The New Moon in Aries ignites during the March Equinox with the energies of a supermoon. Intent on bringing forth new storylines in our lives as the Sun progresses through the zodiac in 2023, it will generate new twists in old plots. This planetary transition also symbolizes a union of the primal, instinctual self (the Moon) with the self-conscious, cultured self (the Sun).
The Sun and the Moon are joined in Aries by three other planets who channel the lively Aries spirit, symbolic of hope in action (Jupiter), single focus of mind (Mercury), and our wilder animal nature (Chiron). We can use this energy for retreating into our inner world to meet different parts of ourselves under a softened light. Meditative practices, especially those involving dance or movement, will be particularly fruitful for bringing us into the creative, imaginative space of this New Moon.
If you are unable to move your body with ease, the imagination is more accessible now to spontaneously move your body through time and space through grand visionary inner adventures. Whether your movement practice is outwardly expressed or imaginatively experienced, listen and watch for inner responses or synchronistic reflections in the outer world.
The March Equinox is marked by the Sun’s ingress into the fiery, initiatory sign of Aries, and this year’s ingress coincides with the New Moon in Aries on March 21 at 10:23 a.m. US/Pacific. It seems fitting that this particular New Moon is also a supermoon, meaning the Moon is at perigee, the closest to the Earth that she will get. A powerful seed is being planted at the start of this astrological new year, promising the eruption of fresh storylines in our lives and new twists in old plots.
The month of March features so many shifts in cosmic emphasis, with the willpower of Mars slipping into the emotional waters of Cancer on March 16 after a prolonged seven-month stay in the airy mind of Gemini. While we may have to allow more time for emotional processing around enacting our will with Mars in Cancer until May 20, at least we will have a break from the “everything everywhere all at once” feeling of Mars in Gemini for such an extended period.
A much more momentous movement is structuring Saturn’s ingress into visionary Pisces for the first time in 29 years. The lead role of imagination and belief in creating our present, understanding our past and meeting up with our future will become quite prominent over these next few years. Saturn in Pisces comes at a confluence of cosmic energies, which will have us reimagining our relationship to work, duty and obligation, and the boundaries we create between the Self and others.
The most massive move, however, is power broker Pluto’s entry into Aquarius on March 23, where he has not traveled since the 1770s. The more rare an event in astrology, the more heightened its significance. As Pluto dips in and out of Aquarius (due to its retrogrades) throughout 2023 and 2024, we will receive glimpses of what this 20-year transit will manifest in our lives and in the wider world.
While we can expect many manifestations of Pluto tracking through the communitarian sign of Aquarius, one we might notice on a personal level is a deeper engagement with our belief systems and our experiences of individuality versus belonging to groups.
The New Moon symbolizes the meeting of the unconscious (the Moon) with the conscious ego self (the Sun). It represents a union of the primal, instinctual self (the Moon) and the self-aware, cultured self (the Sun). A lively energy is crackling through the anima mundi (soul of the world), seeking to break seed coats and release the beginnings of new roots, new leaves, new flowers, and new forms.
The messenger planet Mercury brings word of these stirrings of new life, zipping quickly through Aries (March 18 - April 3) and meeting up with the expansive qualities of Jupiter (exact March 27). Mercury must first pass through half-animal, half-human Chiron (exact March 26), who stands guard at the threshold of Jupiter’s joyful ecstasies. At this time, we may find ourselves tuning into the areas of our belief systems that are incongruent with who we have become, and feel pushed to give voice to our desires, even though it may feel extremely uncomfortable or vulnerable to do so.
Such discomfort may simply be part of a growth process, as rejected desires or parts of the Self emerge through cracks in an old belief structure and ask to be honored and enacted. Jupiter’s blessing here suggests that we have a better chance at growing more whole and welcoming in some of the more wild and wooly parts of us—as symbolized by Chiron—acting courageously with faith for a positive outcome.
This is all a part of the larger initiatory picture of the New Moon in Aries that gestures towards the impulse to strike out in new directions. We must just be wary of overexaggerating our abilities to ourselves or others, or getting carried away by enthusiasm, as Mercury-Jupiter can be a little disproportionate in thought and speech.
Action-oriented Mars’s square with nebulous Neptune (exact March 14) could also complicate our ability to direct our energy in satisfactory ways, and might correlate to being led down dead ends and having to backtrack to find the right path. Overall, contact with our will and directionality in life has been challenging for many, as Mars’s long seven-month retrograde through the multi-tasking sign of Gemini has tended to scatter our efforts in many directions. This was a highly medicinal experience for some, but for all who struggle with focus and task completion, Mars’s movement into Cancer will bring a needed change of pace on March 16 until he moves into Leo on May 20.
Another sign of fresh starts and a significant shift in cosmic emphasis is structuring Saturn’s entry into the imaginative sign of Pisces on March 7, where he has not been since 1994, and where he will be until February 2026. Saturn is actually joining the grand dame of vision, Neptune in Pisces, calling to mind the astrologer Caroline Casey’s observation that “imagination lays the tracks for the reality train to follow.”
The lead role of imagination and belief in creating our present, understanding our past, and meeting up with our future will become quite prominent over these next few years. We will be well served by respecting the power of imagination and creating alliances with its deeper aspects and expressions. Many influences throughout this time period will have us reimagining our relationship to work, duty and obligation, which speak to the boundaries we create between the Self and others, as well as the mysterious workings of time. And while we must bring or forge skill in working with the imaginal and mythic dimensions of existence, Saturn in Pisces offers a greater fluidity and flexibility of the symbolic and the metaphorical, which supports a creative response to life’s challenges.
That most distant yet incredibly powerful planet, Pluto, is also tilting us towards a deeper engagement with our belief systems as well as our experience of individuality versus belonging to groups as it moves into the communitarian sign of Aquarius on March 23. The slowest moving planet in our solar system, Pluto, will be in Aquarius until 2044. It was last in Aquarius 245 years ago, way back in 1778. Pluto’s transit of Aquarius is associated with, among other things, industrial and technological revolutions. Perhaps this is partly due to Aquarius’s relationship to technology and invention, and Pluto’s embodiment of evolution. But part of our storyline in this planetary time may involve the re-emergence and renewal of ancient technologies and human ways of being in community, as a necessary response to evolutionary pressures. We are likely to have to reorient ourselves to the power of nature and create deeper collaborations with the Earth and her many intelligences, which will have impact on our individual lives as flows of power between and among us are restructured.
Many of us will either willingly or be compelled to reconsider how we belong to communities, and what we can accomplish together versus in isolation. Moving through fears of being seen in our uniqueness or of standing out will be prominent for some, and oddly, so might fears of loss of personal identity within a group. Aquarius carries with it a paradox of groups being made up of individuals, and so we will have a chance to reorganize our belonging to our own true nature, as well as to our social and family groups.
Throughout it all, the human ability to analyze, conceptualize and place objective facts into meaningful context will become a crucial spawning ground for the transformative powers of Pluto to work their magic of unearthing, composting, and repurposing. We are called to carefully tend to the gardens of the Soul, and to enrich the Earth with our human presence.
✨ Herbs for New Moon Magic ✨
