Emerging From Chaos: New Moon in Leo & Mercury Retrograde

New Moon @ 07 degrees Leo
Saturday July 30, 2011
11:40 AM Pacific
2:40 am Eastern

This is the second New Moon to occur within the month of July, and will take place in the tropical sign of Leo. In general, the New Moon in Leo invites us to fully embrace and express ourselves, to connect deeply to our inner child, and to play and be spontaneous. In Leo we are impulsed to move through life more subjectively-to really immerse ourselves in the moment and to allow things to just unfold around us. As we set our intentions for this new lunar cycle, see what areas of your life could use some creativity, as greater solutions to problems can be found when we're less mental and more expressive and spontaneous, when we allow the unconscious to pour out organically- in those moments when we surprise ourselves with what we're capable of.

There are, however, several aspects within the New Moon horoscope which invite us to be exceptionally conscious of our ideas and idealizations; on the one hand to loosen up and be expressive, and on the other to be fully aware of how useful and practical such ideas are in the real world. Are we more caught up in conceptualizing things in our minds then we are of actually getting down and experiencing things first hand? Many ideas and ideologies sound great when read on paper, but how functional are they for the real world; do they really work the way we "thought" they would when actually applied to life?

This particular New Moon is highlighted by a Mercury Retrograde cycle in Leo, and because of this, there will be much revision, reconsidering, and restructuring going on in many facets of our lives, but particularly relating to areas of creative development and creative self-expression/actualization. Within the New Moon horoscope there are several intriguing aspects to consider, and some may be challenging to fully integrate- there is a lot of energy that is seemingly at odds. For one, the New Moon itself is in a rather wide conjunction with Venus in Leo, and all three planets are in a square aspect to Jupiter in Taurus. Here we may feel an impulsion to activate, or make manifest, some expansive creative ideal or solution, and yet, with Mercury retrograde during most of this lunation, it would not be wise to implement anything until Mercury has gone direct on August 26th.

This energy is then amplified by all three planets in a Trine aspect to Uranus in Aries, and here we feel a sudden and spontaneous burst of inspiration, which seems to come out of nowhere, and its intentions are highly unpredictable. The best advice for handling all this powerful energy is to simply allow it to flow through you, play with it and experiment. So much of the energy during this lunation invites us to not attach ourselves to any particular outcome, but to remain open and receptive, and simply allow these energies to take us where they want us to go. We don't always need to have a definite plan of action or even any idea of what we're doing at times, sometimes it's through the creative process that our destination will unfold and emerge heuristically.


Much of the energies this New Moon are allowing us to let go of our need for immediate action and assertion, because we've been feeling a sense of urgency over the past several weeks. Now is the time to relax a little bit, try not to be so hard on yourself, and refocus into other directions. The most interesting aspect of all within the New Moon horoscope is Mercury in Virgo, slowing down as it begins to move stationary retrograde, conjunct Transpluto on the 29th degree of Leo, and in opposition to Neptune conjunct Chiron in Pisces. This particular aspect has been quite challenging for me to penetrate, but after I stopped working so hard, suddenly it became much more clearer for me--and I feel that process has a lot do with its intention. The juxtaposition and duality of chaos and perfection emerged from these energies as an overall theme, and this is likely to be extremely prominent over the next several weeks. The universe itself is inherently chaotic, chaos is a natural part of life, and it is necessary for evolution- it keeps life fresh and open to diversity. In the words of astrologer Noel Tyl, we find this gem of wisdom:

"All of life began and begins with this chaos. It swirls through time in purposeful randomness and comes together as uncertain potential. Chaos drives science to explain all this profusion of activity, and then it continues on like a phantom force past where science stops. Yet, chaos is real, and if what is real is what is perfect in the sense that reality is meant to be-then chaos in no less perfect.[1]

Here in the third dimension there is no such thing as absolute perfection, for it will always loom before us as a potential for which we strive for, but never truly within our grasp. This does not mean that chaos overcomes perfection, for the two principles are cooperative, and like light and dark, cannot exist without the other. Perfection in an ordering principal, it is a desire which lies deep in our DNA. Idealism is the 'carrot on a stick' that fuels our desire for perfection, because it is a potential that exists higher dimensionally, and it informs us from within, to reach toward that higher state of being. This all brings to mind the concept of Morphogenesis, the theory which ponders the source from which emerges all material forms into our reality. In a higher dimension--hypothetically the sixth--there exists the code, or the root geometry of all biological life forms that exist on earth. How conscious we are determines how much in alignment we are with this 'ideal' form. "Reaching our potential" is actually a matter of aligning ourselves with this higher vibrational code, and our seeking of perfection stems from this natural process. So, in theory, all of us has an ideal form, or body: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual.

