Aries New Moon: The Gods of Love.

April’s new moon on the 12^th heralds powerful new beginnings inaugurated by the messengers of spring and bathed in the amniotic sap of rebirth. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac;  the first moon in Aries marks not only a new lunar cycle but a whole new annual cycle. This Aries new moon is particularly strong as a host of other elements accompany and reinforce the luminaries.

Sun & Moon are at Aries 22°- Mercury at Aries 14°- Venus at Aries 26°- Chiron at Aries 9°- asteroid Amor at Aries 11°.

That’s a lot of cardinal fire, a burst of cosmic energy penetrating even the densest matter. It’s the kind of signature that can set the world on fire; it is sheer warrior (of love) energy, and the question presented to us at the threshold is-

What will we pull through the birthing canal. What precious things shall we lovingly tend and hold dear until they take root creating a strong foundation for the coming year and beyond?

The Sabian Symbol for the new moon is-

PHASE 23 (ARIES 23°): A PREGNANT WOMAN IN LIGHT SUMMER DRESS.                        

KEYNOTE: Fecundity.

Masculine aggressiveness and the woman’s desire for fulfilment (Phases 21 and 22) are integrated and realized in the expected child. This three-fold sequence can be seen operating at several levels, and the third term, the child, can take various emotional and cultural forms. The basic meaning remains the same. Summer is the period of fruition. Man – at the receptive “woman” level – reaps the fruits of his dynamic activity.

This is the third stage of the fifth five-fold sequence of cyclic phases. It combines the two preceding ones and suggests INNER FULFILLMENT.

Also in Aries is asteroid Amor at Aries 11°- asteroid Cupid (which is the same as Amor) has just ingressed over in to Taurus 1°. The Greek counterpart of Amor and Cupid is Eros, at Capricorn 7 ° forming a trine with Uranus, god of liberation and change at Taurus 9°.

The Gods of Love are asking us to reconsider our ideas and beliefs about love. What blocks us from expressing and receiving love, and ultimately are we ready for a higher love. Are we ready to enter the garden of Cupid?

Asteroid Amor is conjunct Chiron by 2 degrees facilitating greater awareness of our personal and collective wounds of love, highlighting the hurt places that cause us to contract and cut ourselves off from universal love.

As the Sufi mystic, Rumi says,

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Even though the barriers to love at this time appear impenetrable, it is another great soul, Mahatma Gandhi who reminds us of an “indefinable mysterious Power that pervades everything”. Of this power Gandhi  says,

And is this Power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely benevolent. For I can see, that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence, I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the Supreme Good.”

Though it may seem that we are in the midst of darkness and death, many of us sense a deep stirring in our being calling us to rise beyond the oppression of the soul in captivity and reclaim liberation from the purveyors of doom and life stealing schemes.  In the midst of death life persists and nowhere is this urge to life more tenaciously reflected than an Aries new moon where the impulse to life pushes through even the most barren ground and hardened hearts.

We stand on the polarity point between Eros, god of life and Thanatos, god of death, and like many before us on the quest for sovereignty we must discern what is ready to die and what is ready to be born. Father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud believed Eros and Thanatos are two states locked in a perpetual battle within the human psyche. It is Eros’ consort Psyche who finally sets us free through the depth of her love, commitment, and devotion in the face of adversity. Psyche chooses love at every turn and in pursuit of her beloved enters the Garden of Cupid.  

The polarity between Eros and Thanatos is not a duality of good versus evil, it is more like a continuum of reflection, tension, balance, and rebalance. Without Thanatos, Eros would have nothing to stive toward, nothing to push against, becoming complacent, apathetic, and dull. Without Eros, Thanatos would have nothing to destroy as everything would already be in a state of decay and undoing and before long there would be nothing left -a perpetual wasteland… some may argue that we are currently living in the wasteland. The King is sick, the land is sick, and the people are sick; the vice like grip of Thanatos has held reign for too long culminating in a petrified state of unbalance and near stasis. Fear and aggression are expressions of Thanatos, both break down and reduce rather than open and release. It is love that liberates the soul.

We need Eros’ reviving kiss this new moon as never before; the strong Aries energies are a mighty band of warriors ready to defend life. The pregnant woman in a light summers dress, the fecundity of spring, the bursting array of life in the plant and animal kingdoms are at their strongest. That same principle is in us… can you feel the sap rising, the juices flowing? The west wind is blowing away the dead wood, the Zephyr is fructifying all living things- the messengers of spring have spoken.

In mythology, Psyche is a beautiful mortal woman who falls in love with Eros, and he with her even though their love seems impossible, prevented by a spiritual law that states mortals and gods cannot love equally. Each night Psyche is visited by Eros who makes intense love to her bringing her to the height of ecstatic bliss; their union is consummated in the dark so that Psyche is not aware of her lover’s godly status and in her ignorance their partnership is for a few hours equal. Though she can feel Eros, Psyche never sets eyes on him, however once she becomes pregnant her curiosity gets the better of her and one night she hold a candle over her love to gaze upon him… an act that is strictly forbidden. It is not a horrendous monster before her as she has been told but a breathtakingly beautiful man who upon awakening is accidentally burned from the hot wax of her candle. He tells Psyche, “the one thing I asked you never to do you have done, and because of this I must now leave you”. And off he flies.

Heartbroken Psyche is set a series of seemingly impossible tasks by the goddess of love Aphrodite including making a descent to Hades to request a drop of beauty balm from Proserpina. Although the tasks set to Psyche seem unobtainable, through help from the gods, tenacity, and an unshakable love for Eros, Psyche completes her mission. As she goes at last to set her final prize before the goddess Aphrodite, she is tempted to steal a drop of beauty balm and opens the little box given to her by the goddess of the underworld. Instead of beauty it is “infernal and Stygian sleep,” that is released causing Psyche to fall into a deep state of unconsciousness… the god of death, Thanatos lurks close by in a hazy fog waiting to claim her soul.

Catching wind of his love in danger, Eros now healed and deeply moved by Psyche’s devotion comes to her aid and revives her with his kiss. The lovers win the blessing of the gods and Psyche is admitted into Olympus- a rare honour, and in fact maybe the only mortal to be made divine. Psyche became the Greek goddess of the soul; she and Eros gave birth to a daughter, named Voluptas or Hedone, meaning bliss or pleasure.

With the warrior planet Mars at her side this new moon Psyche’s commitment and devotion is stronger than ever. Mars (Gemini 23°) conjunct Psyche (Gemini 25°) is the Warrior of Love reborn with the aid of a powerhouse of gods at the astrological point of rebirth and renewal. And in Gemini the relationship between mind, our thought processes, and psyche or soul is highlighted. What messeges are we sending into the world as this will influence how the world reacts and interacts with us. As James Hillman says, it is not so much that we have a psyche, it is more that we are in psyche. Everything is in psyche and the Aries new moon is the kiss of Eros that we need to revive us.