Today (Tuesday) the Moon is in Taurus all day, and just past midnight EDT Wednesday ingresses Gemini. Then about 11 hours later is the Gemini New Moon — a conjunction of the Moon and the Sun at 7+ degrees of Gemini, at 2:40 pm EDT Wednesday. This New Moon makes an unusual aspect pattern. The conjunction is exactly square Neptune, to 1/5th of a degree. That is precision, and where Neptune is concerned, precision can be very helpful. It’s also square a point called Apollo in Virgo, an asteroid. Apollo’s theme is the mistakes one makes repeatedly. With the New Moon’s square to Neptune (and an opposition to asteroid Bacchus) the question really is about what mistakes are made repeatedly with any influence of drugs or alcohol. Alcohol is the most widely available consciousness-altering substance. It’s so widely available and the buzzed, tipsy, half-drunk or drunk states of mind so commonplace, that it tends to disappear into the environment, just like Neptune. Yet this is the moment to make the process or the experience tangible; to notice what is happening. The decisions may involve work, but there is stronger evidence in the charts suggesting that they involve relational and sexual choices. Apollo says the thing to look for is the pattern, which may go back many years. There is also evidence in the charts to suggest that the influence may come in through people to whom you are connected. The alcohol may seem like their problem, but it can become yours by osmosis.
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I’m feeling the Neptune trance. The weekend was filled with bbq’s and parties and I am struggling to recover today, slow moving. There were no problems due to the alcohol intake though, but there was no excess. My natal Juno is currently conjunct Neptune, and much is shifting in my marriage, an acceptance of the people we have grown into over 15 years, with the many changes each person goes through, and how that continues to merge on different levels. Things have been dissolving and reforming as Amanda M mentions, more rapidly than usual, and yet Neptune makes it feel like slow motion. I also have my natal Atlantis conjunct the new moon, and was feeling a certain dread this morning, woke up with anxiety, and had to remind myself throughout the day that it was just an illusion. It worked.
Martha Lang-Wescott has associated the asteroid Bacchus with “excess; addiction; attempts to manage feelings, people and situations through substitution or avoidance; contact with orchards, pine and fir trees, vineyards; intoxication”.
A major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion, Διόνυσος, Dionysos) was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy. The last god to be accepted into Mt. Olympus, he was the youngest and the only one to have a mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theater.
Dionysus was known as Βάκχος, Bakkhos, the name adopted by the Romans and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. He is also called Ελευθέριος, “the liberator” (an epithet he shared with Eros).
Young Dionysus was said to have been one of the many famous pupils of the centaur Chiron. According to Ptolemy Chennus in the Library of Photius, “Dionysius was loved by Chiron, from whom he learned chants and dances, the bacchic rites and initiations.”
Wine, music and ecstatic dance frees Dionysus’ followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the god himself. His cult is also a “cult of the souls”; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead.
Martha Lang-Wescott has associatied the asteroid Apollo with “being a slow learner, attraction of recurrent and familiar crises, going against the odds, ‘banging your head against a brick wall,’ provocation, and doing it again and again.”
One of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities, Ἀπόλλων Apollōn has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, medicine and healing, music and poetry.
Apollo represents harmony, order, and reason—characteristics contrasted with those of Dionysus, god of wine, who represents ecstasy and disorder. The contrast between the roles of these gods is reflected in the adjectives Apollonian and Dionysian. However, the Greeks thought of the two qualities as complementary: the two gods are brothers, and when Apollo at winter left for Hyperborea, he would leave the Delphic oracle to Dionysus.
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god. The old oracles in Delphi seem to be connected with a local tradition of the priesthood, and there is not clear evidence that a kind of inspiration-prophecy existed in the temple. This led some scholars to the conclusion that Pythia carried on the rituals in a consistent procedure through many centuries, according to the local tradition. In that regard, the mythical seeress Sibyl of Anatolian origin, with her ecstatic art, looks unrelated to the oracle itself. However, the Greek tradition is referring to the existence of vapors and chewing of laurel-leaves, which seem to be confirmed by recent studies. Plato describes the priestesses of Delphi and Dodona as frenzied women, obsessed by “mania” (μανία, “frenzy”), a Greek word he connected with mantis (μάντις, “prophet”).
Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague. Some common epithets of Apollo as a healer are “paion” (παιών, literally “healer” or “helper”) “epikourios” (ἐπικουρώ, “help”), “oulios” (οὐλή, “healed wound”, also a “scar” ) and “loimios” (λοιμός, “plague”). In classical times, his strong function in popular religion was to keep away evil, and was therefore called “apotropaios” (ἀποτρέπω, “divert”, “deter”, “avert”) and “alexikakos” (from v. ἀλέξω + n. κακόν, “defend from evil”).
“…like I was being pulled into his failure to see not just all the facts, but the ‘truth.'”
indeed. and i find it can be easy to forget that when we point out another’s failure to see the truth, we ourselves are often failing to see the greater truth, if we’re continuing to stay involved and invested in the same ol’ relationship pattern. it’s that frustratingly fine line between *seeing* what is going on and *acting* on that knowledge by changing our own behavior, or the dynamic of the relationship.
neptune, you sticky wicket, you…!
Amanda and Amanda, you touch “the truth” unmistakably.
Amanda P – I’m with you on the figurative interpretations. I woke up this morning thinking about getting caught up in someone else’s delusion. Had an experience last night with someone I’ve been in some form of relationship with for nine years in which I totally felt like we started flirting with our old patterns and like I was being pulled into his failure to see not just all the facts, but the “truth.” Although both of us were doing that at some level, I suppose. With my natal Jupiter at 7 Virgo and Mars at 11, I’ve felt like my beliefs about things lately, specifically my desires, have been dissolving and reforming, with this specific relationship receiving a a little bit of focus. Helpful to see that reflected here so that I can start coming up with some kind of new moon ritual to help use the energies more consciously.
28 May 2014 18:40:12 UT
NEW MOON – Sun (7 ge 21’21”) conjunct Moon (7 ge 21’21”)
– trine Mars (9 li 29’51”)
– square Neptune (7 pi 33’22”)
– conjunct Altjira (7 ge 41’50”)
– square Sphinx (6 vi 27’27”)
– square Apollo (7 vi 21’47”)
– opposite Bacchus (9 sa 27’26”)
Bacchus is the Roman name for Διόνυσος Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and intoxication.
The New Moon’s shadow enshrouds and illuminates a great mystery:
In Cosmos and Psyche, Richard Tarnas identifies an archetypal association between Pluto and Dionysus. According to Tarnas, “the Plutonic-Dionysian principle appears to act by compelling, empowering, and intensifying what it touches, with profoundly transformative and sometimes overwhelming destructive consequences” (p. 166).
Tarnas further observes that the “nature of the Plutonic-Dionysian principle is to press towards greater intensity, to the extreme, to be compelling, deep: radical as radix, root, grounded in the depths, drawing on the power of the underworld, driving whatever it touches to an overwhelming potency that has a compulsive, destructive, even self-destructive potential.”
http://www.archaijournal.org/Tarnas_World_Transits_2000-2020_An_Overview.pdf
I have Neptune conjunct my ascendant Square’s moon sun and Mercury. It takes constant work to feel my feelings and find center. Funny how these aspects are playing out as I am visiting relatives. Being in Aquarian I have learned to detach on purpose, find solace in nature and go for a run when things get too intense. Thanks for the heads up and the validation
I have a natal new moon square Neptune. Although I have mostly avoided alcohol and drugs, I have often endured their effects through my family. As for myself, I was cut off from my gut feelings and true identity until mid-life. Since that time I have grown astronomically (and astrologically) with frequent spiritual assistance. Even the issues within my family have lessened over time. There is nothing like getting on with life.
There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya ’bout the raising of the wrist…
Apollo versus Dionysus
Excerpts from The Birth of Tragedy (1871), translated by Ian Johnston.
http://denisdutton.com/nietzsche.htm
in addition to the literal interpretation of “alcohol” that accompanies neptune (and especially bacchus), i’m also wondering about the more figurative interpretation of a pattern of getting caught up in another person’s metaphorical “intoxication” (delusion, or failing to see all the facts), and making choices based on their dream or (perhaps misplaced) optimism in spite of one’s own gut or sense of center?
that to me feels like another very relateable scenario.