- Signs, Sabian Symbols, and What It All Means -

This article covers significant aspects, degree symbols, and other important factors in this New Moon chart. We are now out of the recent planetary compression in Aquarius which put us in a Bundle Jones pattern for the last several New Moons. This is the final Bundle Lunation until the next Great Compression coming in January 2022!

The last decan of Aries is where we take the power of personal initiative with a sense of potential futures and focus the potential into the new activity which follows Pisces. This is the next step in the new Aquarian process which is unfolding, where we’ve let go of the old with as much compassion as we could generate and leap into “the future in the making.”

As we discussed in part one, the 2020 December Solstice accompanied the Grand Mutation at 1 Aquarius, setting a new 20 year Aquarian theme into motion for the entire world. Many old structures and assumptions will be set aside in coming years, and a broader vision, a broader understanding, and a broader “atmosphere of synthesis” will help us all see the interrelationships to things. This begins many decades of ending the extreme sense of separateness bred by the Earth materialism of the past 200 years.

Long Term Effects of the Capricorn and Aquarius Compressions

While I’ve given this to you before, it bears keeping in mind that we renewed the long term Capricorn conjunction energies of last year in January, just as we renewed the emerging Aquarian era through multiple conjunctions in that sign in January and February. As I explained in the main article on The Great Compressions of Early 2020, 2021, and 2022, in January through March 2020 we experienced the second of four consecutive compressions of planets. The first was in early 2019 when all the planets were bundled in about one third of the sky, called a Bundle pattern, which is the rarest of all. While this expanded after that, we again hit maximum compression again in March 2020, and then expanded through the rest of the year.

This clustering happened again this year in the last half of January into early February, with maximum compression was around January 19-21 when all of the planets were within a 101 degree span, creating a very intense zone of activity wherever we have late Capricorn through early Taurus. That was a very crowded house, with 10 distinct energies occupying less than 1/3 of the total space! Since then, we’ve been “expanding the field” as Mars moves further away from the span between late Capricorn and early Taurus.

Depending on the position of the Moon and the inner planets relative to the outer planets, different months bring us different Jones Patterns. These patterns operate their own independent influence, regardless of which planet is in which sign.

Currently, the outer planet occupied span begins with Pluto in late Capricorn, and proceeds through Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius, Neptune in Pisces, and ends with Uranus in Taurus. Now that the inner planets are in Aries, they intensify and complete the outer planet occupied span, even as Mars moves further away from the span.

Last month was the final “classic” Bundle Jones pattern of the year, as in the weeks since then Mars has expanded the occupied planetary span to 146+ degrees, about 5/12 of the sky (excluding TransPluto, since Jones didn’t use it in defining his patterns). In this chart, we have every sign between Capricorn and Gemini occupied, marking a transition between the “Bundle” Jones pattern and the coming “Bowl” created by Mars in the coming weeks. That implies we’re expanding out of the “bunching of narrowed experience” of the Bundle and about to move into the larger contrasts marking the Bowl. So this month, say goodbye to our New Moon run of “Bundle” Jones patterns.

The Bundle Pattern and how it works

This type of spread, with all the planets occupying approximately one third of the signs with two thirds unoccupied, creates “the least common of the seven basic differentiations,” and creates a “bunching of interests or the intensive self-gathering which is least responsive to any universal stimulus” and as Dr. Jones noted in a section on another pattern, a “special obsession with some particularly narrowed aspect of experience” which characterizes the Bundle people.

He continues that “the meaning of the concentration of the ten planets in one single third of the zodiac is that the course of the native’s life is held to certain narrow bounds of opportunism,” and they are “almost completely inhibited, in contrast with the outstanding lack of inhibition in the Splash pattern. He then goes on to say that “Characteristic of the Bundle type is an outstanding capacity for making much of little, or for building small beginnings into great and often unanticipated final results.” He also notes this type can mold their world “by some highly centralized force of self-concentration.” This type is not universal in the slightest, but rather “brings universe to center.”

