Shadow ‘Scopes for this new moon week are up, featuring the stunning occult art of Jes Anthonis. These ‘scopes took a highly cryptic turn with the current Mercury retrograde, so I’d love to hear what resonates for you. Read for your rising, sun & moon signs. First, an overall commentary on the new moon (shadow ‘scopes for each sign below).
This new moon, desires, intentions, urgencies leap forward or impatiently take turns on the see-saw. Communication loops back, glitching, somersaulting through review after review. Traditionally, new moons are times to plant private intentions as seeds into the ground. Ruled by Hekate, the goddess at the crossroads, it’s a time to do the more internal workings toward the path forward, nourished by an awareness of the potency of darkness—what gifts does Luna give when she’s dark? It’s a time to take the steps in which it’s most beneficial to *not* be seen, knowing our work will bear more visible fruit when the moon has more light. New moons in Libra emphasize partnership, conflict resolution, agreements & disagreements, harmony & discord.
This new moon is conjunct Mars, planet of pioneering, desire, drive & war. This force of impatient desire becomes extra cranky in Libra because, whereas Libra is other-focused, Mars’ force represents more self-oriented impulses. So at the heart of this new moon’s concord & discord, harmony & conflict, is personal desire in the context of relationship. The naming & claiming of personal desires is at stake, and with Venus at the final degree of Scorpio, this process includes the naming & claiming of the personal wants & needs, yes’s & no’s, that had been previously darkened or hidden.
Mercury underscores this even more, the trickster’s retrograde dance in Libra playing some heavy-handed pranks: since Mercury involves the mind & communication, all the themes of this New Moon come forward most loudly in their communicative aspect. Misunderstandings in one-on-one relationships can prevail, or revisiting of mundane coincidences (synchronicities) and logistical details that clash with the demands dictated by propriety or emotional tenor of a relationship. But so, too, can reflection & awareness prevail, and effective communication around wants and needs have a fighting chance. We have opportunities to grow in how we communicate more authentically in all of our relationships, our discernment and our embarrassment at our own blind spots growing simultaneously.
Given all of this, what seeds are we planting, new moon style? It’s an excellent opportunity to begin a new chapter of reflection & review of how your wants & needs are transparent within your most important relationships, beginning with your relationship to yourself. This dynamic is even more intensified with Saturn & Pluto, forces of boundaries and passions that lead to the deepest transformation, stationing direct. As the psychologist Cyndi Darnell writes, “One of the most powerful things you can do in your relationships is to be clear with yourself on what you want and what you offer.” Sometimes we skip over the step of clarity with ourselves—a crucial step in the teachings of the Aries-Libra axis, since our first & always relationship is with ourselves.
It’s a good time to not search for easy answers, but to ask yourself what kinds of communication would honestly feel good to you, and what you’re curious & feel impatient to explore, and take all those Mars-driven arguments that come up as reminders to go inward first. I’m always available to you whenever you’re seeking clarity on these topics, and if you benefit from my work I encourage you to pledge to my Kickstarter (link in comments) in support of my upcoming year of astrology content creation.
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ARIES. You love new initiatives, and you’ve taken you & your loved one, or the inner image of your beloved, to a divine dinner at a golden altar. Part of you both are massaged by a scalp scratcher, and the initiation of this lovely caress soon turns into a trap for the stagnant parts of each of you. You’re caught in the grasp of a shimmering hand, fingers of the sun’s tentacled rays making you aware of any place you feel held back in your ways of partnering. Can you take these shiny clutches as catalysts for release, knowing that within the clutch is also the glittery hand that massages you toward your own freedom?
When an army of toy soldiers, the impulse of the cells in every corner of your being to pioneer from a clean slate, appears in front of your dinner and begins crawling all over your face, pulling you into gravity, there’s a part of you that knows an aspect of this “together” fantasy wasn’t yours. This gravitational moment faces you with your own aggressive instinct. Rather than merely destroying what was promised, this is about including the stir-crazy fighting demons into your promised moments of elegance & gift-giving.
These are the cryptic translations of a mad poet’s inner contacts. Say it in a straightforward manner!
*This new moon is an opportunity for new beginnings in partnership or close friendship, or an interpersonal communication that teaches you something. Be sure to find a place for your own impatience & fast motion, and explore how you can find fresh ways to do that without hurting the other.
*It’s possible for misunderstandings to occur—let yourself form a new approach to miscommunication by practicing telling yourself and important people in your life how you want to feel.
