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

This article covers significant aspects, degree symbols, and other important factors in this October 16 New Moon chart. We are now closing in for another compression in 3 months in Aquarius, which will bring another Bundle Jones pattern, but for now we’re moving through a See Saw, given the oppositions in play. The next 4 weeks puts the focus on everything and everyone going through some sort of “mutation,” which could yield new heart strength. Be spontaneous and elegant in your expression!

The last decan of Libra is said to be a particularly “karmic” decan, in that it’s the span where we “pay our dues,” or “make something right.” It is where we have to deal with the scales of karma, for better or worse. It’s a great time for repairing or rebuilding something “wrecked by storms,” or reconstruct how something came to be the way it is. There’s a LOT in the scales over the next 4 weeks!

In part 1 we discussed that Saturn continues to dominates the Stage of Life, challenged by Mars, also in its home sign. Venus trine the Cap stellium which is squared by the Lunation indicates the next month we’ll build through the earth trines and release through the Libra potential, with very intense voids between 19 Cancer and 27 Cancer. If you have a planet between 19 and27 Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn you are going through major changes! This is the culmination of past Saturn “construction” for the year, where we can adjust the balance, proportion, or appearance of something we’ve been working on for many months.

We now have culminated many things promised by the many conjunctions in Capricorn last January and March, and at this time are rethinking, reviewing, rehearsing, reworking, re-planning, and/or just taking a needed break from the intense square energies dominating July and August, as well as late September through October 20. Keep playing good defense, get a balanced perspective, take time to nourish yourself and what sustains you, and play it conservative for the next few weeks.

Because the Lunation is waning square to Saturn, we now approach the culmination of the old yearly Cap cycles. Evaluate the harvest for the work you’ve done, since the areas you’ve made progress show the value of your diligence and effort. We’ve been dealing with major crosscurrents for many months, so in this time of “backward looking Scorpio” with an immediate focus in Libra, remember the value of being balanced as we quest, taking time to count our blessings, showing appreciation and gratitude for whoever and whatever promises a better future after the storm.

As I explained in the main article on The Great Compressions of Early 2020, 2021, and 2022, in January through March 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. Throughout 2019 they expanded into half and then two thirds of the sky, creating a Bowl and then Locomotive Jones pattern, with the Moon adjusting the pattern based in its position.

We again contracted into a Bowl in January 2020 while hitting maximum compression in March which created a Bundle chart, the rarest pattern of all! While the inner planets have all traveled outside the Bundle since May, they now approach the Bundle again, with maximum compression coming in January 2021 when all of the planets will be within a 101 degree span, creating a very intense zone of activity wherever we have late Capricorn through 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 Jupiter in late Capricorn, and proceeds through the other outer planets in Capricorn, Pisces, and ends with Uranus in Taurus. Now that the inner planets are in between mid-Virgo and mid-Scorpio, they’re closing in again on the outer planet span, while Mars remains within the occupied span through January 2021.

So given the positions, the planets are spread out in every sector in an asymmetrical distribution. With all the outer planets in a span of 110+ degrees, less than a third of the sky (excluding TransPluto, since Jones didn’t use it in defining his patterns), it means that since early May the Jones pattern in the sky is primarily influenced by the position of the inner planets, which is shifting the pattern continuously between June and November. In this chart, the Lunation, Mercury and Venus are in a waning relationship to the Capricorn group, with an open angle of 127+ degrees on one side and 68+ on the other, with 2 forming oppositions, creating a Seesaw pattern.

So What is a “Seesaw Pattern” and how does it work?

This type of spread, with two or more planets on one side of the map and the others on the other side of the map, with at least one or two oppositions to define the axis of awareness, creates a “Seesaw” Jones Pattern. Where a Seesaw pattern is present, stay focused and balanced at the center while taking note of the periphery of things, and don't get off on a tangent or limb.

This pattern shows a need to be able to see both sides of any given thing, especially where there are opposing trends or views. The strength is in an ability to triangulate to angles of approach beyond the polarity that allows for progress and understanding.

As Marc Jones put it, “it reveals a less-sharpened but much more definite balancing of life emphases at opposing or contrasting points in experience. It is a persistent move to a balance which is apt to give a characteristic rhythm… The indication is not so much an uncertainly of action, or reaction, as a tendency to act at all times under a consideration of opposing views or through a sensitiveness to contrasting and antagonistic possibilities.”

He continues “the Seesaw temperament has its existence in a world of conflicts, of definite polarities. It is capable of unique achievement, through a development of unsuspected relations in life, but it is also apt to waste its energies through its improper alignment with various situations.”

He states that the ideal will show oppositions around the middle of the opposing “planetary aggregates” (clusters) and that axis will be the “focal determinator.” But, “if no such emphasis is present, the life tends to be significant at the side of the greater number of planets, or sometimes where they are concentrated most closely.”

