I pulled below. This is a deeply provocative energy, creating dilemmas, and is not a completing energy. So the 38th-39th opposition is part of a Right Angle Cross called the Cross of Tension, more tension. This energy is more about looking back at the previous cycle, it’s about closing down a cycle, not opening one up. It’s about whether you found your purpose and found fulfilment. So it feels like we are still working deeply with what emerged around New Year.

And if you’ve been wondering who you are becoming, this Aquarius new moon energy is the time to consider that. This first new moon of the new year and new decade is there to support the process. For me, it’s about letting go, giving death to our old identity so we discover more about who we are becoming. The secret is to let go of who we have been, love who we are, and discover who we are becoming, so that we can step into our new identity (with ease and grace – if the Mother of Cups allows).

But as always, when we want to change something in our lives, it’s not about forcing it. I recently made a change from cow’s milk to oat milk. Now I had a desire to make this change for many years, but my conscious mind could never quite entertain how I would manage it, so I never attempted it. So rather than fight and resist my mind, I just yielded to the cow’s milk, and forgot about it, enjoying my cow’s milk. And of course, everything happens in it’s perfect timing.

At New Year, I was in a vegan cafe, drinking tea, although I hadn’t put the vegan and no cows milk together – I’m a bit slow on this front sometimes – I was just enjoying my tea. When I asked for more milk I discovered I’d been drinking oat milk in my tea, I was totally converted. This is a great way to make a change. Of course, it’s not the only way, and might not quite be the vibe of this New Moon, but this way causes no stress and invites the magical, which you cannot force. Change is not a consequence of force, but it’s a tendency, it’s natural. We are here to move along the path of least resistance, like surfing the edge of a turbulent wave. And at this time, we are right at the edge. A subtle noticing of the edge is required.

Our inherent happiness arises from following the natural order and acting spontaneously. This means following the intentional and the unintentional. Like the milk story, there was no intention, it was just nature and my joy that I was following. It’s an attitude of saying yes to what is already there inside of you. Let things unfold from the moment and then you can be magically surprised. Everything you experience is at level required, and everything required is already present. This is how we could live. Working without doing. Just being, and then letting our transformation emerge, our becoming arises from that place, the doing from the being.

All life has movements of balance and imbalance, conflict and harmony. We aim for harmony, as we want the siddhi expression, the higher quality, the essence to be expressed. But we must not be against the lower, shadow expression, it’s needed until its had its day, and expression also. By giving it expression, until it is complete, full, it then returns to it’s opposite.

We don’t need to have great ideas, or push, at this New Moon (or New Year) we just need to follow the signals and signs along the way, and the path will reveal itself. That’s not about giving meaning to things, that’s a linear processing of a signal. It’s about allowing things to amplify by themselves, letting them grow full, just like the Moon does, all by itself, or the tide comes in and withdraws. It’s nature. Anyone who has a child, especially a wilful one, learns this very quickly. You can’t push against a child’s will, you have to gently align with it, and then it softens. The quickest way to a tantrum is saying no, although of course it sometimes a no is needed, but ‘no’s’ need to be used infrequently, like all boundaries.

As often is the case though, you can’t fully learn how to follow the river and natural rhythm of life, until you have fully exhausted yourself through the battle and fight and are prepared to surrender. We have to allow ourselves to go over the edge, when its comes to completion. Only then, when we have lived through the most challenging adversity are we ready to give up fully and surrender. I know this in myself. So how then should we approach a inner reinvention that this New Year, and Aquarius New Moon is asking of us?

The next few days have 26th-28th, are full of Neptune. This build up involves Venus squaring Mars (26th), Venus meeting with Neptune in a conjunction (27th), and then Mars square Neptune on 28th. Neptune is very much about surrender. It’s much easier to surrender that draw swords. This can all provide a lot of inspiration and also take us into action, just watch integrity. Venus is yin, especially in Pisces, where it’s sensitive and soulful, and a sublime. Mars, yang, in Sagittarius seeks to push boundaries, demanding from us integrity, principled, open-hearted and honest decision-making.

Their clash, may be externalised in our relationships, or we may experience something that feels more like escaping into our imagination. A great few days to notice your dreams. And where you put on your rose-coloured glasses. It’s interesting as these aspect patterns feel integral to the seed-planting opportunity for this New Moon. Especially when we consider the New Moon’s Sabian Symbol of 5° Aquarius: “a council of ancestors, has been called to guide a man.” 

So in Sabian symbol expert, Blain Bovee’s paraphrased words, “everyone falls asleep. Sleep seems necessary for human existence… one can only go so long before sleep takes one over. Where is the ‘over’ to which sleep takes?” In the ancient Chinese wisdom of the I Ching, the time of sleep is related to the image of a steep precipitous waterfall. It is as if the stream of conscious awareness reaches a ledge… a threshold of consciousness… and then plummets over into the abyss, a dark and deep unknown. Hmmm not very easy.

When we no longer can use our conscious minds to ‘work out’ our lives, the choices we need to make, what next, how to fulfil all the possibilities, when there’s just too much, and we have been kicked out of our minds, there’s a call for surrender, to give up our identity, it it like death. We sometimes have to put our entire being on the line, our plans, creativity, work, intentions and even service and surrender it all into one vanish point. It feels like fear and terror, but it’s a liberation. It is like the warrior’s death. The warrior’s life is one of preparation, challenge, energy and then finally death, in battle. The warrior has to give up their life for something greater. There is a lot of tension in this. Just like the 39th Hexagram/Gate pulled for this New Moon below.

