Ok, so here we are on a day with so many transits and things happening that I gave it its own post AND we have the New Moon in Virgo. A zodiac sign that can sometime get lost in the shuffle/have its importance overlooked. We aren't going to do that. I have said before that Virgo is my favorite of all the signs and will not be short shifted into something like - clean up your life, make a list, organize your closet. Although yes you can do those thigs if called to.
We are going to go a bit deeper than that, folks :)
OK, let's unpack this lunation!
The Moon catches up with the Sun at 11:27PM EDT tonight at 18 degrees VIRGO - giving us our monthly New Moon and our annual New Moon in the practical/earthy sign of the virgin.
They are exactly conjunct asteroid Chiminigagua. Yes, that's a new one for me, too! The New Moon sextiles Mars in Cancer (who is exact with asteroid Child). The Moon answers to Mercury at 0 Libra (exact with asteroid Magdalena). There is a Kite in the chart to Neptune in Aries that also includes Mercury/Magdalena in Libra, Pluto in Aquarius and Uranus in Gemini.
Asteroid Chiminigagua is named after the Muisca creation story. The core myth is remarkably exact for a New Moon. In the beginning there is darkness, and the light already exists - but it is contained within Chiminigagua. Chiminigagua then releases that light and sends great BLACK BIRDS into the darkness. The birds travel through the world, breathing luminous air from their beaks and wherever they travel, the world becomes illuminated. Only afterward do the Sun and Moon appear as visible manifestations of that primordial light. So maybe what Chiminigagua is saying here is that - the darkness is carrying something that has not yet become visible. Which is pretty much exactly what a New Moon is!
The Sun and Moon are literally together, so from our perspective here on Earth, the Moon is dark. But astrologically, the new cycle is already seeded. The light hasn't disappeared. It has gone inside! So maybe this asteroid here now is a kind of reminder/doubling down on the New Moon herself.
Virgo can sometimes get reduced to “clean up your life, make a list, organize your closet.” I have done this myself. But this chart gives Virgo a much more interesting assignment - discern what is real before you can see the result.
(this lines up rather nicely with Uranus's retrograde station with Sedna we talked about HERE - and with astrology being a study of symbolism we are always looking for repeats and echoes that kind of tell us we are likely on the right track)
Virgo is the sign of the seed, the craftsperson, the healer, the person who notices the tiny thing everyone else misses. Virgo doesn't need the whole picture. Virgo just needs to know - what is the next right thing? And I have said "just" here, but this little thing is actually a very big thing. And Chiminigagua says - you may not be able to see the light yet because the light is still inside the thing! That feels especially important because of the long void-of-course Moon that follows the New Moon.
So, we don't demand that the new thing become a tree tonight. We just water it.
The New Moon perfects at 18-degrees Virgo. Then the Moon's only major aspect before going void is the sextile to Mars at 19 degrees Cancer, with asteroid Child sitting right there. It's so tight on the New Moon it is pretty much happening all at the same time. The sextile IS the New Moon.
So the first movement out of this darkness isn't an explanation or a revelation or a conversation or a decision or some kind of a dramatic external event. It's Mars in Cancer with asteroid Child. Something is done. Something is protected. Something is tended. Something is REMEMBERED. Something vulnerable is fed. Something small is cared for.
Typically, with Mars we think - I act. I assert. I pursue. I fight. But Mars in Cancer asks - what needs protecting? What needs tending? What needs defending because it is still vulnerable?
And with Child right there, that becomes almost literal archetypal language - PROTECT THE VULNERABLE THING. And the “child” doesn't have to mean an actual child, although it can be. It can also be the new idea, the fragile relationship, the wee start of a creative project, the part of ourselves that is just beginning to trust again, the thing that isn't ready to be exposed to the world just yet, something we've recently begun caring about and this fits Virgo extraordinarily well because Virgo isn't particularly interested in grand declarations of intention.
Virgo asks what we can actually do? And Mars in Cancer answers - CARE FOR IT.
AND THEN THERE IS THE KITE telling us that what is happening is bigger than we are/is ready to take off. The Grand Air Trine is Mercury 0-degrees Libra (with asteroid Magdalena), Uranus, retrograde at 5-degrees Gemini and Pluto retrograde at 3-degrees Aquarius. And Neptune at 3-degrees Aries opposing Mercury/Magdalena while sextiling Uranus and Pluto, making Neptune the focal point of the kite.