As we have two separate distinct axes of oppositions in Virgo and Pisces as well as Taurus and Scorpio these two “tensions of opposites” will be the focus of the Seesaw tendencies. Wherever we have these two axes will be the source of tension and greater awareness.

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

In 2020 Jupiter entered the outer planet occupied span, and will be there for several years. This year it is making multiple conjunctions with Pluto, expanding that powerful energy wherever we have late Capricorn in our charts. Now that Jupiter made its retrograde conjunction with Pluto, it again leads the outer planet occupied span through December 2020. It then enters Aquarius and conjuncts Saturn at 1 Aquarius, launching us into a new 20 year and 200 year era! Be willing to reorganize your life as needed, and you will find power flowing to you and from you as we move into a vaster tide of evolution this year, setting long term wave forms into motion related to Aquarius.

Because Jupiter has been closing on the outer planet span for several years, it has played a major part in how we entered life experience. It's why sometimes these past few years have seemed like a wild ride, an adventure, a quest, and more! With willingness, power, vision, and greater possibilities to contribute to a greater future good, we are now in the midst of a Cosmic “judgment day,” and must choose how we will express ourselves in our world, for better or worse. This has prepared us for the forceful awakening happening now, with the great mobilization happening.

Though the outer planets expanded to a wide spread these past 20 years since the last Saturn conjunct Uranus, the outers are now compressing. Both Jupiter and Saturn already made their karmic rendezvous with Pluto, with Jupiter having just made a second one with a third one coming late in the year. The great Compressions each year for the next 2 years will create a several month set of “Bundle” patterns, since at times the planets will all be within a 120 degree span as they were in January, February, and March. Because Mars will not conjunct Uranus until January 2021, it too will remain inside the outer planet span for the next 3 months.

In this New Moon, we’re back to one intense occupied span involving Jupiter at 20 Capricorn through Saturn at 26 Capricorn, with three planets in a 6+ degree span! This month the inner planets are very spread out between Venus at 178 Virgo through the Lunation and ending with Mercury retrograde at 12 Scorpio, giving that 54+ degree span the primary personal focus. That makes these sectors very highly active these next 4 weeks.

The Sabian Symbol for the New Moon Solar Eclipse

A New Moon sets the seed forms for what the following month will demonstrate. This Lunation falls at 24 Libra, 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 Libra it has a sub-influence of Gemini with an added dose of Jupiter. 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 24th degree of Libra is "A third wing on the left side of a butterfly.” In The Astrology of Personality, where Rudhyar uses the original Dr. Jones' class notes on the symbols, 24 Libra is said to be a symbol of “Potentiality of new forms and opportunities in every life” and “instinctive expansion of self; or submergence in the not-self.”

In The Astrological Mandala, he says this degree involves “the ability to develop for inner strengthening, new modes of response to basic life situations.” He states “the butterfly is the ancient and traditional symbol of the results of the process of spiritual rebirth. If the butterfly has three wings instead of two, a special development of an aspect of the spiritual life is shown. Three is a symbol of fulfillment.”

He offers this means a power is added to the normal transformational process, and “the left side” is the “instinctual field of consciousness, but “it’s also the heart side.” He speaks of the potential for a new strength, or some technique which could constitute an “original mutation.” He says it falls in the span of Revelation and it’s the technique degree of the emotional-cultural level of the scene of Reconstruction in the Act of Group Integration.

According to Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, the degree is one of “the illimitable potentiality” and of the rewards that result from retaining our “own unconditioned uniqueness of make-up” and we are “alert to whatever opportunities arise” in our world which allow our “own special destiny to fulfill itself.” He speaks of “fundamental affinities of all differentiation as these …. Make their particular contribution to human experience.”

He offers us the keyword of DISTINCTIVENESS. He states that when operating in a positive manner, this degree is "an idealistic originality and a high facility in quick analysis.

From this symbol we see that the theme of the next month involves a technique allowing us to develop new ways of responding to emergent heart strengths, in the realms where we have already fulfilled some emotional or social repair or reconstruction. This is the promise of reconstructing a primal connection with Life to achieve a form of life renewal that transforms our ego, so repair or reconstruct connections between you and your God, or Spirit, or your own Higher Self.

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.

We’re done with our long run of no transit to transit oppositions except for when the Moon was outside the occupied span. We’ve now we’ve resumed our experience of oppositional energies since the transits of Cancer, Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio have generated and will generate transit to transit oppositions. Of course those with planets in Cancer, Leo, Virgo and Scorpio have already been dealing with oppositions due to the outer planets, which will continue for some time to come (Aquarius now drops out until December; 2021 and 2022 will pose numerous oppositions to planets in Leo in our charts!) Coming weeks will continue the oppositions to natal planets we may have in Pisces, Aries, Taurus, and especially Cancer and Libra.

