Episode 116 | Aries New Moon: Neither a Follower Nor a Leader Be (March 28, 2022)
Listen to the episode or read the show notes hereTRANSCRIPT EPISODE 116
Welcome to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast, with your host, Astrologer and Author, April Elliott Kent.
April: Hello, invisible friend, April here. And the date today is March 28th, 2022. Welcome to Episode 116 of The Big Sky Astrology Podcast.
This week, the major planetary standout really is the Aries New Moon, so, I’ll be taking a good look at that. As well as looking at two important aspects involving Venus, and a listener question about how long a big slow moving planetary transit really makes its presence felt.
Venus conjoins Saturn (March 28, 2022, 12:27 pm PDT)
The week begins with a conjunction from Venus to Saturn on March 28th at 12:27 PM Pacific Time, at 2° and 44 minutes of Aquarius. Back on Episode 109, I answered a question from listener Anna Marie, who has this planetary combination in her birth chart. So, it might be interesting for you to go back and listen to that episode. I think I answered that question beginning at about the 20-minute mark, and it’s kind of a good review of all things Venus, Saturn.
But generally, when these two come together, it’s a little bit of an odd couple on the face of it. Because Venus symbolizes the things that we find pleasurable and indulgent and enjoyable. It is about the qualities of relationship, for instance, that are pure pleasure. But when Saturn enters the picture, there’s more of a sense of seriousness, obligation and responsibility.
Back when I used to choose wedding dates for couples, they used to feel nervous whenever they would see a prominent Saturn in that wedding chart, or if heaven forbid, it was connecting with something in their birth charts. And I used to say, no, that’s exactly what you want in a wedding chart or on a wedding day, because Saturn represents seriousness, maturity and the willingness to take on responsibility for another person, for building a life together! So, you have to have that Venus part first, at least in modern relationships, we expect to have affection and love as the guiding principle for getting into a relationship. But, beyond that, you can have pleasurable connections with lots of people, but there really are very few people in your life that you’re going to make that kind of serious commitment to, whether it’s a marriage or friendship, any kind of relationship.
Venus and Saturn coming together begins a whole new year long cycle of Venus and Saturn interacting with each other. And it is a time to reevaluate our personal commitments and decide, how they’re balancing out. Because again, if you have two planets together in an aspect, each of them does need to have their voice heard. So, there needs to be Venus, there needs to be a pleasurable reason to be in a relationship with someone, you have to be getting some kind of enjoyment from it. But Saturn says, is this still something that is important enough to me to take it seriously and invest my time, my energy, my patience, my resources into it? So, whether it’s some kind of relationship in your life, whether it is a business venture – because Saturn rules business as well – whether it’s something to do with a project that involves building, maybe redoing something in your house, then Venus and Saturn coming together can be great because Saturn curbs the possible indulgences of Venus, but Venus brings pleasure and reward to Saturn.
Venus square the Lunar Nodes (March 30, 2022, 12:36 am PDT)
On March 30th at 12:36 AM Pacific Time, Venus makes a square aspect to the lunar nodes, at 23° and 18 minutes of Aquarius, on the Sabian symbol, “A Man Turning His Back On His Passions And Teaching From His Experience”. A planet that is square the lunar node axis is said to be “at the bendings”. Meaning, it is at point where it is catalyzing us either in the direction of the South Node, the point of comfort, experience, default or toward the North Node, where we experience growth and evolution. As it makes its square to the lunar nodes, Venus is at the north bending point. It is making a closing square to the North Node in Taurus, and Venus is of course, coming off that somewhat sobering conjunction with Saturn a couple of days before.
