The Sun and Moon meet in Cancer, as they do once (rarely, twice) every year, at 11:31 AM PDT of the 17th at 24 Cancer 56, and this time form some tense, T-square energy across the Sun-Earth axis with Eris, a square to which is the next aspect both Sol and Luna will perfect. Eris is generally blamed for creating strife, but I see her more as bringing to the surface already extant tensions–she has the nature of a catalyst, facilitating the interaction of other factors. Eris gets blamed for causing trouble because no one wants to own something they’ve worked hard to ignore–and that means there may be lots of finger-pointing (or worse, sotto voce insinuations), all in the name of denial. Wherever the weather vane is pointing, look back in the direction that wind is coming from–that will tell you much more than will fixating on the direction it’s traveling.

What’s more, we’re talking about Cardinal energies, and that means stresses will prompt action–and it’s likely those choices won’t have been fully considered, there’ll be such pressure to do something about ‘it’, with the pressure to act coming as much from within us as from externals. Vesta semi-square the New Moon says our own highest values and deepest commitments will require we act. One way, though, to help us judge how accurate and/ or effective those impromptu moves might be is by examining what the Sun and Moon contacted just before their meeting (illustrating the time leading up to the New Moon) and what each will contact just after, before either leaves the sign of Cancer.

Both sextiled Uranus, and almost simultaneously squared Zeus. That suggests our attentions have been on deep desires, our passions stirred by want and ambition (and in both instances, these have our attention because we don’t have fulfillment there–the square) and surprise, shock, a sense of rebellion or revolution, sudden awareness or information gleaned through Higher Mind, or the effect of the group on individual autonomy or originality, figure in to the scenario that leads us up to the ‘now’ of the New Moon.

And what springs from the inception point of the New Moon, from the seminal energies of emotion, what we care about, what we nurture, ‘mother’, protect? Out of the stress of the Lunar event we see an enormous creative, imaginative, or spiritually-infused burst (trine to Neptune) and just after that, a scenario where we must choose, involving elimination, destruction, or transformation of a facet of surrounding structures, rules, disciplines, or frameworks upon which we have been reliant (opposition to Pluto in Capricorn–and note this occurs in the 29th degree, suggesting the choices we will have to make, even be forced to make, will in themselves be stressful).

The Sabian for the New Moon is, ‘A Willful Man Is Overshadowed By A Descent Of Superior Power’. That’s Cardinal energy, all right, describing a highly Arian sort of Being–and Mars at the time of the NM will be in Virgo, just moving out of conjunction with Pallas, telling of a recent point where we asserted ourselves based upon what was wise or practical–with the ruler of Mars, Mercury, in Leo, so ruled by the Sun, which is ruled by and conjoined the Moon, leading us back to the Lunar picture. So, the action we took then, or choice we made, is integral to the New Moon event–and likely affecting us much more emotionally than we realize (or care to admit). But, the image declares that whatever way in which we’ve made our Will known, by the New Moon, will be overtaken by a larger, more potent force–which suggests something about the Lunar event will show us not everything is within our power, under our control, or subject to our Will. A lesson in limits and modesty, that will serve our creative and transformative efforts that follow.