We enter into the dwelling place of the ancestors, in this giving up, those who have gone before and their wisdom. In our waking consciousness we can experience this too – as a willingness to leap, take a chance, into the unknown. When a loved one dies, they take our agony with them, we go into the unknown for a time and feel death moving through us. A place where we might ‘know’ nothing, but can experience the magic of being caught. This is about tapping into deep roots, deep sources of energy. Anything but the linear world of consensus reality. We have to loosen our grip and let the surreal have it’s day.

We are teetering at the edge, it would appear, and Neptune is supporting the process of nose diving and surrender, deeper and deeper layers and levels, this is how we plant the seed of our reinvention for 2020. I wish you some inspired seed-planting at this New Moon…and a dreamy kinda week.

And here’s a process to help you at this New Moon:
 
1. What’s on your list of creations or changes for this year? How might you change your life or the world? Let your thoughts and ideas flow and jot/draw/feel them. What would you transform about yourself if you had the power – for a minute put aside all that makes you afraid. Really go fully into your imagination with no fear.
2. Focus on the top 3 things you wish to change. It’s best to direct your energy to no more than a few things at a time. Circle the top 3 things you want to work on.
3. Now choose just one of these 3.
4. Start to deepen this by going into your passion about this, why it’s important for you, what interests you about it.
5. If supportive, notice where you given your power away? What belief system do you hold that says ‘I can’t have or be this’. You can feel your impediments by fully seeing what you want and checking in with your body to hear where it says no to it, and then witnessing that place, or working with the Violet Light to transmute it.
6. Now allow yourself to go even deeper into your passion, feeling freer, and notice any little, non-verbal signals that interest you – this might be something that just catches your attention in your drawing of your desired thing, or a body sensation – doesn’t matter – anything, just trust and keep it focused on one little, subtle thing.
7. Notice the quality of that little subtle thing. Amplify it until you get into the energy behind it. Just let it build your passion.
8. Step more fully into the energy behind your dream, change or vision.
9. Now from this place, let yourself … dance, sing, talk, move through the issues, let the passion really come through, find the power behind your calling and bring it through you.
10. Now, from this place, what is your next step in the world?
11. Sketch a plan, one you are prepared to let go of, but it’s good to have one anyway, even if it gets dropped. What will you do to get started on your plan now?
12. Explore how you feel about all this, what’s difference, what new awareness do you have? What is going to be useful for you? Notice the subtle changes.
13. And then start by taking action and noticing what flows and what doesn’t – follow the flow.

Tarot – Mother of Cups

I was born of the flow in every form. As the rain I am mother of fertility. As a river I create connections and exist everywhere. As the ocean I am the mother giving birth to life. As a spring  I am mother of origins. As a dewdrop I am the tears of the night. As a tear I am the mother of grief. As sweat and urine I am the one who washes away all toxins. I am the cleansing one, the one who flows in all bodies. As mixer of lovers I mix the consistency of their secretions. I nourish. I am soft and flowing. As the dreaming one I bring that which is deeply hidden to your attention. AS the one who mirrors I reveal moods and feelings. As the compassionate one I show the beauty of dissolving illusions. I am the shining one, the seductress, the deceiving one, the one who dulls and clears.

Archetypes – The Shapeshifter

The Shapeshifter has a love of theatre, games and trickery. Its energy appears as one thing, only to reveal a more complex story below the surface. The shapeshifter is within all of us to some degree; it is the side of ourselves that is slippery, noncommittal, and experimental and longs to dismiss the rules. We need it’s energy to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of our existence. When the shapeshifter card appears, it’s important to imagine you are looking at life through a kaleidoscope rather than a single focused lens. At any moment the scene may shift, revealing a more enchanting vision than you imagined. Be wary though as the allure of the kaleidoscope can leave you exhausted and yearning for solid ground. Dancing long-term with the shapeshifter requires a central pillar of integrity that links us back to our centre. The ultimate shapeshifter works undercover for the good of all. When dark, this is the charlatan, people pleasing variety, when light it’s vibrant, adaptive, fluid.

Isis Cards – Key of Life

The Ankh portends new life being born through you now. This new life being born, in whatever form, will enrich your life, bringing you more into wholeness and fulfilment. Do not give up on your creative destiny. Stay with it. You are flowing in the right direction, and you have spiritual support from the unseen worlds. Let it happen.

I Ching – 39 Obstruction

Avoid trapping your life force through fear. You are waking up, and so anger and provocation is the first stage. It cracks the inertia. And we project out our fear onto others, at first we externalise our fear through causing pain. But fear, adversity or obstruction is the universal face of change. It leads to innovation and ultimately harmony. It can reveal how to achieve movement and flow, in more innovative ways. Explore a new way. Your path of evolution is only limited by your unwillingness to move with change. Stay open-minded and impartial at this time. Observe a world that is becoming. This is a time where life can unleash your genius, and your dynamism within. Surrender your individualistic approach to be fully liberated.