New Moon August 12, 2007

New Moon August 12, 2007

19:51 Leo

7:02 pm EST

4:02 pm PST

Our new moon takes place in the middle of a line up of planets in the fixed, fire sign of Leo. Arrayed together and all connected with and to each other are Mercury, Moon, Sun, Saturn, and retrograde Venus. The Leo planets trine retrograde Pluto in Sagittarius, making a closing or integrative trine to the transformative power of the Lord of the underworld and evolution. When planets are in a closing trine, we see and experience their energy for how easy it is to create, harvest or generate productive and useful things with the considerable combinations of the energies involved.

The tension of the opposition is past. We’ve experienced the power of the opposition and the no, pick my side. We’ve seen the planets in a face off across from each other, pushing and pulling, dual in nature, shooting at each other like in the Wild West at high noon duel in the middle of town. They forced us, asked us, and described for us the differences between the two sides. We felt that they were so different from each other.

The closing trine is the two planets going off to have a beer and chat things over at the saloon after their shoot out of the opposition. They actually are friends, those planets. They need each other to create things ~ combinations of energies which help them create. Now the planets as buddies, the shoot out of the opposition was for you to see them as two separate actors. Think of them as friends now. The shoot out was to help you understand how they want to create. The ease and flow of the closing trine results in the planets working cooperatively together to create life, existence, crops or whatever it is they are creating in your life.

The Sun and Moon are opposite to Neptune, engaged in burning off the fog of the Saturn- Neptune opposition. Once the Sun arrives, that morning fog disappears. It’s been at least a year long fog ~ but boy is it burning off quickly under this new Moon and hot summer Sun. Neptune is opposite Venus, Mercury and Saturn too ~ conjuring up those dreamy summer days, stretched out in a hammock with a glass of lemonade and a book. There is an inconjunct of Mercury to Uranus asking us to adjust our thinking and understandings, adjust our beliefs about the things in our lives. What IS important to us?

We don‘t often think about combinations of energies any more. Back when we were more agriculturally based, we were much more in touch and aware of how things interact with each other to create life and things in our world. Now, we go to the store and buy a piece of chicken, ready made, seasoned and in cute little cutlets to cook for dinner on our gas barbeque. We didn‘t have an opportunity to watch the egg appear, gestate and hatch, feed the birds with grain we grew and stored in our barn, see the chick grow to adult hood, catch it, kill it, pluck it, cut it into pieces and season it. We bought it cut and seasoned from our grocery store. We skipped all those earlier steps!

And, we didn’t have to go cut down a tree and saw the trunk into logs to create wood in small enough pieces to barbeque the chicken after banking our previous day‘s fire to make sure we even HAD fire to cook on. We went to the store and bought a tank of gas which we light with a push of a button when we want fire in our portable fire making barbeque. We didn’t even talk about the foxes and coyotes who want to eat our chickens every night or the time it took for the chicken to grow up to be edible or the torrential storm that almost drowned the darned birds.

The planets in their eternal dance remind us of the ever present energy of cycles and all the steps needed to get to where we are now in our lives. While WE may not have grown and killed the chicken, someone else did, out of OUR sight perhaps, but the process took place. It is the only way to get a chicken to eat for dinner ~ we, or someone, has to follow the many steps to get where we are. It is the same thing with our lives.

While we may not be conscious of HOW we got to WHERE we are in our lives, we took all sorts of steps to get here. Closing trines give us the harvest, the results of what we’ve been working on and toward, consciously or unconsciously. It is a combination of things that create that chicken ~ mother and father chickens, food, water, space, time, and a person to go get the chicken and perform the necessary steps to get it ready for our dinner table. It is a combination of things that create where we are in our lives.

So, we find ourselves at the eve of the barbeque of the chicken. Time to harvest and cook the chicken ~ closing trine. Time to start to feed and raise a new chicken ~ new moon. Or do you want to raise a new chicken? Maybe you want a sheep or pig or goat? Or perhaps a cow? Perhaps you’ve decided to turn vegetarian and just eat veggies going forward? Do you want to give up chicken raising altogether and move to the big city and buy chickens cut up at the store? Or perhaps head off to manage a restaurant in Hawaii and tell people how the chickens were raised?

