Aries New Moon – 2021

By Tracy Cook

Where should my focus be during this next 29-day cycle? 

When we draft a chart for the new moon, we get a sense of the energy that will be up for processing for the next 29 days.  

Okay what is this cycle about   We set our sights on what we want and our heart tells us it is time to make the changes. 

Aries New Moon 

22 Aries 25 

April 11, 2021 

7:30pm PST 

Please note all times are Pacific.

Welcome to Aries New Moon!   

First order of business:  With the launch of this new moon, we make our Treasure Maps. 

For those of us who have been making maps for many years, 2020 was arguably the weirdest environment to launch a Treasure Map.  Last spring, Covid sent us to our homes, and we had to figure out what we wanted and what we wanted to experience in what was going to be a year of external restrictions.   It was challenging for sure, but even in that extraordinary situation,  many people have had successes born from their map.  Some small and some larger.  Others felt it was a mixed year of results.   Sure.  But now this new moon is a different experience and hopefully we will all tap into the new energy and go for it with a fresh vigor.     Remember do not start your Treasure maps until after the New Moon launches on April 11, 7:30pm PDT.   

The twenty –day lunar month takes its direction from the new moon chart and this Aries new moon is ripe with inspiring aspects.   It is nice to launch our new astrological lunar year (and Treasure Map) after a tumultuous year with this chart filled with opportunities.  

Love and Beauty and Other Goodies  

In the chart we find the  Sun/Moon in conjunction with Venus and Sun Moon sextile Mars and Jupiter.    Venus speaks to our heart’s desires.   Venus is a kind planet that touches on our values.  Love and money are associated with Venus along with beauty, creativity and gentleness.  It is softer than other planets but of course Aries is robust, fiery, independent and argumentative.  It is obvious, Venus is not the most comfortable in Aries given its more temperate nature is stretched in robust Aries.   Having said that, Venus in Aries supports fun, spirited,  maybe a wee bit ‘me’ centered activities but also action oriented and ardent pursuits.   Don’t be surprised if you find yourself wearing your heart on your sleeve as you get up each day in pursuit of something.   The race and the hunt for the thing/experience that means something to us will be inspiring.  

Mars which is the ruling planet of Aries also enjoying a good sextile with Sun and Moon in Aries and understands that there are some things no matter how smart, clever or good that absolutely need personal focus in order to succeed.    It’s not good enough to sit back and make a margarita and call it a day.   Mars in Gemini prompts us through our thinking or a good conversation to get up and ‘do something’.    Funny conversations or goofy encounters in the neighborhood or siblings could inspire us.   It is not exactly ‘keeping up with Joneses’ but a neighbor doing/getting/telling about a thing will inspire us to get our own thing going on.   A little friendly competition can be a good with Mars in Gemini Sextile Sun/Moon in Aries.    We have a flexibility this lunar month that may seem surprising.   Lots of support for pivoting in thought and action. 

Sun/Moon sextile Jupiter.   Jupiter the grandest, biggest planet in the zodiac has a gravitational pull so great that one can feel Jupiter even before you see it.    Jupiter in Aquarius puts the emphasis on groups, society and humanitarian pursuits.  We could be drawn to generous spirits this twenty-nine day cycle.   Stories in the news of someone or  an organization stepping up and helping someone perhaps helping someone on their own road to independence could be pronounced.   This twenty-nine day cycle,  supports doors opening to ‘foreign’ people or experiences.   Adventures come when we open up our own generous spirit.   Welcoming others in our circle or accepting an offer to someone else’s circle.    There is a gift in broadening our world this cycle.    

Weighing the aspects of Venus, Mars and Jupiter with the Sun and Moon,  the conjunction with Venus is the strongest.   While all three are supportive, Venus is the most pronounced and it reminds us to check in with our heart for these twenty nine days, it will speak volumes and it will be our guide.   

Pluto:  The Grind 

Sun/Moon square Pluto

Pluto has been in Capricorn since 2008 and will leave it in 2025.   Since 2008 there has been a few times when the Aries Sun and Moon were in square aspect with Pluto in the new moon chart.  This creates an underlying tension in the twenty-nine day cycle.  On this chart the aspect is in play and in fact it is the final Aries new moon to form a square with Pluto in Cap in this 2008-2025 era.   In 2023 there will be a square aspect, but Pluto will be in Aquarius which is an out of sign square and that will be a very different energy.   Given this is the Treasure Map new moon, this square in the chart sets up tension as there is some work in front of us when we consider what we want in our future.   Pluto always reminds us something must end so that something new can arrive.   Trust is critical.  

