Venusian New Moon

The upcoming new moon will occur at Leo 24° (23°17′) next Wednesday, August 16, at 2:38 AM in California or 03:48 hours in Mexico City. This is the first lunation written in this blog although, as time allows, I will be uploading the previous write-ups sent over WhatsApp—typos and all—adding a chart like the one enclosed. It is called an “Aries Chart” because it has the beginning of Aries, and the zodiac, in the leftmost (East) position from which the subsequent signs are placed in the usual counterclockwise direction. Such a chart allows us to focus on the relative positions of the planets with respect to the zodiac and to each other. Moreover, this is the same chart regardless of location, and thus it is an archetypal chart for one moment in time yet to be focused on a place in space. Yes, the chart was made for Cuernavaca, the city where I live, but that is only used to show when the event will occur (03:38:04 hours) there. At any rate, I will refer to the chart from time to time.

Venus in the Underworld

The astrologer and shaman Heather Ensworth related a truly ancient Sumerian myth, probably dating from the Uruk period (4,000–3,100 BCE) in the heyday of the Age of Taurus, about Inanna, the goddess of love, war and fertility, along with beauty, sex, divine law, and political power. She was known as the “Queen of Heaven” and was worshiped in three forms: morning Inanna, evening Inanna and princely Inanna—the first two reflecting the phases of Venus, the planet with which she was associated. Inanna also became known as Ishtar in the Akkadian Empire, Babylonia and Assyria, Aphrodite in Greece and, obviously, Venus in Rome, all during the Age of Aries.

In the myth, evening Inanna goes to the underworld which was ruled by her older sister Ershkigal. When Inanna reaches Ershkigal’s throne, she is struck dead after being found guilty by either the seven judges of the underworld or by her own sister, depending on the version of the myth. Regardless, after spending three days dead (!), her personal attendant, Ninshubur, pleads to the gods to bring her back but they all refuse except Enki, the god of wisdom, who sends two sexless beings to her rescue. However, in order for morning Inanna to exit the underworld someone else must take her place. She eventually allows the daemons of the underworld to take her husband Dumuzid, for he had not properly mourned her death. Later on, Inanna regrets her decision and allows him to spend only half a year among the dead, causing the scorching summers of the region, and the other half with her in the heavens while replaced by his sister in the underworld.

The myth is about Venus moving from being the evening star shining after sunset to the morning star appearing before dawn, a change that happens at the conjunction between Sun and Venus when the latter is moving retrograde. Any planet that is within 13° of the sun disappears from view, and that is happening to Venus between August 6th–21st when she figuratively goes to the underworld for a deeply-transformative death and rebirth. Interestingly, the exact conjunction, presumably when she “dies”, occurred on Sunday, August 13th at 05:15 hours in Cuernavaca, about 70 hours before the new moon. We already saw in the last write-up that Venus retrograde presents us with the opportunity to reflect on our relatedness, i.e., how we form and maintain relationships, which is further intensified these days while Venus has disappeared from view.

Back to the New Moon

If you look at the chart, Venus will be at Leo 19° (18°40′) forming a 5° conjunction with the new moon, a few hours after she had a conjunction with Moon and nearly three days after her conjunction with Sun! The significance is clear: now is the time to reflect on how we relate and on our value systems in general. The seed for the next evolutionary month not only has a conjunction with Venus at the time of fecundation but each of Sun and Moon had a one-on-one conjunction with Venus prior to such fecundation, while she is still in the underworld for two more hours, according to the myth.

Venus is the primary symbol of the Sacred Feminine and in Leo, the sign of the heart, she becomes the sacred desire for loving relationships. Yet to be “reborn”, Venus energy at the new moon is full of potential, simply asking us to reflect on how and why we form and maintain relationships. But don’t forget that the Nodal axis has moved to the Aries–Libra signs such that the South Node is now in Libra, the sign of relationships ruled by Venus. At the same time it asks us to build and maintain relationships based on love, Venus makes it possible to send those based on old values to our past, symbolized by the South Node. Only then can we look forward, confront our destiny (North Node) and be who we simply are (Aries).

Furthermore, note in the chart how the Sun–Moon conjunction forms a trine, drawn as a green line with a small triangle, with the North Node (☊) at Aries 27° (26°56′), once again indicating plenty of creative energy flowing to our collective destiny. Of course, that implies forming a sextile with the South Node so the new moon completes a Mystic Triangle with the Nodal axis, providing a creative and productive alternative to the nodal awareness of the Aries–Libra polarity between self-image (“this is who I am”) and relatedness image (“this is how I relate”).