Evolution urges us to align ourselves with this form as much as possible, but we must also understand that this is a world of both perfection and chaos. The underlying message of this new moon, and the Mercury retrograde cycle, seems to be that we do not have to be "perfect", we are invited to be conscious of our potential and take steps toward aligning ourselves with it, but to be humble enough to admit that we will never fully be the perfect image of that potential in this life. Absolute perfection, cleanliness, and orderliness are illusions in our world. It's OK to make mistakes, that's how we learn and ultimately how we grow.

Awareness of the fact that we made a mistake is truly more rewarding than attempting to avoid pitfalls or trying to be "perfect", for it allows us to adjust ourselves and strengthen our ability to navigate life in the future. Any creative process inevitably asks that we make mistakes, because it is a process, which is a state of unfolding and of becoming. The irony is that when we fully surrender to our potential, when we immerse ourselves in humility, we actually find it much easier to align ourselves with this higher ideal or image of perfection. We need not struggle or "work hard" to attain it, we simply need to let go of our fear that we won't be good enough, or that we don't deserve it. To reach our potential, all that needs to happen is for us to just be who we are, and let go of we 'think' we are, or who someone else told us we were. This lunation asks us to just be, to just flow, and just create without fear that we're going to do the wrong thing, because it's not about the end result, it's about the process.

So, even within chaos, there is an ordered logic, a method to the madness within. Seeing that there is an intelligence within both order and chaos gives a deeper meaning to life and to our existence. Chaos is not random, nor is it truly accidental, it is deeply purposeful and truly meaningful. As we stand at the precipice of this new moon, let us look at the chaos we have experienced throughout life, and reflect on its inherent meaning. How does or did chaos propel us to become the person we are now, in this moment? How can we emerge from chaos, and begin to order things, without focusing solely on attaining perfection? The ideal of perfection we must align with is not the same as our own mental ideology, it is a surrender to a higher idea beyond our own control. It is our ability to assimilate cosmic idealism.

Let's take a look at the Sabian symbol[2] for the New Moon position, and see how it ties in, and weaves itself, with the surrounding themes we've extracted so far.......

08 degrees Leo: A Communist activist spreading his revolutionary ideals.

This image contains much information, beyond its literal meaning. It brings us the visual of someone spreading an ideology, who is an activist, someone who may be passionate or perhaps, even militant in conveying his or her message of personal truth. Dane Rudhyar, in An Astrological Mandala[3], interprets the the symbol as follows:

KEYNOTE: The emotional and ideological attempt to return to a state of non-differentiation and chaos as a prelude to a new type of order.

This symbol, beyond all present-day socio-political controversy represents the activity of destructive or catabolic forces (one aspect of the Indian god Shiva) in answer to the type of confrontation suggested by the symbol for Leo 6. The old order is confronted by the youthful drive for a new way of life and new sense of values. As the old order refuses to yield its prerogatives, this refusal polarizes violent revolutionary action. The revolutionary may have beautiful dreams of a "classless" society free from greed and harsh struggles for survival, but the first practical result of his activity almost inevitably appears as "chaos". Yet to reorganize and differentiate. Alas, such a descent most often is still based on old concepts, and one witnesses a struggle for personal and dictatorial power.

Communism is a political ideology which seeks to break down social and economical barriers to create the vision, or ideal, of a unified and classless society. Its application throughout the twenty first century has taken on some unusual and rather odious manifestations. I am not denouncing communism here, but like all political ideas, its progenitor is the same, as say, capitalism and socialism, the primary political systems spreading throughout the world. These are all mental constructs which originate from the human mind, which is limited and can become highly delusional when solely developed against other faculties. The vision of a unified society is not something new, nor was it solely born from the vision of Marx.

