It’s another New Moon: when the magically minded make wishes and astrologers attempt to divine this cycle’s intentions. The wishes you make now may indeed be super-powered, but if you don’t have a strong relationship with the archetypes, don’t expect special favors. If you rarely go hiking with your wild Uncle George, don’t expect him to take you sky-diving. New Moons are potent times to forge alliances with the gods. Visit the invisible world. Humans have been rendezvousing with these archetypes for thousands of years. When you call out to the gods, they do respond!
Calling Aries
Aries never looks before he leaps. His mother never cautioned, “If you run with a stick you’ll poke an eye out!” At six, he challenged bullies twice his size. At sixteen he built his castle; he made the ceilings tall as sequoia trees. He strung an acrobat’s tightrope from room to room—sixty feet up, no net below. Now that he’s much older, he flies a hang-glider from the bedroom to the library, where there are books everywhere. Biographies and autobiographies—all about him: how he crossed the Alps with Hannibal, wrestled grizzlies, escaped from pirates; he’s even been to the Moon.
Aries is popular with the ladies—the celestial ladies. They guide his feet up snow-drenched mountains, fling trees to block his enemies; they send magic rope, golden eagles and unbeatable swords his way, just in the nick of time. Ask them why they take such good care of him and you don’t get the usual answers. He’s handsome, of course, dripping with youthful enthusiasm. He’s got strength to die for. Sexy too. But it’s his heart they swear they love. So pure. Whatever he does, he believes in.
“I wasn’t always this way,” he confesses. “I was reckless, an egomaniac. Until I burnt my house down while playing with fire. I spent the whole night studying the flames. By morning, I had learned its language. Fire leaps up with love, you know; it has more secrets than a forest of trees. If you can draw it into your heart and contain it, you’ll achieve impossible things.”
With Aries, “self” and “doing” are everything. Aries wants you to do yourself as though you were a verb. Call him in with some positive narcissism. I did not know what this meant until I relinquished my dislike of Aries people. Zodiac aversions arise when, out of the countless people you find annoying, you discover two or three share the same sign. This entitles you to roll your eyes and look knowingly whenever that sign is mentioned—until, as a spiritual person, you learn that everyone you dislike is a reflection of yourself. You resolve to appreciate that sign’s virtues, but keep coming up with more reasons to dislike it. Then one day you stumble across the thing you can’t do, and you realize those fill-in-the-blank-zodiacpeople can do it without a second thought.
My mother is an Aries. A former boyfriend was an Aries. That co-worker I tangled with in 1991 was an Aries too. Despite their sunny, inspiring nature and boundless enthusiasm, I’ve found Aries people can be rough and reckless—Stanley Kowalski brutes to my faint-hearted Blanche DuBois. Their ruling planet Mars connects them to their passions, so they compete, strike, and leap without being braked by thought. I may say I’d like to do something for months, even years before I do it (if I do it). I like to think about my actions, have discussions with friends in town, imagine strategies, consider the consequences, fantasize the rewards. But Aries people will just go off and do it. They’ll even skip the conversations with friends. (This is what makes them chaotic and unpredictable.)
But then one year I called on Aries for help and something new got into me. I had a writing project that had been languishing for months. The next day Aries startled me out of bed and sent me into my office where I just started writing. I had no plan. I simply showed up at my computer and started doing. Four days later, I had the entire project designed. I was delighted, of course, but also amazed at the creativity that had been inside of me, waiting to come out. Ah, so that’s what it means to discover yourself through action—the Aries way!
Aries’ Response
Waiting for Aries to appear is the fun part. No way can I predict his entrance. But it will likely be full of passion and energy—so do be careful when driving, crossing streets, starting political discussions, or working with knives. Aries likes to sneak up on you and yell “Surprise!” So be on the lookout. You might find him in the garden bursting with new colors and growth. You might hear him in the treetops singing a joyful song. If a sexy red dress calls to you from that little shop around the corner, it could be Aries trying to get you to have a little more fun. He might strike as a sudden desire for “something more.” He might rise you up off the couch one day, ready to cut through boredom, fear, useless anger, self-doubt, or the self-image that no longer fits. You may be surprised at your new daring. Don’t worry if you know exactly where you’re going. Just go!
If you’d like to explore the archetypes in even greater depth, if you like to journal and/or muse on the positions of the Sun and Moon, you may enjoy my enrolling in my Moon workshop (by snail-mail or email). It’s designed to deepen your relationship with the guardians of natural time, the Sun, the Moon, the zodiac… and you!
© 2014 Dana Gerhardt
All rights reserved
I am a double Aries(moon and Asc).I attract a lot of people with no fire in their chart,my husband,best friend,daughter.They love my warmth and being spontaneous.They call me primitive vs their prim and proper.Of course it goes the other way and they help me to slow down.
I’ve often struggled with coping with Aries energy in myself and in others, preferring to think first and consider others before action. But there is something missing and I am finding ways to allow that fire expression. Dana’s words ‘Aries wants you to do yourself as though you were a verb. ‘ are such a great way to describe this. The whole article really speaks to me, I’ve read it twice and in the spirit of this New Moon will get out of my comfort zone and write here about it without much forethought. Happy New Moon 🙂
I have found that although I enjoy people who have, specifically, their North Nodes in Aires, eventually, as they “grow” more and more into their NN, they become too selfish, self-centered and obnoxious for me to deal with.
I think that I also may be especially sensitive to them because I have 15 deg. Aires in Venus (H6).
I am often in the role of the NN Aires person’s “cheerleader”, which feels natural for me, and which I never resent doing.
What usually happens, though, is they finally get to a point of “self-love”, which is what I was hoping for, but, then they suddenly become so “un-co-dependent” (overcoming the dependency shadow of the Libra South Node) that they step on those who have loyally supported them . By the time they acquire the pivotal balance between the two N/S nodal energies, the damage is already done. Out of my own self-respect, I withdraw, and sometimes permanently.
In general, I like the sign Aires’ influence in my and others’ charts, except when when this narcissism (including my Venus) gets out of hand. The NN people seem to be the worst because it is often so pronounce due to the irresistible polar pull of the NN.
Although not as hurtful, I also have some trouble with people who have Aires as their South Node, because they sometimes resort to it as their “default”, and it shows as their very egoistic “dark side”.
This Aires New Moon should be especially interesting for me due to my Venus/Aires @ 15 deg, and this natal aspect would conjunct both the Sun and Moon, this Sunday.
Something that is slightly weird is that I have been very “tuned into” to someone I haven’t communicated with for nearly 20 years, nor, have seen for nearly 40 years. They are an early Aires Sun-sign, with NN Libra, and, for the most part, were/are the true love of my life. As they just had a birthday, maybe there is some significant cosmic movement going on in them and they have been “tuned into” me too, recently.