The New Moon meets the Sun at 9° Sagittarius tonight, December 1st, 2024, at 1:21 EST, before it begins to wax into a sliver and oppose its ruler Jupiter in Gemini by Sunday afternoon.

With Mercury retrograde in its detriment of Sagittarius, ruling said Jupiter, the jest of Jove and impish nature of Mercury add both levity and backspin to buffer quickly changing circumstances — whatever was slow or sedentary the past couple months may feel more mobilized, but it may also feel like a ‘one step forward, two steps back’ type of dynamic.  Movement and miring, clarity of vision and compromise, may all co-habit.

Regardless of what has come to pass, circumstances might seem as stirred and changeable as they do stuck.  In many ways, it is Mercury having its typically fleeting but here curiously imposing say, ’slow’ in retrograde, compromised in its detriment, and dispatching the lunation ruler Jupiter, which is also in a sign of its detriment — the planets of Risk (Jupiter) and Odds (Mercury) are in what’s called ‘mutual debility.’  Guesting in each other’s temples, there is a sympathy despite feeling perhaps not at home.

In Jupiter’s home of Sagittarius, Mercury flits between ideals, letting instinct guide, details swallowed up by a fiery compass whose inner mechanisms seem to defy the traditional navigator craftsman.  This can make for stunning displays of intuition and creativity, as well as brain fog and manic crash-and-burns from fervent idealism as the soaring arrow comes back to Earth.

In Mercury’s home of Gemini, Jupiter’s expansive pomp is blown about, a merry-go-round randomly changing directions, its horses’ paint chipping, their cast saddles randomly besieged by birds of doubt and restless scatter.  A planet known for blessings, and expansion untoward the ‘one’ path, is sometimes thrown into a beleaguered state when in a sign that contemplates always the ‘many ways.’

With this New Moon being square to Saturn at 12° Pisces, which is also ruled by our debilitated Jupiter, Mercury’s retrograde status only compounds the madness, as well perhaps as the mirthfulness we must indulge for medicine.  Saturn in Pisces can be a funhouse of mirrors, and Jupiter in Gemini’s ongoing square to Saturn since late spring, by sign if not exact degree, can make it hard to know what’s real, whether the worldly landscape or one’s innermost life.  Is there any clear separation of the two?  Never, one might feel.

This New Moon at 9° Sagittarius takes place at the very end of the Archer’s first decan (10° period), called Swiftness in The Book of Thoth — a face of Sagittarius also Mercury-ruled by way of the Chaldean order.  So much answers to the quicksilver planet at present, itself in the last decan of Sagittarius, a dark horse of fortitude and one focused on overthrowing oppressive circumstances.

The psychologist James Hillman wrote extensively on our ‘secret love’ of problems, positing that the soul craves problems so it can imagine its way out of them.

“Why do we focus so intensely on our problems?  What draws us to them?  Why are they so attractive?  They have the magnet power of love: somehow we desire our problems; we are in love with them much as we want to get rid of them… problems sustain us — maybe that's why they don't go away.  What would a life be without them?  Completely tranquilized and loveless… there is a secret love hiding in each problem.”

Jupiter and Mercury, planets of sportsmanship and gamesmanship perhaps (and also easily the goofiest), love to imagine their way out of the board.  I like to joke that’s the reason the most terrifying pool players are often contractors, tile-setters and such — it’s not just the working class hustle sometimes associated with billiard type sports, or the angles, or even the ease of working with one’s hands, or marrying skill and chance (why a number of pool players seem to fish) — it’s that restoring a house and running a table are pretty similar: you walk into the box, and have to imagine the best paths out.

Mercury tends to be most comfortable doing this from its earthy and airy homes, slightly more external in application… but from Sagittarius’ fire, a bit foreign to it, the swift planet’s logical fluidity must ride on the innermost faith that we can overcome.

Where can you draw power in such moments? The ride does move very quickly… but occasionally the merry-go-round stalls, and amidst all triumph and trial, we can inhabit the joyful imagination that carries us amidst these.

Just some of the themes to look out for:

*matters of faith and doubt
*conflicts of heart and mind
*weighing belief with reason
*playfulness amidst profundity
*rebirth, renewal, ‘no turning back’
*yet a sense of ‘one step forward, two steps back’ at times
*rapidly changing circumstances, where there was stagnation
*movement and miring, clarity of vision mixed with compromise
*mind at odds with the heart, or assessing when to let intuition guide
*weighing outcomes, risk and odds, ‘percentage play’ somewhere in one’s life
*knowing what direction to move, but having loose ends to tie up elsewhere first
*serious contemplation of obstacles, laden with levity and comedic banter
*displays of intuition and creativity, as well as brain fog and manic crash-and-burns as the ‘arrow of idealism’ comes crashing back to earth
*playfulness amidst a sense of oppressive circumstances; the imagination involved in overcoming
*the recognition of how our inner visions and heart-minds have brought us this far
*the “secret love hiding inside each problem”

More in the days to come.  Swim well, stargazers ~

—A.B.