TAURUS. The balancing act between ordering your day in a calculating manner & going with the flow asks for a level-up in your relationship to it this new moon. Part of you feels as if it’s descending, looking for scraps on the ground, the garbage heap all there is to ground you. The schedule blocks of your day’s order of events transform into soggy cardboard boxes of rotten fruit & baked goods. How do you crawl through this schism between your mind that wants to make things “just so” and your body & environment showing you a different kind of pileup as a result of doing that?
You’re an alchemist of the pileup—and sometimes that’s a material heap; sometimes it’s a mental one. Often the ideation of piles of chores you think will benefit your life (through their stability & consistency you think they’ll give you) churn out trash instead. This is an initiation into your ability to negotiate the disconnect between the calculated order you think will bring you harmony and the gritty reality thrown in front of you.
This is nonsense spoken by a madman. Say it in plain language!
*Nutrition, diet, daily schedule and negotiation figure prominently into your life this new moon.
*Set the intent to balance short-term and long-term pleasure in what you consume, what you serve & how you work.
GEMINI. Alone & together, free & relational—these are tensions you’re caught between now. This new moon a part of you may feel possessed—the mad, artistic quester of creation within you, yearning to somehow sublimate all that gossip pecking away at your soul into something of beauty or play. A murder of crows—everyone you’ve ever partied with, turned to formidable birds—latches onto the vessel of your creative expression, the stimulation of what you’re creating and the words of hatred for it both equally part of the journey. Your expressive impulse receives a grand stage, a red carpet in space that it seems all the past naysayers, or cranky misfits, in your life themselves have a say in helping you create, if you let them.
You may now see all these generative soul-parts as brothers & sisters, following you from under the carpet of celebration of your work, seeking acknowledgment for what they’ve contributed to the party. This new moon, in the festivities, events or acts of creation you’re putting together, is balancing you as someone bound to nobody, not relationally tied down, and at the same time, you as a sibling to everyone around you. Can you be your brother’s keeper *and* be radically free?
This is nonsense spoken by a madman. Put it more plainly!
*You may feel caught between answering to others in recreational or artistic endeavors and listening to your own curiosity & free-associative whims. While being conscientious, treat the balancing act as an experiment.
*A review of how you want to create and play going forward is in store. What kind of pleasure interests you? What kind of creativity? See if you can find irreverent answers, and all the more so for any doubts that come up.
CANCER. Acting as the point of balance between two sides of your family is not always easy, and you sometimes feel as though you’re tasked with serving as the diplomat between ancestral demands. This moon represents a fresh moment of clarity & intensity in your ability to juggle the needs lurking within your bloodlines. It’s as if you’re expected to keep an even keel while dragging a human train of grandparents, aunts & uncles out of the ocean floor, onto shore.
You then place the warring perspectives within your DNA along the sides of the beach, and your seated position between them allows for a moment of pause, silence, respite. For once, you don’t need to *do* anything or force perspectives to agree. This is an opportunity to acknowledge how conflictive emotions within yourself are complex, not always lending themselves to a simple answer, and how often the best communication occurs by letting all parts of self-and-other know you’re willing to pull them out of the storm to safety, while giving plenty of silent space.
This is nonsense spoken by a madman. Tell it to us plainly!
*This moon may bring family, parental or emotional demands to the foreground, or a sense of private time, or moments only with closest family members.
*Take this moon as an opportunity to review & reflect on how you communicate with your most private self and those who represent “roots” to you. Celebrate layered complexity.
LEO. There’s a part of you that feels alone on the open, dark road within a promise of new sparks of knowledge, or speed, gracing your journey. The ideas and winding roads appear in a shimmer from an aerial distance, but strangely, as you maneuver forward they fall upon your head as bird droppings. The lines of thought that others promised you would bear fruit, or the paths ahead that take you through an invigorating scenic route, are now up for some serious scrutiny. What empty roads leave you feeling unseen, in the name of fulfilling a wish or an adventure other parts of you promised? A cathartic roar into the ghost town sphere around you shows how important it is for you to feel seen and heard.
What opportunity is there for you to lean into the promise of adventure itself as an expression of your taste for glamour & romance? Then, what opportunity is there for you to honor your impulse to stay where you are, cheering on the promises, adventures and schemes of others from afar, helping them charismatically create & re-envision a new framing of “promise,” “adventure”, and “idea” itself?
This is nonsense spoken by a madman. Say something plain!
*You may have an opportunity to take journeys this new moon, either geographically or intellectually, that influence your next chapter.
*confusion that ensues from these journeys is a chance for you destroy the idea that “loyalty” equals submissive pleasing or agreement.
