This New Moon is perhaps a momentary break, a little vacation--not from, but in the midst of, all the upheavals and transformations of these times. For some of us, if we are so privileged, this will be a really beautiful moment before what looks to be a long and difficult fall. Knowing that we are likely to face lockdowns again, knowing that the US election is coming (not to mention America’s Pluto return which is only just beginning), knowing that winter is on its way, and that we are in this for the long haul; perhaps the best preparation is to take this time for enjoyment, pleasure, and play, to the extent that we can.
The New Moon is exact at 7:40pm PST on Tuesday August 18th. The Sun and Moon are conjunct with Mercury (their exact conjunction was the 17th) , and all are trine to the south node in Sagittarius, and Mars in Aries. And the New Moon and Mars are both sextile to the North Node in Gemini. This forms an aspect pattern called a kite: a grand trine (an equilateral triangle) uniting the fire signs, with two sextiles (a smaller triangle) forming the tail of the kite (connecting to the North Node). Mars is also importantly square to Saturn, and is separating from its squares to Jupiter and Pluto.
The kite pattern connects the fire signs in harmonious flow, enabling us to access our energy, vitality, creativity, passion, and joy. For some, unfortunately, there may be too much fire--too much heat, energy, or literally fires raging out of control. The tail of the kite, the North Node in Gemini, facilitates an outlet for the energy, suggesting we can best channel all this fire toward our evolution (North Node), which at this time requires our open-mindedness, curiosity, learning, and communication (Gemini).
Sagittarius knows--or thinks it knows. But when everything is changing, our epistemologies are changing too. Whatever we think we know, we will have to release in order to move forward. When we look back on history, we can see that what people thought was true at one time, often turned out to be only partly true, or true given their limited perspective, or sometimes outright false, as time went on.
This North Node in Gemini for the next year and half calls on us to have the humility to recognize that our knowledge is contextual and perspectival. Knowledge, including science, is changing. I expect that with Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius come late fall and through 2021, that we see paradigmatic shifts in the sciences, in technology, and in our worldviews.
There may be another order of Truth that we know through different means: through intuition, resonance, remembering: the esoteric realms of knowledge. Integrating the south node in Sagittarius asks us to let go of our assumptions and what we think we know, while also leaning into an ancient order knowing, namely wisdom. But it’s not what we think. It’s not repeating what our teacher said, or what we read in a book. It’s not anything we’ve ever said or thought before. It’s direct-access truth in real-time, what is true right now and only now. What we can know through direct knowing and not in any other means. It’s a whole different kind of knowledge. And first, we have to forget everything.
That’s a bit about the big picture. More immediately, we are asked to harness joy and self-expression and creativity and play. It’s all the more important when times are hard and uncertain and turbulent. Joy is revolutionary. (In the New Moon chart, there is also a sextile between revolutionary Uranus and pleasure-oriented Venus.) So is unapologetically embodying and expressing our authentic selves.
We access joy, not in avoidance of all the turmoil in the world, but in service to transformation, with full awareness of suffering and iniquity. Mars is part of the fire trine, but is also square to Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn--the main players in humanity’s transformation. So we don’t ignore the truth of things, but we also don’t wallow in it. I think part of our evolution is learning to hold both joy and pain at once. (The Mars squares and coming retrograde is significant. I have lots to say about it, so I’m writing a whole separate post--coming soon.)
There’s a way of thinking of whiteness or the colonized mind as a response to trauma. I’ve been contemplating and grappling with the complex interconnections between trauma and colonization for several years, and was greatly assisted in this process by the transformative work of Pulxaneeks. The idea is that our history of colonization has been made possible because the colonizers were, for the most part, at some point in history, violently or otherwise, disconnected from their own land and roots and traditions and spiritual practices. This uprooting has left a deep wound; a disconnect from home, and heart, and body. The loss of traditions that bring us into right relation with ancestry, family, community, Earth, creatures, cosmos. And in this state of disconnect, in a state of fear and disembodiment, great violence has been enacted.
All the wars, all the torture. The witch trials which ensured Europe’s folk traditions and wise women and healers were wiped out--and if not, terrified into compliance. The history of torturing all those who didn’t conform, like the ancient queers who had no name. The holocaust. The world wars. The deep deep degradation of the feminine. The exploitation and abuse of the masculine. All that brutal history means that trauma response is the norm. So normal it’s taken as given. Few of us even see it. It just IS the dominant culture. I don’t believe we can understand our history with understanding trauma.