With Pluto in Capricorn leading the concentration of planets, and thus the entry to the entire pattern, it shows we need to be disciplined and organized as we continue our deep transformation leading us to our symbolic mountaintop, where we will find other seekers for the highest. As Pluto is relentless in its purifying power, this is a time to note the seeds of the future, and use “Economy of Energy” as the means to plan anew in some effort, as per the Saturn degree ruling all the planets in the sky.

Those of us who learned “structured mobilization” when Jupiter was in Capricorn can now demonstrate a mature and compassionate mind being fearless in its experience of the NOW. This month puts the spotlight on our ability to follow through on whatever “hope for the future” we’ve been carrying, and will give us an ability to use our imagination to reclaim something we thought was lost.

With Mars in Gemini closing the Bundle, let all experience lead you to the pursuit of knowledge which can help you make social and/or emotional progress despite limiting conditions. Open up to finding the right balance, the right rhythm, demonstration when to be “yin” and when to be “yang.” This period can lead to a new heart strength, so be compassionately powerful in your powerful compassion.

Since Pluto will continue to open the span of experience for months to come, and Mars in Gemini will end the span of experience this month, and end the span in Cancer in May and June, see every “entry to experience” to focus your efficiency and ability to express your Higher Self with precision, moving through the “big picture” duties and opportunities of Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius, going deeper into the flow in Pisces, seeing our higher consecration in Taurus, and launching it all in diverse ways in Gemini! This leads with individual, mental, and spiritual Crystallization, and closes with emotional and social Exteriorization.

The Outer Planets Anchor the Pattern of A Third of the Sky

During 2018, 2019, and 2020, Jupiter played a major part in entering life experience because it was the planet leading the span. It’s why those years seemed like a wild ride, an adventure, a quest, and more! These years prepared us for the forceful awakening happening now during this time of great mobilization.

In 2020 Jupiter entered the outer planet occupied span, and will be there for several years. Last year it made multiple conjunctions with Pluto, expanding and purifying that powerful energy wherever we have late Capricorn in our charts. After Jupiter’s third and final conjunction with Pluto in November, Pluto again leads the outer planet occupied span for decades to come as that occupied span opens up after Jupiter conjuncts Uranus and moves into Gemini in 2024.

That means we’ll have “competing conjunctions” in the larger global tides, since those Capricorn conjunctions will be in play for quite a while, along with the 2020 Mars conjunct Saturn coupled with the Grand Mutation Jupiter conjunct with Saturn, both at 1 Aquarius. As you know, the Aquarian conjunctions launched a new 20 year and 200 year era, so take a look at how you organized, reorganized, or restructured your life in 2020 and see how you prepared to find power flowing to you and from you as we all move into a vaster tide of evolution related to long term Aquarian wave forms.

In this New Moon, we have one extraordinarily intense occupied span involving Mercury, Sun, Moon, Venus, and Uranus all within a 24+ degree span! When we leave Uranus out of the mix, the inner planets are all concentrated between Mercury at 15 Aries and Venus at 27 Aries, making that 11+ degree span the primary personal focus. That part of our chart will be very highly active these next 4 weeks.

The Sabian Symbol for the New Moon

A New Moon sets the seed forms for what the following month will demonstrate. This Lunation falls at 23 Aries, and it is said that the last third decan) of any sign deals with the individual, mental, and spiritual levels of life, and being the third decan of Aries it has a sub-influence of Sagittarius with an added dose of Venus. While I've given you a sense of this degree up to now, this is where we go into depth.

The Sabian Symbol we’ve been given for the 23rd degree of Aries is "A woman in pastel colors carrying a heavy and valuable but veiled load.” In the original notes from the Marc Jones class on the symbols published in The Astrology of Personality, Rudhyar says this is a degree of “first maturity of conscious life in any phase of experience,” “sense of value and delicacy – or wastefulness,” and “innocence.”

