Happy New Moon in Aquarius! From a psychological standpoint, the 'Earth' and 'Air' parts of our psyches have more to do with externality than their polar counterparts Water and Fire. While Earth encompasses the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of our lives, one major role of the succeeding element, Air, is their utility in the world around us — how our thoughts effectively utilize resources on personal, relational and collective levels.

Aquarius, sign of 'fixed air' or ‘focused thought’, is the sign of innovation that works, yet also one prone to defeat by distraction and self-imposed mental prisons. The novel idea can be a game-changing breakthrough, and yet novelty-seeking can lead us away from virtue. It is in such ways that, although both of a ‘yang’ polarity, Air signs sit opposite Fire’s primacy of will. Fire is akin to the Logos, the 'imago dei', while Air is the multiplicity of 'logos' in many tongues. Air’s corresponding tarot suit, Swords, speaks to the power and shadow of Air — of thought-forms, language, technology — in both bringing together and separating just as the wind blows things about.

A wise man named Geoffrey Cornelius once taught me about the ‘symbolic’ and the ‘diabolic.’ To recognize a sign, yet act in spite of it, is the root of the diabolical. The symbolic welcomes integration, psychic unity and momentum towards that which the sign beckons, while the diabolic brings segregation, division and dissipation of the will.

To be mired in the idea of something rather than experiencing the thing in itself, to know the ‘right’ path but say ‘maybe later’ — too often we allow these dynamics to pave the way for diabolical outcomes. The resignation of cynical hipsterdom, the ‘fuck it, we’re on the Titanic anyway’ mindset are not the same thing as radical acceptance of the reality that stories end. Extracting egoic pride from knowing the right way but not choosing it — this is akin to the evil of idle onlookers that MLK spoke of.

The constant abstraction of subject from object, the hyper-externality that Jung wrote of, are in ways a corruption of Earth and Air. They can become a violent tool of denying inner life. They can become myths of permanence; capitalism gone awry; so many instances in which we horde the idea of something rather than surrendering to the experience of it. As this Aquarius New Moon gains light over the coming days and moves through Pisces to Aries, it would be fitting to train our thoughts in service to the wholeness of our total visions, for the sake of collective healing.​