Libra New Moon conjunct Jupiter – Shadows, Bodies, and Light

On September 25th and 26th, the Sun transited conjunct Jupiter at 3 Libra, officially kicking off Jupiter’s yearlong cycle through the sign of the scales.  On September 30th, we will have the Libra New Moon conjunct Jupiter, our one and only opportunity to set our intentions for how we will approach our challenges for the next six months, until the Libra Full Moon conjunct Jupiter next spring, and onward throughout the rest of 2017 as Jupiter transits Libra.  This new moon strongly features Venus and asteroid Persephone, each playing a fascinatingly familiar role:  Venus is at 9 Scorpio, exact trine Neptune at 9 Pisces- her previous trine to Neptune from Scorpio happened exactly during last year’s Sagittarius New Moon- click here to see that chart (from the article Saturn in Sagittarius); and asteroid Persephone, at 8 Cancer, is exact square to the Libra New Moon 8 Libra.  During the Libra New Moon of 2014, at 1 Libra, Persephone was exact trine from 1 Aquarius- click here to see that chart (from the article Autumn Equinox Window 2014).

The Libra New Moon of 2014 was the beginning of some deeply shocking manifestations, our dreams of a better life taking forms that we did not in any way expect, and may have felt blindsided or very unhappy with the way that things suddenly changed.  However, those changes absolutely made way for a new life much better than many of us had before, and became the foundation upon which we are building stronger relationships, deeper intimacy, and a healthier future.  The Sagittarius New Moon of 2015, for me, was synchronistic with a very very literal letting go of the past, letting go of a crutch that I had needed to feel safe on a level that I’d since surpassed, a crutch that was no longer needed precisely because of the intimate relationships I had invested in and built since September 2014.

The Libra New Moon of 2016 ties all these things together, in a unified stream.  The square between the new moon and Persephone in Cancer is linked by a grand trine to Venus and Neptune, with Persephone’s companion Prometheus too.  Prometheus in Cancer embodies the compassion that Prometheus felt for the pitiful fireless humans, and his desire and longing to help them.  Linked to Neptune in Pisces conjunct the south node (uncovering things that have been hidden in the subconscious), and Venus in Scorpio (divine feminine resisting the oppression of deranged yang) we are being given the clearest view of our shadow that we have likely ever had.  Exploring the frontier of intimacy is an experiment that will fail unless we are able to see the big picture and acknowledge the reality of our shadows. Extremely difficult work, but we are also blessed with Mars in Capricorn exact trine Ceres retrograde in Taurus- tough love in action, doing the dirty work that must be done so there is greater room for love to grow. It’s our commitment to intimacy that makes it necessary to sweep out these cobwebs of aggression, selfishness, guilt, and shame, and it’s the reward of a more multidimensional experience of love that makes it all worth it. Embrace the entire process of increasing light and shadow-sweeping. Darkness and light are equally fundamental to the experience of incarnation, the experience of having a soul in a body.  These shadows are extremely valuable teachers and we are fools to minimize their importance or ignore them…..

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The hardest shadows to accept are the ones that seem, to us, distorted.  “That’s not who I really am” we say, when confronted with such a shadow.  But the fact is that all shadows are accurate.

Sometimes shadows are cast in such a way as to reveal hidden messages to us, messages that are not apparent if we are just looking at the light and the body. If only it were as simple as this illustration!  In real life it is easy to miss these messages, simply because it is hard to look at things that are difficult to accept, difficult because it creates cognitive dissonance clashing with the ways that we define ourselves as “a good person.”

The most important type of shadows are the ones that help us make sense of our bodies, when our bodies do not make sense to us in the light.  Bodies store emotions and memories, and if we are repeatedly traumatized throughout our lives, then over time we literally build our bodies out of trauma, which can be a never-ending source of guilt, grief, and physical pain. Light shining through a twisted form to illuminate the twisted mess, oh how it casts the clearest, loveliest shadow.

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Two years ago, the Libra new moon of 2014 was followed by the Scorpio new moon solar eclipse, the final Underworld eclipse in the series of Scorpio eclipses that began two years before that in 2012. Between 2012 and 2014, Saturn in Scorpio and the Underworld eclipses led us through a transformational transition, and the Autumn Equinox Window 2014 was for so many of us the beginning of a new life.  For the last two years we’ve been working towards the creation of an environment and a lifestyle that allows us to love, and now we have reached this level of focus, clarity, and honesty in addressing our shadow so we can love even deeper.  I keep reminding myself that this beautiful new world of love I’ve created with my partner has taken a form that I never would have been able to imagine before 2012.  I ask everyone I know about what their life was like before 2012 and if they could have known then where they would be today, and everyone says no, life is so different now than it was then that it’s not even recognizable. We are all traveling through unexplored territory. And now for the rest of 2016 and 2017, Jupiter’s transit through Libra includes a retrograde that causes him to trine Pluto in Capricorn three distinct times.  For all of us, but especially for the early 1980’s generation that have natal Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto in Libra, the next year will reveal shadows in ways that we cannot possibly anticipate, thrusting us into dramas of power and control.  In other words, our new strong healthy relationships are going to be put to the test.  We are safe, we are loved, and we can be prepared for this.  We can set our intentions during this new moon that we will not look away when unexpected, distorted, strange new shadows appear.  We will not make excuses or refuse to engage.  We can set our intentions to humble ourselves, to really listen, to identify when we are falsely identifying another person’s effort to assert themselves as a personal threat and reach out with magnanimity instead of attempting to dominate in an erroneous move to defend ourselves.  We will choose intimacy, we will always choose love over fear.  The last four years have been difficult, and it will continue to be difficult, but looking back it has been worth it, and going forward it will continue to be worth it.