Sag New Moon with Mercury Rx…Off on a Quest, Is it Fantasy or Reality?
On December 12 we have a New Moon in Sagittarius. New Moons are a time when we plant a seed for the next cycle, a time when we can pause and connect with the deeper part of ourselves and listen to what our intuition tells us about the next stage of our growth. Working with that intuition we can set an intention to nurture the seed as it grows over the coming months.
Sagittarius is the sign of the Quest, the search for the Holy Grail. With Mars connected to the New Moon, we may feel a strong urge to step into a new adventure, take up a new cause, and fight for our beliefs and ideals. With Mercury, the messenger of the gods in a flowing aspect to Jupiter, the god of optimism and big ideas, like Don Quixote, we could get “puffed up” about our vision—confident that we know what we are doing and that our quest stems from some divine injunction. This is especially true as Jupiter rules Sagittarius and so rules this lunation.
Yet this New Moon cautions us to hold our ideas lightly. With the New Moon square to Neptune, we may find that, like Quixote, our vision was rooted in a fantasy. Neptune is the god of dreams and ethereal thoughts. As the Moon ripens, we may need to adjust our quest if we discover that our initial intuition was rooted in illusion.
Mercury turns retrograde within a few hours of the New Moon, reinforcing the need to hold our quest lightly. When a planet turns retrograde, it appears to move backward in the sky. Ancient philosophers interpreted retrograde movement to be aligned with “primary motion,” the motion of the divine. In contrast, the everyday movement of the planets around the zodiac was called “secondary motion” and was connected with our actions in the material world. Symbolically, retrogrades can be seen as moments of “karmic correction” when we encounter difficulties that force us to slow down, reflect, and re-align ourselves with divine will.
In late December and early January, Jupiter and Mercury turn direct within a couple of days of each other and we are likely to gain clarity around our New Moon vision. In the meantime, as you take up your quest, you may want to explore what fantasies lie beneath the surface. It may be best to hold it lightly with the understanding that you may need to change course as fantasy gives way to reality and as Mercury retrograde offers its karmic lessons.