In the Astrological Mandala, he states the keynote is "fecundity,” and states the previous two phases which dealt with assertiveness and “desire for fulfillment” are here integrated and combined in an “expected child.” He says this “offspring” can “take various emotional and cultural forms,” but in any case, because he infers it’s “a light Summer dress,” this represent our ability to be receptive in order to “reap the fruits of our dynamic activity.” He offers this “suggests inner fulfillment,” and we are told it is in the span of Examination and is the synthesizing degree of the emotional, social, and cultural level of the Scene of Potency in the Act of Differentiation.

Dr. Marc E. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, states that this symbol is about “the soul’s basic anchorage in the privacy of its own functioning, and of the centering of real personality in the elements of its own particular genius.” He says it’s about “the ultimate unimportance of purely superficial distinctions among various individuals, and the enduring worth of any experience for which the self accepts a complete responsibility.”

He offers us the keyword RETICENCE. He further states that when operating in a positive manner, this degree is "the unimpeachable integrity of the (person) whose fullness of life becomes a practical contribution to the circumstances in which (they) dwell.”

So the specific theme of the next month involves a new maturity and an ability to brings things to completion so we may “reap the fruits of our dynamic activity.” We can find forms of “inner fulfillment” as we trust our Soul’s integrity and center ourselves in our “own particular genius” while ignoring the unimportant superficialities of life. This degree synthesizes our outer and inner functions, the “doing” and “Being” of our Soul’s expression in a time of emotional, social, and cultural potency and the activating Fire that Aries symbolizes.

Important Aspects

Remember that in reading a Lunation chart (as well as a horary, inceptional, electional, or any event chart) the forming aspects show things to come, while separating aspects show things already past. Partile separating aspects show what’s been going on in the Now. This section covers only forming and partile separating aspects.

As mentioned, we haven’t had any oppositions except for when the Moon is outside the occupied span. Those with planets in Cancer, Leo, Virgo, and early Scorpio have already been dealing with oppositions due to the outer planets, which will continue for some time to come, especially through Leo and early Virgo due to the transits of Jupiter and Saturn this year. Coming weeks will continue the oppositions to natal planets we may have in Leo, late Virgo, late Libra, early Scorpio, and late Sagittarius.

We continue to be in a time of relatively few aspects in the Lunation chart. Obviously we’re in the thick of the conflicts which will last all year and beyond, due to the Saturn square Uranus. This month we have only two significant transformational evolutionary configurations; the first is the double sextile within a trine involving Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, and the second being the Grand Irrationality triggered by Uranus biseptile Pluto involving degree spans I gave you yesterday.

The aspects include the Lunation conjunct Mercury and Venus, sextile Mars, sextile Jupiter, quintile Saturn, semisextile Neptune and square Pluto; Mercury is septile Jupiter, quindecile Uranus and Neptune, and binovile Pluto; Venus sextile Jupiter, decile Neptune, and square Pluto; and Mars is trine Jupiter, semisquare Uranus, square Neptune, and quincunx Pluto.

Outer planet aspects are very few. We see Jupiter quintile Uranus and semi-sextile; Saturn is novile Neptune, and Uranus biseptile Pluto.

Special Configurations in Evolutionary Astrology

As noted, this month there are only two evolutionary configurations directly in play. The first is the “three note chord” involving Aquarius, Aries, and Gemini energies opening harmonious voids between 21-28 Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius. This is a phenomenally strong, productive, and stabilizing energy, and with the Aries sextiles to Mars and Jupiter with quintiles to Saturn, this is highly specializing in very favorable ways. The quintiles open voids around 10-16 Aquarius, 22-28 Aries, 4-10 Cancer, 16-22 Virgo, and 28 Scorpio-4 Sagittarius. If you have anything in these zones, expect unique gifts, blessings, and the emergence of something “quintessential” in your life!

The other configuration is of course the Grand Irrationality with Uranus biseptile Pluto. These two continue to anchor the seven pointed Star of Destiny, indicating major choices and changes to any planets or points we may have near 24-28 Capricorn, 15-19 Pisces, 6-10 Taurus, 27 Gemini-1 Cancer, 18-22 Leo, 10-14 Libra, and 2-6 Sagittarius. If you have something in one or more of these zones, you’ve been making crucial long term choices all year about how you want to position yourself within a greater collective work.

