By Len Wallick
The Moon conjoins with the Sun in Virgo on Sunday night, shortly after 11 pm EDT. That’s a New Moon. It represents what astrologer Deborah Houlding calls a “conception point”, germinating a new lunar cycle. This takes place on the threshold of a new week, the verge of a new month and only days after the Sol’s ingress to Virgo. As such, it would seem that this particular conjunction of the luminaries is especially emphatic, drawing our attention to one of the best things earthly life has to offer, a new start.
We know that the Earth orbits the Sun. We also know that the Moon follows its own elliptical path around our planet. What we see from the surface of the Earth is a relationship of motion between the two. That association follows a cycle that comes about by a difference in their apparent speed. Luna appears to be much the faster. Thus, like the hands on an analog clock, the more rapid one will repeatedly oppose, catch up to, meet, and pass the other.
The Moon is the faster of the two luminaries. When it catches up with the Sun, we cannot see it unless it is positioned directly between the Sun and the Earth. That would be a solar eclipse, which is relatively rare. Most of the time Luna is simply lost in the glare of daylight during the few days each month when it rises and sets on the same schedule as its solar companion.
The Moon’s reflected light diminishes as it approaches the Sun and grows again after Luna leaves Sol behind. That process resembles the cycles of life on Earth where small, often unseen beginnings grow, flourish, wither and disappear to start over again. It is thus reasonable that the luminary conjunction should be called new and represent a time keeping device.