I’m sitting here trying to decipher the rather busy and colourful astrological chart for this early morning’s new-moon-partial-solar-eclipse and I’m just not sure what to say. New moons are the time to start something fresh, so clean your house and make a list of goals. Eclipses are like a super-charged fresh start. That’s what I got so far...

Maybe it’s because I’m approaching my 30s (the initiatory Saturn return in astrology-speak) or maybe it’s because I’m feeling particularly humble but how the hell should I know what is going on? What have I learned in my brief life and studies that can be reasonably and usefully distilled into a little article?

I know what I would like to do: write something that resonates with at least a few people; create something that taps a nerve of truth; share writing that is practical and meaningful; and of course, write something deeper than those numerous, vague, and overly-optimistic new age platitudes.

Based on what I’ve read, effects of eclipses last about 6 months. I haven’t tested this idea yet but my partner and I started a little experiment to do just that. We wrote down a few concrete goals as well as dreamy visions that we would like to create and experience within 6 months. Half a year from now, we will dig up the list (literally) and see what took shape.  Maybe you can try something like this too and let me know your results. 

What else is going on during this new moon? Well, the Sol-Luna conjunction happens in earthy Virgo, the sixth sign of the zodiac occurring at the denouement of summer and as such, characterized by the hard-working governess of the harvest.

Virgo is about discernment and detail, practical magick and service, health and routine, ritual and work.  So this new moon guides us for the next 4 weeks toward improved health, enhanced organization, step-by-step progress, and review and rectification. Virgo loves to perfect and to analyze. Jupiter has recently moved into Virgo for a whole year and with the guru planet's ability to expand whatever he touches, Virgo themes are highlighted above and beyond the next 4 weeks. Environmental stewardship, energy efficiency, and doing more with less are favourable and let's face it, gravely needed.

On the other side of the zodiac, transcendent Neptune and healing Chiron both in Pisces oppose the Virgo action, creating a polarity of dreams and action, vision and process. Right now, Jupiter and Neptune are forming an opposition. Jupiter on one end of the opposition is strong belief, religious conviction, and expansive optimism and on the other side from a more subtle realm of experience, Neptune is dissolving our beliefs, blurring our convictions, and opening us wide to surreal possibility. Father Time Saturn frustrates this opposition through a  tense square, putting pressure on our wild hopes and optimistic beliefs to test our patience and our willingness to put process into action. The Virgo influence affirms this urge to make steady, step-by-step progress toward physically living what currently exists in our minds and hearts.  

What do you dream of?

What do you need to actually do to get there?

Another sky thing going on is Lilith's proximity to the nodal axis. To me, this feels like a wet and muddy portal opening up and beckoning the wild hag in all of us to come through - embrace your dirty, ravenous, groaning, rage-ful, lonely, instinctual animal.

Mars and Venus, our symbols of masculine penetrative action and feminine magnetism are travelling together for a few months. Right now, the two are dancing in creative Leo, giving our sex drives as well as our feistiness (or argumentativeness) a considerable boost. Based on classical astrological methods, Mars-Venus together is expected to be experienced with more ease and constructiveness for people born at night. Test this one for yourself too.

A trine from destabilizing, brilliant Uranus energizes the Mars-Venus alignment. Uranus is an outer planet, invisible without a telescope-assisted eye. Outer planets are considered as operating on a more ‘spiritual’ level than the visible planets. Uranus to me is sexless…agender perhaps. Maybe a union of the two gender polarities is more accurate. Stark, shocking vastness of the Mind - existing outside of or via the sublimation of sex and gender polarities. The contact from Uranus to our highly personal and sexual aspects of self encourages integration and then liberation from constricting sex and gender dynamics.

I’m still mulling over the concept of authority as serious Saturn prepares to move into learn-from-experience Sagittarius for the next 3 years (Saturn enters Sag on Sept 17, the same day that Mercury goes retrograde). Sagittarius is all about direct, lived experience and the beliefs that follow.

What do you really know to be true?

Do you believe people outside of yourself?

Why?

How do they inspire faith and trust?

Saturn in Sagittarius will call on us to consolidate our own life experience into meaningful and useful belief structures. We will question who we trust and why we do: is the hard evidence in favour of trusting the authorities in our lives?

There are numerous complex and nuanced energetic dynamics are going on - September 2015 will be a turning point of a month. I have some access to and understanding of methods, history, and of course, my own personal experience. When I'm trying to envision and analyze and intuit how these weeks will feel or evolve, I do my best to blend these sources of information into something meaningful and useful.  I invite you to join me and conduct your own research into these energies.