New Moon in Gemini & Saturn in Aries
Dear Friends
We have a new moon approaching in the early hours of Tuesday morning (27th May, 4.02am, UK time). It is in Gemini, the sign of the two chattering twins: one mortal and one divine, they are engaged in an ongoing dialogue across the threshold between this world and the ‘otherworld’. Young at heart, lively, and curious, the twins invite us into the sanguine sociability of the air element. This too, is the season of the pollinators: bees, butterflies, bats and hummingbirds, the Geminian messengers of the air, buzzing and fluttering happily from one source of interest to another, transferring information and exciting the mind. So this new moon is the time to pay attention to our curiosity, to tune our minds to what is current and alive, to the nature and content of our communications, and the opportunties to see things differently, to learn something new.
Saturn Enters Aries
This new moon coincides with an important astrological event, as the planet Saturn has just shifted from Pisces into Aries, and now occupies a crucial degree of the Zodiac, the 0˚ Aries point, the point of creation, innovation, and new beginnings. With Saturn in Aries, we must claim our own authority and take responsibility for our own choices. We have entered a period that extends through to April 2028 (with a break between Aug 2025 - Feb 2026, when Saturn returns to Pisces) where we will likely see the strengthening will of the individual resisting authoritarian control, a typical theme of Saturn in Aries periods. The last time Saturn was in Aries, between 1996-1999, saw lots of political shifts, with a number of nation states claiming individual sovereignty and breaking away from their former masters. The previous period, 1967-1969, (also still within the influence of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction) was a period of significant civil unrest and social change centred around freedom from oppression. When Saturn is in Aries, people often become more impatient with, and intolerant of top-down authority, rejecting or fighting against forms of governance that exert control over your free will.
The Saturn-Neptune Conjunction in Aries
As Saturn enters Aries, it also approaches the planet Neptune, currently at 1˚ Aries, as the two planets prepare for their series of conjunctions that occur between now and February 2026. I will compose a separate blog post on the Saturn-Neptune conjunction, which becomes ‘almost exact’ in July of this year, before Saturn turns retrograde - it re-enters Pisces, and remains there until Feb 2026 - and then returns to make its exact conjunction at 1˚ Aries in late Feb 2026. It produces a complex mix of energies, as Saturn the controller and upholder of rules and boundaries becomes alchemically fused with Neptune, the mystic and dissolver of boundaries. In brief here, we might speculate that a Saturn-Neptune conjuncton is likely bring about a disillusionment with utopian political and cultural ideals, coincide with collective experiences of grief or loss, possibly natural disasters involving water, earthquakes, pollution or epidemics. One of the key themes under such a conjunction (which occurs every 36 years or so) is to see through the illusion and to recognise ways in which we are being deceived. The conjunction has only occurred in Aries four times during the past 2000 years, the last time being in 1703, and these periods often coincide, among other things, with controversial social reforms, which centre around fighting for the rights of individual citizens.
The Chart for the New Moon
In the new moon chart, we see the conjunction of Sun and Moon at 6˚ Gemini in a separating conjunction with Mercury, also in Gemini, the planet that it rules. This is a very lively time, with a lot of dialogue and communication going on. There is so much that wants to be spoken and so many ideas that want to be shared. Gemini and Mercury rule the nervous system in astrology, and their energy carries a highly responsive current in the psyche. It is akin to an electrical charge that awakens and excites our minds to ideas and concepts that promise to make sense of our experience. As a trickster, Mercury is out to persuade and convince us that this or that idea is right or true. Yet, by the time we settle on the truth of a particular idea, sprite-like Mercury has already moved on to something new, and like the devil's advocate, he will then trade against it. Unless we are quick and agile, we are left debating the rights and wrongs of situations that have already lost their currency! How pertinent this is in our post-truth era, when it is so difficult to know what to believe or who to trust, with politicians, media figures, marketers, and the like, trading both sides against the middle in order to stay one step ahead of the curve.
The aspects in the new moon chart are relatively harmonious. The Sun-Moon-Mercury conjunction is in trine aspect to Pluto, and sextile aspect to the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries, making an aspect figure that we call a ‘minor grand trine’. There are creative opportunities and possibilities here to increase our depth of appreciation of the situations we face in our lives, and to make constructive changes where necessary.
Opening Up New Perspectives & Possibilities
This new moon carries the seed energy of our intentions articulated in language, so we should be especially mindful of the thought seeds we are scattering to the winds at this time. If they find fertile ground and are robust enough to germinate, then they may take root and come to define our experience of reality. As the medicine of perception, Gemini reminds us that it is not ultimately the circumstances of our lives that determine our experience, but rather our perspective upon them, and the stories we tell about them. Perhaps we can seize this moment to look at life in a different way, open to a more diverse range of perspectives, find a different or a better story to tell, notice where we might get trapped in a particular prejudice or perspective. We can use our words creatively and imaginatively to inspire new possibilities and perspectives.
Mercury, Gemini's ruler, blesses us with the art of rhetoric, and as much as the tricksy power-seeking politician will use that to influence our opinions, and manipulate our allegiances, so will the poet employ the art to illuminate an unseen dimension of reality, and a mythologist to re-awaken the sleeping parts of the psyche.
Let us engage with language that inspires and evokes the highest possibilities for peace and understanding this month, and may we choose our words well
My Gemini mantra runs: “I am a conduit for the voice of my spirit twin, and I am here to be a channel of their light.”
New moon blessings to all.