VIRGO. Others may be asking you to give, and you’re pushed in each situation to follow the questioning of an inner voice asking what’s in it for you. Though you fancy yourself the giver par excellence, there’s a part of your soul that’s been pulled into a tiny mountainside hole full of gold—the space in you where, up to this point, you’ve visualized your capacity to *receive* as microscopic. Make way for the golden discs showering upon you, filling your mouth with complete circles of self-worth. You may at first hold all this gold in your cheeks shamefully, as if you’ve done something naughty. But it’s a time to review why that inner space for receiving has been small, explore anywhere you’ve felt undeserving, and roll in those coins wanting you to receive them.
You may know consciously that giving & receiving is a dance, but you tend to want to remain the giver. What if you took this as an opportunity to review how you take in the gifts of that cavity of gold? As it expands, you may worry the ruptures in your self-image will be an avalanche that’ll destroy you, but those discs turn to a sublime shower on your soft body. You can enjoy the gift—and then enjoy giving the gift all the more.
This is the spittle of an eccentric poet. Explain yourself!
*Themes of the way you relate with resources, worth and receiving & giving pop up during this new moon.
*How can you take this as an opportunity to reframe your relationship to receiving—and receive in full knowledge of your worth in spite of others telling you to give more & more?
LIBRA. This new moon you may have found yourself zooming around many race tracks trying to squeeze your partner, or the shadow-other within you, into the zooming car. Roads appear & disappear in the sky as you’re chased by the fireball of argument. This momentum is disrupted by a flavor of aloneness, a solitude, as if your partner is both there & not-there. The moment you turn to them they vanish without a trace—and there you stand crying in front of an old oil painting. The momentum & the crashes may overwhelm at first, but lessons lurk within them.
There are times when squeezing your partner into the vehicle isn’t the be-all-end-all, and when it’s time to let yourself pioneer ahead in that red racecar autonomously. There are times when the race tracks & comrades turn into air, insubstantial, fickle, or dissolving so you can discover smooth harmony anew. The inclusion of the other within your urgent race to your goal may feel too forced right now, but that doesn’t mean all is lost, for it’s the feelings experienced with the other that catalyze each of your awareness of the need for freedom. These feelings provide the raw beauty you need right now. In the highs of the celestial freeway & the lows of the private art-viewing catharsis, you discover partners within yourself, freshly aware that not only can you survive the arguments; you can transform them into passionate heat, whether alone with yourself or with a devoted but equally free Other.
This is nonsense spoken by a madman. I apologize for none of it, but shall put it more simply!
*Your whole environment, world view and life situation is turning a page into an entirely new chapter right now. Who is on board with you for this new chapter?
*What forces or people clash with your needs? Feel into these clashes and let your body respond, in the spirit of an internal review. There’s an inner stillness amid all the outer races toward change, and that stillness will provide you with discernment if you let it.
SCORPIO. A genre-bent, gender-bent & species-bending confusion looms over a part of your soul seeking spiritual balance this new moon. You stand as a wise grandmother, part grizzly bear, over the stove of your dreams. Mixing waters in burner pots, balancing the clear with the psychedelic, it’s as if phantoms of your beloved partner, or your hidden nemesis, lurk in the tea you’re heating up. In fact, your world is opening—the contrasts in the waters’ temperatures & levels of clarity prepare you for the wide-openness of the sky as you step into a new way of relating to your inner & outer worlds.
Those hot & psychedelic colors in the water come from the Other’s urgency as the hidden quickening of what the dream figures, lovers & predecessors offer you. Since you champion the clear, stark ice, you’re naturally suspicious, but you also look curiously toward where their alluring neon fury wants to take you. A rainbow high-tide wave ripple transposed into the wind soars upward, inviting you & your unseen bestial heritage up to a new way of relating to spirit.
This astrologer is intoxicated on poetry. Say it more plainly!
*You may find gossipy argument becoming a theme in your dream life this new moon. Take it as an opportunity to clean the filters of how you let your inner voices speak to you; how you relate to them with respect & boundaries equally.
*It’s a good time to seek solitary mental stimulation, or to consciously spend time with someone who connects you to the spirit world or your spiritual path.
SAGITTARIUS. With your friends & comrades you carry a tightrope. In your relationship with your inner wishes, there’s a dynamic between the urge to destroy & the urge to create. One moment you & your friends or your inner wishing-buddies, look like standing cockroaches—or is it valiant warriors?—wielding axes, chopping shit up for the sake of it, in the name of what you tell yourself is important. The next instant, you’ve stood at the edge of a canyon cliff, its ridge chipped off until you all fall, catch yourselves, and cheer each other on to climb back to stability again. In a moment of respite from all this, you sip tea sweating in a shelter as the vultures overhead carry their own ropes.
