New Moons represent beginnings. The start of a new cycle. This seems like good news about now, full of wonder and possibility. And it is. Leveling up is happening. New beauty is being revealed. But beginnings also mean something has ended.
And the more significant the beginning, the more radical and revolutionary the restart-the more profound the loss of the status quo and the deeper the river of grief. Grief, in all its exquisite turbulence, is the alchemy of change itself. It is the verb. It is the boat we must paddle through the uncertainty to find our new land.
Here we all stand, firmly at the precipice of endings and beginnings, in this Taurus New Moon, the astrology tight with transformation. Reflecting on it all, we can certainly guarantee there are a few technical and perhaps inconvenient truths arising during this time, a few vital lessons for us to learn.
One is to ascertain what is truly of value? Venus ruled the last Full Moon in Libra and this New Moon in Taurus, again highlighting this theme.
Money? Status? Competition? Winning?
Or is value grounded in something much deeper?
When faced with the total shifting of our foundations, our perceptions are wiped clean of any habitual or shady residue. Basic resources, connections, love, and empathy all rise to the top, overshadowing any extemporaneous accolades. We see the critical importance of the tree roots. Those holding society together are not the top elite at all, but the grocery clerks, the mail carriers, the nurses, doctors, teachers, and helpers. Outer and inner, we are called to look around us at what is really important and what isn’t. Then act from that place. That is the new normal that is required. I say required because the lessons will keep coming until they are honored.
Because Taurus, the sign most connected to the Earth, is asking us to pay attention. The Sun and Moon are joined by Uranus, which makes this “paying attention” feel more like sharp slaps of awakening though.
“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!”
~ Rumi
Stay woke friends. This is just the beginning.
Uranus is about freedom. Another theme arising now and will become more and more evident in the upcoming months. And like many big lessons, we often need to lose it to really understand what it is. (This Moon is also squaring Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn stirring the reality of the unseen). This forced pause is to allow us the opportunity to look at the most vital meaning of that word.
Freedom.
Where we are channeling the force of freedom through truth, love, and authenticity or selfishness, greed, fear, or control.
It is interesting there are many debating whether this lock down is tyrannical or simply necessary cooperation. Are we working together for a common goal, or is the government using this time to set authoritarian precedents? Where does my freedom of health infringe on your freedom to worship, assemble, or even believe something different about this virus itself?
Does freedom arise in the selfish “me, I” or is it centered in “us, we”?
Interesting and necessary questions. Ones that remind us real freedom cannot be found in the ideology of the mind but the heart of our very humanness.
Because true freedom is not selfishly carving out our unique space in the world, breathlessly defending our position with no regard for another. It is not about using a fear-based definition of value to project avarice or a position of status, but a grounded humility that simply asks how can I give back. It is not about exploitation, but uplifting. It is not about defending, but understanding. It is not about taking, but serving. It is not about using, but being a vessel through which you are used.
In truth, if the weakest among us is unequal, if the Earth is exploited, if we believe in our own superiority, none of us is truly free.
Though we are individuals, we are also part of the whole. Taurus teaches this humility grounded in the example of nature herself. The presence of now. The divine cooperation and delicate balance of our ecosystems large and small. The offering of fairness, none taking more than it needs. The simple rhythm, ebb, and flow of the tides. The trust and faith that after the darkest night, the sun will rise again. Patience. Perseverance. Partnership.
“Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky.”
~Hāfiz
The Sabian symbol for this New Moon is, “The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” echoing the need to bridge the simplicity of nature with the divine covenant of spirit and matter. Additionally, rainbows are bringers of hope after the fiercest storm. They are reminders of faith, of hope, of things being not always as they seem. It reminds us if we endlessly chase the pot of gold, we are left with an illusion ever grasping and never finding. Because the gold finds us through the appreciation and simple gratitude evident in the bending of light itself.
Rainbows are the perfect expression of individual freedom within the confines of cooperation. Light, water, and air working to create the most brilliant and unique expression.
That is freedom.
The revolution we are living is not one of grandiose epiphanies and peak moments of enlightenment etched with dramatic reverence. It is instead found in the pause. The connection. The stillness. The quiet and silence of the heart that beats the same in ALL of us.
“We search for happiness everywhere, but we are like Tolstoy’s fabled beggar who spent his life sitting on a pot of gold, under him the whole time. Your treasure–your perfection–is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the buy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart.”
~Elizabeth Gilbert
Want to know how this New Moon is showing up for you? Contact Aleka for a reading.