New Moon in Aries | April 5th, 2019 - starting something new, fast breaks from the past, roadblocks and limits, don't shoot your eye out, cleaning up an old mess, how many monkeys can you carry, not being allowed to skip a step, too much her-story or just enough, a karmic emptying that creates a vacuum so be careful what you suck up

On Friday, April 5th, at 4:50AM EDT the Aries Moon will meet the Aries Sun giving us this month's New Moon at 15 degrees Aries.

This is the first New Moon of the astrological year AND in the take no prisoners, get fired up, let's start something NEW sign of Aries!

Aries energy is very self sufficient. This is the energy of "me". The sign of "I am". The baby of the zodiac, Aries can't always see the other person's side of things because if they did they wouldn't be able to take quick, decisive action and that quick decisive action is what they are here to manifest.

Aries is the sign of the warrior.

Let's unpack the chart.

Remember at the time of the New Moon, the Sun and the Moon are at the same degree. Every connection the Moon is making the Sun is making, too - so everything is amplified.

The New Moon is applying to a square to that Capricorn pile-up and the North Node in Cancer - Saturn, the North and South Nodes and Pluto. The squares are wide, but since they are applying, meaning this is stuff we haven't faced yet, they are important.

(now when I say "haven't faced yet" that may or may not be true - I have actually been through this entire New Moon chapter over the last 10 days with a real estate transaction and maybe you - especially if you have a strong Uranian/Aquarius signature, might be ahead of the curve with all this, too)

The Moon does in two days what it takes the Sun a month to do.

So the Moon is going to square these energies pretty quickly - squaring Saturn at 2:01PM EDT, Pluto by 7:50PM EDT and trine Jupiter at 10:14PM EDT TODAY.

The Sun will square Saturn on April 10th, the North and South Nodes on April 12th and Pluto on April 13th.

The squares are going to bring tension/frustration/road blocks. There will be limits. They (maybe authority, maybe a lack of something, etc) are going to slow us down. Saturn is going to make whatever we are starting now - play by the rules. There will be limits and red tape. There will be walls we will need to scale. I hope you have a pair of those grippy socks like the kids wear in the bounce houses to keep from slipping. They will come in handy.

With Pluto (lord of the underworld) at the tail end of this thing it make me think we have unfinished business to take care of first. Like we have another mess to clean-up before this new thing can move forward. The ground we are trying to plant in needs to be raked out and fertilized before this month's seeds go into the ground.

Those squares to the Nodes of Fate make this New Moon set up look like a skipped step in Evolutionary Astrology, so this could indicate a time when we don't want to do what we have to do. Maybe we don't want to do anything. There is something here we have needed to do before and haven't done. We have skipped a step in our Capricorn house (in this life, previous life or ancestrally) and now we won't be able to proceed in a straight line without dealing with it. Skip it, and it will "trip us up" later, so our feet will be held to the fire with something.

Maybe there are bigger problems than we know about with what we are already doing. We have our hands full already, but we just don't know it yet. Maybe we don't have the resources/money to do something and that is where the limit will come in. We have to deal with that first.

The delays and restrictions will work to our benefit later. Adjustments will be needed.

Keep in mind if we are still waiting for someone else to do this for us, that isn't going to happen.

Bottom line - this is Aries. Aries is self-sufficient. This mess isn't going to clean itself and trust me there is a mess in your life somewhere that needs a clean up crew right now. And THAT would be YOU.

After our Moon (today) and our Sun (over the next week) face these challenges, they are going to trine Jupiter in Sagittarius (the Moon tonight and the Sun on April 14th).

Fire trines create opportunities. Fast opportunities. With Jupiter strong in Sagittarius - expansion and good luck.

So, it could very well be there IS something real here with whatever we are doing/starting and we just need to work out a few kinks before we get to the good stuff.

Or maybe the good stuff - renewed confidence/passion - comes through the clean up process somehow or through the disappointment of what we don't get/what doesn't happen.

