New Moon in Aries 12:24 am MDT April 1 2022

Moon conjunct Sun 12º Aries conjunct Chiron and Mercury

Welcome to the first new moon of the astrological new year, my loves.

This is a very powerful new moon and a very powerful time for setting intentions and planting the seeds we wish to grow and harvest this year.

(And, heads up, in this post I’m about to go on [and on] about our powerlessness [and, ultimately, its actual roots in power] before getting to why and how to sow our seeds [anyway], so, read on, if you’re up for it.) :)

This moon is conjunct the sun (as new moons always are) in Aries—sign of the ram, which begins on the vernal equinox (in the northern hemisphere) each year and kicks off spring, season of birth, growth, fertility and virility. Aries season is always a time of action—and, if utilized wisely, of planning and setting goals and intentions to channel its wild energies within.

This particular moon, however, is also conjunct Chiron, the wounded healer, and Mercury, planet of our minds, thoughts, language and communications—giving it a slightly more nuanced, complex and somber flavor.

In mythology, Chiron was a centaur known for his wisdom and healing power. Ironically, he suffered a wound from a poisoned arrow that would not heal, and rather than languish, he gave up his immortality.

This time period may be activating some of your old wounds, those which seem like they may never heal. Chiron is often related to healing crises.

Chiron was also a respected teacher, and these transits can reveal to us what and how our losses, our griefs, our wounds have taught us—and can also inspire us to use our hard-won wisdom to teach and inspire others. With Mercury in the mix, the power and healing capacity of putting language to our traumas is heightened, and can lead to deep and cathartic healing.

As you ready your soil and select the seeds you wish to plant for this coming year, consider: What have I learned from past wounding or pain, that I am ready to transform into my own or collective wisdom or growth? What have my particular griefs or wounds reveal to me about my purpose, my skills, my strength in this world and what I may be able to provide for others? What do I have or feel called to offer the world that I have been afraid to share?

Accept, Trust, Surrender

For me, the lessons of the past few months have centered on acceptance and surrender. (Not my favorite lessons, tbh, which is probably why I’m facing them.) I keep encountering situations where I feel like my agency is being taken, my voice stripped from me—where things (unfair things, mind you) feel like they’re happening to me. And there’s little to nothing I can do in response.

This is terrible feeling (for anyone, I imagine, and it’s quite excruciating for my Cardinal-Water self), and it’s been easy to vacillate between a victim, woe-is-me mentality and an everyone-is-awful ftw rage. But neither of those feel any better than the pain of the situations themselves… so I’ve been forced to try a different tack.

And that approach, as mentioned, is rooted in acceptance, trust and surrender. And, to be honest, it doesn’t feel much better than either of the above modes much of the time—but I know that it is in fact better for me in the long run. So like choosing to drink water instead of having more sugar, or to exercise even when I don’t want to, I’m choosing it anyway. (And trying to keep Saturn happy.)

So if you find yourself dealing with some version of this power dynamic, or facing of old ghosts, perhaps you, like me, will find (trying and failing and trying again at) acceptance, useful.

Acceptance seems obvious, easy even—you simply acknowledge what is, what has happened, what is happening—and let it be. Accept it as it is. Don’t try to change it.

And that, for me, is the rub. Because acceptance requires that you not only surrender to your own powerlessness over the particular situation, but over life in general. True surrender asks you to lay down every resistance your little ego will throw up as to why it shouldn’t, it can’t be this way, it’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not what you want.

True surrender asks you, requires you, to relinquish your hubris that what your ego wants matters—even that what your ego wants is what you—your actual full and dynamic and multi-faceted self—want.

Full surrender is absolutely self-obliterating, and also the most freeing thing I’ve experienced—in those brief moments where I’ve been able to actually fall into it—because to truly embrace surrender you must accept that what you truly want and who you truly are, is so much bigger than what you’ve been willing to face, or admit.

True acceptance and surrender requires recognizing that there is only so much your little ego self can do, only so far freewill can take you—but also requires the recognition that this is because you are a part of something so much larger and more complex, that you yourself, your true self, are so much more vast and complex and bizarre than what your small, conditioned, embodied, afraid self thinks it is.

