The Enchanted Garden of Messer Ansaldo by Marie Spartali Stillman (1889) {{PD}}

Many of you will recognize this article’s title from an old Twilight Zone episode, where humans eventually realize that extraterrestrials who arrived carrying a book titled ‘To Serve Man’ haven’t come to offer altruistic aid, which is humanity’s first, Self-serving assumption. Too late it’s discovered that the tome is, rather than instructions for actually a cookbook, and we’re all on the menu! I’ve been seeing something like this all around lately, a dogged attempt at interpreting actions and events as ‘for our own good’, one way or another, when in fact those choices are serving only the perpetrators. Is there anything wrong with serving one’s own needs and agenda? Of course not–it’s true that our primary responsibility is to look out for ourselves–it’s the presentation of selfish choices in a way meant to lull others into feeling cared for, to deceive concerning the intentions behind what’s said or done, that are the problem.

We may have accepted the unacceptable in particular over the weekend, and during the Monday and Tuesday preceding the New Moon. The Dark period often makes us unintentionally receptive, the mind and psyche open, either from a sense of relaxation or a sense of unguardedness. Sometimes we feel extra-alert in that figurative darkness (when the transiting Moon is contacting sensitive natal bodies or territory as it approaches the Sun), but more often we feel adrift, and so unable to resist what comes at us; sometimes this is a good thing, as we absorb information that otherwise might not be available to us, and potentially a bad thing, as we receive influences without our usual critical assessment.

What does all this have to do with the New Moon in Virgo, occurring at 10:30 PM Pacific time of the 19th? Everything, really, as we see a New Moon in Virgo brings new, productively-oriented beginnings–and what prompts those beginnings may have been influenced by Dark of the Moon material. Again, this may not be a problem, as it could’ve acted to lower our barriers and quiet critical resistance to our creativity and imagination–but it also may have ‘let in’ things that tailor our new start more to the interests of others than to our own wants and needs.

Since the tone of Virgo is one of service, we may find we need to ask ourselves one defining question about what originates around this time: For whom am I doing this? If you do it for yourself, fine; if you do it in pure service to others, also fine; but if you do it unsure of what motivates you, you may do best to stop and sort it out, or risk creating something that’s more burden than benefit.

The New Moon perfects at 27 Virgo 27, widely conjoined Vesta in Libra, and opposed both Earth (natch) and Chiron. The NM also sextiles Ceres, widely squares Black Moon Lilith, sesquiquadrates Pallas, trines Sedna, with its closest aspect a quincunx to Uranus. (This is where I might also point out the Finger of God that, though not connected directly to the New Moon, still may poke us in the eye: Sedna sextile Earth-Chiron, apex Jupiter=if we can get the instincts and material skills to work together, we make something larger than the sum of its parts–a challenge that might apply to whatever we instigate at this point, and that we must be aware can get away from us, overwhelming our control or understanding, at any time).

The aspects suggest the New Moon ‘births’ something we dedicate ourselves to, that reflects our highest values (and again, we see the need to know why and for whom we are acting, as new commitments and obligations, especially to others, are a distinct possibility–Vesta in Libra). The caution comes in the opposition of Chiron, suggesting we may be in denial of, or out of touch with, our own wounds, substantially upping the chances of us being insensitive to our needs (or even to martyring ourselves–Chiron in Pisces).

The square to BML describes tension over things that enrage us, or over injustice or things we are in denial of–again, a ‘looking away’ or separative element to what we do, or how we see or process events, that suggests we observe and react to the wrong without actually doing anything–though the sextile to Ceres and trine to Sedna both promise we can connect to informative energies through our natural roles and sources of power, especially those attuned to Mother Nature and her rhythms and cycles. We can trust our own natural authority as our guide, and we’ll need to; the sesquiquadrate to Pallas and the quincunx to Uranus imply difficulty using the intellect to discern what’s wise, what’s smart, what’s ‘right’, and this can contribute situations where we must draw on skills in times of sudden opportunity or, more likely, sudden stress.

The Sabian for the New Moon is, ‘A Baldheaded Man Who Has Seized Power’. The image is one not just of taking power for oneself, it conveys natural power, akin to that which we find in Black Moon Lilith, Ceres, Pallas, and Sedna, derived in the image via the high testosterone levels we now know cause baldness. The NM meeting of Moon and Sun suggests a blending of male and female, with the Sabian providing a male image of power, overt in its expression, while the connections of the New Moon provide a picture largely of female power, or at least power represented in various female forms, a more receptive and emotionally perceptive energy.

The New Moon, then, brings us all a chance to dedicate ourselves in some kind of service, and we may become powerful in the process, though one of the challenges is to be as aware as possible of not just who we are serving, but how and where the power to serve and be served is derived, in growing this New Moon seed of Higher Consciousness.