Pluto is the planet of transformation and its journey in Capricorn has not been easy but then it never is with Pluto.  The economic crash and Great Recession was the opening shot when Pluto entered in 2008.  Capricorn rules big business, banks, corporations,  government and systems, in short, it is the ‘establishment’.  It does not take a Rhodes Scholar to see the work of Pluto in the last dozen years as it has trekked Capricorn. Pluto has a heat seeking missile turned on to finding the corrupt and the broken.   With the new moon chart,  Aries sun and moon of course lean into being independent, doing something new, going a different way, using personal efforts to break things/habits/etc  that no longer work.  It could be a battle of youth (Aries) versus old (Capricorn) but really that is an easy distillation,  nuance is critical.   What works needs support what is broken needs fixing but throwing out the baby with the bathwater should never be the goal.   For twenty- nine days see where you may need to lean into independence (Aries) but also recognize the established (Capricorn) in your life that works best.   How can you reconcile both of them and go forward?  How can you find nuance in your own life?  

As tough as a Moon/Sun square Pluto in lunar chart can be, it is still valuable as we may note things that ‘feel’ off either in the public or perhaps in our personal lives .  Again we assess changes we need to make as we go forward.   It could be something simple in the news that activates us to dig deeper about finding our own way on some matter.   Sometimes a small act or habit can shift an entire situation.  

When I looked at the new moon chart and saw the Pluto aspect and realized it was the last one for the Aries new moons while Pluto is in Capriorn,  I suddenly remembered a conversation I had with a friend years ago.  I was talking with my friend and he told me how he found Christmas overwhelming with obligations between his family and his spouse’s family.  After years of feeling like they did not have their own moment, he decided that the two of them would have a breakfast tradition. Just the two of them, a special food item, a high- end coffee and a gift exchange.   He said, “Once we set that tradition and that hour was ours on Dec 25th I no longer felt resentment or anger that the rest of the day was not ‘ours’.”   Finding our ‘self’ in this new moon and twenty-nine day  cycle may just mean making a small adjustments that carves out and showcases our unique needs but still keeps us in the fabric of our world.  

Pluto Retrograde 

April 27, 2021

1:01pm PDT 

26 Capricorn 48

Station Direct 

October 6, 2021

11:28am PDT

24 Capricorn 19 

Every year Pluto spends five months retrograde.   On April 27 Pluto will station retrograde where it will transit back from 26 degrees of Capricorn back to 24 degrees.   For those people who have planets between 24-27 degrees of; Capricorn, Aries, Cancer and Libra you have been dealing with the dental drill that is Pluto for the last couple years.   Finding your power has been difficult, no doubt, while you have been asked to shed what no longer works.   Not easy.  

For those of us in the United States this is the last retrograde before the USA has its Pluto return on Feb 21, 2022. No human can ever live long enough to personally experience a Pluto return since it takes over 250 years for Pluto to return to where it was at ‘birth’.    Most nations in the world history do not exist long enough to even experience a Pluto return.  Between coups and revolutions constitutions of nations will change and with the change there is a new Pluto placement in the chart.  However, the United States ‘birth’ is July 4, 1776 and Pluto will be exactly where it was on that date next February.     This is the first time it has happened ever in the history of the USA.   

For an idea what it looks like when a nation experiences a Pluto return, astrologers look at  The Roman Empire and The British empire for what happened to them during their Pluto returns.    The astrologer Ray Grasse has written about Pluto Return.  If you give it a read, you will see how the nations were impacted.   It is also clear in the USA that we have been influenced by Pluto’s growing intensity as it gets closer and closer to the 27 Capricorn 33 degree.   

