New Moon in Aries
Today, the Moon joins the Sun at 22°25’ of Aries, 7:30 PM Pacific Time. This New Moon comes in context of a square between Venus, also in Aries, and Pluto in Capricorn. In addition, we have Chiron slowly moving through Aries, creating a kind of potential energy field that is activated when planets move through it. And, last but not least, Mercury here too.
Planets in Aries carry the possibility of popping something fundamentally new into the current order of things. As such, they often carry a felt sense of unsafety, like there might not actually be a place for them here. There is a felt need to fight for their very survival and existence.
With Chiron here, I want to bring our attention to the “current order of things” as it exists within our bodies. There is a pre-existing order, structure, or action pattern here, into which these planets in Aries have a chance to arrive, update or evolve with a truly new possibility and leadership.
These action patterns are rooted in our implicit or non-declarative memory (when looking at the zodiac from a developmental perspective, Aries represents that pre-verbal stage). These patterns are activated and maintained by a feedback loop between particular environmental triggers or bits of information, physical sensations (e.g. butterflies in the stomach, heart dropping, throat tightening, face reddening, fist clench, shoulders slumping), associated thoughts, judgments, and reflexive actions. These patterns arise from interwoven threads of collective, ancestral, family, and karmic stories into which we were born in the middle of, and carry within our bodies.
In other words, at any given moment, an environmental cue or thought can trigger a cascade of events in our body, that articulates a particular posture (Aries/Mars/1st House) to the present moment. The actual bit of information that triggered this felt sense might, and often does, fall beneath our conscious awareness. Before we notice it happening, our perception of reality becomes slightly distorted. We are now filtering those 20 million bits of information that come through in a single second, into 7-40 bits of information deemed “meaningful” according to our current posture, the implicit memory, conditioning factors, and belief system that were activated. This has been evolutionarily advantageous, as it has enabled us to draw upon past experiences and react to a potential threat in the present, without slowing down to think. But, in moments of great change, this can keep us cycling back to re-source the limited past, rather than re-source from creativity in the present moment, to call in the future possibilities that we imagine and long for, for ourselves and the world.
Peter Levine writes in his book, Trauma and Memory:
“The function of emotional memory is to flag and encode important experiences for immediate and potent reference later on. Like bookmarks, emotions are charged signals that select a particular procedural memory out of a book of possible motor memories. They prompt organizing themes for action. In this way, emotional memories interface, well below the level of conscious awareness with procedural (“body”) memories. Emotions provide both relevant survival and social -based data to inform appropriate responses in any given situation, especially where trying to figure it out mentally would be far too slow and likely off the mark. It is crucial to appreciate that emotional memories are experienced in the body as physical sensations.”
He goes on to say:
“While emotional memories are ‘flags’, procedural memories are the impulses, movements and internal body sensations that guide us through the how to of our various actions, skills, attractions and repulsions …
… The third category of procedural memories is the fundamental organismic response tendencies of approach or avoidance, of attraction or repulsion. We physically approach that which is likely to be a source of nourishment and growth and avoid sources of injury and toxicity. These avoidance mechanisms include the motor acts of stiffening, retracting, and contracting. On the other hand, those mechanisms of approach involve expanding, extending and reaching. Patterns of attraction include reaching for a person close to us or moving toward things we want in our lives. Those patterns of avoidance include steering clear of foods that don’t smell or taste right, or avoiding individuals who seem “emotionally toxic” to us.”
This attraction/repulsion mechanism is innate to being in a human body navigating this world. With Pluto though, this action blueprint carries imprints of deep soul wounding. It involves our very deepest attachments that are so driving, so compulsive, so convincing, so existential ... it feels nearly impossible to re-direct. So these action blueprints that were key to the human species becoming what it is now, also carry these Plutonian distortions, like a needle of a compass that is offset by just a degree (or more), leading to a very big cumulative difference down the road.
With Venus squaring Pluto during this New Moon, we have the uncomfortable opportunity to notice what might be held in the magnetic field of an emotional attachment that tugs that needle of our inner compass, such that it no longer moves in accurate relationship to what is life-diminishing and what is life-affirming, but is now distorted by a conditioned this/not that division of reality. The former relationship is rooted in Oneness or connection with 'What Is'; the latter is rooted in the myth of Ego, or dis-connection with 'What Is'. This dynamic was amplified by the Mars square to Neptune transit entering this New Moon.