This Lunation is packed with powerful aspects and evolutionary configurations! This month we have friction, high specialization, and major stabilization! The major aspects are the Lunation square Saturn and biquintile Neptune, Mercury quintile Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto while opposed Uranus, Venus trine Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto while opposed Neptune, and Mars square Jupiter with the Grand Irrationality in full swing involving Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune!

Besides these, other aspects include the Sun and Moon Vigintile Mercury, decile Venus and square Pluto; Mercury septile Venus and quadranovile Mars; and Mars Vigintile Uranus and semisextile Neptune.

Outer planet aspects include Jupiter conjunct Saturn, tredecile Uranus, sextile Neptune, and conjunct Pluto; Saturn is biseptile Uranus and septile Neptune; and Uranus is septile Neptune and tredecile Pluto .

Special Configurations in Evolutionary Astrology

This month there are several evolutionary configurations directly in play. The first involves Mercury making quintiles to the Cap planets while opposing Uranus, with the Jupiter and Pluto both tredecile Uranus. This involves specialization and extraordinarily good fortune through serendipitous events. This can help give flashes of the truth of things, where they’re going, and the limitations and/or power involved.

We will be given specialized opportunities to move into a more evolved level of relating to others and our sense of purpose, or through reflection understand how we’ve done this over the past year. This configuration opens up 10 areas of unique and favorable special circumstances around 1-2 Pisces/Virgo, 2-8 Aries/Libra, 8-14 Taurus/Scorpio, 14-20 Gemini/Sag, 20-26 Cancer/Capricorn, and 26-30 Leo/Aquarius.

The second configuration involves Venus opposed Neptune, cut into a sextile and trine by Jupiter, generating a very favorable and productive energy between 16-21 Pisces, Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, and Capricorn. Be clear in your relationships and ideals, use your “will to wholeness” to break up old complexes and release whatever is pent up within you in regenerative way.

This is great for regeneration through “self-gathering” and nourishing what needs nourishing through active integrative practices. Remember that in striving for greater awareness, we must take time to celebrate within our growth process, allowing our spontaneity to come forth in enjoyable ways.

Because Jupiter is involved in both these productive and harmonious configurations and is squared by Mars, Mars becomes the vehicle with which to express the highest possible manifestation of Jupiter, which is giving us one last “dress rehearsal” before everything hits maximum expansion at the coming Jupiter conjunct Pluto and then Saturn!

The third configuration is The Grand Irrationality with Saturn biseptile Uranus and septile Neptune, renewing Uranus septile Neptune. These spiritual heavyweights are lighting up THREE points of the seven pointed Star of Destiny represented by a combination of the Neptunian pulses of the Grand Irrationality V.1 with the Uranian pulses of the Grand Irrationality V.2.

The Saturn septile Neptune gives us an echo of the first Grand Irrationality in play between 1994-2018. These zones are slightly later than the GIV2, and will bring major future oriented choices and changes to those with planets or points near 25-29 Capricorn, 17-21 Pisces, 8-12 Taurus, 29 Gemini-3 Cancer, 21-25 Leo, 12-16 Libra, and 4-8 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.

Explaining Harmonics

As I mentioned, this month is a mix of friction, harmony, and specialization. We have a LOT of aspects in the specializing series, including 2 vigintiles, 2 deciles, 3 quintiles, 2 tredeciles, and 2 biquintiles! Spiritual aspects include 1 quadranovile, showing many things either 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 elftile series aspects, and in the nonrational septile series, we have 3 septiles and 1 biseptile. These are extremely powerful, and as they involve Mercury septile Venus and the Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune Grand Irrationality configuration, you can see we have heavy choices and changes across many signs.

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 7 signs in an extremely imbalanced element distribution. We have 1 planet in Fire (inspiration and warmth), 2 in Water (feelings and experiencing), 2 in Air (relatedness and communicating), and 5 planets in Earth (practical grounding). This month we have Capricorn, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio 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 still too cool for words! The warmth is generated by Mars, the relatedness by the Lunation, with everything else as Earthy as it gets. We’ll have more Air and Water in the near future, so things will return to a 3 way balance in the near future, with Fire short for another 5 weeks.

Because the New Moon falls in late Libra, Venus at 17 Virgo is the planet currently leading the Sun. That means “the Gateway to the Light” involves Venus, the planet of relatedness and value as the way to approach the Greater Light. While Venus is in “fall” in Virgo, it also rules the Lunation AND is in the very favorable trine to Jupiter, so avoid worry and nit picking as you simplify and enjoy the long term building work as it unfolds.

As Virgo is the sign of service, humility, and Divine Discernment, be open to appreciating the beauty and love that’s all around you as the gateway to the Light. Allow spontaneous appreciation of the value of your relationships, and become whole by letting go of repressed contents. Just manage the explosions by seeing the “firing sequence” and by “timing” you can create a metaphoric “combustion engine” which could power you in enjoyable ways!