Both of these aspect combinations create a “field of void points” which will trigger their influence. The first energizes the last decan of the Fire and Air signs, while the second creates points of choice and change which may not make any sense, but which must be faced and decisions made. As noted, the Grand Irrationality is soon to be triggered by transits in early Taurus conjuncting Uranus, septile Neptune, and biseptile Pluto, so expect some important developments in the last week of April!

Explaining Harmonics

This month features quite a few aspects in the specialization harmonic series. We have 2 quindeciles, 1 decile, and 3 quintiles. Spiritual aspects are very few this month, as there is only 1 novile and 1 binovile, these showing what’s revealed may take some time to be made manifest, but also that patterns which have been gestating for a while are now coming to the fore so we can see what’s coming down the road. Basically, the 9th harmonic indicates things which need to be put on the shelf for a while, or that which has been gestating can now move forward. If you want to know more about this important “spiritual gestation” series which mark points of potential spiritual realization and integration, there are several articles in the archives.

This month we have no aspects in the 11th harmonic series, and in the nonrational septile series, we have 1 septile and 1 biseptile. The former indicate that faith is required to deal with transcending some dualities, and the latter indicate the “follow up choices and changes” to prior forks in the road of destiny.

The novile (9th harmonic), septile (7th harmonic) and elftile (11th harmonic) series all feature spiritual aspects. All novile series aspects represent gestative energies that can lead to great spiritual realizations. Septile series aspects represent forks in the road of destiny, while the elftile series aspects represent issues and points of evolution where we confront the need to resolve some sort of duality by making a leap of faith to attain a form of mastery over that type of duality. This series tests our faith.

The quintile and biquintile (5th harmonic) and related 10th (decile and tredecile), 15th (quindecile), and 20th harmonic (vigintile) aspects are all specialization aspects. You can find more by going to Astrology Class on the Specializing Aspects Pt. 1 – The Quintile and Biquintile, and Astrology Class on the Specializing Aspects Part 2 – The Decile, Tredecile, Quindecile and the Vigintile.

You can find out more about the spiritual aspects (septile, novile, and elftile series) by referencing this brief overview of the Spiritual aspects, complete with glyphs for all of them.

Element Balance and Who’s Leading the Sun

This month we have the 10 traditional planets occupying 6 signs in a very imbalanced element distribution. We have four planets in Fire (inspiration and warmth), 2 planets in Earth (practical grounding, 1 in Water (feelings and experiencing), and 3 in Air (relatedness and communicating). This month we have Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, and Gemini represented, with no planet in the other signs.

Air and Earth are “cool” elements, while Fire and Water are “hot” elements. With this distribution, we are balanced between cool than hot, with very little feeling of Water, which only comes through the vast collective fog. The Fire and Air will provide “lightness and brightness” as they are emphasized, with relatively little heaviness due to the lack of Earth and Water in any of the visible planets.

Because the New Moon falls in late Aries, Mercury is the planet currently leading the Sun until the Superior Conjunction on April 14, when Neptune will again be the planet leading the Sun (unless we take Chiron into account.) That means “the Gateway to the Light” for the month involves Mercury, “the Guide of Souls,” catching “glimpses of fulfillment” as it waits for “the return of the Beloved.” As Mercury represents the power of mind to generate ideas leading to life or death, allow yourself to be guided by your initial insights and “direct knowing.” While Mercury is powerful in the Mutual Reception with Mars, it has the task of making progress despite limiting external conditions.

The current sequence at present of Deciding, Feeling, and Thinking

We’ve been through several different sequences over the past few months. There are six patterns, and each has their strengths and weaknesses. We are now in a time of shifting patterns, and this Lunation begins a new one. As a process of moving through events, over the next 4 weeks the most effective “firing sequence” for approaching life and experience involves leading with our vision, thoughts, and understanding, then making decisions and acting on that vision, and then taking the time to feel how we’re experiencing the results of those decisions and actions.