So, when I look at this Sabian symbol for 24 Aquarius, “A Man Turning His Back On His Passions”, and that to me pretty much describes the South Node in Scorpio, turning your back on just what motivates you from an emotional point of view or what you feel strongly about. And instead, teaching from his experience, which speaks to me of the North Node in Taurus, the practical application of things. So, as Venus is squaring these nodes, there’s the suggestion that instead of relying on our feelings about Venus related matters – like relationships or the way we’re handling our finances – that instead of relying on just what we feel about them, to instead be guided by actual practical experience. Venus square the nodes is one of these opportunities to leave behind what has been difficult in relationships, what has made you unhappy or distrustful, and instead to move forward into the kinds of connections with people that might not be as sexy and passionate, but have that quality of maturity and reliability that is suggested both by Venus’ conjunction with Saturn, and then square the lunar nodes and pointing toward the North Node in Taurus.
Aries New Moon (March 31, 2022, 11:24 pm, 11.30 Aries)
And now the Moon Report for the week of March 28th. And it begins with an Aries New Moon on March 31st at 11:24 PM at 11° and 30 minutes of Aries. This is about as quiet a New Moon as you can ever expect to have in Aries. The only a major aspect that the Sun and Moon in Aries are making in this New Moon chart is a conjunction with Mercury. So, this begins a new lunar phase family, and over the next two-and-a-half years, there is a nice clean opportunity to pursue something with Aries, passion and impetuousness. Look for the house of your birth chart, where 11° and 30 minutes of Aries falls. This is a house where you’re often called upon to be a leader, but in my experience, Aries, doesn’t really love to lead. It just doesn’t want to fallow. It wants to be a pioneer and blaze new trails, and it is perfectly happy to do so alone.
The main objective for Aries and the Aries area of your chart is just to do something new. I will link the show notes to a blog post that I did some years ago, about how to find the areas of your chart, where a transit or a New Moon or something is falling. I know it’s frustrating and confusing sometimes for those of you who aren’t really comfortable looking at a birth chart. The place to begin, really, is to find the symbol for Aries and find the house cusp of your chart that has that symbol there. Now, 11° and 30 minutes of Aries might fall before or after that house cusp, depending on the degree that’s on the house cusp, but it kind of gets you in the neighborhood. And, as I said, I do have this blog post with a video that will show you how to track that down on your own chart.
Aries, I think, is where we don’t necessarily play well with others. And others can be inspired by our Aries vision and pioneering spirit and want to follow along, but that’s really not the same as leading. Wherever you have Aries in your chart, you want to go with your own speed and that speed is usually pretty fast. That’s why it’s not a terribly collaborative sign, because your speed is not exactly like any anybody else’s speed. You just like to go at your own pace in this area of life. Also, look at the placement of Mars in your birth chart, because Mars is a planet that rules Aries, and it gives us a little more information about the places in your life or the circumstances in which you perform these Mars characteristics.
Void-of-Course Moon periods for the week
Let’s look at the void-of-course Moon periods for this week. The first is on March 28th, when the Moon in Aquarius makes a conjunction with Saturn (yay, more Saturn!) at 07:11 AM Pacific Time. It is then void-of-course for the entire day for 14 hours until it enters Pisces at 09:31 PM Pacific Time. So, here’s what to know about March 28th. It is a really powerful day for changing daily habits for the better. The Moon’s last aspect, the conjunction to Saturn, really does say that you’re at a point of resetting when it comes to taking responsibility and imposing discipline on some area of your life, and this is a really good day to start with that. It happens to be a Monday as well, and that is a day of the week that we really can be inspired to change up our habits.
Then, on March 30th, the Moon in Pisces makes a sextile aspect of Pluto at 11:37 PM Pacific Time. It’s void-of-course then for just three hours before it enters Aries on March 31st at 02:30 AM Pacific Time. If you live someplace other than the west coast of the United States, where I am, this is really all going to fall on March 31st and pretty much in the wee hours of the morning, unless you are over in the United Kingdom, for instance, where you’re going to get it first thing in the morning. So, it’s a pretty short void-of-course Moon period, but there is an opportunity in that period to take control over some aspect of your life. Look for the house in your chart where Pisces falls, and that is an area of life where you have an opportunity to take charge in a new way.
