New Moon in Aries

Vernal Double Whammy – ND #140

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Daffodils Ready to Burst Forth – Photo: L. Weikel

Vernal Double Whammy

I think we can all agree, Spring 2023 arrived prematurely. Unsettlingly so, at least for some of us who lament the possibility that we’re witnessing an observable shift in our climate. But as of earlier today, the equinox occurred and the season has officially arrived, bringing with it the promise of new beginnings and baby bunnies. Even more exciting, on Tuesday, 21 March 2023, we get to experience a vernal double whammy, a veritable turbo-boost of the ‘new beginning’ energy heralded by today’s equinox.

This double whammy of which I speak is the somewhat rare occurrence of both the arrival of spring and a new moon taking place at almost precisely the exact same degree. Specifically, at 1:23 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, the Sun and Moon will be conjunct each other (hence a ‘new moon’) at 0 degrees 56 minutes – essentially the 1st degree of the astrological sign of Aries.

The vernal equinox, the technical arrival of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, is the moment the Sun crosses over from Pisces into the sign of Aries. That’s what actually makes it the spring equinox, the moment when the sun spends an equal amount of time both above and below the horizon.

Sunset 17 March 2023 – Photo: L. Weikel

Why So Special?

But new moons come and go, and they do not always coincide with the precise arrival of spring, as this year’s new moon does. That’s what makes this month’s new moon so special. We have an abundance of energy heralding clean slates and new beginnings happening at the very beginning of the feisty sign of Aries: a new season (spring, the traditional beginning of a new year in ancient calendars), a new moon (always, every month, an opportunity to ‘plant new seeds’ of ideas or projects.

Along with these lunar and seasonal synchronicities, other astrological occurrences this week portend an influx of remarkable and almost certainly palpable ‘big’ energy. On the 23rd, Pluto’s reign in Capricorn (since 2008) ends and we start experiencing Pluto in Aquarius, where it hasn’t been in 248 years. While we’ll get a taste of Pluto in Aquarius from this week until June, the planet will retrograde back into Capricorn for one final instigation of transformations in societal foundations (governments, corporations, financial markets) through January 2024.

On Sunday, Mercury moved from Taurus into Aries and just today, Venus moved from Aries into Taurus. This may all sound like a lot of gobbledygook (astrobabble?), but it is unusual for so many planets to be making big shifts from one sign into another. Not so much for the smaller planets, because they travel around the sun much faster than the behemoths Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto.

Big Shifts

My sense of the overarching energetic shift that we’re all going to be subject to (and which many of us will distinctly notice and feel in our bodies, minds, emotions, and observations in the outside world) – and already are, in many cases – is a radically different approach to what we’ve all been witnessing and experiencing in our lives for the past 13 years or so.

That’s why, I suspect, I was nudged to write this tonight. Awareness is power. And whether you ascribe to the possibility that the astral bodies above us have any impact upon our tiny bodies here on Earth or not, I’m of the mind that it doesn’t hurt to set intentions. If we know there is the potential for radical changes, re-sets, and transformation on the horizon, why wouldn’t we care enough to at least take responsibility for setting our intentions on the changes we would like to manifest in our lives?

So, forewarned is forearmed. Some major shifts are on the brink of happening, my friends. Take a moment to envision the changes you would like to call into your life. Surely getting quiet for a few moments and contemplating our lives’ trajectories is a worthwhile endeavor no matter what.

Plant your seeds of change well. And don’t discount Pluto’s ability to profoundly shake stuff up.

(T+140)

Tornado Warning – ND #115

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Ominous Arrival – ND #115

Tornado Warning

Happy very blustery first day of April. The post I started writing last night began with how we were under a tornado warning. Literally, here in eastern Pennsylvania, my cell phone began blaring a very abrasive sound and the words that popped onto the screen warned that I should immediately retreat to a cellar or basemen, or short of that, take shelter in a place devoid of windows or in the center of the house.

Karl was asleep on the couch, although the noxious noise did rouse him a little (although not enough to get up). The wind was wild and there was a lot of lightning, which felt ominous. (I can’t explain it, but it didn’t feel like a normal thunderstorm.) I was vigilant – monitoring the way the air felt and the way the wind sounded – and had already rehearsed in my head the tenor of voice I’d use to get Karl on his feet in a split second and how we would each scoop up an animal or two to get them into the cellar with us.

For about ten minutes, I kept saying out loud, “That doesn’t sound right.” I’d mute the tv so I could track the storm even better. And yet through it all, I kept hearing my own train of thought telling me there was no way we’d be hit by a tornado.

Guess I was wrong. (This was only a couple miles from our house.) Or maybe my intuition was right to make a plan in my head as to the quickest way to bolt into the cellar – in spite of my skepticism!

