New Moon in Uttarashada: Everyone Wins!

The first New Moon of 2023, which also corresponds with the Chinese New Year, is happening Saturday, January 21st, at 10:53 am HT (12:53 pm PDT) in sidereal Capricorn in the star of Uttarashada. Uttarashada is the “later” or “higher” victory and shows how one of the things we “win” when we are victorious is to do more work. We get to reap some of the rewards of what we have sown, and we also get to continue to nurture and feed what got us where we are to begin with. Ruled by the Vishwadevas, all the deities, we have a lot of help making tangible what we believe in. There is a quality of austerity here and a capacity to have an even “higher victory” over our beliefs by doing without, but the shift of its ruler Saturn into Aquarius, and the presence of Venus in this New Moon is also begging the question, do we want to survive…or do we want to thrive?!

Venus is still barely in Capricorn, joined our Moon and Sun for this New Moon, bringing in the quality of one-to-one relationships, happiness and enjoyment. The need to work together with a group, brings up our capacity to work together with just one other person as well. Particularly one where we are equals and have mutual needs to be met and require compromise. Big groups of people are made up of lots of these relationships, whether they are romantic or not, and our need to be humble, committed and hard-working is strong here.

Meanwhile, the other planet that helps us in our relating, Mercury, has just gone direct, still in Sagittarius. His presence in the star of Purva Ashada (the early victory) indicates that we are still planting seeds of aligned communication and that without that early nurturance all other efforts at getting along harmoniously will likely fail. Communication is the cornerstone of relating and it must be used to actually connect people, not to “be right”. Mars is in Taurus, also now direct, and giving a one-way dristhi to this Mercury, in almost exact degrees.This indicates that our pent up anger and frustration at what we believed others were keeping us from is ready to be spoken, but hopefully with responsibility for how we made those choices ourselves. It is us who chose pleasure over discipline and also, sometimes that’s okay! The more we use our fire to create beauty and things that make us happy, the more we want to remain in the houses and structures we’ve built. While it is good to know all that we can do without, and find freedom in that, it is equally important to enjoy and lavish in the beauty and joy all around us, because it is not just here to distract us from our purpose. That is an old belief, founded in survival. Our purpose is also to be happy and have pleasure, particularly with others. The more we can find the balance between self and others and austerity and pleasure, the more we can create freedom from the belief that we can only have one or the other. The time of punishment and “have to’s” has had its day and now we are ushering in a new epoch, one where joy is not something to work for after death, rather it is a necessary element to integrate into the daily way of life.

Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn has just shifted from there to Aquarius, his other sign. Here we are committed to the future, even if we have never seen it done before. Our mind can envision it and many hands can make it be so. It is the vision of the many, as opposed to the hierarchy of the few that will take flight in the next two years. Saturn brings up our fear and our awareness of time. His is an appropriate fear, and just as we learned the last three years while he transited Capricorn that we will indeed die one day, and be alone in that death, now we are going to be initiated into the fear of not evolving beyond this bodily reality. If we were just here to keep a stack of bones and skin alive and then it ends, what would anything matter? It is that which we leave behind, especially the way in which we have shaped the future with our now, that stays behind even when our blood and sweat have been washed from the earth. We may come and go from this Earth as solitary beings, but we sure do live with one another while we are here! We can build high walls and create laws and bounds to keep others out, but it does not erase their presence, and more importantly, our need, desire and enjoyment for their presence! With Jupiter still blessing us with other-worldly expansion in Pisces until April 21st, this moment is one where anything is possible and the moment to keep “waying” (work/play smash up) on what you have already started is Now.

Happy New Moon!

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