This is the last new moon in Leo while Saturn journeys through Leo. Time for you to make decisions. The new moon in Leo says to each of us, “You have finished your journey of Saturn through Leo. You are wiser now. You know how to create. You’ve learned to raise chickens (or whatever you’ve been working on since July 2005). You understand the nature of creativity. You understand what is needed in your life to create, nurture, love or be passionate about. Great! Now, what do you want to do NEXT as Saturn gets ready to journey through Virgo?”

Saturn in Virgo will be about perfecting our individual journey of creation. Raising it, harvesting it, apprenticing to it, editing it, proofing it, fussing at it, cleaning it up, practicing it, feeding it, and making a good solid, life long habit of it. Before we get to Saturn in Virgo, we have a few more questions to ask and answer of ourselves.

Venus in retrograde Leo is approaching her second conjunction with Saturn and closing trine to Pluto. Venus says to each of us it is all about love and our desires. If we have love and desire it, we will find ourselves much happier as we move through the process of our lives. What do you love and desire? When we see, find or create what we love and desire in our lives, we know we are home. So what do you love? How can you make it part and parcel of your daily life? How can you make what you love a habit and component of your being? As we all move into the working, perfecting, assessing, quantifying, evaluating and qualifying energy of Saturn in Virgo, remember Saturn in Leo. IF we remember these gorgeous, glorious summer days when Venus danced with Saturn and Pluto in the last degrees of Leo, we know what we love! It will make it SO much easier to create the lives we were meant to lead if we follow our loves and passions. (Hint ~ they are wrapped up in your Saturn).

The Sabian image for 20 Leo is AMERICAN INDIANS PERFORM A RITUAL TO THE SUN. Lynda Hill’s interpretation of the image is:

Commentary: ‘American Indians’ are pictured here ‘Performing a Ritual to the Sun’. Twice a year, each tribe performs a Sun Dance, a sacred ritual that is held over four days that honors grandfather sun and the four directions. The people respect and revere both their society and the natural environment. The warriors of the tribe endure trials of pain and endurance to prove their strength, stamina and ability to protect those in their care. They gather together with kindred spirits to pay homage to the natural elements that sustain them in their lives. They do this to get back to the natural elements; they respond with their intuitive feelings than logic. In our everyday modern lives there’s a tendency to forget to take time out to ‘Perform’ grounding ‘Rituals’.

Oracle: The ‘Sun’ in this &
lsquo;Ritual’ can rela
te to one’s sense of selfhood, identity and ego. A good, healthy sense of self and ego is wonderful and should be celebrated. There can be a feeling of belonging to a culture with shared visions, regardless of whether you actually come from it. However, it is possible that someone in this situation has been caught up in the glamour of ‘Ritual’ and has been ignoring the true purpose of it. Perhaps there is a need to draw the ego back into perspective, especially if it has become over-inflated. Traditional ‘Rituals’, or ceremonies, can inspire people to action. They often bring renewal and relief to people, and solutions to situations. Tools like affirmations and meditation are useful to clarify goals and ambitions. It is important, however, not to rely on ‘Rituals’ to magically produce what we want. Use these methods to enhance what you are already doing in order to contribute meaning to your life. Take a moment to remember your relationships with the earth and her people.

Keywords: Restoring spirit. Rituals and worship. The desire to return to nature. Shining through one’s life, not through social credentials. Sweat lodges. Drum-beating. Celebrating a unique heritage. Participation with nature’s cycles. Eclipses. Smudging. Reveling in the larger picture leading to belonging and oneness. Fire, passion, spontaneity, sacrifice. Restoring sacredness. American Indian traditions. Vision quests. Fasting. Courage. Conquering bad habits and attitudes. The truth of conviction. Prayer. Eagle feathers. Baptisms of fire.

The Caution: Egoistic responses to life situations leading to narrow responses. Relying on rituals to manifest magic. Losing sight of the meaning of ceremony. Holding onto tradition without intuiting new and modern truths. Living in the past. Cult worship. Losing identity in one’s own culture.

Copyright © 2007 Anne Ortelee

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