New Moon in Pisces: Awakening to the Divine Within

I promised weeks ago that we would take a deeper look at Sedna, and now is the time. The New Moon activates this Archetype. If you recall, Sedna is the new outer limit of our solar system. Originally it was Saturn, the boundary of our senses, but we had a paradigm shift and developed telescopes that opened up a new frontier.

Pluto became the next outer limit, until we discovered the Kuiper Belt and the great diversity of dwarf bodies. We realized that Pluto was a Dwarf Planet, and the gateway to a greatly expanded system, the outer limit of which is currently Sedna.

As our Solar System expands, it reflects our expanding consciousness. We are evolving through ever more inclusive pictures of our manifested reality. The Kuiper Belt holds the key to the many psychic gifts we relinquished as we entered a 3 three dimensional world.

Saturn has come to represent the limit of our physical senses – what we can see, hear, touch etc. of our reality. Pluto has come to be associated with depth psychology as Freud and Jung were penetrating the subconscious and unconscious dimensions of mind at the time of Pluto’s discovery. When we come to Sedna, we have traversed a vast space occupied by archetypes yet to be integrated in the collective consciousness.

I see Sedna as the next frontier. She represents the enlightened consciousness of the Spiritual Adult. I also believe that we cannot bypass the Rite of Passage that is Pluto. This journey into our personal underworld is the ticket to the Kuiper Belt. We must be stripped down to our Essential Selves, face the misconceptions of the ego and take responsibility for the suffering they caused. The final challenge is beating our addiction to suffering, the final initiation of letting go.

Sedna’s Myth

There are a several versions of Sedna’s story told through the harsh eyes of patriarchal values, but the one I find to be most poetic and poignant, is the version narrated by Heather Ensworth on her YouTube video.  The myth begins at 8:48, but the rest of her lecture is worth listening to.

Sedna is an Inuit woman with an independent spirit. Much to her father’s chagrin, she refuses multiple marriage proposals. Sedna listens to her inner guidance. Her intuition finally leads her to a chance encounter with a hooded stranger who invites her into his boat. She is drawn to him and allows herself to be carried away to a remote island. She soon discovers, as the stranger lowers his hood, that she has been enchanted by Raven, guardian of Magic, Shamanism and Alchemy.

She lives with Raven who teaches her the ways of Spirit. Her father, however, has other plans for her and paddles his canoe through icy waters to find her. When he arrives at her sanctuary, he drags her into his boat to take her back to her people.

Raven spots father and daughter from above on his return trip to their island. In his rage he summons the forces of the sea, which rise in titanic waves over the canoe. Father, fearing for his life, throws his daughter into the water, telling Raven he can have her. But Sedna is afraid and attempts to cling to the edge of the boat. Her father breaks her fingers until she can no longer hold on, and she lets go, sinking into the Arctic depths where her fingers turn into dolphins and seals and whales, and her body dissolves as she transforms into a sea goddess.

Once again I urge you to listen to the enchantment of Heather’s story telling. You will integrate the themes through the energy of her voice, the visuals she presents and the hypnotic retelling of ancient wisdom.

Dwarf planet Sedna lives at the boundary of the Ort Cloud, the next event horizon to yet another unknown realm. So her highly elliptical orbit is very long – 11,000 years or so – about half the Precessional Cycle of the Equinoxes through the Zodiac. When Sedna swings around Earth, she synchronizes with the onset of a new age – in this case the Age of Aquarius. And it just so happens that Sedna reached perihelion – closest proximity to Earth – in January of this year – 2024.

Sedna at aphelion – furthest from Earth – is halfway to the next star system. She is the emissary from the stars and acts like a Great Attractor, drawing us through our own evolutionary journey during which we discover our true selves and connection to the All. Her mythology teaches us to overcome our fear, to defy cultural norms if intuition leads us elsewhere, to embrace the wisdom of our inner and outer teachers and surrender to the evolutionary flow which guides us effortlessly to enlightenment.

Currently Sedna resides on the final degree of Taurus the sign she entered in the mid-sixties, possibly providing some stability during those tumultuous times of social change. On April 27th she leaves Taurus behind and enters Gemini, trining Pluto through 2025, the two of them in Air signs working in harmony to open our minds and shift our perception of reality.

New Moon in Pisces

Sun and Moon come together to kick off a new cycle on March 10th, at 1 a.m. Pacific. They occupy the 21st degree of Pisces, forming a stellium with Saturn at 11 degrees, Hygeia at 23 degrees and Neptune at 27 degrees. In addition they are opposite Black Moon Lilith and pass through the natal territory of the USA Sedna in Pisces on to an opposition with natal Neptune at 22+ Virgo. All of this takes place in our 3rd House – the domain of Mercury who functions through perception, learning, communicating and concept formation.

At the New Moon, Mercury has just entered the first degree of Aries, alerting us to the beginning of a new zodiacal year at the Spring Equinox on March 19th. Mercury is the “ruler” of the New Moon. As it enters Aries it gets energized with fire, passion, individuality and curiosity about one’s identity and potential. Over the coming month, Mercury will meet up with the North Node on March 18th, Chiron on March 20th and Eris on March 26th. We are encouraged to think clearly about our future, about the baggage we must drop, about our authentic selves. Who are we really? We are on a journey of discovering our Divine origins. This is a big step in our quantum leap to enlightenment.

