“Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.” TS Eliot
“There are things you can’t reach but
You can reach out to them, all day long.
The wind, the bird flying away…
And it can keep you busy as anything else, and happier.” Mary Oliver
Recently I was reading a piece by the poet Robert Bly about a men’s workshop he was conducting on the coast of Maine. There was a man in the class who had just retired from a long career as a very driven and accomplished business person. Robert Bly was surprised by the distance the man kept during the workshop – often sitting alone or at a distance from the others. At one point, though, the man spoke up and said in a quivering voice, “I don’t know what has happened to my life. I used to be so passionate and driven about my work and now all I want to do is sit by the ocean and watch the sea birds fly.”
April’s fiery New Moon is in the wee hours of April 1 at 11 degrees of Aries. This is a time that signals a very dynamic new start of a cycle – but with its caveats.
At the time of the New Moon, Mars, Saturn, Juno and Venus are conjunct in the late degrees of Aquarius, squaring the Lunar Nodes in late Taurus and Scorpio. Traditionally the Lunar Nodes in astrology are associated with “destiny” and “fate” although in more contemporary terms, are associated with important threshold times – when choices are made which will influence the future more strongly.
Venus, the planet of values is involved in this configuration. We are living in a time of great changes and a time of shifting values – when things that were important once before seem less important now – just as the man at the workshop was experiencing.
When Venus is squaring the Nodes it bodes well to make any choices having to do with what you really value in your life with more consideration than you might give normally. This has to do particularly with avoiding choices that have led you down the wrong path before or could represent the repetition of an unproductive or addictive pattern. Also choices based on an ancestral influence that do not lead in a healthy direction.
It’s a good time for reviewing commitments in your own your life as well as your commitments to others and to make any new commitments clearly and specifically.
Aries is the sign of action and desire so this New Moon is a good time to move forward in a dynamic way.
Much of the struggle we see going on now between the old ways and the new, more innovative ways, has to do with the square between Saturn and Uranus – a long lasting influence which was exact in 2021.
One of the Sabian symbols for this time is,”A woman has risen out of the ocean, a seal is embracing her.”
Sabian symbol from Lynda Hill
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