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. As a process of moving through events, this New Moon is the same as the last one, showing that over the next 4 weeks the most effective “firing sequence” for approaching life and experience involves leading with our feelings, then deciding, then thinking.

This pattern leads with feelings, and then makes decisions and acts based in those feelings. While it is tempting to move back into more feeling after the actions, after we make our decisions and/or act, it will be important to get new information to come to a new vision or understanding. Once we get the right view or understanding, then a new feeling-experience will naturally arise that points the way to the next action.

So when you are moved by a feeling or experience, it will naturally lead to decisions on the basis of those feeling experiences, which should be followed by a search for new information, new ideas, new interpretations, and new views. We’ll be “feeling our way” into new experiences, then deciding and acting on the basis of those feelings. After a decision or action, then we’ll have to find newer, more up to date information, facts, and understanding so we can get a new vision.

So learn and teach through anecdotes, seeing how others handled things practically, or how you handed things practically in the past. Let your thinking and communicating and envisioning follow your actions, and let your feelings follow a new understanding, a new perception, or a new view.

Summing Up

This Lunation shows us mutating into a new heart strength by either paying dues or redeeming something we’ve been working on. Having been led last month into a “ritual of divine service” in a “world of transcendent activity,” we now can take a look back at our relationships with others, and see who is part of our spiritual family. This month cleans out a lot of psychic debris so we can become more whole, more spontaneous, and more enjoyable as we move into the time of the Grand Mutation.

Because of the Sun and Moon square Saturn, we are looking at the resistance to things being balanced, even if the maximum friction is already over because Mars no longer squares Saturn. Do your thing, put on the show, fulfill a life ambition, see your interrelationships with others in organic ways, and swap information to maintain socially elevated interactions.

Mars squares Jupiter can bring a “very big deal,” but also inflated expectations. It’s great for doing things with style, as long as we don’t overestimate or overreach. In other words, this aspect can bring down unrealistic expectations, but also help us figure out what we need to do differently in order to achieve the greater vision or adventure.

The Cancer Solar Eclipse at the June Solstice 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 eclipse shuts down parts of our daily life, and no doubt old connections and sentimentalities will go by the wayside. Many old needs, many old lines of supply, many things we’ve taken for granted will end.

Tensions and polarizations which dominated August and September are now slowed tremendously from what they were, and this is the peak of several old cycles. There will be culminations and turning points over the next 4 weeks, with people wanting safety, security, and fairness. Many lesser things are being set aside as this time, and crucial decisions will be made so that things can come back into balance.

Despite the slowed pace during Mars retrograde, we are still building the emerging structures we’ll be working within during this dawning of a 20 year Aquarian era. The preliminary pulse was set into motion when Mars and Saturn joined up at 1 Aquarius, the same degree of the coming Jupiter/Saturn conjunction marking a new 20 and 200 year era! We have now “graduated into a new realm of Being,” and are actively in a long term “metamorphosis” which will open a new adventure for all of us by the Summer of 2021.

Mercury is giving us a review about how we’ve become more dignified in our interactions since late 2019, with a capability for deep and powerful insights as we penetrate to the core meaning of things. The next few weeks are important for “feeling our spontaneity” and letting it come up and out in practical ways. Educate or being educated through activity. We are repairing or reconstructing something on the emotional or social level, and many will turn away from old rules, old blockages, and rigid structures which no longer serve the work.

We’re now in the transition between the old way which is no more, and the coming Grand Mutation at 1 Aquarius in December. The Great Compression in Capricorn set forces into motion in this bridge year between the old promise and the new 200 year Era coming with the Grand Mutation of 2020! By how we respond to the new emerging Aquarian energy, we’re positioning ourselves in a greater work which has already begun and changes life as we know it by January 2021.

We’ve been in a time when angels and divine help are in the air, as well as redemption and forms of trained creative expression. We are now in the last phase of humanity’s “liberating ordeal” and have entered a time where we have to set aside our prejudices and preconceptions, focusing on the fellowship between people.

We’re all practicing our newly awakened “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 are forming 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 in now in direct motion in its home sign of Capricorn, we’re taking one last look at the individual, mental, and spiritual level of the group work we’ve been doing for over a year. Even when Saturn re-enters Aquarius in December, it will continue 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 now resume building our “organized personal structure” in Capricorn, preparing for moving into the 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 continue our structuring and restructuring to fix our spiritual energy making 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 our 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 one: The September 2020 New Moon at 26 Virgo Pt. 1 - What’s Happening in September-October

© Copyright 2020 Robert Wilkinson - https://www.aquariuspapers.com

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with persmission from Robert Wilkinson.