Find the Ember / Fan the Ember

New moon at 9° of Sagittarius

All images this issue are from the artist Wide Mind (@wide__mind), which is the most Sagittarius. This series is titled Awakening the Celestial Mind.

This Saturday, November 30th, at 10:21pm PT, the moon goes dark and renews herself at 9° of Sagittarius, the giver of high spirits and even higher ideals. Sagittarius is mutable, transformational fire—the fire that changes us, and changes the world. Because it is ruled by Jupiter, sky daddy of expansion and lovingkindness, it’s also a hopeful, grateful, generous fire; a holy spirit, drunk on life kind of fire; the fire of teachers and philosophers and saints. I sometimes think of it as the fire of the enlightened state — the state we arrive at after we have come through an intense healing trial or a time of suffering or great change. In part, there is only so much crisis and grief and density that our bodies and psyches can take before they have to break out laughing or dancing, before we have to lighten up. And then when that settles, a kind of spiritual agency can take root. Out of our hardest experiences and emotions, we can emerge initiated, ready to seek greater understanding and learn how we might live in a new and better way. Wisdom and understanding are not guaranteed, of course, but they are possible, if we are willing to wander from the known world, and let our suffering be a call to adventure—the quest for the philosopher’s stone, the mythic search for Truth and life-giving meaning. That’s how Sagittarius sees it anyway. It may seem almost-fatally optimistic, oblivious even, but it’s optimism is a survival strategy. It is the part of us that knows how to turn towards the light and reach for it, even if we can’t see it; even if it’s a long way off; even if we have to create it.

As you can feel, a new moon in Sagittarius can bring a blazing renewal of good feelings, like hope, and joy, and fuck it let’s keep trying—and if that’s happening for you right now, please just let it. And if that’s not happening for you right now, that’s ok, too. Some dreams and expectations and worlds have burned to ashes. Everything is in flux. And the conditions surrounding this new moon are complex. First, last Monday, Mercury stationed retrograde in Sagittarius for its third retrograde this year and the completion of its grand fire trine, (it previously retrograde through Aries and Leo). A Mercury retrograde conjunct this new moon throws our magic and communications for a fun/frustrating loop. It might be messing with our speed and clarity and sure-footedness, and it’s definitely promoting wandering, circuitous routes that may or may not lead us to our destination. Sagittarius’ ruler Jupiter is also in Gemini right now, opposing this new moon. This puts Jupiter and Mercury in mutual reception, as they are each in the other’s home sign, which helps—but it’s still an energetic tangle, or a paradox, the kind where so many things are true at the same time, even though they also can’t be. Gemini likes questions more than it likes answers. It prefers an open-ended, ongoing process, and Jupiter is only expanding on that. Sagittarius wants it all to lead somewhere really Big, but any attempt to do that right now will only lead to a proliferation of more possibilities and paths, more questions, more potential destinations and destinies, all of them glittering just over the horizon.

There is an anchor to all of this, and it’s Saturn, which is in a pretty close square to the new moon, over at 12° of Pisces. It feels to me like a helpful limit or boundary, or a reminder that there is something real that we are actually moving towards; there’s something Saturn has been working on solidifying for a few years, that is entering its final six months. That project has been very shapeshifting, the only way a form can be in Pisces, but we are getting closer to a big breakthrough. This coming spring, both Saturn and Neptune will exit Pisces and enter Aries—that’s a transit across the end point/beginning point of the Zodiac, and an exact conjunction at the point of incarnation. So we’re just meant to remember this right now, and let it act as a kind of spiritual compass constraining our wandering. And finally, Mars is at 5° of Leo, loosely trining the new moon, but it is also slowing way way down. Next week it will stop completely and station retrograde in Leo, where we will be retreating and fighting some internal battles with our creative life force, to figure out how we want to move forward.

All of this tells me it would be wise to pause before initiating any brand new adventures. We’re better off using this time to go on a curiosity bender about the adventure we are already on. We can really wander off the path right now, and trust that it will be interesting—like it will flower, even if it doesn’t bear fruit. This wandering doesn’t have to be literal or physical, although it could be if you feel called to do that. It can be an expansion of imagination or consciousness; a wandering out past the usual bounds of what you allow yourself to reflect on or wonder about. It can still be in service to the big Sagittarius quest to find the meaning of your life, or to coin the philosophy that will let you carry on without knowing the meaning of your life. But it will have to be by way of reviewing old truths and old meanings, and seeing what they’ve turned into. We need to let go of our old definitions of success for sure, especially any that came from the culture-at-large. In the coming year, a lot is going to happen, and there will be some big changes in conditions. It might be that we need this time of reflection, when quick or easy answers resist us.

A few final words from this Sagittarius new moon. We are already in the time of peaking darkness, here in the northern hemiphser, the Winter solstice is just three weeks away. If there was a practice Sagittarius could make us do, it would be to gather ourselves up—and all our grief and anger, our exhaustion and broken dreams—and go back to tending the hearth fire. This hearth fire is whatever burns at the center of your being, and whatever burns at the center of your life; whatever fuels you and drives you toward the future; whatever matters to you, whatever makes it all worth fighting for. From time to time, the hearth fire goes out, that’s just the way it is. And if yours has gone out, the new moon wants you to dig through the ashes and find the ember, and guard the ember by gently blowing on it and fanning it, until it flickers back to life. Then feed that fire. Feed it with good friends, or good stories, or good food, or good sleep, anything that renews you. Feed it with empathy, and permission, and gratitude, and love. Feed it with incredible questions. Feed it with art. If you do that, perspective and courage and humility will eventually find their way back to you, and it will be just in the nick of time.

Ritual & Writing Prompts

And now a little extra love for paid subscribers — a collection of links to the archive of writings on Sagittarius lunations in In the River of What’s Happening Now, so you can easily visit the ghosts of Sagittarian-moons past; some recommendations for working with this new moon / Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius; and a creative writing prompt for those who want to write their way into it/out of it/through it.

(Disclaimer: All prompts are suggestions, not instructions. Play with what inspires you, ignore what’s doesn’t, adapt in any way you see fit.)

The Sagittarius archive (in reverse chronological order)

How Enlightenment Arrives - full moon at 2° of Sagittarius (spring 2024)

How Philosophies Are Born - new moon at 20° of Sagittarius (fall 2023)

The Bright Cord of Meaning - full moon at 13° of Sagittarius (spring 2023)

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies - new moon at 1° of Sagittarius (fall 2022)