New Moon in Sagittarius

“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don’t go out in the woods, nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.” Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves.

New moons are the start of the lunar cycle. They represent the pure potential we hold inside of ourselves. A time to imagine, and reimagine, our inner and outer worlds. This new moon is in Sagittarius – wild, questing and free – and is the very last new moon of 2023. This moon feels like a homecoming and serves as a beautiful counterpoint – a salve – to the (slightly exhausting) deep-diving, underworld energy of Scorpio season and the analytical, hyper-focused Gemini energy of the last full moon. It is a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come; all we have achieved and how we have changed.

The mutable fire sign of Sagittarius is depicted as the centaur: half-human, half-horse. Born from myth, it is a hybrid of form, but also a bridge between those distinct parts that make it a whole. Sagittarius rules the ninth house, which, among other things, is associated with the higher mind and wildness, reflected in the two halves of the centaur. This hybrid form – of being distinct things in the same body – very much speaks to the most important aspect of this new moon: a quincunx between the sun and moon in Sagittarius with Uranus in Taurus.

A quincunx (also known as an inconjunct) occurs when two planets are 150° degrees apart from each other, which equates to two planets being five signs apart. A quincunx connects these quite distinct energies and puts them in conversation with each other. It is an aspect that is often described as difficult, or hard, aspect. However, quincunxes are an opportunity to acknowledge – much like the centaur – that we, as individuals, hold different and possibly multiple truths, or parts, of ourselves in our one form.

According to Dr. Richard Schwartz, the creator of an evidence-based psychotherapy called Internal Family Systems (IFS), “A part is not just a temporary emotional state or habitual thought pattern. Instead, it is a discrete and autonomous mental system that has an idiosyncratic range of emotion, style of expression, set of abilities, desires, and view of the world. [It] is as if we each contain a society of people, each of whom is at a different age and has different interests, talents, and temperaments.”

Within this quincunx, we have a dialogue between our mutable fire and fixed earth “parts”; between our desire for freedom and our desire for stability. This dialogue is made less simplistic and even more interesting by the fact that Taurus (fixed earth) is in Uranus, which represents radical change and disruption, with the sun and moon (our outer and inner landscapes) in Sagittarius.

Sagittarius is our wild self in this conversation. The part of us that is untameable and free. The part that contains intuition, wisdom and our innate knowing. This aspect of self may feel less familiar depending on our connection to it, as societal and cultural norms often work as suppressing the wildness within. This moon is calling us rediscover that primal piece of ourselves. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, in Women Who Run With the Wolves, puts it like this:

“The way to maintain one's connection to the wild is to ask yourself what it is that you want. This is the sorting of the seed from the dirt. One of the most important discriminations we can make in this matter is the difference between things that beckon to us and things that call from our souls.”

This new moon in Sagittarius is lighting up that knowing. Allowing us to ask in deep, wild truth ‘what is it that I want?’. It is making whatever is calling to you audible.

Estés goes on to say: “Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the choice of mates and lovers. A lover cannot be chosen a la smorgasbord. A lover has to be chosen from soul-craving. To choose just because something mouthwatering stands before you will never satisfy the hunger of the soul-self. And that is what the intuition is for; it is the direct messenger of the soul.” What, in life, satiates your soul-craving? What does that look, taste and feel like to you?

Uranus in Taurus speaks to a more fixed aspect of self. When change happens here it is sustainable, longer-term change (Uranus has been in Taurus since 2018 and will remain there until 2026). This dynamic wants us to look at long held rigidity. What have you been holding on to for a long time? And also, what are you LONGING to change?

We can work with the difference of these energies through honouring them. Allowing them both to hold space. Sagittarius is about big vision and expansion, so this new moon in Sagittarius is itself a holding space for us to open up and expand into undiscovered territories of self-perception and new visions of ourselves. What do these distinct energies feel like in relationship to the other?

How to work with the energy of this new moon in Sagittarius? This moon doesn’t want us to do much: to overthink. It is most interested in what is true. If you let yourself be, answers will come. This vocal toning singing meditation – an improvised piece evocating primal sounds - might act as a short powerful catalyst to connecting you with your wild self, in order to dive deeper.

Image credit: Andrew Ly on Unsplash

Clarissa Pinkola Estés quotes from: Women Who Run With the Wolves - Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman (Rider, 1992)

Internal Family systems quote from Internal Family Systems Therapy, by Richard C. Schwartz,

Lynsey Allett8 December 2023