Uranus Injects Newness

At exactly Taurus 23⁰00’, Uranus forms a perfect square with the new moon, drawn as a red line with a little square in the chart, bringing intuition and much constructive, future-oriented energy. Thus, while Venus ushers us to reflect on our value systems in general, Uranus in Taurus brings into consideration not only intuitive knowledge but also what could be termed as “predictable growth” towards the future. Uranus is also a part of two important configurations: a Grand Trine with Pluto in Capricorn (28°33′) and the Virgo conjunction of Mercury (19°30′) and Mars (22°54′)—drawn as a green equilateral triangle in the chart—and a Minor Grand Trine with Neptune in Pisces (27°09′) and Pluto—a smaller green isosceles triangle.

First, the conjunction of Mars and Mercury symbolizes ideas put into action, in this case efficiently (Virgo), so this lunation is not about passive reflection. The Grand Trine adds the intuition of Uranus to potentially elevate the level of mind operating in Mercury with the enormous power of Pluto who is still forming a square with the Nodal axis, thereby keeping the figurative spigot open so the lunation seed has copious amounts of spiritual power directly from the galactic center (not shown) that, at Sagittarius 27°, forms another Grand Trine with the new moon and the North Node.

Kite Configuration

Meanwhile, you may recall that we talked in a recent write-up about the Minor Grand Trine formed between the three transpersonal planets: Neptune at the midpoint of the Uranus–Pluto trine, forming sextiles with both of them. Such figure allows for easy flowing of energy between the planets involved, but here we are talking about the “big shots” that bring generational changes with little regard for individual feelings or considerations. And this Minor Grand Trine will be with us until 2030 in various degrees of intensity, heralding seven years of transformations for humanity.

Going back to the chart, you may recognize the geometric figure of a kite, outlined in green and having as vertices: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and the Mercury–Mars conjunction. Kites behave like a Grand Trine but with some perspective. The opposition is quite helpful in encouraging to take advantage of the gifts and talents offered by the Grand Trine. While oppositions are aspects with a lot of energy to acquire awareness of the opposing polarity, they do not induce activity by themselves but give a sense of direction and focus to the Kite. A Grand Trine has no beginning and no end, and can be thought to be constantly spinning its wheels, so to speak. With a Kite, the planet in the Grand Trine that is being opposed becomes the focal point, acting as the leader of the configuration. At the same time, the opposing planet forms a kind of an anchor, a reference point allowing the lead planet to see a clear direction and purpose. The sextiles from the remaining two planets to the anchor offer the opportunity to activate the channel created by the opposition. Productive energy flows from these “side” planets to the anchor, which may be used to make the lead aware of the creative energy they are making available.

Given that the Minor Grand Trine will be with us for a while, they will form a Kite from time to time with planets opposing Neptune. Please notice how all the personal planets are on the right side of the chart whereas the social and transpersonal ones are on the left. One by one, the five personal planets will be in the lead spot: Moon on August 19th, Mars on the 22nd, Sun on September 19th, Mercury on October 2nd, and Venus on November 3rd, the latter two after spending time in retrograde motion. Thus, each facet of our personality symbolized by these personal planets will be offered powerful intuitions (Uranus–Pluto) this year about how to radically transform (Pluto) such facet in accordance to a new vision for humanity (Uranus and Jupiter in a loose but tightening conjunction) based on universal love (Neptune).

Regulus and Chiron

Plus, there is much healing power as well! The new moon, with Venus tagging along, is in a 6° (loose) conjunction with the fixed star Regulus which is actually a four-star system (two binary pairs) located literally at the “heart of the lion”, its name in Arabic, in the constellation Leo, currently at Leo 29°50′. Regulus is associated with the healing Archangel Raphael and is one of the most fortunate stars in the heavens, said to bring health, glory, riches and power to those who sport it prominently in their horoscopes.

Moreover, you can probably find Chiron (⚷), the “wounded healer”, at Aries 20° (19°43′) forming a trine with Venus. I spoke once of Chiron, the philosopher, teacher and healer centaur who was accidentally wounded by a poisoned arrow of Hercules and, unable to heal himself, traded his immortality in exchange for freeing Prometheus, a titan who was chained in eternal agony for stealing the fire of the gods—reflexive consciousness—and giving it to humanity. At an individual level, Chiron represents strength in vulnerability exposing our deepest wounds, where we feel most insecure, and encouraging us to embrace those aspects of ourselves. The best lesson from Chiron, however, is that individual healing turns collective: by healing ourselves we gain empathy that ripples outward and allows us to heal others.

Weaving a Sabian Tapestry

The symbol for Leo 24° has the image: “Totally concentrated upon inner spiritual attainment, a man is sitting in a state of complete neglect of bodily appearance and cleanliness”, further explained as an interior focalization of energy and consciousness at the expense of all forms of outward activity and care. Its key phrase is: Total Concentration. Rudhyar points out that this is the typical image of a Hindu holy man in the Western mind. Its simplicity, however, hides the fact that staying in The Path requires not only the proper training but intense mindful concentration. He writes: “There can be no halfway measures if the goal of true Yoga is to be realized.”