A Bouquet of Crocuses from the Spirits of the Land – Photo: L. Weikel

Had a Conversation

I had a little chat with the Spirits of my land today while I performed my EoP Biodiversity Process. It always warms my heart to have a heartfelt conversation with the Spirits of our land. I think it’s because I sense that it still surprises them to actually have a human paying attention to them and speaking to them with specificity, intention, and gratitude.

I’d hoped to have a new moon fire today, but it was far too windy. Maybe tomorrow. Just in case you haven’t yet given yourself permission to sit quietly and contemplate the opportunities you’d like to pursue (or perhaps even more powerfully, the feelings you’d like to bring into your life) over the next month and two plus years, you still have time. Everything doesn’t have to be set in stone by the moment the sun and moon conjunct each other. No, the energies of a new moon begin shortly before the astronomical occurrence and last for a few days afterward.

So I encourage you: get real with yourself. Have a think this weekend. How do you want to feel at the end of this month? What would you love to manifest in your life by June of 2024?

(T+115)

New Moon in Aries – ND #114

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Graceful and Glorious Landing – Photo: L. Weikel

New Moon in Aries

In only a couple hours, we will experience a New Moon in Aries. As we know, a moon is considered new when it is conjunct, or exactly lined up with, the sun. And the sun just entered Aries last weekend.

A new moon in Aries is considered especially auspicious and powerful as far as initiating new endeavors and becoming aware of (and seizing) new opportunities. Beyond noticing what short term goals we might want to set and implement, this particular new moon, being in the initiating sign of Aries, may be especially powerful in marking the beginning of a new two and a half year project.

It’s intriguing to ponder what seeds we might plant today (Friday, April 1, 2022) that may either run their course or only come into their fullest expression by June 2024. It just feels like there’s so much volatility and potential for change all around us.

Will we manifest the change so many of us yearn for deep in our hearts?

Blue Heron & Goose – Photo: L. Weikel

Creek Visit

All of which reminds me that I only managed a ‘drive-by’ of the Tohickon today, which is where I go when contemplating time – past, present, and future. When I turned onto the road that passes within feet of the creek I immediately noticed two Great Blue Herons having a chat on a boulder amidst the flowing waters. Of course, as soon as I pulled up to the side of the road (albeit as slowly and unobtrusively as I could – in a car), they took their leave. One seemed less irritated with me, though, and seemingly teased me by only moving a dozen or so yards upstream.

It hung out with a couple Canada Geese and I wondered if it was going to try spearfishing one of those ginormous carp that – surprisingly – were still hanging out in that same spot I saw them last week. (I saw much less evidence of the snakes, though. Or maybe I didn’t linger there long enough for them to surface.)

Yes, we had a chat – Photo: L. Weikel

 

Instead of pondering my intentions for this new moon, I had a silent chat with this Great Blue Heron. It was obviously aware of me as I playfully stalked it with my iPhone. I love the shot I got of it landing on a rock a bit downstream, its wings outstretched and magnificent.

I’m thinking the message of this new moon may be honoring the need for self-reflection, which is the key concept attributed to the Blue Heron in the Medicine Cards. There are so many ways we can honor Blue Heron’s nudge to engage in this activity. I think it may be time for me to cultivate and offer new opportunities to myself and others who may want to join me to do just that over the next couple of years.

Set those intentions! And maybe even, perhaps, join me in embracing Blue Heron’s urge to know ourselves even better?

Great Blue Heron taking flight – Photo: L. Weikel

(T+114)

Sushi, Brownies, and Friendship – Day 884

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Sushi – Not tonight’s, but close enough – Photo: L. Weikel

Sushi, Brownies, and Friendship

Some nights I go off on tangents about raptors, clouds, and messages. But sometimes the only reasonable course is to just take a time out and focus on sushi, brownies, and friendship.

I want to continue the conversation I began last night about Seeing patterns and connecting dots and how all of that comes together differently for each of us. But tonight is not the night for me to pursue that line of thought.

No, tonight was a night of sushi, brownies and friendship, and the upshot of that fact is the truth that I don’t feel like going so deep or so wide into my thoughts or feelings. Instead, I’m simply reveling in the sweet truth of what it felt like to sit around a fire safely ensconced in a fire pit, in the midst of a windless, completely still evening, with people I’ve known for all but maybe twelve months of their life to those I only met minutes before pulling up a chair to the fire.

Ah, the freedom of being outside and more than six feet away from all of these people (there actually were only four of us around the fire), yet still able to look at their faces – their full, maskless faces – and react to their expressions and laughter and full-toothed grins. It was the best birthday gift ever.  (But I’ll admit, the sushi and brownies were exquisite as well).