Then on April 2nd, the Aries Moon makes a square to Pluto at 06 51 AM Pacific Time, it’s then void-of-course for three hours and enters Taurus at 09:50 AM Pacific Time. So, if you’re here on the west coast of the United States, where I am, it’s first thing in the morning as you’re getting going with your day. And if you are a little further east, it’s in your early afternoon, even early evening.
So, the Moon’s last aspect to square to Pluto, we’ve talked about before, is not a terribly comfortable one. It means that we are challenging our assumptions about what we can and cannot control in our daily life.
*** Message from April
Hey there invisible friend, it’s April here. I sure hope you’re enjoying the podcast. I love bringing it to you each week, all of the breaking news of the sky happenings we all share. But, how about the way it’s all playing out in your own birth chart? Sometimes you just want to talk with someone about it, right? Well, make that someone, me. Whether you’re having some really big things happening in your life right now, or you just want to get to know yourself a little better.
You can book a 60- or 90-minute reading with me wherever you are in the world via the miracle of Zoom. I can even record it for you, so you have an indelible record of our wonderful time together. Just follow the link to personal readings at my website, bigskyastrology.com. That’s bigskyastrology.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon. Bye for now.
***
Listener Question: Orbs
This week’s listener question comes again from listener Elliott who writes, “I’ve experienced some minor reverb from separating aspects before, though some people don’t seem to believe in them. The best description I found was of a loud jet coming towards you and you feel it coming, then it’s overhead at the exact aspect and is super loud, and then it is separating and you feel the noise for a bit as it flies away, but it’s exponentially less.
My question is, Uranus has this vague bad boy reputation for possibly causing aspect activation, well, after the aspect is exact. I’ve read some astrologers who think Uranus can zing a finished aspect up to 5° after the aspect was exact. Do you agree? And if you feel that Uranus can leap back and zap you like a sly tetherball after an exact aspect, what separating orb do you apply to him? For a slow-moving planet, 5° seems like, well, basically eternal. What have you seen personally, if anything?”
April: Well, that’s a good question, and it’s a question about what we call, “Orbs”. Now. Orb refers to the number of degrees that an aspect can be from exact. So, when we were talking about the Venus Saturn conjunction earlier this week, we talked about the moment when the exact aspect formed between Venus and Saturn. That means it’s at 0°, they were exactly the same degree of the same sign. But when we’re talking about moving transits, for instance, last year, we talked a lot about transiting Saturn making the series of squares to transiting Uranus, and both of them move pretty slowly, so it took them a full year to make three exact aspects because they also have a lot of retrograde periods. But this year, Saturn is technically past Uranus. Saturn today, I think, as I record this, I think Saturn’s at about 19° of Aquarius, maybe 21, and Uranus is at, I think 11. But what will happen is that Saturn will retrograde in June. It’ll be at 28° and turn retrograde and it’ll get all the way back to 18° of Aquarius, and during that time, Uranus is starting to catch up and will get a lot closer and Saturn will get a lot closer to Uranus again.
In fact, in October, there is a moment when there were only about 45 minutes of orb or something away from each other, so just about a degree. So, the question is, does that count? Does it count now that Saturn is about 7° past the exact aspect to Uranus? Well, you tell me – whether in the world we are seeing tension between the forces symbolized by Saturn, which is constriction, discipline, laws, and those ruled by Uranus, which have to do with doing things outside the norm and being a little bit of an outlaw. We have only to look at this situation in Ukraine to know that this Saturn-Uranus square, even though it’s separating and even though Saturn’s now 7° past the exact aspect to Uranus, we can see that it is still happening, it is still in orb.
