Being a soft body, celestial or otherwise, in an environment where the abrasiveness of strife reigns supreme, is no mean feat to pull off. It requires courage, endurance — being exceptionally driven to bend and twist the limits of our nature at our own will.

Luna, whom has a long history of being associated with the body and with nourishment in ancient astrology, becomes one with the night sky on April 12, 2021, at 02:31 AM UTC, at 22°24 Aries. Mars, the ruler of the first sign of the Zodiac, sends a mild sextile ray from its vantage point in Gemini, in an act of sacred witnessing. The two luminaries intertwined are also under surveillance on behalf of Pluto in Capricorn, to which they form a tense square, the kind of friction that erodes and polishes at the same time.

It takes guts and it takes trusting our inner visionary to be led by our intuition while gripped by fear. It takes starting before we’re ready sometimes, and it takes deep intimacy with our desires and knowing that our bodies are able to sense the unsettling presence of power imbalances before we do. If we’re trading comfort for safety, our bodies know. If we’re making decisions from a disempowered place, our bodies know. Flanked by Mercury and Venus co-present in Aries, the New Moon in the scorching domain of Mars offers us a moment of unadorned truth — what we’re clinging onto, hoping it will provide the protection we so desperately seek, may ultimately devour us. Safety is a stranglehold sometimes and confrontation, when not conflict, can be medicine to a heart that is scared of its vastness and the desires it holds.

If we’re lying to ourselves, looking the other way, hoping that in one way or another we’ll learn how to live with discomfort without choking on it, our bodies know and the New Moon in Aries knows. And I don’t know of any other antidote than naming what you need. No matter if it sounds like an entitled demand, or an unrealistic one. Naming transforms, naming pulls into focus. The number of words we swallow on a daily basis so that we can become the perfect, quiet, submissive version of ourselves in this capitalistic dystopia is more than enough.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.