Knowing What’s Important

Sitting together outside tonight we shared a number of precious moments: the barely waxing newest of moons in Taurus, flashing but a tiny fingernail shape in the western sky, while captivatingly revealing the rest of her shadowy self if you looked closely enough. What a sight; especially when glimpsed through the trees that are just starting to bud out and contemplate bursting into full, leafy glory over the next few days.

Another moment? The satisfaction of coaxing the fire to rise to the occasion, licking its flames across the delicious bark of the wood we fed it. Ah, the warmth and flickering of flames that danced across our countenances as we told stories of years gone by to give the newcomer a taste of who we are and how we share certain bits of history.

Everything has a story if you give it enough time. Even people we’ve known all our lives have stories they can share that surprise or beguile us.

Sometimes, the further we travel from home, the more we realize that the people closest to us might just be the most exotic. Or at the very least, the most eclectic.

Amazing Seeds Being Planted

It feels to me as though this week is a particularly powerful week in which to plant the seeds of what we wish to manifest not only in the next thirty days or so, but also in the next six months and event he next year. The new moon (on Sunday evening) was in Aries but the seeds we’ve been planting since then – yesterday, today, and tomorrow – have been, and are being, planted while the moon is in earthy, nurturing Taurus.

To me, that feels luxuriously nurturing and like the perfect environment to cradle those incipient dreams.

I’m going to call tonight as one of those evenings we all yearn for but only rarely experience. Filled with sushi, brownies, and friends, it was momentary perfection. For a few hours this evening, four people sat around a crackling fire, listened to distant peepers, exclaimed over Canadian geese honking their way directly overhead, and knew we were all exactly where we were supposed to be in that moment.

Decades may separate us, but in the moment, we were all simply reveling in the company of kindred spirits. I couldn’t be more grateful for the experience.

(T-228)

New Moon in Aries – Day 498

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Signs of Spring – Photo: L. Weikel

New Moon in Aries

In just a couple of hours the moon will be dark, obscured from our sight because it won’t be reflecting any of the light of the sun. Technically, we’ll be experiencing a new moon in Aries.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, the new moon is a particularly fertile time to plant the seeds of ideas, intentions, or commitments we want to set into motion in our lives. One way of looking at it is to think of the dark moon as representing rich, dark, fertile soil that’s a perfect medium for nurturing life and growth. So it is a perfect time to plant those aspirations we hold for the coming days, weeks, and quite possibly beyond.

It’s interesting to read how interpretations of the particular alignment of the planets and moon reflect the challenges we’re being called to face in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. (Because this is a new moon, the sun and moon are ‘conjunct,’ or sitting at the same degree in the same sign. Thus, as you probably realize, the sun is also in Aries, having entered that sign at the equinox, which took place on March 19th this year.) Chani gives a thought-provoking description of the aspects influencing this particular new moon, and how these influences speak directly to our current experiences here.

Introspection and Hard Questions

As I’ve mentioned a number of times lately, this self-isolation we’re being urged to do (or in more and more cases, ordered to engage in via so-called ‘stay-at-home’ orders) is an unprecedented opportunity to take a deep dive into figuring out who we are and what we value at our core. It’s a chance for us to reflect on the choices we’ve made in our lives. And it quite possibly is a time in which we contemplate making new choices.

It occurs to me as I write this that we are seeing the stark truth of this reflection on what we truly value play out right in front of us on the national stage. Will we choose to continue to self-isolate if we think we may have been exposed to the virus (or simply to avoid the possibility of exposure or being exposed)? Will we choose to withdraw from social interaction and physical contact in order to protect each other and ourselves? Or will we decide that ‘getting back to work’ is more important than the very real possibility of saving lives?

As many are pointing out, a ‘dead’ economy can be revived. A dead person cannot.

Choosing Our Values

In signaling today that we may be urged to ‘return to work’ next week if we have no symptoms (the ostensible end of the 15 days of social distancing begrudgingly advocated by the federal government), we are being given a clear indication on the macro level of just what is of most value to our so-called ‘leaders.’ Indeed, I saw a clip just this evening of the Lt. Governor of Texas saying that grandparents would be happy to give their lives to provide a healthy economy to their grandchildren.

That’s an utterly absurd and appalling ‘choice’ for our government to be suggesting we make. And it’s not even true. (Surprise.) Choosing to knowingly risk even greater spread of this virus would only serve to kill more people and crash our economy even further. It would be the height of cratered and craven values.

But Here We Are

What seeds do you want to plant today? Where do your deepest values reside? What is most precious to you and how do you intend to express your devotion to it/them?

This is where we find ourselves. Our current way of living is unsustainable – on so many levels.

But we can do this. We can make the choices that will enable love, caring, and compassion to flourish. If that’s what really matters to each of us.

Crocus – Photo: L. Weikel

 

(T-613)