The Sun and Moon will meet up to begin a new lunar cycle at 20° 40’ Aquarius on February 9 at 2:58 p.m. on the West Coast. In Earth’s northern hemisphere, it’s still deep winter with a glimmer of the coming spring. February 1 marked about halfway between the winter solstice and spring equinox, a holy day known as Imbolc (or St. Brigid’s day) in some pagan cultures. Where I live, the daffodils are blooming. It’s the first hint of spring.
Aquarius is on every astrologer’s mind now. That’s because on January 20, the outer planet Pluto entered the sign of Aquarius, where it will remain for about the next 20 years. Pluto in Aquarius is a generational signature that will manifest socially, culturally, politically, and technologically in ways as yet unknown. Pluto’s cycles are among the longest of the very out-there planetary bodies.
There are faster-moving cycles. The Moon passes through Aquarius briefly every month. The Sun spends a month each year in each sign. Just about everyone alive on the planet knows their date of birth and, therefore, their Sun sign. Aquarius is our fixed air sign, associated with objective thinking, group activities and humanitarian concerns. An Aquarian way of being is enigmatic. It’s a sign with two different planetary “rulers” and some contradictory qualities.
For most of astrology’s history, Aquarius was thought to be “ruled” by Saturn, the furthest out of the planets visible to the human eye. Saturn represents limits, solidity, and the endings of things, including death. Yet after the outer planet Uranus was discovered in the late 18th Century, modern astrologers connected Aquarius with Uranus and themes of individual freedom, innovation, and rebellion. How in the world can Aquarius be connected both with stable Saturn and iconoclastic Uranus? It’s a conundrum, to say the least. Some astrologers solve it by favoring Saturn or Uranus as the ruler of Aquarius, not both.
I prefer to think of Aquarius paradoxically, like this: In the interpersonal realms, I see Aquarius as anchored, even favoring old ways of being. But in matters of a transpersonal nature, I see an Aquarian impetus for radical newness. Seasonally, in the high winter of the northern hemisphere, Aquarius is both mired in snow and glimpsing the onset of spring. Aquarius is essentially contradictory. It is wyrd in the sense of being beautifully strange.
At the New Moon, we look to the condition of the sign’s ruling planet(s). At this February 9 New Aquarius Moon, it’s both Saturn and Uranus.
Saturn, in watery Pisces now, will be making a facilitating 60-degree sextile aspect with expansive Jupiter, now in earthy Taurus. Limits (Saturn) combined with openings (Jupiter). It’s like having one foot on the gas and one foot on the brakes. That may sound like going nowhere. But it’s also the potential for realism, as in watching for possibilities while remaining steadily cautious. The dreaminess of Pisces combined with the pragmatism of Taurus is an encouragement to do something now that we might otherwise not have thought about.
Meanwhile, Aquarius’ other ruling planet, Uranus, will be in a tense square aspect with the February 9 New Moon. For a brief while, something edgy and impulsive may occur, and it might be way outside the usual norms. That, too, can be exciting. Uranus, in a seven-year passage through Taurus, is making a harmonious trine with beauty-seeking Venus in the forward marching earth sign of Capricorn. To boot, Venus is moving toward a conjunction with Mars, also in Capricorn.
Such an abundance of earth energy at the time of a New Moon always strikes me as a great invitation to get things done. At this New Moon, that means setting intentions in the style of Aquarius: holding onto something old with Saturnian fortitude while also opening up to something wildly new and as yet unimaginable.
Blessings for the Aquarius New Moon and with prayers for peace,
~ 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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