Last year during the Pluto retrograde (April 25 – October 4) it showed us a lot of the tension that needed focus.   Just in the first month of the Pluto retrograde there was plenty of action:  On April 27, the USA passed the one millionth confirmed case of Covid.  On May 8, USA unemployment hit 14.7 %  and on May 25, George Floyd was killed.    During the summer there were protests,  discussions of Covid inequities, slave owner statues removed.   NASCAR banned the Confederate flags at their races.  It was clear Americans were looking backwards at our history and asking a lot of questions.     And then in one weekend, Thunderstorms triggered hundreds of forest fires  in California as a record- breaking heat wave taxed the power grid.   Power grids would come up again six months later in Texas.   What is our power infrastructure?  Could any topic be more perfectly Pluto in Capricorn than power grids?   Then on August 16, Death Valley recorded 130 degrees the highest temperature on Earth in 100 years.    George Floyd was certainly critical to a lot of the activity in the 2020 summer,  lots of soul serching for many people.   For a country that was rooted in slavery it make sense that during a Pluto return the nation would have a reckoning on that history.    But stepping out to Pluto in general, there is also issues of climate change.   When there was the ‘Cardinal Climax’ earlier into the Pluto transit Capricorn (2008-2012) I kept seeing signs of climate change events near critical dates such as huge ice sheets breaking off and melting.   I wrote then that I thought climate change would be THE issue when Pluto exited Capricorn.   I still believe this will turn out to be accurate.   

The Pluto retrograde is of course not the only reason for the 2020 events, Saturn and Pluto conjunction from earlier in the year spoke to some of the tension along with Mars who did a number for most of the year.   But still with Pluto retrograde we take a moment as we ponder what we want going forward.   It is a transformative period for the USA and we should not be surprised if more issues are exposed during this retrograde.   Once this retrograde completes, gentlemen start your engines as we head to the Pluto Return date in February.    Perhaps this Pluto retrograde cycle we will dust ourselves off admit our mistakes and lean into:  “Know better, Do Better.” 

In closing:

While the tension of  Pluto is clear in this chart (and in America) it is not anything we cannot handle.   There are changes we want in our life and in this year.   The gift of Venus, Jupiter and Mars is to support us as we find our way to make the changes and to embrace that we deserve more good in our life.   It is time.   You got this one.  Make your map.    I will be making mine, too. 

Hugs 

Tracy 

During the month check out my blog 

http://tracyastrosalon.blogspot.com

Please note all times Pacific 

The 8 phases

Aries- New Moon 

22 Aries 25 

April 11, 2021 

7:30pm PST 

New moon: Plant seeds, make calls, activate, start projects.   Activate something that will ideally lead you to more.  This is the phase where INTENT is critical.  Even if the results are not immediate, the intent is there.  You may not have all the answers or road map, but you should put out your Intent.

This focus:     What do you want for yourself this year?  What do you want to experience?  What do you want in your life?  What changes do you want to make?   What are you learning about the power of love and in particular self love?   How can you visualize those desires in a Map?  Go for it. 

Special note:

4/11: Venus Square Pluto.    Transformative moment about values, money, love, creativity.   Power of love.   Love of Power. 

4/14:  Venus enters Taurus

Crescent Moon Phase

April 15,  2021

10:57pm PDT  

Crescent:  We will receive information, we will research a bit more, perhaps get feedback on stuff that we planted on new.  Perhaps get some information that will help down the road on a seed we planted a while ago.  We can collect some data now.  Even if you think you are not getting information, stop, and re-look at everything.  Who called you?  Even the silliest things, when they come up during Crescent are note worthy.  A parking tickets.  An argument with a spouse?  A refund check from the phone company?  All of it needs to be considered a message from the universe.  How can this information help you?

Focus on: What are learning about your communication style?  What are you learning about versatility?  What are you learning from your neighbors?  What are you learning from your siblings?  What are you learning about pivoting? 

Special Focus

4/16:  Mars trine Jupiter.   Action based on the group open doors and find opportunities.   Like- minded people take action that furthers a cause.  

4/16: Sun square Pluto.  The raison d'etre of the day is harnessing force of supporting the new while trying to honor the old and not ditching the good of both through strident responses. 

4/17: Mercury square Pluto.  Conversation is tough, power issues are at the root.   Information about power may come to light and bring out “uggh”.  Better to know than not know. 

4/18: Mercury conjunct Sun.  Finding spirited conversations that can be helpful to fold in ‘new’ thinking. 

4/19: Mercury in Taurus

4/19: Sun enters Taurus 

First Quarter Moon 

April 19, 2021 

11:58pm PDT

First quarter: We do more actions based on the information that we just received. Or we feel our instincts guide us on something.  We pursue again.  We make another call, or we see someone. We mail something.  We stir the pot again.  This can be a time when we realize that the goals, we planted on New need more action from us, perhaps actions that involve breaking away.   Are there people who say they have our best interest in heart but fear us growing away from them?  Maybe we need to get help from others not the usual suspects.  Some independence may need to be exerted. 

