Aries New Moon – isolation style

Aries is the sign of beginnings, the new start hope where we can wipe the slate clean and start afresh. The glyph looks like the seedling growing out of the soil, unfolding in possibility with its whole future ahead of it. The Aries New Moon is normally a time to set strong intentions for the next 12 months, using the strong initiating energy to grow and expand our hopes and wishes throughout the next cycle of the Sun through the zodiac.

YET… in all that is happening right now, setting long-term intentions for the Aries New Moon feels like playing the fiddle on the deck of the Titanic. Aren’t there more important tasks at hand? Like surviving? For many right now, the short term goal is survival. Physically, financially, emotionally, we’re all tapped in at some level to protecting ourselves against this unknown entity. And the long term goals have faded into the distance as an unknown future is making larger picture plans seem impossibly far away.

Here’s the thing… everything comes back to the reason why you do it. Why do you want to survive? What is your purpose as a human? Why are we all here?

So what sits in the middle? How can you do more than just be in survival mode? Here’s a little story to illustrate…

Last year we were camping at a beach up north and my daughter had run ahead to play in the lagoon. I didn’t know if the lagoon was safe to swim in (yep, Australia is the land of poisonous, bitey things) and she wasn’t hearing my calls to stop. I needed to get across quickly, to make sure she was safe. My daughter had skipped nimbly across the rocks but I was struggling, finding the rocks hopping frustrating to travel across with speed.

At first, I focused on what was right in front of me, taking a rock at a time, but I soon realised if I didn’t look ahead my path could end up on rocks that were sharp or slippery.

Then I tried focusing on the lagoon itself, and seeing that as the end goal. Yet that didn’t work either, as I lost focus on what was right in front of me.

Finally, after a deep breath and slowing down, I realised the fastest way was to focus a few rocks ahead. From this view I could keep the short term in my periphery whilst occasionally lifting my eyes to the final end goal ahead. I kept my purpose in mind and allowed my feet to travel over the short-term on their own while staying focused on the mid-term goals. Before I knew it, my frustration had vanished and I was with her in that beautiful lagoon.

We often neglect mid-term goals, thinking short-term goals will carry us forward to where we need to be. But we can get easily taken off course or misled when we only keep the short-term in mind. Aries is absolutely about survival mode but its energy also needs a mission or purpose to pit itself against, otherwise, it gets competitive and frustrating. We all wish to survive right now, but have you asked yourself why? What is the point of our human lives? What are we fighting so hard for? How does that affect our priorities? What mission can you focus on to carry you through?

This New Moon also happens at the Southern Bending, that point midway between the lunar nodes. Lee Lehman describes a planet there “represent critical issues which can change the flow of life”. If this New Moon is anything, it represents a point where we can either turn in our direction towards a new future or stay weighed down by old habits and traditions. The Southern bending is the subjective territory, a place of release and letting go and I believe it will focus our priorities even more. I always think of Miss Havisham from Dicken’s Great Expectations, who clung to a faded, old dream so tightly that her whole life wasted away. Many of us are facing loss right, of special people, of our dream businesses or jobs, of a way of life, and in the face of a great, churning wheel of life surrendering our expectations and our struggles is the only way forward.

I’ll be holding my usual monthly New Moon Magic online gathering this Tuesday night, with an Aries twist as we examine such questions and more. I hope to see you there, you can register via https://aliciayusuf.com/product/new-moon-gathering-online/