All these political ideas stem from a basic desire which arises within each of us, they are reflections of higher ideals that exist higher dimensionally, they are born out of our desire to emerge from chaos and find salvation within perfection and order, which is a state beyond our temporary and physical vibration here on earth. The polarized ideologies we limit ourselves with today, as the only options for 'saving' humanity from darkness, are fragments of a more holistic picture of how humanity was designed to operate, before we became enslaved by the delusion of separateness. I feel that each of them has many threads of truth, but are incomplete when they stand-alone, and especially when forced onto a unconscious populace of peoples. We experiment with such ideas because it is our attempt to return to that state of unified order and wholeness which exists eternally as our highest potential. This brings me to an illuminating quote from Psychological Astrologer Liz Greene:

"Most Marxists that I have met are very annoyed if I suggest that their political system is really a religious vision, because the Marxist is supposed to be militantly atheistic. But militant atheism is, in American jargon, a dead giveaway, because if a person is really an atheist he simply doesn't care. If he's militant, he's trying to stamp out something in himself"[4].

Marx was born under the cyclical conjunction of Neptune and Uranus, which is historically associated with the emergence of political ideologies fermented with a religious or even utopian vision and undertone[5]. This "vision" did not emerge solely from his mind alone, it was an impulsion which was being shared collectively, and it was seeded by archetypal forces which exist, again, higher dimensionally. What Marx glimpsed was only a fragment of a higher potential that is slowly reemerging since the discovery of these outer planets beginning in the 1700's, they are slowly seeping into the collective consciousness and changing the systems and structures of our world. With that aside, however, what Liz is saying, and much like the symbol we are presented with, is that by aggressively pushing an ideology onto the masses, with any kind of strict militant fervor, we are likely "stamping out" the oppression within ourselves, by projecting it onto the outer world.

When a zealous or dogmatic individual, or even society or government, takes it upon themselves to establish a crusade against "evil" in the world, what is really happening, is a form of projecting the evil within, onto others through judgement, it allows the individual to detach, and in a way, deny that evil within themselves by exploiting it externally. If someone were atheist or nihilist, like Liz is saying here, it is someone who just "doesn't care", there's a releasing of responsibility and attachment through an acceptance that chaos prevails and that ultimately there is no order, whether they truly feel this way or not, we cannot know. If that person were to grab a megaphone to preach that ideology, then they are actually, in a way, denying law and order within themselves, they are trying to stamp out their own divinity, the god within, and their own inner oppression, through trying to 'convert' others to their belief. When we rage a war on something, we end up becoming that which we are fighting, we are secretly consumed by it, because we have polarized ourselves against it, and so it grows and festers within the unconscious.

If you think the world is scary, take a look within, because the unconscious is the puppet master which directs and impulses us toward action in the outer world. We cannot FORCE peace, utopia, unity, and equality onto anyone or any collective body, we can only find it within ourselves. Until the mass majority of humanity realizes this, the application of these ideologies will forever contort, distort, and fail to actualize their full and true potential. Now, the symbol we are presented with is relatively unbiased, it is simply an image, which was seen through the eyes of a detached clairvoyant. These conclusions, are of course, my own, and so the energies we are feeling this new moon present us with the picture of an individual spreading an ideal, one that contains hope and a vision of unity beyond class and segregation. Whether communism is the solution that will provide this in the world or not is really not important here, it is the underlying theme of a revolution, a prelude to chaos and catabolism to create and establish a new type of order.

How does this apply to our own lives and to the collective at this current juncture? This particular New Moon falls less then 1 degree from the true North Node within the United States horoscope, and we can anticipate that the energies and themes emerging from it will be highly significant for the American people. Also of interest, is Mercury's retrograde passage and conjunction with Transpluto at the 29th degree of Leo, opposite the Neptune/Chiron conjunction in Pisces. The 29th degree of Leo was also the location of a rather powerful Super Full Moon which occurred on February 18, 2011, in direct opposition to the asteroid Pallas Athena in the US horoscope.