Even though Leo is the fifth sign of the zodiac, this is the sixth new moon of the astrological year given that we had two new moons in Aries, as you probably recall: one in its first degree, and that of the zodiac, and the other in its last—a very powerful degree sometimes called fateful. In fact, there will be thirteen new moons this year!¹ I want us to reflect once more on the incredibly meaningful sequence of symbols we have received from the new moons thus far, for just like the full moon symbolism completes that of the new moon in one lunation, the twelve, er, thirteen new moons together complete the symbolism of the year. Shall we?

The first new moon, just a few hours after the spring equinox and still on Aries 1°, had the image of a woman emerging from the sea with a seal embracing her, which we took to mean the arrival of a new level of consciousness from the Piscean sea of universal love, the collective unconscious and humanity’s past. Clearly its meaning was not only for the first lunation but for this entire astrological year of preparations for a quantum leap in human consciousness that will occur in the next seven years, per our discussion about the Minor Grand Trine. The seed tells us of energy available throughout the year to accept the new consciousness, even when going against our past ideology and behavior—the seal.

Next came a new moon at Aries 30° with the image of a duck pond and its brood, symbolizing the recognition of natural boundaries each of us have and which must be consciously accepted. The level of consciousness available to the mystic may differ greatly to what is needed by each of us to live our personal dharma. The symbol makes it clear that there is a higher—subtler—level available to each and everyone of us regardless of our current “level”, the distinctness of our duck pond.

We then had a new moon at Taurus 29° which symbol was two cobblers working at a table, which spoke of the process of gaining understanding—the symbolism for feet—differing from mere knowledge in that understanding implies some degree of identification with what is being understood. And that can only be accomplished by considering its opposite to gain an objective perspective, which is why there are two cobblers working on protecting our understanding. Needless to say, our level of understanding will depend on the level of consciousness we decide—and are able—to hold in our “pond”.

The fourth new moon occurred at Gemini 27° and its symbol spoke of another woman emerging, but this time she’s a gypsy exiting from a forest wherein her tribe was encamped. Here we have a conscious attempt to leave behind the tribal and instinctual stage of existence and emerge into the realm of mind and complex, tense interpersonal relatedness. We know from previous discussions that the mind is the structure and form of consciousness. Therefore, when we talk about accepting subtler consciousness, what we mean is to modify our mind so it may reach and hold such new consciousness—beautifying and transforming the “pond”, so to speak. That lunation provided energy and opportunities to work on leaving behind the old ways of relating in exchange for new ones that correspond to the new level we are entering.

Finally, the last new moon was at Cancer 25° with the image of a pentecostal descent of spiritual power to a will-full man who may thus elevate his current ego-will to the level of spiritual-will. To receive the descending spiritual power, we must operate from the level that has been called our higher mind, which holds our “higher” consciousness and is centered in the Self, not the ego. The symbol tells us of available energy to “relax our ego” and operate from the heart and its fourth chakra, particularly during this lunar month that was mostly spent in Leo and will end with a conjunction with Regulus, the heart of the lion.

Wrapping Up…

This is a late posting, in part because I’m still unfamiliar with the blog platform, but only in part. Going back to the myth of Inanna (Venus), she “died” early this morning (Sun conjunction) and began her three-day journey of transformation in the underworld, and we have seen, from the fate of her husband, the importance of mourning her death. I hope she thinks of this message as a proper eulogy, haha.

Retaking the Sabian tapestry narrative, we are in the Balsamic phase of the last cycle which began asking us to relax our ego and center our being in the heart chakra, through which we receive Providence from above. Shortly after the new moon, the Nodal axis changed signs. The South Node moved from Scorpio, where it allowed us to discard the products of our old relatedness like the gypsy leaving her tribe, to Libra where it will happily send to our past the old manner of relating. Meanwhile the North Node moved from Taurus, where we could make progress by assimilating life in a novel way, to Aries where we will make progress being who we simply are.

The new moon will begin a lunation cycle happening mostly in the sign of Virgo. Fittingly, its seed reminds us that there is no such thing as a free lunch and we must show commitment and concentration. Virgo understands the value of doing things right and with the proper level of detail. But, we saw how many different energies are available this month to deeply meditate on how and why we form relationships, including fresh intuitions towards forming new ones. As always, by next weekend you will start to get flashes of insight of what this all means to you personally.

Always Love. 🌹🙏💖

1. Ironically, the November new moon will fall on my birthday, a mere 0⁰09′ degrees from my Sun. ↩︎