This is a tarot divination for the New Moon in Aquarius which occurs Sunday February 23, 2020.
The New Moon in Aquarius answers to the newly minted Saturn in Capricorn. Saturn entered Capricorn on January 23, 2020 for the first time since 1993. It will remain there until January 2023.
Aquarius and Capricorn are both Saturn’s signs. Capricorn is the sign of material reality. Aquarius is the sign of conceptual/ideological reality. This New Moon is about the human capacity to disidentify with external authority and power structures for the sake of self-determination and personal sovereignty.
(8 of Pentacles) Queen of Pentacles 9 of Cups Fool
Stewardship is the art of recognizing value, honoring worth, and tending to the well-being and sustaining of what you are responsible for. Your belongings, your skills and talents, and your body are all under your stewardship. Your children, your home, and your Self are under your stewardship, too.
Systems of power impose value systems that define for you what you “should” value and where you “should” find worth. Self-determination and personal sovereignty are the realm of Aquarius. At this New Moon in Aquarius, taking a risk looks like abandoning the familiarity of those imposed value systems.
When we align our identities with authority figures we sacrifice personal sovereignty for the illusion of wielding power over others. You know when you leave a group of kids, they fight for dominance so that one or few move into the seat of power left by the absent adult. Proximity to power and identifying with authority figures feels like a legitimate way to claim agency, except that it requires you to suppress your organic perceptions and intuitive judgments of yourself and your world. You end up valuing what your oppressor values, and you articulate your worth in the language and framework of your oppressor.
The FOOL is a disruptor. They disrupt by abandoning a given path, taking a risk to change, and going with the flow rather than towards predetermined expectations. The FOOL divests from the need to get results from past efforts rooted. They have the courage to walk away without perceiving as a loss.
The FOOL provides the opportunity for you to liberate yourself. But it requires you to choose freedom over conforming. That means liberating the Self from performative measurements of worth, those meant to accrue social currency.
How are you conceiving of a world and a self that doesn’t replicate oppressive power structures, that don’t require you to define yourself in reference to harmful authority figures and leaders, and that neglects the gaze of those who have othered you?
How can you liberate yourself from imposed value systems that strip you of the authority to name value and claim worth on your own terms?
How are you identifying the ways you’ve sacrificed personal sovereignty in the name of being validated by oppressive power structures and hierarchies?
What authority figures have you identified with in your life? (Bosses, parents, teachers, etc)
How has using authority as a reference point for your identity defined your values for you? (that might mean seeing yourself as someone’s child, carrier of their name, national identities, religious identities, etc)
What do your values look like when you detach from those identities?
Where is the cornerstone of your worth when you conceive of yourself in new terms?
This was originally published as a thread on Twitter.
(HERMIT) WORLD DEATH 6 of CUPS
The card on the bottom when I cut the deck is the HERMIT.
The HERMIT seeks truth. Truth = that which can be perceived with one’s perception and validated with one’s judgment. Everything else is dogma, and the HERMIT is not about that dogmatic life!
The HERMIT struggles to articulate exactly what they’re looking for. INTENTION can’t be quantified. The PURPOSE that compels them can’t be reduced to words or symbols. The HERMIT can appear to move about aimlessly. But, they know when they’ve found what they’re looking for because there is a resonance that can’t be mistaken.
📌At this Full Moon what inside of you compels you forward, seeking and searching without words to articulate exactly what you are looking for? Both the WORLD and DEATH provide images of endings. The WORLD illustrates endings that come due to a cumulative progression. Culminations that are both logical and expected.
DEATH illustrates inevitable and irrevocable endings, those permanent endings that can’t be reversed.
The WORLD and DEATH say to us: Pruning old growth and dead weight that sucks the life out of stems that might still bear fruit means that there is still hope and opportunity. All is not lost.
When an orchid reaches the end of a growth cycle the flowers fall and the stems that held them shrivel and dry up. If you’ve never cultivated an orchid you might think that the plant is dead. And when the orchid is ready to flower again it grows completely new stems. This can happy in a relatively short period of time after the old flowers fell off.
