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

This article covers significant aspects, degree symbols, and other important factors in this New Moon chart. This is a balancing “karmic adjustment” New Moon, so take a breath, take a step back, and see the potential delight in adjusting to the natural rhythm of things. Karma is mediating, so the good can expect rest and relaxation, while the wicked will find their lives disrupted.

The second decan of Libra is where we experience the balanced truth of Aquarius as a transformational energy. What began earlier this year is now opening to a new potential. The next four weeks opens the promise and truth of the larger Aquarian energy coming forth, and begins the final exam of how well we’re able to train via Jupiter while accepting new mutations from Cosmos via Saturn.

Long Term Effects of the Capricorn and Aquarius Compressions

We began multiple long wave Capricorn cycles in early 2020, and created more long wave Aquarian cycles between March and December 2020. If you want to know more about the four year sequence of The Great Compressions of Early 2020, 2021, and 2022, that article explains that 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. Four planets in Aquarius and two in Taurus made for a very crowded house, with 10 distinct energies occupying less than 1/3 of the total space. The final compression will occur in early 2022.

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. (We don’t include TransPluto, since Jones didn’t use it in defining his patterns). Now that the inner planets are in Libra and Scorpio, they are past the “the far side” of the outer planet span and closing in on their conjunctions to come.

In this chart, we have a distinct cluster of the inner planets in mid-Libra, with everything bundled between mid-Libra and late Pisces except for Uranus, creating a “Bucket” Jones pattern. Due to transits, the patterns change frequently at this time. While there are also elements of an imperfect “Locomotive” and/or “Bowl” pattern in play, because of the gap between Uranus and Neptune it’s really a “Bucket” with Uranus as the handle or nozzle.

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

This is a Bucket Jones pattern, since Uranus is far enough away from the nearest planet to become a nozzle for the focus of all the other planetary energies. Since the “handle” of the Bucket involves the sign Taurus, that energy helps us focus the energies of all the other planets.

A “Bucket Pattern” is a type of planetary spread with all the planets in about half the signs with one outside that span wide enough to be a handle. The energies of the occupied half are focused through the “handle,” or “nozzle,” in this case Jupiter, termed the “focal determinator.” The handle, or focal determinator, represents the way to greater effectiveness, the cause to be embraced, the lack to be filled, or the way to use the total energies of this time in a focused manner.

Dr. Jones states “the Bucket type indicates a particular and rather uncompromising direction in the life effort.” This pattern gives “interest in a cause,” with executive tendencies that will adapt allegiances to maximize results of the effort. He says “the Bucket type at its best reveals the real instructor and inspirer of others, and at its worst the agitator and malcontent.” This is the larger planetary pattern within which we’re all trying to do what we do.

We are also told this pattern is more about finding an effective release for energy within social settings, but also about the individual imposing their patterns on society rather than adapting to what is there. It’s about focused intention. So all of us can expect some sort of focused attention on the house where we have 14 Taurus.

In this New Moon, the most intense occupied span (in this chart the Lunation, Mars, and Mercury between 14-21 Libra) is 4 planets in 6+ degrees, making that the major focus. This is a very intense cluster, guaranteed to set a lot into motion wherever it falls in our chart.

This month we have the 10 traditional planets occupying 6 signs, showing a widespread distribution with an intense cluster noted above. This month we have Libra, Scorpio, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, and Taurus represented, with no planet in the other signs.

The Outer Planets Anchor the Pattern In 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 years 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 moving from materialism to idealism, so take a look at how you reorganized or restructured your life in 2020, preparing to find power flowing to you and from you as we move into a vaster tide of evolution toward long term Aquarian wave forms.

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 14 Libra, and it is said that the second third (decan) of any sign deals with the social, emotional, and cultural levels of life, and being the second decan of Libra it has a sub-influence of Aquarius with an added dose of Saturn. 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 14th degree of Libra is “A noon siesta.” 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 “proper adjustment to the rhythm of nature,” “faith in the ordered scheme of things,” and “injudicious dependence upon others.”