This pattern leads with their understanding, vision, or analytical perceptions, and then makes decisions and acts based in those perceptions. While it may be tempting to move back into more thinking, analyzing, and envisioning after we act, instead of going back to the mind to confirm our action, we must get to our feeling-experience around what we just decided or did. When we go deep enough and understand what we are experiencing, then new information, new understanding, and/or a new vision will naturally arise that points the way to the next action.

When you are moved by an idea, vision, perception, or understanding, it will naturally lead to decisions on the basis of those ideas. This should be followed by a time of solitude and reflection where we can identify what we’re feeling and experiencing. Once we identify what we’re experiencing, we’ll naturally be moved into a new understanding or vision, or a new quest for ideas and interpretations. So let your thinking and communicating and envisioning lead you to “right action,” and feel what you must to come to a newer view.

So when you are moved to find a new understanding or more information about something, it should naturally lead you to a basic fact upon which you can act. Once you’ve acted, then take time to contact a deeper or vaster feeling or experience. Once you know how you feel about that action or decision, it will naturally take you into a new vision or new information.

Summing Up

This New Moon in Aries cuts us loose from the past as we jump into the dawning of a new day! This opens a more dynamic understanding and ways of acting to expand the broader Aquarian possibilities in front of us. We are moving into a time of “direct knowing” of the integrity of our Soul allowing us to experience the interrelatedness of things, continuing our journey into the new 200 year Air Era which will eventually kill out the roots of materialistic separateness. Everything is future oriented, and this New Moon sets a lot of Aries patterns which will be expanded by Jupiter between May and October 2022 and late December 2022 through mid-May 2023.

Those who can understand the bigger trends are being lifted up as if on wings. This continues to power up the “graduation into a new realm of Being” we began this time last year, and with Aquarius and Aries so strong, we continue to live our truths on our own terms within the greater collective consciousness we live in, knowing who our Spiritual Brothers and Sisters are.

Expect a huge acceleration and expansion beginning late April when Jupiter moves through the Transfiguration Zone for the first time since early 2010. We’ve already begun our long term transfiguration spiritually within our Light field, so move into the quickening with understanding and breadth of vision. Get a new idea, a new understanding, a new way of viewing the possibilities.

Because the December Sagittarius Solar Eclipse will be powerful for a long time to come, taking some things away, remember that what’s left will be a balanced way of being happy. If you have to turn a corner in relationships, whether saying hello or goodbye, be aware of any hidden agendas or corrosive attitudes. Get a higher balanced view, and if you must rise to an occasion which takes you by surprise, just see yourself as one of the “riders on the storm.”

With the squares to Pluto, do not clutch or get into an imbalanced state. If you’re prevented from getting the results you want, identify and get rid of the problem. Find self-confidence by concentration and a sense of your self-reliance, and identify with larger things, larger work, and a larger altruistic role you might want to play.

We are now in a period of living our highest inspired teachings, and are no longer bound to the old Earth interpretations and explanations. While we will still have to function within the Capricorn cycles we began in 2020, we also have crossed the threshold of an era unknown to humanity since the 13th and 14th centuries. Even then, we were still in the depth of the Age of Pisces, so the awakening of new ideas then were relative to the old era, whereas what’s coming involves wave after wave of Aquarian energies, pushing us to the coming Great Age emerging in the second half of this century.

As noted earlier, these long wave Aquarian pulses were initially set into motion by the Mars conjunct Saturn at 1 Aquarius on March 31, 2020. This marked the initiation of certain archetypal Aquarian preliminary structures offered by Saturn. The promise and potential of the new Aquarian pulse then began to expand into a greater social and cultural vision beginning at the Jupiter conjunction with Saturn, the Grand Mutation of the Solstice also at 1 Aquarius. So we have 20 years of Aquarian energies set into motion by that conjunction!