In Capricorn, this distortion might, for example, have to do with the impact of capitalism on our felt sense of safety when we are "unproductive" according to some external rubric of success and the idea of time = money. Or, it might have to do with the impact of capitalism on our felt sense of confidence when we are trying something new and making mistakes, not living up to some external standard of competence. It might lead us to assume a mental (Mercury) and relational (Venus) posture to 'What Is' that is inimical to Aries' evolutionary intention of fundamental creativity, but still releases the Aries pattern of self-defense and separation.
Not accessing a feeling of safety or confidence within ourselves when we are objectively safe in the present moment, can range from feeling just not fun to really disappointing to totally awful. In that, we are navigating some of the most dense structures of the human experience. Dense with conditioning, emotions, memories, thought loops, judgments, reflexes, reactions. And ... there is some piece of ourselves, of our life force energy, animating this dense structure into creation. When we humbly and honestly meet it, and let go, this creative energy is liberated, returned to us, to empower our core intention. And, to be clear, when I say “let go”, I don’t mean that as "make that felt sense go away" or "make those thoughts and emotions go away". I mean, bring witnessing presence both to the structure itself and to any identification with the structure, whether we are unconsciously identifying with it as who we truly are — or, we indeed see it as just conditioning, but are now identifying with it as our problem, shortcoming, weakness, or not-enoughness for having such conditioning.
So, when I say “let go”, I mean seeing through the conditioning to our essential Nature as pure awareness, that was born into the human condition, in the middle of interwoven threads of collective, ancestral, family, and karmic stories.
As we show up for a brand new cycle (Aries) ... those structures and remnants in our body that do not match the intention and the vibration of the new cycle, break through to our conscious awareness. They might come to the surface of our awareness through an event in our body, in relationship to work, love, children, etc. This is emphasized by the potential energy field created by Chiron in Aries, that is being activated by the Sun, Moon, Venus, and Mercury.
Astrology offers a kind of symbolic vision to see through or, in other words, forgive the superficial presentation of the event, to its place in the greater context of one's unfolding and soul's journey.
So, with Aries energy, there is always a letting go and "forgiveness" and acknowledgement of something that came prior to it. As Jason Holley shared in his recent webinar on Aries in Myth And Psyche, the Ram emerges from the cloud of Pisces and Neptune.
I see three access points right now that can help shift that feedback loop between our thoughts and emotions and hold space for these handful of planets in Aries to do their work from a place of creativity, vulnerability, and interconnectedness, and less from a place of self-protectiveness and separation.
First, spend a full week around the New Moon, noticing our judgments — of ourselves, of our bodies, of other people, of how the present moment is showing up. At the end of the week, notice what core theme is underlying that judgment. Where does that theme come from? What are its roots? Where does that rubric of okayness, enoughness, success, validity, power come from, by which we form our judgments? Bringing awareness to it helps to liberate the part of our soul that has identified with and animated that rubric in the world, making it more powerful and captivating for all of us.
And, in that process, notice even the judgment that you might have in response to catching yourself in judgment. There is no reason you *should* not have tendencies to judge. As long as we are fish in the fish bowl of humanity at this cosmic moment of time, we will be coated by what is in the water and that includes the tendency to judge something as good or bad. To see something and be able to say 'that is good' and 'that is bad', served an evolutionary purpose. But now, this interim capacity of organizing ourselves beyond basic survival needs by slicing up reality into
this is good, this is bad
this I want, this I don’t want
this I select, this I reject
this is who I am, this is not who I am
has come to a point in our trajectory where it is life-diminishing. To believe we can quarantine what is undesirable outside of us and judge it as such, and to claim what is desirable as part of us and elevate ourselves as such, perpetuates this pattern of chronic evaluation that now breeds feelings of unsafety, shutting down our creativity, expansive and holistic vision, and capacity to collaborate. We feel unsafe, because at any moment we might find ourselves bad or wanting, and we have to prove ourselves against that.
Like the rings of debris encircling Saturn, this inherited tendency to judge and this inherited rubric by which we judge, activates limiting beliefs that encircle us and stimulate contraction within the personality in moments when our souls are actually expanding into the unseen, the unknown, and the zones where we are less separate and more interconnected. This creates a split and sense of anxiety, that we might have been feeling under this recent Mars square to Neptune.