Karmic clean ups (those square to the Nodes) create HUGE opportunities to move past OLD blocks and boundaries. The blocks are gone, a natural vacuum is created and sucks in the Capricorn stuff we have, but don't know we have!

With Pluto sitting with Saturn sitting with the South Node and Jupiter approaching this whole thing set to amplify it at the end of the year - this is really a time of endings more than beginnings. And focusing too much on the beginning without 'closing out' properly whatever needs to be closed out mucks us all up. There are times we need to sit fallow. Endings change us. We aren't going to value/want the same things after we have had true closure. We need to work the process of that. We are all grieving something!

Again, this is part of this year's Neptune/Saturn sextile energy - making our dreams into something real/giving up something to get something MORE VALUABLE TO US NOW.

This is an excellent time to eliminate a bad habit (something like smoking for example) and replace it with something nourishing, something we do just for us. If it hasn't worked before, that doesn't mean it can't work now. This is right timing. We are releasing lots of toxic junk. All the ways we haven't taken good care of our bodies before can be replaced with improved habits very quickly now.

What we don't want to do with all this South Node/Pluto energy, and please listen up because this is important (releasing old karmic obligations) - we don't want to jump into some crazy complicated commitment now. 

Like we get one monkey off our back and it feels a little light up there, so we go out and get some more monkeys!

Or we take on somebody else's monkey! NO.

If we are doing something like this - we really need to know what we are getting into. Do your homework. Know you are taking on a karmic obligation and you are going to have to see it through. Is it really worth doing? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Think about our guiding star this year - that North Node in Cancer. Does it nourish you? Does it create the warm feeling of home and family? Does it stabilize something? Is it real? Is it what you need or what you want because you wanted it in the past? Does it allow you to be open and vulnerable or just create another scenario where you will have to watch your back/not make the tiniest little mistake?

This will be something we will have to "stay the course" with, so make no decisions lightly.

Also let's keep in mind the Moon's closest aspect - a trine to Ceres (in optimistic and expansive Sagittarius). This speaks of a few things. Since Ceres in our charts is about something "outside our control" and trines create a smooth flow, there could be something within our control here. The power is on in our hands right out of the gate. But, the trine to the Sun could make something seem too shiny, too good to be true. Or maybe we are over-identifying with our maternal her-story in some way at this time. Do we want what our mother wanted? Do we still want it? The Moon trine Ceres feels more balanced. Not so over the top. Like something gliding easily into place and clicking.

This New Moon - which sets the lunar stage for the year ahead, too - tells us to initiate. This doesn't mean grabbing onto just anything that comes our way. We already know what we need to do. We are playing a long game and our pieces were on the game board LONG before this Moon. Keep things in balance. CLEAN UP THE MESS. Do your homework with anything you are starting. Take other people into consideration because all month we are building  toward that second Libra Full Moon, BUT this has to be about us, first. Aries - "I am". We are making a statement about WHO WE ARE with the actions we take now.

Aries energy won't allow us to be paralyzed with indecision, so don't worry about that happening. We will decide. We will move forward. The square to Saturn speaks of patience, but Saturnian squares build real, solid things over time. Stuff that won't be knocked away easily. Stuff that can't easily be taken away from us.

What step have you skipped? What mess needs to be cleaned up? Start there.

New Moon Affirmations

This New Moon is an excellent time for energetic support to make changes with things ruled by Aries - the head (headaches, acne, eyes, brain), the overall physical self, exploration, initiative, courage, leadership, strength, stubbornness, impulsiveness, temper tantrums, anger, stress from inaction - what do we need more of in our lives? What are we needing to release?

AFFIRMATION TIPS: get into a calm, centered frame of mind - always make affirmations from a  positive (meaning certain AND happy/calm) space - write your affirmations down by hand in script, speak them out loud - with a fire New Moon maybe write your affirmations on strips of paper and burn them - 

now release your attention from these things knowing that your intention is known.  

