{"id":52236,"date":"2012-01-23T01:45:39","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T06:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=52236"},"modified":"2012-01-23T18:04:30","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T23:04:30","slug":"aquarius-new-moon-mars-rx-lean-into-the-tension-and-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/astro-daily\/aquarius-new-moon-mars-rx-lean-into-the-tension-and-listen\/","title":{"rendered":"Aquarius New Moon, Mars Rx: Lean into the tension and listen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Coral reef or sky? Even the constellation Aquarius persists in elemental ambiguity. This image of the Helix Nebula by the Hubble Space Telescope shows tremendous detail of its mysterious gaseous knots. The cometary knots have masses similar to the Earth but have radii typically several times the orbit of Pluto. One hypothesis for the fragmentation and evolution of the knots includes existing gas being driven out by a less dense but highly energetic stellar wind of the central evolving star. The Helix Nebula is the closest example of a planetary nebula created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. Given a technical designation of NGC 7293, it lies about 700 light-years away towards the constellation of Aquarius. Photo: C. R. O'Dell and K. Handron (Rice University), NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today is Monday, Jan. 23, 2012<\/strong><\/a>. It\u2019s quite a day astrologically: not only are we graced with the Aquarius New Moon just before 2:40 am EST, but Mars stations retrograde in Virgo at 7:54 pm EST \u2013 and the Chinese Year of the Dragon begins today. Listen carefully for the days’ messages: you may hear them again at the end of the week.<\/p>\n

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In the last week, we\u2019ve scratched the surface of several of the messages offered by today\u2019s sky as they\u2019ve been coalescing. Len Wallick took a look at the Aquarius New Moon<\/a>; Daily Astrology has considered the Year of the Dragon, Mars retrograde<\/a> and the Sun\u2019s sextile to the Ceres-Uranus conjunction<\/a> on the Aries Point. <\/p>\n

Now Mercury is poised to play courier with these astro-memos, perhaps even more obviously than usual. The reason is that Mercury, currently in late Capricorn, is about to make all the same aspects at the end of this week that the Sun has made with its ingress of Capricorn and conjunction with the Moon (New Moon). <\/p>\n

It\u2019s as though the messages are being repeated in a slightly different form to be sure we really get them. Think of it like calling someone to reiterate the email you sent so that they get the benefit of hearing the emotion in your vocal inflection. Or perhaps it\u2019s more like the other way around: in order to make sure emotion and ego don\u2019t obscure the message, you send an email after the phone call outlining the main points.<\/p>\n

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What is the Aquarius New Moon\u2019s message? In part, this is the Moon that reminds us we\u2019re not merely an indistinguishable segment of a mass \u2013 or, at the other extreme, an island disconnected from anything else. More than that, each of us individually determines how<\/em> we engage with those around us, locally and globally. Neptune\u2019s 14 years in Aquarius have ushered in radical new ways for that engagement to occur (think of the roles of Twitter and Facebook in the Middle East revolts and even last week\u2019s Internet blackout protest); yet the fundamentals of communication, connection and integrity still apply — and may matter more than ever. <\/p>\n

Why does this particular New Moon\u2019s message matter so much? Well, as they say in showbiz, timing is everything. The Aquarius New Moon is a particularly good time for detaching from habits that are holding you in a rut, and all the signs suggest 2012 is a year designed to shake you out of any ruts you haven’t already stepped out of gracefully. We are entering a year of significant astrology, in particular the first exact contact of the Uranus-Pluto square, the Venus transit of the Sun and this Mars retrograde in Virgo. That last event is something Eric has described as a \u201csystems check\u201d for the rest of the year (especially May and June) \u2013 and by extension, for this next era of our lives. <\/p>\n

Now, Mercury is trine Mars today during the New Moon lead-up to Mars\u2019 station. Mercury trine Mars flows with alert, active and practical energy — and good thing. Once Mars switches gears, we will need to be alert, active and practical as we inquire into ourselves, feel compelled to consciously align our words and deeds with integrity, or heal our relationship to our desire. This will take self-compassion, too \u2013 another intention worth setting with this New Moon.<\/p>\n

Eric wrote on Friday<\/a>, \u201cYou may feel a palpable calling to improve your life, your health and your wellbeing during the next few months \u2014 and it\u2019s essential that you proceed with any such quest gently. Warm up before you stretch, and remember, it\u2019s not how far you go or how good you look, it\u2019s how consciously you lean into the tension.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaning into tension is one of the fundamental concepts of a dance form called contact improvisation. If your dance partner leans into you, you lean back \u2013 and in that way, create a stable structure, trust, connection and a point from which the two of you can flow into other movements, shapes and tempos. There is give and take \u2013 it is not all push. But without the lean back into the other, into the tension, the dance dissipates into stasis.<\/p>\n

We have today both flow and tension, and Mercury connecting the two, albeit over a span of days.<\/p>\n

The New Moon occurs as the apex of a T-square, with Jupiter and Saturn completing the structure with an out-of-sign opposition. Len wrote last week<\/a> that, \u201cSun, archetype of consciousness, merging with the intuitive and subliminal archetype of the Moon means that your whole self will be present to the internal tension.\u201d The tension is that Jupiter in Taurus offers the sense that we can step into tangible expansiveness in our lives and really put our metaphorical money where our mouths are; Saturn in Libra tells us, with hands on hips, to see our limits for what they are and get real about what we\u2019re doing. Need they be mutually exclusive? Maybe not. As you figure out where the point of contact is for you \u2013 that place within where the tension allows creative movement both with and against this dance partner known as the world \u2013 file away that sensation for easy recall.<\/p>\n

As noted, Mercury is going to make the same T-square at the end of the week, perhaps offering the intellectual version of the more emotional message we sense today. Mercury\u2019s also going to make the same sextile to Ceres-Uranus<\/a> that the Sun and Moon just have, so keep your ears pricked for the reiteration of the same global\/personal messages regarding food insecurity, agriculture and health.<\/p>\n

Clearly, if the cosmos is giving us two ways to get the message in the relatively short span of a week, the message must be one worth heeding. We\u2019re being given a moment of alert, active practicality by Mercury trine Mars that we can carry forward into our interactions with the world and also on our trek within ourselves. The New Moon offers us a \u2018seeding\u2019 moment so we can grow these qualities in the early months of a year \u2013 indeed an era \u2013 in which we will need them.<\/p>\n

Lean into the tension; maintain contact with yourself and your immediate and global communities in a way that allows flow. The year of the Dragon is known for unpredictability and good luck \u2013 but there\u2019s something to be said for preparing the way.<\/p>\n

Looking for insights on how this week’s astrology affects your<\/strong> personal Sun and rising signs? Try out Planet Waves Light<\/strong><\/a>, our streamlined horoscope service. For deeper cultural context and astrological investigation, the premium Planet Waves subscription<\/strong><\/a> includes the same horoscopes, plus extensively-researched articles on Fridays.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. It\u2019s quite a day astrologically: not only are we graced with the Aquarius New Moon just before 2:40 am EST, but Mars stations retrograde in Virgo at 7:54 pm EST \u2013 and the Chinese Year of the Dragon begins today. Listen carefully for the days’ messages: you may hear … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1734],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}