To further emphasize the Mercury theme, the New Moon trines our natal Mercury in Cancer. This calls for deep self-reflection. Cancer brings up issues of nurturing or neglect, of childhood joys or abuse, of fears and our deep need for the security of belonging. So many of us don’t feel we really belonged in our natal families. I think we did belong in them because they provided the context in which we could learn how to live comfortably on the fringe, to trust our own inner guidance, to summon the will to be different and seek an alternative path.

Family issues will arise to give us another look at old ways of viewing our lives. This is the time for a good spring cleaning of the cobwebs and dark corners of our subconscious minds. Mercury will help during the three weeks of his retrograde beginning on April 2nd and carrying us through the powerful Jupiter/Uranus conjunction on the 20th, back to the 15th degree of Pisces where our natal Sedna lies. The points at which Mercury makes its stations, both retrograde and direct become power points for at least the next four months. Mercury stations direct having received the wisdom of Sedna to be integrated through the next zodiacal cycle.

The New Moon stellium includes Saturn which will be conjunct natal Sedna on April 17th, just before the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction. We’ll discuss that at length in April and examine the profound impact this conjunction has had through our history. It’s exciting.

Saturn is a complicated archetype with so many facets. It is associated with the structures and institutions we create to formalize our social contract. As we see now, these agreements are  breaking down causing a lot of anxiety. We have reached the point at which the energy in the system is overwhelming the system. One reaction is to attempt to control it, but it is beyond control. Instead we can guide it through our own consciousness – not by wishing, but by taking responsibility for our thoughts, our feelings, our energy frequency and our actions. Greater freedom (Uranus) demands greater responsibility, Saturn’s domain in his attempt to grow us up.

Saturn will assist in the manifestation of our collective state of consciousness. Don’t despair – the majority is still sane, still wants to live in peace, still wants to protect our children and get along with our neighbors. We seem to be overwhelmed by darkness, but we must remember that darkness has increased in proportion to the brightness of the Light we are receiving and generating. The shadow factions get all the publicity, but we cannot give them power over us. They wield their power through fear. We have not known a time of such intense uncertainty, but that is precisely when we have the most power to tip the scales.

Uranus is sitting on our natal Vesta, asteroid of devotion, at the 20th degree of Taurus, sextile the New Moon. This is an activating aspect. Jupiter is only seven degrees away from Uranus now and this New Moon is triggering the coming conjunction. Be on the lookout for flashes of insight, independent urges, inner changes. So much has been germinating in the subconscious and is now ready to emerge. We’ll be fine if we can trust the process, have faith in the outcome and surrender control.

Black Moon Lilith

You might have noticed the feminine influence in this chart – Sedna, the Moon, Lilith, Vesta and Hygeia. This latter asteroid speaks to our health, including our spiritual health. We need to nourish our souls with music, poetry, beauty, companionship, laughter, and of course love. Being happy is a great antidote to collective despair. While that may sound frivolous, remember that our future manifests out of our collective consciousness. We can stack the deck with love.

Black Moon Lilith is conjunct our natal Neptune and opposite the New Moon luminaries. Lilith represents the original manifestation of the Divine Feminine – strong, independent, autonomous. Eve on the other hand was the patriarchal invention of our origin story. She is no longer a creation of the Divine, but a subspecies of Man. We have actually demonized both mythical first women, one for her defiance of male superiority, the other for all the ills of the world with her sin of wanting knowledge.

As the Divine Feminine returns, like Sedna in her vast orbit, the patriarchal structures are disintegrating. This brings hope on the one hand and fear on the other. Which world do you want to live in?

Makemake

Our awakening involves Makemake, the Dwarf Planet that acts as the next higher octave of Uranus, which is the higher octave of Mercury. While Uranus provides flashes of brilliance and insight, Makemake expands our awareness through gestalts that provide glimpses of a much larger reality. At the New Moon, transiting Neptune is trine Makemake at 27+ Scorpio. And transiting Sedna is opposite this dwarf. Prepare to have your minds blown in the coming months. Make space for a new vision of reality that is hovering beneath the surface.

Pisces

Pisces winds up our annual trip around the Zodiac. This is the sign of endings, just as Aries is the sign of beginnings. These two themes are the focus of this lunar cycle. Pisces supports our letting go of old habits, outworn attitudes and limitations. It’s like the universal solvent. We can let things melt away.

Pisces connects us to Cosmic Consciousness in which we realize our Oneness with All That Is and its divinity.  Humanity is on the threshold of a new Spirit of inclusiveness. There is an epidemic of loneliness in our world and much of it is caused by our insistence on separation, status, hierarchy. The truth lies in the ineffable realm of soul, where we are united under the umbrella of Spirit. I learned the other day that all humans share 99.9% identical genetic material. How obvious is that? We are One, yet individual, like roses of different colors and scents. Together we constitute a garden.

We’ll take a look at the Spring Equinox chart and the Full Moon in Libra next time. For now, our focus is on letting go of the past and dreaming our future into being.