Of further interest, is the current New Moon in Opposition to Pallas Athena which currently sits on the South Node position within the US chart as well. The transiting South Node is currently approaching the US Mars in Gemini, and so we have many of the same combinations of planets connecting through synthesis. It would appear we are encountering a phase in which aggressive force and action, if applied, will exploit its darker and destructive side, it will not lead to any kind of functional result. If we follow the North Node, we are lead, through rulership, to Jupiter in Taurus, which urges us to get grounded, to slow down, to take small steps, and to be patient and consistent with our actions--this is the complete antithesis to these south nodal energies.

A new cycle is emerging, and with it, we are given the opportunity to create alongside it, with the power of our intentions. Let's be highly conscious of what we are thinking about, or what we truly want to create in our lives and in the world at this time. Whatever chaos we experience is only a reflection of the chaos within ourselves, and the more conscious we are of it, the better the opportunity we have of healing it.

Are we emerging from chaos or are we descending deeper into it? I suppose that's all a matter of perception.....

Mercury Retrograde In Virgo/Leo
August 02, 2011- August 26, 2011

Mercury retrograde can often accompany a three week period of sporadic annoyances and agitations, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a negative thing. The Mercury retrograde cycle impulses us to go back to something, to reconsider things, and to revise our perception of how things work. When we resist this current by attempting to either hold on to our previous beliefs and perceptions, or by trying to push forward with something that likely isn't ready, we will experience set backs, delays, and frustrations. Working with this cycle can actually be a highly constructive and useful process. This is the opportunity to make sure things are in place, and to be certain that they will be functional in the future. If we are aware and conscious at this time, Mercury retrograde will bring to our attention, things that need to be addressed and looked at, so that we can adjust them. This can often manifest in the "break down" of various systems and structures, because there is something missing or something faulty that we need to look at.

In Leo, we are reconsidering several things, primarily creative self-actualization and the utilization of our will. We may also reconsider or revise a leadership status or role, attachment or over-concern with pleasure and solipsistic tendencies, or possibly even matters concerning children, or our own inner child. Because of Mercury's retrograde cycle coming into contact with several outer planets, as well as an opposition to the Moon in the US horoscope, we can anticipate these themes to leak into the collective attention as well as in our own personal lives. This Mercury retrograde invites us to let go of our attachment to our expectations of how life should unfold, and surrender to a greater holistic picture as it emerges from the chaos of the collective unconscious.

Mercury in opposition to Neptune indicates that we must be very cautious about what we choose to believe at this time, we should be highly aware and conscious about what we get caught up in--there is much potential for deception and self-delusion. Before you jump on board with something, go deep within yourself, trust your instincts about what feels right or what feels wrong. Try your best to separate yourself from your ideas or judgements about the situation, and just go with your gut feeling. Avoid making big commitments or plans at this time, they will likely be faulty or unclear. Be very clear in your communications with others, as there is a high possibility of misunderstandings or miscommunication. On the other hand, this can be a excellent cycle for speculating, dreaming, and envisioning what may or may not be possible. We are given the chance to test things out, and judge for ourselves whether they work for us or not. This can also be a time when our perceptions are more heightened then usual, we may notice things we have possibly overlooked.

This cycle may also provide us an opportunity to really gain awareness of our wounds, and fully resolve or heal something within ourselves. Trust what comes to you at this time, let go of control or any sense of urgency, and just surrender to the numinous and divine flow of energy that is coming toward us from the universe. Whatever set back or irritation you encounter now has a purpose, it is not just random chaos, even though it may appear to be so. Look at whatever is brought forth to your attention, and look to how you can improve it or make it more functional. You'll be glad you did.

Notes & References

[1] Tyl, Noel, Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology: The Professional Manual, St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2004.

[2] http://www.sabiansymbols.com/sabian-story.html

[3] Rudhyar, Dane, An Astrological Mandala: The Cycle of Transformations and its 360 Symbolic Phases, Vintage Books, 1974.

[4] Greene, Liz, The Outer Planets & Their Cycles (The Astrology of the Collective), CRCS Publications, Sebastopol, CA: 1996

[5] Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 at 2:00 AM in Treves, Prussia. The Uranus/Neptune conjunction in Sagittarius, the sign notorious for religious fervor and dogmatism, sits in a wide conjunction to his Midheaven, square to Pluto in Pisces in his first house.

Images

Image 1: Alex Grey, Journey of the Wounded Healer, third panel of triptych.