Here is a metaphor that I’ve been using lately, to think about the difference between approaching and separating aspects. Because I think they are kind of a different feeling. Think about hosting a party at your house. And in the weeks heading up to this big party, you’re doing lots of planning and you’re cleaning and you’re putting together your menu and you’re buying your food and you’re pulling out the serving dishes to clean them and you’re putting out the invitations, you’re doing so much work in advance of the party and it can go on for weeks. And the intensity builds the closer you get to the actual party. And that morning you’re running around scrambling to pull together all the loose ends. The exact aspect, then, is the party. And maybe it’s a good party, maybe it’s not a great party, but the thing happens. Then the next morning you wake up and you’re surrounded by all of the debris and the aftermath of this party. You’ve got glasses sitting around with little bits of wine in them. You have leftover appetizers that maybe didn’t get put in the refrigerator. You have snacks that you have to do something with. You’ve got stuff ground into the carpets. So clearly, although the party itself is over, you are still in the orb of the party. You still have a lot to do to tidy up and to deal with the aftermath.
Now, does that take as long as the preparation for the party? Not usually. You can usually get your house back in shape over the course of a couple of days. Maybe you still have a little bit of furniture that doesn’t get rearranged right away or whatever it is, but mostly you’re going to work pretty hard for a day, maybe two, to clean everything up, put everything away, call around to say, “Hey, who left their sunglasses here” or whatever it is.
So, I would say that generally speaking, the approaching aspects are a little more intense, but protracted. And the range of influence of these orbs really does depend on how slowly the planet moves. If we’re talking about something like Saturn, that has an orb maybe of, oh I don’t know, a few degrees coming up on another planet. If you have Pluto, which takes 248 years to go through the Zodiac, it’s going to take several years just to complete one degree orb approaching or separating from a planet. So, it very much depends on the speed of the planet that is making the aspect. And the approaching aspect is always more protracted, it gets more and more intense the closer it gets to being exact. But then afterwards you do have this after effect, you’re in the wake of the aspect for a while, you’re dealing with the fallout.
Elliott asked specifically about Uranus. And I don’t know that I would necessarily say that Uranus is any different than the other planets in this regard. I think if you are specifically personally very sensitive to Uranus, maybe it is on an angle in your chart, maybe it’s in a hard aspect to the Sun or the Moon, and you’re just a lot more sensitive to it, you are probably going to be more sensitive to its transits, feel them further in advance and further after they’re exact. But I don’t think it’s necessarily Uranus per se.
So, in terms of orb, my general rule of thumb for these slow-moving transiting planets, it’s is probably a few degrees either side. Uranus as we speak today, I think it’s at 11° of Taurus, my natal Sun is at 13° of Leo, and sure, I’ve been feeling Uranus coming up on that square for a while, because it’s been within a few degrees for about out a year of the natal Sun. So, it’s finally getting there. And the closer it gets there, the more I expect to really feel what this aspect is trying to bring to my chart, to my life. But then, for a couple of degrees after I imagine I’ll feel it as well. And that’s just the way these things work.
[April’s note: Looking back at this transcript, I can see I’m giving a bit of a mixed message here. What I’d like to say is, orbs depend on many things: your relationship with the transiting planet, how slowly it moves, and the nature of the events that it brings. What happened at that party? It’s harder to clean up after a party where guests have gotten out of control and started throwing furniture around! My guideline of a few degrees is very approximate. With a client, I can usually tell by talking with them whether they’re still experiencing the aspect strongly.]
Well, thank you for that great question, Elliott. And if you have a burning question about astrology that you would like me to answer, leave a voicemail of one minute or less at speakpipe.com/bigskyastrologypodcast, or you can send an email to me april@bigskyastrology.com and be sure to put “Podcast Question” in the subject line.
Well, that is everything I have on the show sheet for this episode. So, I’m going to wrap this one up. Thanks so much for listening to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to subscribe or follow, rate and review, and I hope that you’ll spread the word by telling a friend about the show. You can reach show notes and full transcripts and leave your questions about each episode @bigskyastropod.com.
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That is it for this episode. Join me again bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars.
© 2022 April Elliott Kent