Of note is that Mars will transit Aquarius in March and April 2022, giving a new impetus to the Aquarian structures which grow and take shape in 2021. After that, the next time Mars transits Aquarius will be in February and March 2024, when it conjuncts Pluto at 1 Aquarius in February about 3 weeks after Pluto’s first ingress into Aquarius. That begins the Pluto in Aquarius “generation” of the 21st century which lasts until 2043. As there will be a Jupiter conjunction with Pluto at 15 Aquarius in 2033, we’ll see the “expansion of the Angels of the Age of Aquarius” at that time.

We are all actively in a long term “metamorphosis” which will open a new adventure for all of us by the Summer of 2021. And because the last two degrees of Aquarius show us what the beginning of the coming Age of Aquarius is about, last year helped us remember we are Beings of Light, a Superstar shining the Light of our Eternal Love into our world. This year expands that promise.

Last year’s Solar Eclipses have helped us all turn a Cosmic Corner and move in a new direction. We’ve “lowered one flag and raised a new one” and will continue to do so for many months and years. The “Cosmic Recycler” quality of the Cancer eclipse is helping remove old habits and sentimentalities, and many things which used to be familiar patterns in our lives have ended, are ending, or will end.

Both Eclipses are removing all we do not need in our Cancer and Sagittarius response in the houses they fell in. The Sag Eclipse is removing all which blocks our happiness, and I’m certainly looking forward to the restoration of more humor, more freedom, more largeness of vision, and greater truths and futures promised as old obsolete Sag forms are taken away.

Keep it simple as you further the bonds of fellowship with others who are in your spiritual community. We have entered a long term period of focusing on the fellowship between people, ridding ourselves of preconceptions and opening to a greater sense of grounded connection with our Spiritual Brothers and Sisters.

We’ve awakened to and been practicing some “special quality” in our personality to find new ways of expressing our Higher Self. We have been in training for long term group work, where we can find nourishment among those with whom we are linked on a Soul level. New groups of Spiritual communities formed last year and will continue to form this year, and those which are Aquarian in nature will be “lifted on the wings of angels” in 2021. We are learning not to play to the generic confusion, irrationality, and misleading notions. Revolution is in the air! And when you find things and people of eternal worth, value them with all your heart.

Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend

Saturn has now begun its long stay in its home sign of Aquarius. While we’ll still be dealing with the individual, mental, and spiritual levels of the group work set into motion last year, we have now entered a new quality of Saturn’s nature. In Aquarius, Saturn continues to be the final dispositor of all planets transiting Capricorn and Aquarius from now through 2023. It was a major influence in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Eclipses, continuing its years-long power behind events.

Because Saturn plays such a large part in ruling the stage of Life for many months and even years to come, if you haven’t gotten your copy already, please give yourself the timeless gift of my book, Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend. We all need to make friends with our inner Saturn if we would claim our power to fulfill our higher purpose for being alive as Spirits in the material world.

Saturn helps us give form and structure to our quest for Self-realization. We are learning to use the “organized personal structure” built in Capricorn last year as we move into our greater Aquarian group work to concretize a spiritual ideal for the future, with an eye to the greatest good for the greatest number. We now approach how to structure our individual Soul energy to make our spiritual life come alive.

This book shows you the way to take command of your power to steer your life in a conscious way, using Saturn’s strengths and skills to be led to mastering life on your own terms. As Saturn is such a dominant energy at this time, by owning our ability to manifest the best of Saturn's virtues in our world, we take command of our destiny and become the living purpose we were born to make manifest!

It was written for both astrologers and non-astrologers, and will assist your understanding of how your life experiences assisted your Soul growth and power to turn away from unhelpful karmic cause and effect patterns. Each time you re-read any part of it you’re sure to find undiscovered gems of insight helping you throw off attitudes which frustrate your ability to live your higher Purpose on your own terms.

Here’s part 1 on this dynamic, compassionate, and initiatory New Moon, with the overview, dispositors, the Grand Irrationality, Nodes, and more!

The April 2021 New Moon at 23 Aries Pt. 1 – What’s Happening in April-May.

© Copyright 2021 Robert Wilkinson - https://www.aquariuspapers.com

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with persmission from Robert Wilkinson.