We have passed through what everyone was correctly calling the “intensity” of the November 8 Taurus/Scorpio lunar eclipse. It was ponderous. There were unexpected events. And after the dark and the scary, what comes next is the upward, shooting flame of Sagittarius.
At the November 23 New Moon (Wednesday, 2:57 p.m. Pacific), the Sun will have just entered Sagittarius the day before, highlighting the feeling of newness. This will be a particularly Sagittarian lunation, as Mercury and Venus are also conjoined in Sagittarius, forming a four-body stellium, a cluster of planets in the same sign. There’s no better time to zero in on a Sagittarian way of being. It’s there in this fire sign’s glyph: an arrow pointing upward.
Each astrological sign is both a compliment and a corrective to the one preceding it, and a launching pad for the sign that follows. Coming between the brooding depth of watery Scorpio and the stoicism of Capricornian earth, the exciting warmth of Sagittarius can feel like a respite. Its common key words include optimism, buoyancy, faith, broad-mindedness, and adventure.
That’s all good, except that fire can be either creative or destructive. On the low road, a Sagittarian personality can also be boisterous, blunt, dogmatic, and arrogant. Full disclosure: in my own chart, the Moon and Saturn are together in this sign. I cannot tell you how easy it is for a sharp, shooting arrow to fly out of a big Sagittarian mouth!
At its best, the Sagittarian imperative is about moving forward in a grand quest for truth, justice and the meaning of life. While focusing more on the forest than the particular trees, the trick is to not wander off the path, to look down once in a while, and to not trip over your own shoes.
The New Moon in Sagittarius is an invitation to contemplate our beliefs and aspirations. Are they rooted in facts and data, represented by this sign’s opposite number, Gemini? If not, now’s the time to review where our righteous views come from. There’s a good saying for this: don’t believe everything you think.
There are some swift transits aiding the November 23 New Moon, namely the conjunction of Mercury and Venus, also in Sagittarius. Mercury and Venus, respectively, are the forces of mental agility, aesthetics, partnerships and what we love and value. If you want to know what you believe and strive for, try writing about it while Mercury is in Sagittarius (November 17 to December 6).
Mercury, the Winged Messenger, together with Venus, the Goddess of Divine Beauty, have me thinking about poetry, art, and music. Not subtle, nor sublime right now, though. Mercury and Venus in Sag is more like someone shouting from a megaphone—maybe in a foreign language—or good old rock n’ roll. It’s art and music that may be brutally honest and also have a healing potential as Mercury and Venus are forming a harmonious trine aspect with Chiron, the Wounded Healer, in Aries.
The overall feeling of this New Moon is one of uplift and possibility. We look to the planet “ruling” or “guiding” the November 23 stellium in Sagittarius. It is Jupiter, the magnifier of all things. Jupiter right now has been revisiting its other home sign, watery Pisces, from October 27 until December 20, when it will enter Aries until May of 2023.
At this New Moon, Jupiter will have just stationed before it will resume direct motion on December 4. As I learned from Michele Finey’s 2022 book The Test of Time: Exploring Stationary Planets, a planet hovering and about to change direction is ultra-powerful in its symbolism and manifestations.
That’s what’s going on at this New Moon in Sagittarius. Expansive Jupiter will continue, for a few weeks, to travel with visionary Neptune, Pisces’ outer planet ruler. Jupiter and Neptune are buzzing and brimming, free-form, with all kinds of possibilities for what comes next. It’s time to take a big breath of inspiration and faith.
Blessings for the Sagittarius New Moon!
~ Sara
Sara R. Diamond, an astrologer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a life-long student and practitioner in several esoteric paths. Her style of astrology combines modern-psychological astrology with insights from traditional astrology. Sara is also an estate planning attorney. In addition, she has published four books on right-wing movements in the United States and earned her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. You are invited to contact Sara via her website at www.SaraDiamondAstrology.com.
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