If we think about what a Grand Air Trine can do and then we look at the players/symbolism/energies involved - Mercury, Uranus and Pluto. Mind, awakening and transformation. And the retrogrades pull in some really OLD STUFF that we don't even remember anymore but still carry as well as re-peating storylines. Ideas move. Information moves. Conversations move. Old mental structures can be dismantled quickly. There is tremendous intellectual and conceptual circulation here.
And again, what does the kite point toward? Neptune! The thing that cannot be completely explained. The thing that dissolves categories/boundaries/reality. The old spaces we can't know/understand, even see clearly. The thing that asks us to surrender the fantasy that everything meaningful can be intellectually mastered. And Neptune is in Aries. So, this isn't passive spirituality AT ALL. And the New Moon's sextile to Mars - ruler of Aries and this Neptune now - is an opportunity created through action.
And we have Magdalena opposite Neptune! And I think they are more 'in dialogue' with Mercury here than they are against each other. The woman who was historically interpreted/judged/made smaller by the institution stands opposite the direct, ineffable spiritual experience that cannot be completely contained by the institution.
Magdalena is also the witness/the disciple who saw the newly risen Christ.
She is a symbol of the reporting of - something happened to me. I experienced it. I cannot entirely explain it. And then history gets involved. Other people interpret her. Traditions form. Stories accumulate. Her identity gets complicated by centuries of interpretation.
So putting Magdalena on Mercury asks us to think about/look at during this New Moon cycle (the next two weeks most strongly and also the next six months until the Virgo Full Moon) - what happens when the witness gets her voice back? And opposite Neptune something larger and more ambiguous - what happens when we allow the original mystery to remain larger than the interpretation that grew up around it?
The energy of Mercury/Magdalena at the base of that Kite in Libra isn't saying - now I will tell everyone they're wrong.” Instead, it says - "I am going to put my account on the table, and you are going to have to reckon with it". The woman who has been talked about begins speaking for herself. And, of course, the woman needn't be a woman.
And this is the New Moon's ruler that carries the question! Mercury doesn't have the Neptunian spiritual experience himself. Instead, Mercury asks questions - What was that? What does it mean? How do we describe it? What do we call this? And freshly minted in Libra, Mercury is particularly concerned with the socially accepted interpretation. What is legitimate? Who gets to speak? Whose interpretation carries authority? What version of the story gets placed into the cultural record? What happens when two people claim different interpretations of the same experience? Mercury in Libra is always reminding us - THERE IS ANOTHER PERSON HERE!
This is a New Moon about trusting that something luminous is already forming in the darkness and tending it quietly enough that we don't mistake our need for certainty for the light itself.
BOTTOM LINE - New Moons are seeds planted in the dark. Virgo makes this one real and practical and stable. Chiminigagua says - the light exists before it becomes visible. Neptune says - the mystery exists before it can be explained. Magdalena/Mercury says - and eventually someone has to find language for what was experienced. Virgo says - but choose that language carefully. Libra says - and remember that your interpretation isn't the only one in the room.
xo all - so, what is true AND what makes room for the other person?
And we don't build the whole future tonight. We breathe life into the one living thing that is already in our hands.
And I would kind of read the order of this situation/whatever this New Moon is for you as the following. Because keep in mind after all this elaborate symbolism - the Grand Air Trine, Neptune Kite, Magdalena, Chiminigagua, Child, the dispositorship loop that takes from the Moon to Mercury to Venus to Mars and back to the Moon -
the Moon herself does almost nothing.
She makes one sextile to Mars (that caring/protective action)
Then she shuts up. For now.
It's as though the chart is telling us that we have done enough thinking. And the next significant movement comes when the Moon enters Libra and meets Mercury on Saturday - the ruler of the New Moon, carrying Magdalena's symbolism from the New Moon. So, the silence isn't permanent. The voice returns.
But it returns with the Moon in Libra, so as a conversation, relationship, listening, exchange and the recognition that another person exists on the other side of the table. And then Luna will catch up with Venus on the 14th in Scorpio and this is right before Venus - who is now carrying all this Lunar stuff from the New Moon - squares Pluto on the 15th - the first of three. Amazing astrology happening in an amazing world.
I still have another Eclipse post to go up, and it rolls right into this. It's very personal, so I need to get some distance to finish it up properly :) I hope something here is helpful.
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