Focus on:  What actions are you taking that are born from strength?   What actions are you taking that speak to creativity?   What actions are you taking that are bold and energetic?   Where are you being a big shot?  How can you run a victory lap on something you have accomplished?  Go for it. 

Special Note

4/23 Mars enters Cancer

Gibbous Moon

April 23, 2021

2:44pm PDT 

Gibbous:

We refine our information.  We pick and choose, we discriminate, and we organize to be ‘Virgo’ like.  We sort through details.  Have we missed something?  How are we sifting through the information?  Go back and make sure something hasn’t been neglected.  Refine our actions.  

Focus on:  How are you sorting your schedule?  How are your daily actions speaking to what you want in this coming year?   Where do you need to stop down and look at the details?  How do you need to tidy up your health?   What dots are you making and t s that you are slashing? 

Special focus

4/23: Mercury conjunct Uranus.  Nothing like an odd, weird conversation and thinking to make a day interesting.   

4/24: Venus square Saturn.  Money/resources/values feel strained.  Wanting to hang on when novelty may need to be included. 

4/25: Mercury square Saturn.  Thinking is tough, narrowed, feels strained.  How to bring in originality when feeling stuck is important. 

4/25: Mercury conjunction Venus.  Values are in sync with thinking.  Perhaps values have morphed in the last week and need a new thought process.  

Full Moon Phase –  

April 26, 2021

8:31pm PDT  

Full Moon:  We make the needed adjustments on the things we planted. Usually, emotions are up and running and for those people who perhaps did not utilize the new moon and the rest of the waxing moon, this is when emotions can get the better of us.  There can often be a big emotional break, for no other reason than to get back on track.   Some partnership will offer up some balance.  The moon is bright and full and there is no room for shadows, what is reflecting on you?  

Focus on:  

What needs to die so something can be reborn?   How do you access your power?  How can you let go of control?   How can you share resources?   

Special focus 

4/27 Pluto station retrograde 1:01pm PDT 26 Capricorn 48 (see above) 

Disseminating

April 30, 2021   

1:22am PDT  

Disseminating: Share information; find a teacher or someone who has more knowledge. Perhaps there was a big ol’ blow out on the full and one feels in need of support and help, this is the phase to reach out to one who knows more. This is when we find a rabbi or a minister or therapist who gives us more insight.   And of course, you too may be ready to teach and share your own information.  

Focus on:  How are you  sharing your knowledge?  How are you finding your inner teacher?  How are you broadening your world by sharing?  How are you being influenced by other people sharing their world?   Where are you an expert?   How are other experts sharing with you? 

Special focus:

4/30:  Sun conjunction Uranus.  Originality that has practical application is highlighted.  

5/2: Mercury trine Pluto.  Fresh ideas and communication are highlighted.  

5/3: Mercury square Jupiter .  Communication that is grounded in reality is challenged by new big thoughts that speak to bigger causes.  How to find the spot in the middle is the rub. 

5/3: Sun square Saturn.  Tension around status quo, keeping everything the way it is when there is pressure to bring in new approaches that take care of more people. 

Last Quarter Moon Phase

May 3, 2021

12:49pm PDT     

Last Quarter moon:  Now we do the final adjustments to the seeds we planted on new. The final call, the final letters to send, we follow all the trails that came up that still make sense.  And we let the other parts lay fallow. It is a time of action but wise action.  It is a time for living “The serenity prayer” 

God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things
I cannot change Courage to change the
things I can, and the
Wisdom to know the difference.

Focus on:

What actions are you taking that connect you with groups?  What actions are you taking that speak to humanitarian efforts?  What actions are you taking that bring out smart, intellectual pursuits? 

Special focus 

5/3: Mercury enters Gemini 

5/6:  Venus square Jupiter.   Stretching money, love, values feel pulled.  Watch over spending.  Watch over zealotry.   

Balsamic Moon Phase

May 7,2021

9:27am PDT      

Balsamic:   We let go.  By releasing we can prepare for the new.  

Focus on How are you letting go of selfishness?  How are you letting go of anger?  

5/10: Mercury conjunction north node.   Thoughts about how to share information and how to communicate truth that is approachable.  Avoid lies and liars.  

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Taurus New Moon May 11, 2021 11:59am PDT 21 Taurus 17