In The Astrological Mandala, he says this degree involves “the need for recuperation within the social pattern of everyday activity.” He states that we need times of rest and relaxation where we withdraw within to allow the “necessary play of dream fantasies,” and that “social structuring cannot be maintained healthfully without breaks.”

He offers that this symbol emphasizes “the need for techniques of relaxation, and the need to allow the functions of body and psyche to ‘digest,’ free from external pressures, the complex experiences of social living.” He says it falls in the span of Expectation, and it’s the technical degree of the individual, mental, and spiritual level of the scene of Transfiguration in the Act of Group Integration.

According to Dr. Jones, creator of the Sabian Symbols, the degree is one of our “basic competency” as we are “able to organize our responsibilities and withdraw our attention for a moment of inner reorientation.” He states this is about “a fullness of being through the everyday satisfactions which come as a reward of effort, or through a realization that it is possible to participate with profit in the common business of living.”

He continues that this degree is “a subconscious fellowship with the eternal” which “has its fruits in a freedom from unnecessary involvement in ephemeral affairs.” He gives us the keyword of RECUPERATION, and states when operating in a positive manner, the degree is “an incisiveness of thought or reaction and an effective directness of act.”

So the specific theme of the next month involves forms of relaxing, recuperating, and withdrawing from life so we may be freed from unnecessary things. Adjust to the natural rhythm of things as a preparation for new activity in the near future.

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 are now just past the midpoint of a season of the inner planets opposing the outer planets. We’re done with the oppositions to Pluto, Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune with only oppositions to Uranus on the horizon, but because of where the planets are right now, oppositions continue to natal planets we may have in late Cancer, Leo, late Virgo, mid-Scorpio, and Aries.

We’re still in a time of relatively few, but very significant aspects between the planets! While the Saturn square Uranus friction will pervade the atmosphere all year and beyond, right now it’s wide but forming, and set into motion during the transits in Scorpio. The big news in this Lunation is the numerous trines to Jupiter and exact quincunxes to Uranus.

The Lunation is vigintile conjunct Mercury, semisquare Venus, conjunct Mars, trine Jupiter, quincunx Uranus, triseptile Neptune, and biseptile Pluto. Other aspects include Mercury novile Venus, conjunct the Lunation and Mars, tredecile Saturn, triseptile Uranus, and quincunx Neptune; Venus is semisquare the Sun and Mars; and Mars is trine Jupiter, quincunx Uranus, triseptile Neptune, and biseptile Pluto.

Outer planet aspects are fewer than usual. We see Jupiter binovile Uranus; Saturn is square Uranus and semisquare Neptune, and Uranus is septile Neptune and tredecile Pluto.

Special Configurations in Evolutionary Astrology

This month there is only one evolutionary configuration directly in play, that being the Grand Irrationality set into motion by the Lunation and Mars triseptile Neptune and biseptile Pluto.

The Grand Irrationality this month deals with Neptune and Pluto which we haven’t seen in a long time. While Uranus is still septile Neptune these two are not activated simultaneously. These two continue to anchor a seven pointed Star of Destiny whenever they’re in orb, indicating major choices and changes to any planets or points we may have near any of the 7 affected “hot zones” around 29 Capricorn-3 Aquarius, 20-24 Pisces, 12-16 Taurus, 4-8 Cancer, 25-29 Leo, 16-20 Libra, and 8-12 Sagittarius.

Explaining Harmonics

This month we have fewer aspects than usual, mostly harmonious without a lot of friction except for the quincunxes. In terms of the various harmonic series, this month is a mixed bag. In the specialization harmonic series, we only 2 tredeciles. The 9th harmonic gives us 1 novile and 1 binovile. All novile series (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 elftile series, and in the nonrational septile series, we have a bunch, including 1 septile, 3 biseptiles, and 3 triseptiles. The 11th harmonic series indicate that faith is required to deal with transcending some dualities, and 7th harmonic aspects indicate forks in the road of destiny.

We have relatively few frictional aspects, pretty much all of it coming as a result of 4 quincunxes, 4 semisquares, and the Lunation conjunct Mars. Be measured in your responses, adapt as needed, sacrifice old sentimentalities, and open to the power of your spiritual ancestry. This 4 week period should bring some delightful experiences, but you’ll have to relax to take full advantage of them.

