Just two days before the December 21 Solstice, in the early evening of December 19, the Moon will begin a new phase with the Sun, at 28 degrees of Sagittarius. This New Moon is exact at 5:43 pm Pacific (8:43 pm EST). Endings and beginnings roll together at this sacred time when darkness promises a return of light.
Sagittarius, the mutable (changeable) fire sign, is commonly thought of as a domain of travel, adventure, and sunny, optimistic personalities. Sagittarius is also associated with belief systems, which might range from open-minded to dogmatic. At its best, Sagittarius is a Great Quest for purpose and meaning, for what’s true. Sagittarius’ root word is sage. The quest for truth leads not so much to more information, but to wisdom.
A symbol for Sagittarius is the Archer. The sign’s glyph is an arrow pointing upward. Every time I see this arrow, I remember a quote from Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan. Elaborating on a line from the great Persian poet Al-Ghazali, Inayat Khan wrote that spiritual initiation is like shooting an arrow into the dark, at a point one cannot see. One does not know what the arrow is going to hit; one only knows one’s own action. This is the spirit of Sagittarius, the faith that the arrow will reach a blessed destination.
Sagittarius’ ruling planet is Jupiter, construed in some popular astrology to mean good fortune, which is too simplistic. Jupiter’s more aptly understood as a force of expansiveness. Whatever it is, make it bigger. Jupiter’s currently in the home-sweet-home sign of Cancer, and at this New Moon, Jupiter in Cancer is making a tense, tight 90-degree square aspect with the asteroid Chiron, symbolic of woundedness and also healing. This New Moon is an invitation to open oneself up to nurturance of old wounds.
At the December 19 New Moon, Venus and Mercury are also in Sagittarius. Four planets in the same sign at the same time is called a stellium, intensifying everything about the sign in play.
This stellium makes December 19 a Sagittarian field day, a time to be fired up with the grandiosity of Sagittarian tendencies to love and desire more, more, more of what’s good. Fortunately, at the same time, the four planets in Sagittarius are also making a tense square with Saturn (limits) and Neptune (visions and dreams) in Pisces. Saturn is a force to reign in Neptunian idealism.
New Moons are famously times to contemplate one’s intentions for the coming month, so a good question at this time is: what is realistically possible at this close of the calendar year?
There’s a clue offered by Mercury, now moving in direct motion in Sagittarius. Transiting Mercury is making a square with the Moon’s nodes, those invisible points in the sky where the Moon’s orbit intersects Earth’s path around the Sun. These transiting lunar nodes, symbolic of our collective destiny, are now in Virgo and Pisces, the pair of opposite signs that straddle a seeming contradiction between perfectionism and acceptance of all.
Mercury represents our faculties for how we perceive and are perceived by others. Mercury square to the Moon’s nodes speaks to something we want about our interior life to be accurately known and expressed, like a mirror that tells an undeniable truth.
That’s the same mission as Sagittarius. It is the big, fiery passion for the arrows we shoot into the dark to land, with purpose, on something of value that’s real.
Blessings for the Sagittarius New Moon and for the stillness of the Solstice Sun!
~ Sara
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