📌What old growth are you expecting to bring new life? What keeps you from cutting it off and letting it go?
The 6 of CUPS is the wildcard here! The 6 of CUPS saying that discernment is key. Someone or something from the past can offer nourishment to the dreams and desires that were left in wanting after the old growth is pruned.
📌How are you discerning between barren hopes and dreams and fruitful visions that still offer hope for fulfillment?
📌What people/ relationships revitalize feelings/ desires that have lain dormant during your time of pruning?
This may be a time of letting go of things working out in the way that you had planned, while time and a shifting season offer new pathways to possibilities that seemed impossible.
Mars, the planet in charge of this Aries Full Moon, is in Libra. This is a time of consideration and seeking consensus, where relationships and community provide context for your ambitions.
📌What possibilities reveal themselves when you release the expectation that solely your will and strength be the means by which something can come to be?
You might be tempted to fall back into old emotional habits rooted in those defensive postures that you have worked so hard to ease yourself out of. But at this time, it feels like contortion to fit yourself into those positions.
Courageously say no to all that is dissonant with your intentions. Embrace this return to innocence. Open your eyes to see where your dreams and desires can grow. Surrender like the falling leaves that know their work is done. Clear space for the thing you seek to come.
We are now getting to be in the darkest time of the year. The Sun just barely rises, laying low near the southern part of the sky. Our bodies slow down, conserving energy. We can spend more time in dream land.
At the winter solstice, the Sun is at its southernmost point in the sky until it begins is ascent north on the 3rd day. This is the story of Christ. The story of spirit indwelling the material world. Christ, the Sun of God, died and rose on the third day.
The Devil card in the #Tarot correlates to the Saturn ruled sign of #Capricorn. It highlights the dichotomy of the material and the immaterial worlds. We are spirit dwelling in flesh, navigating the limitations of embodiment. At this time, we are admonished to remember our truer nature.
So, during the next few days as the sun lays low, we need to do the same. I’m calling the time of the #WinterSolstice the time to literally stay low, and build. Think of this dark time like being in the womb. Ideas gestate and begin to take form as you visualize their full potential.
The sun moves fastest between now and the Spring Equinox. Once spring comes the real work of sowing and tilling, watering and growing begins.
What can you now lay to rest and release with the dying of the Winter Solstice Sun? What, then, will you build between now and the Spring Equinox? Meditate on these questions. Spend time writing down what you want to build on the ground you are now clearing in your life. Winter Solstice is foundation building time. Spring Equinox is when you begin to build above the ground. But start from the bottom now.
Each interpretation is a combination of the Focus Factor card and the individual card for each sign. Read on…
December 2016 Focus Factor.
EMPEROR
Keywords: Power and authority
What is your power?
Where do you have the authority to influence the outcome?
How have you misused your authority
Who has power over you?
How will you take back your power?
Aries Rising or Sun in Aries:
ACE of PENTACLES
So, it’s money you need? Perhaps to focus on your health? What about more time? Well, now is the time to make it happen. But first, you need a plan. Riding by the seat of your pants won’t cut it. This time you need a well thought out plan that maximizes your power and influence in the sphere of money, health, and other resources. With great power comes responsibility. How will you use your power to generate more of what you need to function on a day to day basis?
Taurus Rising or Sun in Taurus:
ACE of CUPS
New feelings, emotional experiences, and desires are now surfacing. The eagerness of your desire does not equate to the quality of fulfillment should you get what you want. It’s one thing to want something and to have that desire satisfied. It’s another thing to explore your needs, your calling, and to find fulfillment in it. Sometimes release is needed to reveal emotional clarity. So, be a G about it! Now is not the time to cower and recoil. Go for what you want. Just make sure you’re sure about what you want… and you take your own feelings into consideration.
Gemini Rising or Sun in Gemini
WHEEL of FORTUNE
You are at the helm of the wheel of change right now. At times we are at the behest of fate. Other times, our desires and actions seem to align perfectly with the Will within the wheel of change. Right now you are the latter. You are tuned in and turned on to the current season. This says nothing about your inherent power and more about an opportunity for you stack gains, grow, and maximize opportunities. But, nothing is promised. Gotta use your powers for good to reap the benefits of this season.