Surrender has required me to acknowledge that truly, I am utterly powerless in the larger unfolding of time and space and karmic consequence—and that at the same time, I am nothing but power, as I am in this, I am of this grand unfolding cosmic dance. And that everything happening to me is happening for me and of me, for my healing, for my humbling, for my empowering, for my remembering that I am part of it and I am it.

I can choose to refuse that or I can choose to embrace it. That is where my power lies.

So, yes, just some light fluffy non-dual awareness shit going on around here, how about you?

Which brings me to the ritual for this new moon and the practice of setting intentions and seeding what we want to grow. Which feels… ironic, silly, moronic? Given what I was just going on about? Why set intentions if we’re powerless to universal forces? How does naming and giving energy to what I want play into the larger cosmically woven tapestry?

I don’t know. Because, while I love to daydream about how the universe functions, I don’t actually begin to know. But I do know that it still matters.

Perhaps it is that it forms a bridge between the larger Creative Force (the Divine) and the parts of it that we are. Perhaps it makes conscious the remembering that we are this larger Source, that we do have power and we’ve just forgotten in these small roles we’re playing in this lifetime. Perhaps nothing is written and each choice we make unspools the possibilities before us, or perhaps it is all already written and—like the aliens in “Story of Your Life” who comprehend time as simultaneous instead of linear—we are like actors, reading the lines of our script, solely to bring our play to life.

What I do know is the ritual and the caring and the striving and the failing and succeeding and the loving and hurting and living and dying—it all matters, it’s why we’re here.

So I encourage you to make your new moon, new year plans, to share your intentions and visions with the ever-unraveling universe, to dream yourself, and all of us, into new worlds.

New Moon in Aries Ritual + Writing Prompts

If you are a part of the whole, if you are a fractal micro-reflection of the grand cosmos, than what you desire, truly, deeply desire—is a longing felt by the universe herself. The more difficult question then becomes, what it is you truly, actually, deeply, honestly desire? The following writing prompt can help you clarify your desires before you plant them into the soil of your life. Then, with the ritual, we’ll do the planting.

New Moon Journal Writing Prompt

- Freewrite or make a list of things you want to build, grow or bring into your life in the next year.

- Choose the top three or four things to subject to the following inquiry, to begin to give yourself a deeper understanding of what you truly want, and perhaps the deeper layers of why.

- Write down the thing you want. Now ask: Why do I want that? Write your answer.

- Then ask: why do I want that? Write your answer.

- Now ask: why do I want that? Write your answer.

- Ask: why do I want that? Write your answer.

- Finally, ask: why do I want that? Write your answer.

This exercise is called “the five whys” and is often use to find the root cause of a problem, but can also be very effective at helping us understand our underlying desires and the fears, hopes and drives swimming beneath.

New Moon in Aries Ritual—Vision Boards

- Note: Start this ritual after the new moon is exact, so Friday April 1 in most parts of the world.

- After meditating and writing on the questions in the journal writing prompt, gather magazines, artwork, art supplies and other sources of images, as well as posterboard or cardboard and glue.

- Look through the images and really try to stay open to what you feel called toward. Even if you don’t fully understand it. If you know clearly what you want, it’s fine to search for or draw those specific images, but also allow yourself to be pulled in directions you may not clearly choose or comprehend.

- Cut out images that capture what you want to create or manifest or that you’re drawn to, and glue them to the board in a pattern that pleases you.

- If possible, place your finished vision board somewhere you’ll see it regularly, and allow yourself to really bask in and take pleasure in the images.

- Check back in on the new moons in Cancer, Libra and Capricorn to see what has come into your life.

Creative Writing Prompt

Character: The Five Whys

Desire is the engine that drives most fiction. To better understand our characters, this exercise can help us excavate their driving desires, and what is beneath them—which may or may not even be conscious to the character themselves.

1. In the context of your story, consider: What does this character want? What is the desire that drives (and possibly derails) what they will or won’t do. Sum up their desire in 1-2 sentences.

2. Now ask: why do they want that? Write the answer in a sentence or two.

3. Then ask: why do they want that? Write your answer.

4. Then ask: why do they want that? Write your answer.

5. Then ask: why do they want that? Write your answer.

6. Finally, ask: why do they want that? Write your answer.

7. Now write a scene in which the character’s surface (original) desire is in either concert or conflict with their deeper desire, and is somehow being thwarted. Explore what will or won’t they do to try and reach their desire. How can the layers of desire complicate this?