Formless

By Len Wallick

New Moon in mid-Libra today. That means the Sun and Moon will be at the same longitude at about 2:45 pm EDT. That’s a conjunction and it’s why you can’t see Luna. It’s walking next to Old Sol.

Tomorrow, about 12 hours after the conjunction of the luminaries, Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio. Of all the planets, Venus goes retro the least often and spends even less time doing it. That’s a big event too, and we will get back to it. But this New Moon has been our focus all week long for good reason. Or should we say, reasons?

The “everything at once” quality of that outer planet alignment we called the cardinal T-square is very much a characteristic of this New Moon. Let us reiterate our previous blogs this week and count the ways. We will start with general elements, consider the sign and then narrow things down to this particular conjunction.

Most of what we call astrology comes down to two things, cycles and patterns. The most familiar cycles involve the Sun and Moon. A year is defined by how long it takes us to make one trip around Sol. Luna does her own thing but her orbital period around the Earth is very close to being a month on a solar calendar. Because the Moon’s rotational period is the same as its orbital, the same face is always turned towards us.

Try this experiment. Put a chair in the middle of the room. Stand a few feet away and face the chair directly. Start moving in a circle around the chair while continuing to face it at all times. That means you will be moving sideways. By the time you have finished shuffling the circle, you will have also spun around once. Think about it. In the process of your “orbit” you have faced every wall and every corner in the room just as if you stood in one spot and spun around.

Because the Moon keeps the same side to the Earth at all times, it is constantly presenting a different side to the Sun. Those are the phases we see. Today at the New Moon, the side that is lit is the one we never see. In about two weeks the side we always see will be lit, which we call a Full Moon. And so on in between. That is what makes the lunar cycles happen.

The New Moon takes place outside the awareness of most people. Out of sight, out of mind. Because of that, and because we are very visually-oriented critters, this moment is more of a concept than a reality. The main concept is that this is the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.

It is assumed that all cycles are synchronized with each other on some level. Because the Moon is such a big part of earthly life, a new lunar cycle is interpreted as the start of other things as well. What those other things are depends on the sign where the monthly conjunction takes place.

Because Libra is a cardinal air sign, it is associated with new beginnings in the realm of thought, which is where a lot of things start. Before you achieve, you must first conceive. Think about it, all the other signs are represented by some sort of living being. The symbol for Libra — the scales — is inanimate and therefore unique. This gives Libra a quality of detachment and objectivity.

The scales also imply a quest for balance as a value, a cause of its own. Fairness, justice, and consideration of other points of view are part of this sign’s expression. Bringing the luminaries together in this sign is like bringing your whole self to not only accept but seek a new beginning incorporating those characteristics.

But it’s where the conjunction is taking place that makes this a day like no other and this is where that other part of astrology, pattern recognition, segues with the cycles. When more than one event happens at the same place on the zodiac, a pattern of relationship is formed. The middle of Libra is a very special place.

Mid-Libra is the location Imum Coeli (or IC) on the ancient astrological artifact known as the Thema Mundi, or chart of the world. The IC is the darkest hour, the middle of the night, when the need for shelter is most vital. To have the Moon at its darkest where the world’s own chart is likewise implies a deep mystery that tests our courage and our faith.

The middle of Libra is also the ascendant of the chart for Flight 11’s collision with the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2011. The events of that day were a nadir like no other in recent decades, still shrouded in mystery, still a dark mine of fear. An assault to our security and a reason to assail our privacy, stealing the hope from dawn and replacing it with ignorance.

Just over nine years later, the Sun and Moon assemble at that spot to talk of many things. And they are not alone. Joining them are two asteroids. One named after a luminous god. The other named after the darkest of dark souls. Apollo and Sisyphus.

And so we find another synchronization of cycle and pattern. For nearly a year, nearly every time the luminaries opposed or were conjoined, they have had company. Remember the lunar eclipse back on June 26? Sun and Mercury opposing Moon and Pluto, all four square to Saturn, Uranus and Jupiter. And that’s just one example. The urge to merge in mass quantities continues today.

While asteroids are relatively new tools for astrology, the indication so far is that their interpretation is pretty straight forward. In other words they seem to be serendipitously named so as to represent their interpretation.

Apollo, the Sun god. Driving his chariot across the sky every day, lighting and warming the Earth. Patron of music and other arts. Practitioner of medicine. His rise over the horizon every day brought renewed hope and vitality to the all living things.

Sisyphus, incorrigible, greedy, deceitful. Concerned only with acquiring, consolidating and expanding the dominance of his will. Unrepentant and irredeemable, he flummoxed the gods to no end. It is thus that he brought meaning to the phrase ” a very special place” in the afterlife. Condemned to the eternal futility of rolling a stone up a hill only to lose control of the situation before attaining the crest, having to start all over again from the bottom.

One could hardly imagine two more different beings, but they had something in common. They were both defined by the repeating cycles of their eternal existence. The same thing over and over. Now together at the point of the New Moon in Libra, the indication seems to be a window of opportunity in thought.

Here is a chance to conceive of something besides the same-old, same old. See in your mind how the cultural ideals of relationship have been transmitted to us through imitation and do not constitute a value just because they are repeated over and again, generation after generation. How about looking at it from another point of view? Do these ideals work or do they fail again and again? Have they been leading us to a heritage of futility with which we identify and to which we become attached? Is it not a hellish heritage that we pass on as if it was some precious heirloom?

This is a chance to think about repeated lessons not learned. When your safety and security are threatened what do you do? Do you give away your own freedom so that others can be equally suppressed? Or do you create a renewed balance that leaves nobody without, accepting everyone within? Do you place sandbags at the top of the levee even as the rising waters are cutting away at the bottom? Or do you seek higher ground?

Finally do you see that, for all our differences, we have so much more in common? These cycles and patterns, some of them are natural. We are all born here, we all die here and on this plane the fundamental circle of life is entirely appropriate. But these other things, these cycles of fooling and getting fooled, of attachment and conditioning. Those are not necessary to life on this earth. We can do without them. That’s what today, a day like any other day offers. A glimpse, a chance, for another story. A new beginning of useful effort and lessons learned. We may not achieve it today, but we can conceive of it.

Since ancient times, people have looked at the Full Moon and invested its features with story. A face, our own image in the sky. Or a rabbit, tasking the eons away. But the New Moon has no story, no face. The rabbit is in the hat. In the dark and mysterious recesses of potential, formless and without limit. Waiting for us to reach in and pull it out.

While we are still reaching into that place, Venus is preparing to demonstrate how to turn things around. After spending all year as the glory of the western twilight, it will station retrograde and in three weeks it will be crossing the face of the Sun, on its way to a new dawn. Dare we follow?

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