Know these things are already yours. 

xo all

So my stuff over the last ten days went something like this (here is where I toss in a boring story disclaimer) - we are looking for a space to move hub's business. Time is running out. Through one of his customers we hear about a piece of property for sale. The sellers need a fast deal because they are being fined for a needed environmental clean up (not a chemical clean up, wood/wood chips, etc). Other customers say they will help us clean it up (to help keep hubs in business and they have the equipment, etc). We make the seller an offer. He, playing authority/Saturn here, says no, then yes, then no, then yes. We are now thinking we have to move fast before he changes his mind again.

We think we can clean it up, have resources in this area he doesn't have and know what we need to know. This all played along with last week's energies, too. The town tells me seven days to obtain open records on the property, but the title search comes back clean, so we are thinking maybe we don't need the town's records. Again we are thinking we know enough. We know the place needs to be cleaned up. We will clean it up (note - we still have our old mess to clean up at our existing location; a different kind of mess, but still a mess is a mess). And did I say we are paying 1/10th of his original asking price from the year before?

This is all too good to be true, but we aren't thinking this way. I actually worry that we could be taking advantage of the sellers and might incur a karmic debt from that. But, then we look at this massive clean up and think, no, this is a fair price. We ask an attorney to write a contract and firm up our offer. That same night the seller's wife emails us property info that includes a list of 150 trees, 100 bushes, etc - we are like .. hmm, why is she sending us this? Maybe there is stuff we don't know here. The list says the trees need to be 6' tall and I once bought a 6' tall tree and it cost $300. So now, this sounds like not only alot of work, but alot of money, too. Then a customer with a farm tells us we can plant 100 trees (6 foot tall saplings) in a day and saplings are $20 each if bought in bulk. So, we are still moving forward, but slowing this whole thing down. We are looking deeper.  Looking underneath. Hitting Pluto.

I finally get the DEP on the phone and we find out the property not only needs to be cleaned up, but it needs to be RESTORED back to the way it looked in the 1980's!

(there is a connection now to an astrological cycle in 1983)

She tells me 150 trees are not nearly enough. Hubs walks the entire 20 acres and wonders what is under the 15 foot tall piles of wood chips (cement/asphalt/dead horses - we start hearing all kinds of stories of stuff that has been dumped here and have I said this is New Jersey - who knows where all the bodies are buried?!).

We finally reach an environmental specialist who tells us we actually have 1 usable acre because it looks like 19 acres are wetlands - which can't be used in NJ for anything other than wildlife habitat. We love trees and frogs, but maybe not enough to spend our life savings on them right now.

And all the while I can hear Ceres calling to me (she is conjunct Pluto/Uranus in the 10th house of my natal chart) coaxing me to clean up this land, to help her, to help Mother Earth, to nurture this place back to health .. telling me I could make it into a paradise ...

Anyway, it took alot to stop us (yes, we stopped) and it's probably a good thing we did. Roadblocks can be a good thing. But we are disappointed.

I have given the short version here, but the bottom line with this example is - be careful jumping into a big commitment now. If other people are telling you - are you sure you should be doing this? Maybe you need to take a breath. Maybe you have your own mess to clean up first. Sometimes when something is finished we feel the need to move into something else too quickly.

This is how we get trapped in new karma. If that feels familiar - slow this puppy down.

On the other hand there is strong energy now to start something and we only get three fire New Moons a year and this is one of them! We can be starting, moving ahead and still work smartly. Mercury is still in Pisces - there is still something we don't know. So, know there is stuff you don't know. It's going to come out over the next couple weeks anyway. It's already coming out. Just leave yourself some options. Stay in your own shoes. Don't allow yourself to get trapped cleaning up someone else's mess.

Even if something is disappointing now (release your attention from that), let's keep in mind the trine to Ceres NOW and upcoming trine to Jupiter - where is the potential here because the chart shows there is some. What can grow in this soil?

Get those seeds into the ground - set your New Moon intentions. Fire New Moons are too rare to miss!