From a developmental perspective of the zodiac, there is a natural T-square between Aries and the Cancer-Capricorn polarity, which is currently pressurized by Pluto in Capricorn now and all these planets moving through Aries. Cancer represents the emotions and physical sensations within ourselves, which connect us to all of humanity and our animal ancestors, while Capricorn represents the conditioning factors that can lead us to judge what we find there, in our connection to the rest of humanity, and trip that fixed action pattern of identifying and rejecting, judging and separating parts of ourselves and dividing up our wholeness in ways that create suffering and dis-ease.
As our mind and our identification with its judgments loosens, we come into greater intimacy and immediacy with all that is. We have a new compass of Truth resonance immediately felt in the body and heart. And it's not "just" feeling, we actually allow for more information to land in our awareness and become available to our rational mind, our discernment and capacity for self-inquiry. But this involves putting down the well-worn, familiar shield of judgment (again, not necessarily by over-powering the judgment tendency, but by noticing it and shifting to awareness). And as such, as Chani Nicholas wrote during the Full Moon in Libra opposing Chiron in Aries: “All acts of intimacy are also acts of courage.” To come into intimacy with all of what is in our present environment, without judgment, we come into intimacy with all of what is in ourselves. We can see the seeds and the roots of what we are inclined to judge as Other, within ourselves (Aries-Libra polarity). And, we make change from the most powerful position we have available to us. From the inside out. From the here-and-now. From within our own body.
So what if, with this New Moon in Aries, we intended to bring this conscious Warrior posture to VENUS … to a core value of ours, to what we treasure the most, to what we live for —
to what underlies our authentic definition of THRIVING —
and take a small, achievable action (and this action includes "non-action", pausing, or not-doing) in greatest alignment with this value that we can access
... directly in the middle of the current order of things, of our feedback loop between our emotions, physical sensations, thoughts and judgment?
When we do this, we are resonating with that value and it magnetizes more of that into our experience (this is the capacity of Venus). But know that it is not linear. There are un-knowable layers to be met due to what has come before. So, while we let go of outcome and the timing of expected results, we still take the action most aligned with the highest good, because that is who we are, not in order to get what we want (... I mean, the ego will be doing it for the outcome, but just notice that, include that too in awareness).
That said, I want to say this isn't an issue of will power. So, circling back to what I was saying before, I see three access points that can help disrupt that feedback loop between our thoughts and emotions and hold space for these planets in Aries to do their work from a place of creativity, vulnerability, and interconnectedness, and less from a place of self-protectiveness and separation. One was bringing awareness and forgiveness to that which we judge and the tendency itself to judge.
Secondly, to support our human body, we have tools of self-regulation. It is part of our conditioning to believe that we can get more creative in the middle of these brain-body feedback loops of moods and thought patterns, by a top-down assertion of will power. Neurobiology shows that will power is not the source of behavioral changes, a regulated nervous system is. This involves the basics of eating, sleeping, drinking water and resting. But, in addition to that, it's also important to make these other two kinds of deposits into our nervous system so that we have more to "pull from" in moments of adversity or surprise: proprioceptive (big muscle movement) and vestibular input (moving the plane of your head), multiple times a day. This can be one minute dance parties every two hours, or intentional movements of specific muscle groups, or stretches, etc .... this actually is taking care of your ability to responding with more intention and newness.
THAT SAID ... When we are working with CHIRON, there is a chance that we having something going on in our bodies that makes big muscle movements either difficult or impossible. Or, maybe we have something going on with our sleep that we can't control. Or ... any number of things can make even small additions to self-care difficult to maintain. What do we do then?
You are not alone. We are not alone. There are many modalities that help us re-source ourselves anew from what is life-affirming, in place of re-sourcing ourselves from childhood or cultural conditioning factors that are now life-diminishing and discourage us from entering the unknown.
For me, the third access point to disrupting these limiting loops is by re-sourcing the Earth’s healing energies through flower essences and cosmic energies through astrology. These offer new reference points that help me hold what is happening within my own system in response to the world, from a place of acceptance and connection (and this can include setting clear and firm boundaries from that place of acceptance and connection), rather than the reference points of the past that keep me re-membering postures of defense and separation (and this can including being boundary-less from that place of defense and separation).
If you want to begin this work with me, join my new offering “Flowers, Stars, & Your Authentic Self” in May and June. I am so excited for this work, a lot goes into it behind the scenes, and I am hopeful for the possibilities it will open up for all of us. And, as always, you can schedule a live birth chart reading with me to dive deeper.
In the meantime, take care this New Moon and enjoy the Spring, within and without.
Nicole
