New Moon in Aries 22º April 11, 2021 Energy + Journaling Prompts

“I don’t wanna be a product of my environment.
I want my environment to be a product of me.”

—The Departed

This new moon weekend I’m sitting in the dark with my power. With the ram inside of me that will never stop trying to break her way out of the cage I learned to keep her in. With my desires, my passions, the ebb and flow of my drive, my relationship with self-trust. I’m bathing in boiling blood and playing with the clashing of needs and wants and wills in my life. I’m speaking softly to the seedling of inner balance that helps me trust that when I jump, I’ll land. I’m breathing in deep and sending the exhale into the flame of desire.

I did some reading about Aries’ symbol, the ram, this past week and learned that rams are spectacular climbers with spectacular balance and eyesight, and when they’re jumping from ledge to ledge they’re able to judge those distances with spectacular accuracy. 

Aries energy is trusting our own vision and knowing that when we take these leaps, we’ll land just fine. We keep climbing and we trust in our inner balance. We instinctively know that our horns, which for some rams can be heavier than all the bones in their body, will be enough to take on and take down any challenge.

The brilliance of Aries is in this trust and the spirit of the initiator, the one who allows fear to be a stimulating, driving force. Not a devouring black wave to submit to but a twinge in the stomach that gets you out of bed. Making the first move, saying what needs to be said, and shaking us from our hibernation haze with the sound of mourning doves and cuckoo clocks. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, Aries coaxes us from our winter shells and into the vast forests that are just starting to wriggle back to life. After a year in the lucid dream pandemia, I’m still trying to remember to wake up. I haven’t done jack shit in over a year now (yes, we exist) and my own Mars-y impatience, aka fear that there will never be enough time, is just beginning to get to me.

“There’s endless entertainment in thinking the world is gonna end” (Conor Oberst, a Saturnian with chart ruler Venus in Aries), but this last year was truly a reckoning for our entire civilization. To my utter delight, many of us seem to have awoken to the blanched reality that capitalism, racism, patriarchy and the insatiable imperialist dragon all demand blood sacrifice, and yet(!) we, the gods of our own pod, remain willing to sacrifice our most vulnerable, albeit with a new (faux?) sensitivity. (Diversity Training! The Musical or something.) We arrived at the astrological new year this March 20th rancid as ever; button-up on top, sweatpants on the bottom (a metaphor for the ages), and 2.91 million deaths later. Still “no damn cat, no damn cradle.” Kentucky Mule in hand (a twist on the Dark ‘n’ Stormy: ginger beer with bourbon instead of rum, very season of the ram), Aries emerged from its speckled robin’s egg to fight the patriarchy’s agenda (or fight for it, depending on who you are) once more. On April 11th, as the moon births itself anew in the fire of Aries, what are you preparing to emerge as?

What remains of your inner spark and where are you directing that energy?

What are you serving and what is feeding you?

The influence of Mars, Aries’ ruling planet, is wildly underestimated. It’s largely seen as fighting and fucking and not much else, as if sexual energy isn’t also literal life-force energy, the driving power behind every living thing. The same energy that fuels our sex drive fuels our fucking will to live, our excitement and passion for life, the fire that we not only feel but act out. The spark inside of us that keeps us going. The torch we raise to light the way. Not to mention the way we strip the divinity from sex and sexuality until it’s bleached out and unrecognizable too.

Either we know and embrace our power or we deny, suppress and cut ourselves off from it. When we’re disconnected from Mars, we’re disconnected from our driving force. We hesitate, we fear others, we fear ourselves and our power, we shrink back from a challenge, we fear that we can’t handle it or that we’re not up to par. We have a hard time trusting our perfect ram-vision or the strength of our horns; we don’t believe in or trust our inner power.

If you’re disconnected from or fearful of these Aries themes, you weren’t always. Who shamed you out of it? Who taught you that you were bad to want? Parents? Teachers? Lovers? A society that hates or fears people like you? Someone punished you—emotionally or otherwise—for letting that Mars energy out. Someone had to hold that gun to your head until you learned to hold it yourself.

During this dark phase of the moon, it’s not yet time to go forward. There’s no rush, little rams. For now, we wanna take time to sit quietly with ourselves and do some introspective work, to ask ourselves questions about our relationship to Aries and Mars, and purely feel whatever comes up.

When the moon starts to show its light again, we move forward with our new ideas for how to live out the Mars archetype in a healthier and more fulfilling way. But first we have to embrace the darkness, turn the looking glass inward, and feel through it.

Journaling prompts for the new moon in Aries:

How do I handle my own will? 

Do I go after what we want? Do I harm, overpower or dominate other people in the process? Do I suppress my will? Do I feel worthy of my desires? How do I ensure that I get what I need? Do I assert myself? Do I even know what I want?

Do I trust myself?

Do I feel safe with myself? Do I believe in my own power? Why or why not? Am I afraid of a challenge or do I take it on? Does fear motivate me or cause me to shrink back?

Do I respect and support the desires, wishes, and will of other people? What can I do to support someone else’s desires? How can I help someone else heal their own relationship to their personal will?

Do I feel connected to my body and my desire?

Do I allow my sexual energy to flow in the ways it wants to? Do I let it out? Do I know what I need and want sexually? Do I ask for it? Are my partners supportive of my desires? Am I supportive of theirs? Do I create a safe atmosphere for people to express their desires to me?

Do I keep myself contained? Do I keep myself small?

Who took my power and taught me to fear it when I was young? Who told me it was wrong to be fiery, passionate, energetic, angry, or to be myself without apology? Who made me apologize for being who I am? Do I do any of these things to others?

Do I allow myself to feel excited and enthusiastic? Am I able to be me at full force?

What am I doing to change the world for the better? What power do I have?

Happy new moon. Lots of love.