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 shows a wide imbalance in the elements, with Earth in excess. We have the 10 traditional planets occupying 6 signs in a skewed element distribution. We have 0 planets in Fire (inspiration and warmth), 2 planets in Earth (practical grounding, 2 in Water (feelings and experiencing), and 6 in Air (relatedness and communicating). This month we have Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Taurus, 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 as cold as a mountaintop in Winter. There’s no fire to heat anything, so we’ll have to draw on that internally. The only water is the collective soup and Venus in its detriment. With so much Air, it’s a time of ideas, communicating plans, and interactions to get a different take on things while relaxing the best we’re able.

Because the New Moon falls in mid-Libra with no planet in Cancer, Leo, or Virgo, we again find Uranus is “the Gateway to the Light,” and will be until the Moon is again between late Taurus and early Virgo. All the ongoing “gentle revolution” to lead you into a “live and let live” attitude, returning to simpler joys for pleasure and relaxation as new emergences from Cosmos begin to manifest.

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 continues the one in play for the past few weeks. 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 decisions and actions, followed by thinking, communicating, envisioning and finding a new view of things, and then feeling what we’ve done and seen.

This pattern leads with their decisions. They assess what needs to be done and then do it. Efficient, practical decisions and actions lead the way, followed by new information, new understanding, new vision, new communications, and new ways of interacting that helps us get clear about something.

Following this thinking function, we will need to reference our feelings and what we’re experiencing as a result of those insights, memories, understanding, or vision. After we decide or act and then think, we then need to go deep within to feel the implications of those ideas and visions. This is a highly effective pattern but tends to blow through experience without taking time to feel it.

So get it in gear, act on the facts at hand, and then go get new information or new ways of seeing things. After that, feel your feelings and check in about how you’re experiencing those thoughts, or that information or vision. Make a decision, get the view you need, and then name how and what you’re feeling. If you’re in doubt as to what to do, reference your feelings and not your ideas.

Summing Up

This New Moon in Libra will help us rest, relax, enjoy, and find delight in our interactions and ability to refresh ourselves in places and activities of universal worth. This will be good for remembering, reviewing, rehearsing, and generally slowing down so we can see the “camouflage” we need to continue our work in the future. This is a great time to give and receive information which brings balance to things. Be gracious as you sacrifice what you need to in order to get ready to “pick up and deliver spiritual power” in the near future.

A few months back we got a broad view of our Brothers and Sisters who share our “Spiritual Mountaintop,” and how stand on a platform of knowing how to achieve a “transcendent security” in relatively comfortable ways. We also can be more thoughtful in our choices opening future group work and friendships, and many things will happen these next four weeks which will show us we’re at a fork in the road of our cooperative-collective work.

Those who can understand the bigger trends are being lifted up as if on wings. We continue to review our process of “graduation into a new realm of Being,” now knowing the doors which opened beginning May 2020 have now shows us alternative futures and adventures to be embraced in December. With Jupiter still having one more transit through the Transfiguration Zone, we’re literally in the heart of a larger transformation process, so stay open to whatever you need to learn to become the Spiritual Adult who has emerged from their chrysalis.

While we 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, marking the initiation of 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 is already opening a new adventure for all of us, with the final phase in November and December! 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 2019 and 2020 Cancer eclipses are 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 the Cancer and Sagittarius eclipses of 2020 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. June’s eclipse is removing old Gemini responses, and will purify our life and mind while repressed material comes up and claims its due.

New groups of Spiritual communities formed last year and will continue to form this year, and those which are Aquarian in nature are being “lifted on the wings of angels” in 2021. Trust the process. 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 continues its long term occupancy 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 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. It was written for both astrologers and non-astrologers, and will help you understand how your life experiences assisted your Soul growth and your power to turn away from negative 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.

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Robert Wilkinson. Copying this article to other blogs is strictly prohibited. It is copyright protected. 

© Copyright 2021 Robert Wilkinson

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