Cancer Rising or Sun in Cancer
3 of SWORDS
Enough with the waffling. You know what the truth is, but up until now, you haven’t been ready to honor it. Now is the time to get to the heart of the matter and to get or provide clarity. Move from indecision to a decisive acknowledgement of the truth. You may be in the position to force someone’s hand or to extract the essence out of a situation. Heavy handed or with finesse, the choice is yours
Leo Rising or Sun in Leo
EMPRESS
You are in a rare moment of balance of the energies in your life. Your mind is sharp. Your focus is consistent. And you’re full of ideas. You have the authority, drive, creativity, and resources available to bring to life something that is important to you. If you are feeling stuck, try a partnership. Someone one to fill in the gaps with the resources you need if you lack them. And someone with the focus if you can’t pull it together. Whoever, you need, they are close at hand. Get to work and they will appear when you need them.
Virgo Rising or Sun in Virgo
2 of SWORDS
You are feeling pressed to make decisions that you have heretofore felt unprepared to make. You are missing important information that would bring clarity to the direction you need to go forward. Or, maybe you’re just indecisive and can’t see a clear path forward. Either way, clarity is near. Be courageous and open to digging deep for the truth. The information you need will be revealed if you do.
Libra Rising or Sun in Libra
KNIGHT of CUPS
Follow your heart. That’s easy enough advice for most people. But for you, the challenge comes with knowing what your heart desires. You can often end up on a blank mission, dipping your toes in the water and testing things out without ever committing to one thing or the other. But it’s not because you are inherently indecisive. It has more to do with you needing solitude to hear your own heart without the distraction of other voices and needs. Loud doesn’t mean right or true.
Scorpio Rising or Sun in Scorpio
HIGH PRIESTESS
You gotta know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em. You’re privy to, or have access to, some inside information. You must use discernment to know how, when, or if to use what you know. On the flip side, you may suspect someone is keeping something from you, and you’ll feel driven to seek it out. A word of caution, though. Move slowly. Don’t let paranoia get the best of you. Maybe the person keeping secrets is you…
Sagittarius Rising or Sun in Sagittarius
3 of WANDS
It’s time to make good on promises made. You’re looking to see if what you started will be successful. Yes, yes it will. But it’s not by magic or The Secret. It’s because you are planning and executing plans. It’s because you have the foresight to see beyond the present, and the wherewithal to use your energy to bring it to life. Be about your business and you business will be about you. Get to work!
Capricorn Rising or Sun in Capricorn
ACE of WANDS
You plan and strategize and plan some more, tweaking and refining your path to success. And sometimes, you get so caught up in the planning and the perfect way to reach your goals that you never get started. Now, it’s time to get started. The key is in the ignition with the engine ready to rev up. Your feet are in the starting blocks ready for the go ahead. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to act, now is the time. If it’s seems as if you have been blocked from progress or moving forward, the way is open and the path is clear for beginning anew. You have the potential to begin a successful endeavor. All you have to do is take the first step. Have confidence and you can make it happen. It’s a small window you have, don’t delay. Start NOW!
Aquarius Rising or Sun in Aquarius
6 of PENTACLES
While you may have the drive to get things done on your own, it’s imperative that you consider others. Not only in how you may be able to help others, but also where it may be more appropriate to seek assistance. Additionally, now is the time to square up any debts, debts you owe or debts owed to you. All in all, this month is about right relations with other and making sure that everyone is getting, and giving, their fair share. Don’t wait for someone to come to the conclusion that they need to pay you back. Go and get what is owed to you. And if it isn’t forthcoming, then you’ve got to use your discernment to know when to keep pursuing or let it go.
Pisces Rising or Sun in Pisces
10 of PENTACLES
You are in a position to receive material support from a father figure or other male authority figure. The legacy of community and shared resources can work in your favor right now. Maybe you’re the one who can offer support and further the endeavors of those around you through your access to resources and power to wield them as you please.
