New Moon Shines on Potent Yule

Last updated on: January 1, 2015 at 6:14 pm by Kathy Kassab

New Moon Shines on Potent Yule 2015-01-01T18:14:38-05:00 Kathy Kassab

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We’ve seen the images.

Our Earth rotates in darkness. As the astronauts orbit towards the sun, a thin band of light brings out the curve of our beloved Mother Planet. The sun shows itself as a pinpoint. Then, life-giving Sol rises golden and glorious. The Earth turns blue and white, green and brown. Beautiful. Home.

And on this year’s longest night, we look for that kind of illumination. For hope. For the colors of life amid the darkness. For the slim rays of light that lead us home.

This year’s Winter Solstice is not only the point at which we in the Northern Hemisphere begin to move towards longer days. It also is the New Moon. And very close to the time in which Saturn will move into its first new sign in two and a half years. And not quite a week past the sixth of seven epoch-shaping Pluto-Uranus squares.

Clearly, this is a potent Yule.

My own statement of hope this year was to buy a small, potted European Cypress as our Yule/Christmas tree. This is the first Yule in 16 years I’m not spending in an apartment. In which I have a yard of my own to plant a tree, and the faith that I will be in this place to watch it grow tall.

One of the cards I drew for the Yule/New Moon period is the Page of Pentacles.The image from the Robin Wood deck I use shows a young girl with a book hanging from her belt, and a pentacle shining golden in her outstretched hands. One of the rays of light coming rom the Pentacle shines down on a freshly-plowed field. Or perhaps freshly-sowed, waiting for the first green shoots to show themselves. Pentacles are the suit of Earth, of being patient. Of waiting for good things to grow, and working to help that abundance multiply.

The Sun and Moon join together on the 0 degree, the very beginning, of Capricorn. Capricorn is the sign associated with

hard work and achievement. It’s hard for a goat with a fishy tail to climb a mountain, but climb it will. Capricorns, like Virgos, are very much the grown-ups of the Zodiac. Capricorn comes in after the harvest parties and story-telling of the Sagittarian season and is shocked, shocked at the waste of effort and resources. While the rest of the group is sleeping off its collective hangover, Capricorn takes inventory and puts a sturdy lock on the larder. Someone has to see that there’s enough food to last until spring, and Capricorn knows she is that someone. And no amount of whining will change her mind.

So this Yule is a good time to look over your harvest. To see what you value enough to keep in your life. To see which seeds you want to multiply in the coming year. And to ask, what did I use wisely of the year’s gifts? Where might I work harder, stronger, better, to achieve my goals in the coming year? What do I wish to see grow in the collective, and how might my gifts help nurture it?

The Goddess Oracle card I drew for this New Moon is Sulis. She is connected with a healing spring in Bath, England. People still visit to soak in Her healing waters. Sulis is also a Celtic word meaning “Sun,” and the Goddess is also thought to be a solar deity. She is shown swimming up through the depths towards the sunlight.

The depths in this Solstice chart I see as Pluto in Capricorn, who is conjunct Venus and Mercury. In addition to relationships, Venus also rules money. Watch yours wisely this season. Mercury is of course the messenger and the Psychopomp, one of the few gods who is able to move freely between the Heavens, the Earth and the Underworld. Listen closely for any messages he may bring from your own depths, or from the collective unconscious. And I can’t mention Pluto without mentioning the still-in-effect, tense, square with Uranus the Awakener.

This set of squares started in June 2012. The last will be in March of 2015. This penultimate square is a good time to ask how you have evolved since June 2012. Has it been with sudden, Uranian flashes of insight? Or with rumblings from deep in your psyche that shook the very foundations of your life? What still needs to rise from the depths and be healed by the warmth of the sun? Or burned away by its light? The three months between now and the last square are a good time to take stock, and to make changes that are necessary to your evolution.

Remember that the field that looks barren is merely waiting. And that in the depths of the earth, or the darkness of the deep waters, life waits for the first fingers of light to bring it forth.

The world turns towards it, always.

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