The worship of mind over heart, the disregard for emotion, the lack of respect for those who care and nurture, the over-valuation of some people over others, the fetishization of status and title, the hyper-individualism, the lack of embodiment…. These can be read as trauma responses, as attempts to find safety and security in a groundless and unpredictable world. And they make possible the normalized, institutionalized, systemic cruelty on which this society has been built.
None of this is to excuse colonization. We aren’t exempt from personal responsibility just because our ancestors may have suffered. We are responsible for tending to the trauma we’ve inherited and the ways they perpetuates the exploitation and hurt of others. For we know: hurt people hurt people.
So many have only known an overactive sympathetic nervous system, ambition and effort and force and aggression and competition as necessary to survival, disconnection from and disrespect for the body, low-level fear (ie anxiety) as the norm, a worldview in which Earth and animals and people too are seen as objects and resources.
And those who have been privileged enough to have good lives only have good lives because others don’t. Our society is built on exploitation. Our society depends on cheap labour, underpaid service jobs, and debt slavery. Many people have indeed worked hard and achieved much, but the attitude that anyone could do as they did and lead a good life is not just ignorant, but perpetuates oppression.
I’m still learning about trauma, but from what I gather, we don’t recover from trauma by delving into it, necessarily, or through intense catharsis; but through disrupting the normal everyday ways in which trauma responses show up. So, we learn to connect to the body and breath deeply into our bellies. We learn to slow down and rest more. We learn that caring for others is caring for ourselves, and caring for ourselves is caring for others. We learn that over-intellectualizing misses the point--that the intellect only means anything in the context of the body and life and experience and existence and feeling and compassion.
We learn the power of gratitude; that life is sacred; that we are embedded in family, community, society, cosmos; that our ancestors impact us; that we are deeply and intricately interconnected with all other beings; that we are divine; that the world is ensouled. We learn to choose joy over fear. We learn that laughter is healing and that creativity is what life is all about. We learn to live from the heart--not instead of the mind, but in coherence with it. Mind and heart and belly; earth and sky; inner and outer: they are all important. Harmony means all the parts are honoured. If each plays its own tune, that’s no music.
The prevalent attitude that healing comes only through intense and dramatic catharsis is also part of the colonized mindset that values intensity and drama. As we heal, we learn to value gentleness, and subtlety. And that’s not to say that there won’t at times be sudden or cathartic shifts, but that the real work is in the everyday practice of retraining our nervous systems, that to integrate catharsis requires patience and practice and softness.
Resolving trauma isn’t a one-time thing, some epic deep-dive into the source of our pain. Rather it’s a subtle, everyday practice of learning to choose differently in the moment, through slowly, with awareness, rewiring our systems. Through hooking back in to the joy and gratitude of existence.
As we gain a greater awareness of our interconnections, we see that we can’t truly heal until everyone else does too. It’s a privilege to be able to put time and energy into our healing, into our joy. And it’s our responsibility to create a world in which others can too. But we don’t help others heal and find joy through anger, urgency, violence (which is also not to say that people don’t have a right to anger). A revolution built on fear and anger will only create more of that, and won’t actually be a revolution because it will only instate more fear and compliance. Whereas a revolution that is fueled by and honours love and joy and healing for all will truly be revolutionary.
Joy doesn’t come through force or through repressing all the other kinds of emotions that are valid and necessary. It’s only through honouring all emotions that arise as they arise that we also have the capacity to move into authentic joy. So please know I am not suggesting we make ourselves feel joy or disregard pain or disconnect from the very real state of the world and the Earth. Facing reality is important. Shadow work is important. And joy is important too. We don’t have to choose one or the other. It’s both/and.
And so I wish you a beautiful and joy-filled New Moon. May we cultivate joy and carry it with us into all our interactions. May we cultivate joy and thereby bring more of it into the world. May we cultivate joy and carry it with us into the fall. May we cultivate joy, knowing how important it is. May we cultivate joy, knowing that it changes the world. May we cultivate joy, as a magical act of creating a more joy-filled world. May we cultivate joy, for its own sake too. Just because, even with all the hardship in the world, life is a gift.