The tautness & slack show you different ways of relating with the desires of the wish-groups within you, and the wishes of your comrades. How do you all support each other and balance urgency with patience? How can you let the ground underneath you fall, knowing it’s yielding an opportunity for you all to climb and see from a new perspective? Can you honor the creative and destructive instincts of roach & knight, of the axe throwers & the rock-climbers-in-love, and see that all exist in you, treating them with equanimity, not axing anyone or anything important around you?
This is nonsense spoken by a madman. Say something plain!
*this new moon you may see an opportunity to gather with friends, or to gather your hopes & dreams together, and more into an expanded context. tread mindfully.
*enjoy the urgency of Mars conjunct the new moon but be mindful of sensitivity and care of self & others.
CAPRICORN. Standing on a cold, hard platform, you’re aware of exposing yourself in the public eye. This time, though, it’s not the everyday public only, but the one from generations ago containing the opinions of everyone who has ever fought you. The onslaught of opinions, others’ ways of receiving how you’ve exposed yourself, may temporarily disorient you, flinging tarry spit over the eyes of your inner wounded politician, momentarily taking your senses away. The bats of responsibility & confusion, and of how to expose yourself in your most important relationships, work their magic to destabilize a part of you that feels too locked into one pattern of public communication.
While it’s true that a part of you feels exposure to your onlookers as a shot of freezing hard anti-sympathy, any temporary disorientation & opposition from others represents a chance to step out of a tired pattern of being the boss. After you’re brought to your knees, your decisiveness returns to you, wrapping you in a wintry blanket, balancing your decrees & orders with silence. The world listens, hearing barely perceptible echoes of the emotional repercussions of everyone who has ever taken orders from you, and to the open fields making it all possible.
In plain terms, you madman!
*You may experience demands to be diplomatic in more public or career-oriented settings. Honor your experience while embracing the other’s perspective.
*There’s a chance for new beginnings in your career & life mission, especially in the context of how you harmoniously work with others & balance accommodating their perspectives with your own decisive action.
AQUARIUS. There’s a part of you secretly intrigued, seduced, by the dogmatic gatekeepers, or by the tutors who turn into lovers who turn into mean taskmasters before you renounce it all in the name of your own vision. This new moon, you see the beginnings of your cosmic vision through the composition of mystical creatures laid out in the sky. In the celestial spheres of your mind, there’s an opportunity to articulate the enchanted aspect of your quest for expansive knowledge in a new way. But it must be balanced with the need to eat the dark horse, leaving a hole in that same composition—eating the dark horse of your pride, of thinking you’ve filled everything in and made it all *just so.*
Balancing the enchanted landscapes of that expanded context with its need to have holes, empty space, and room for guidance from people you meet along the way, is part of your fresh beginning this new moon. How can you dance between the act of relishing the harmony of your complete vision of the world with the challenge to eat your own self-satisfaction, leaving room for the imperfection that invites collaboration?
Tell us what it all means, you embellisher!
*There’s an opportunity for a new beginning in study or travel, or perhaps publishing. Be open to guidance from those who have your best interest at heart, whatever you are thinking of expanding in one of those areas.
*Be okay in the midst of a time when it’s tempting to know it all or have someone else know the answers for you. Be ok with not knowing, reviewing & reflecting instead.
PISCES. This new moon, you may feel caught in a partition between turbulent waters, a part of you suspended in the air between rising waves. The call to discern what baggage is truly yours from what burdens are others’ to carry, has you in a balancing position between one wave of urgency & another. Part of you feels peaceful in this airy gap, not yet knowing which emotion you’ll flow into, your nervous system not caught in the undertow of a single challenge but examining two from a liminal point of view. Another part of you, though, feels as a fish needing the water of your natural emotional habitat, even if it’s burdensome.
This, in and of itself, is a dance—You have an opportunity to initiate the dance of flowing into the cathartic charge of one debt, one secret, one unpaid bill, one intimate merging, then rising above and out of it, letting the others & the burdens take care of themselves. You’re charged with rolling in the depths of those sharks of the past in order to also gain an outside perspective; suspending in middle air in order to deliberately submerge yourself in the mood, renouncing argumentation, but choosing the tempest when it feels good.
This is nonsense spoken by a madman. Say something plain & simple!
*Themes of resources you share with another may come up this new moon. Make sure to reflect & not jump to conclusions taking time to understand the other’s perspective or making a practice of revisiting later when you can be more objective.
*There are new opportunities for intimacy, for finding ways to verbalize what feels good to you, whether between you & a partner or you & yourself.
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