Welcome to the Sagittarius New Moon, which is also a solar eclipse. This is the time in the lunar calendar when we not only turn our attention to matters of faith, truth, and wisdom, but open up a powerful new chapter that lasts the coming six months. We’re examining what we believe in. We’re cultivating wisdom. But we’re also letting something go. The new moon eclipse is on December 14, 2020 at 11:16 am EST, 23 degrees Sagittarius. That’s 8:16 am Los Angeles, 4:16 pm London, 6:16 pm Johannesburg, 3:16 am Sydney on December 15, and 5:16 am Auckland.
New moons are new beginnings. They turn our attention to a new zodiac sign and, over the coming four weeks, we live life through its archetype. And what is Sagittarius? Sagittarius is the archetype of the explorer, the pilgrim, the scholar, the philosopher, the judge, the sage. It teaches us about the importance of knowledge and education. To understand the world, whether through travel to distant countries or through books, philosophies, religions, and institutions. It speaks of faith and a need to make meaning.
But this new moon is also a solar eclipse, falling in the same sign as the South Node of the Moon. Instead of a lunar month, the eclipse opens a chapter of time that takes us to the next solar eclipse six months from now in June 2021. As a result, we’ll be searching for truth and meaning as well as working through Sagittarius’s archetype personally and collectively over the next six months.
Here’s the thing. As previously mentioned, the South Node is in Sagittarius. Which means that this is a South Node eclipse. The South Node is about the past, karma, and memory. It can show us something problematic that we’ve been holding onto. It is a place where we need to let go.
Like all signs, Sagittarius has two sides to it. Of course, it’s a sign of great wisdom — wisdom it freely shares, teaching and positively demonstrating moral authority and conviction, without judgement of others. It inspires others. Then there’s the other side of Sagittarius. It’s judgemental. Its moral authority is the only authority. Its truth is the only truth. It’s closed off to the world.
This eclipse pushes us to examine our duality with Sagittarius and to discover where we hold onto its more problematic side. It wants us to search ourselves. Where do we hold onto judgements of ourselves and others? Where does our truth blind us to other possibilities? Where do we reject wisdom? Where do we make our world smaller than it really is? What illusions are we caught in? Where do we need more compassion?
These are things we’re working through over the next six months. Something made more important by the fact that Jupiter, the ruler of the eclipse, is at the very end of Capricorn, conjunct Saturn and Pluto. We have to break down old patterns of thinking and belief that have become deeply engrained.
Then there’s the eclipses’s square to Neptune in Pisces. When there’s a square there’s friction, a need to integrate something that may be unintegrated. Neptune is a subtle influence, but it’s a powerful influence, revealing equally our seductions and illusions as well as our opening to spirituality and energy.
In its highest expression, Neptune wants us to transcend ourselves — transcend our smallness, our short sighted ego, our pains and sufferings. It wants us to connect to something greater. Call it Source, Spirit, Universe, God. Neptune wants us to feel our totality and universality.
That’s a tall order for this solar eclipse. However it’s possible that we’re letting go of something in the coming days, weeks, and months. We’re healing our smallness. We’re releasing old judgements. We’re surrendering. We’re finding redemption. With this eclipse we need to stop fighting something, even if it is ourselves. We must transcend ourselves.
We must find peace.
I’ll be talking about this in my weekly live look at the astrology, Monday, December 14, at 6:15 pm EST. You can watch the replay on YouTube, IGTV, or listen on Spotify.