2003 New Moon Positions

What's the best thing about January 1st? It represents a new beginning -- the birth of a brand new year. An opportunity to revitalize our lives. Have you felt the promise in this new year 2002? Your heart is yearning to create something. That something will bring new vitality to your life. What is it?

We all have dreams. We all have experiences our heart yearns to realize. Whether we succeed or not depends not only on our  remembering to plant the seeds, but more importantly, planting them at the right time. Timing can make all the difference as to whether our seeds sprout and grow our dreams or remain dormant underground. Truly, to everything there is a season.

Different times exhibit different energies. There is a time for planting seeds, a time for nurturing them to growth, a time for harvest and a time for decompose. Astrology  provides us with an excellent tool for understanding the energy of the moment so that we can align with its natural flow. Aligning our activities with natural cycles can make a huge difference in the level of ease we experience in making our dreams our reality. Thirteen times each year the natural cycle of the Moon provides us with an energetic moment that supports making our dreams come true. The New Moon.

Our Universe is filled with awesome energies. We are energy. It's a scientific fact that all matter is energy in the form of vibration. Thought forms are energy. That means dreams are energy too. They are fields of energy emanating from our essential self in the form of creative sparks of inspiration.  The first step to realizing our dreams is to consciously acknowledge them. Sometimes that's the hardest part of all. Astrology can help us with that task by validating for us that our dreams are founded in our energetic being. Each of us was born at a particular moment in time at a particular location on this planet. The energies of that moment are the energies that compose our manifest being.  A blueprint of our being is provided by astrology in the form of our birth chart. We all have strengths. We all have weaknesses. We all have a destiny. Our dreams represent the cutting edge of our soul's intended destiny. We are meant to make them manifest. We are meant to make them real.

While knowledge of our natal birth chart symbolism assists us in aligning with our personal  cycles, we don't have to have knowledge of astrology's symbols to align with natural universal cycles. The Moon's cycle each month provides one example of a cycle that is available to assist all of us in the right timing of our endeavors. The Moon's phases correspond to the growth cycle of every living thing. There are four phases to the Moon's cycle, divided into four quarters. The first quarter or New Moon represents the time for sowing seeds, the second quarter phase which occurs 7 days later corresponds to the cycle of growth and development, the third quarter or Full Moon phase 14 days after the new moon is the time of culmination and harvesting, while the fourth quarter phase initiated 21 days into the cycle supports the disintegration and clearing of the ground in preparation for the next planting.

The best way to use the moon's phases is for guidance on "right timing" of activities and actions. If you have things you'd like to release from your life, the 4th quarter phase is the time to do that. As noted above, the most powerful time for planting the seeds to grow our dreams is at the New Moon. Best of all, there is a new moon about every 28 days or 12 or 13 times a year! When the Moon and the Sun are merged together in the sky or, in astrological terms, "conjunct" one another, the Moon initiates a new birth or cycle of growth. This new moon phase therefore corresponds with all new beginnings and is an excellent time to initiate new projects, and most especially those activities related to the energy of the sign of the zodiac of the New Moon. Thirteen times each year at the New Moon, the energies of the moment most fully support the planting of the seeds of your dreams! It's an opportunity none of us should allow to pass by.

For example, on January 13 there will be a New Moon at 23 degrees of the sign Capricorn. Capricorn is an earthy sign, therefore  its energetic focus is on the tangible and the practical. The New Moon in Capricorn represents a very auspicious time for setting the foundation toward the realization of our dreams. The sign of Capricorn rules both the goal and the achieving of the goal. There's no finer time to organize any part of our lives that's become scattered or disrupted. It's also a fine time for making commitments born of your personal integrity and for keeping them-- Saturn rules this sign and its a planet that rewards for discipline, hard work and responsibility.

In other words, there is no finer time than the New Moon on January 13th for you to take the first tangible steps to realizing your dreams! Every new year is initiated by the 1st of January--a day of the year when the Sun is transiting Saturn's sign of Capricorn. The ritual of making a list of our "New Year's Resolutions" is very much aligned with the energetic focus of the sign Capricorn.  Maybe this new year, the only resolution you need to make is the commitment to manifest your dreams!

Here's what I recommend: on the 13th of January, sit down with yourself and get in touch with what it is your heart longs to experience. Write down every dream you intend to realize this year.  Write down your commitment to being shown the means to their manifestation. You are planting the seeds. Seeds that will be nurtured not only by you, but by this naturally occurring cycle represented by the New Moon. The energies of January 13th support new beginnings--don't miss this grand opportunity to lay the foundation for realizing your dreams.

For those of you who like to look ahead, following is a table of the placements of the twelve New Moons which will occur this year.  If you have knowledge of your astrology chart and are able to determine which house of the natal chart each New Moon will fall into, that can assist you in clarifying your New Moon Goals to align with the arena of life represented by the house placement. If at the same time the New Moon aspects any of the natal planets or angles (within 5 degree orb), these linkages can be used to further refine the specifics of your goals. (For a review of house placements, please see the house delineations included in the Mercury Retrograde article)

Until next month, peace and grace be with you,
Terri McCartney

** These New Moons are also solar eclipses--all the more powerful. Certainly don't miss the opportunity to plant the seeds of your dreams on these days! For more information about eclipse energies in general, view the July 1998 newsletter.  Keywords for solar eclipses are the same as they are for the New Moon: planting seeds, new beginnings, new birth and initiation--the eclipse just adds a whole lot of oomph!