Heron on a dock out behind the 7-Eleven in Montauk, New York. Photo by Eric.
The New Moon in Pisces is exact at 5:34 pm EDT, just a few hours after the Moon arrives in that sign. This is a spectacular New Moon, happening at the midpoint of Neptune and Chiron in Pisces. With precision befitting a nautical engineer, the New Moon splits the distance between these two slow-moving points.
See if you can spot the Sun and the Moon in this chart. Their glyphs are accurate pictograms, and one clue is they have the same numbers next to them. Neptune is above the Sun, Pallas is next to the Moon, and the little key is Chiron.
To one side we have the imaginal, dreamy energy of Neptune. To the other, we have the pragmatic, hyper-focused quality of Chiron. This New Moon is saying we need a balance, and it’s showing us how to create one. Notably, this is happening with Neptune brand new in Pisces, and with Chiron still a recent arrival; Pisces is very much a sign of the times, and we have to get used to spending at least part of our lives living on water.
When you think of Chiron — and I suggest you do, since it’s one of the best things about studying astrology in our lifetimes — think of it as a utility to help you access the subtle energy of the outer planets. Here we have a case in point. For a couple of years, Chiron and Neptune have been traveling close to one another, at about the same speed (Chiron is a bit faster).
If you recall there were a series of conjunctions of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune in 2009 (those were in late Aquarius), and now over time, that conjunction has developed very nicely into a useful setup that is teaching us about working with the different elements of thought: intuition, emotion, cognition and varying degrees of focus.
Chiron is currently at the center of all of this, like a therapist coordinating a group session. Or you could think of it as an art therapy session. Imagine someone is a survivor of some emotional or psychological damage, and the therapist hands them a blank canvas and says: paint. They may have never painted before, but it’s not so much about the ability to paint, but more the creative process of opening up and putting anything at all on the canvas that helps them heal.
Through this process of art creation, they heal the trauma AND make a beautiful painting (that is, access a deeper layer of themselves that comes out as something authentic and beautiful). The process is tangible, it’s structured, it’s not so easy — but ultimately it’s rewarding and much healing, progress and success comes from it.
The art therapy, though, is not a given. No therapy is; it’s an option, and the work you do there is an option. It’s as though the therapist offers the person a space and a choice. Option one, do the process; but it’s going to be a challenge to access those feelings, and require some bravery to express them. Option two, no art therapy, and in fact the person gets to laze around the beach all day (or indulge in the conflict that has preceded this point, and which revealed the need for healing in the first place).
Doing the therapy process is a conscious choice the person has to make to ignore the easier road and jump into a process they may know little about, to heal some deep stuff.
Some people will experience this New Moon as a blame session, where they blame and nit-pick everything, and shuck responsibility. They won’t own their shit. And the guilt of ‘survivor syndrome’ could come up big. Yet, the people who will consciously enter the therapist’s art studio will rise above what happened, heal, move on, and stand in their truth. There is an option here, and it’s wide open.
This New Moon seems to scream: make art, be honest, own your stuff. Own where you are struggling, don’t brush it under the carpet; let go of what doesn’t belong to you (especially guilt); do the hard work; and some brilliant diamonds of tremendous value will come out of it.
This is dynamic, though feels like a teetering seesaw. It can go either way — delusion and blame or art and brilliance. The way it goes depends on the individual and how they use another aspect in the chart: Saturn and Apollon. Saturn represents a structure; currently it’s conjunct a rarely mentioned, slow-moving point also in late Libra, which is like a super Jupiter (that would be Apollon). The boundary of Saturn is being pushed outward from the inside. The question is how a person uses that traction and structure, whether you choose the path that tests and challenges you.
At the heart of the issue is the fine details of survivorship — how it can make some people shine brighter and others get warped and twisted by the guilt. We are all survivors. Guilt is always toxic. We have a right to be here; and if we’re hurt, we have the opportunity to heal, if we want it.
There’s one other point worth mentioning: the closest point conjunct the New Moon, which is an asteroid called Pallas Athene. In the midst of Pisces, this is suggesting that you make a plan; a plan for healing, a plan to create, a plan to do what you truly want to do — and to plot out some ideas how you might get there. If you don’t know, if you cannot break down the steps, then focus on the goal and let the first few strategy points come to you. Trust that they will. Pallas Athene loves humanity. She comes when we call on her.
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