Happening at 6:00 PM February 9th is the new moon in Aquarius, and as usual the new moon always falls in alignment with the same zodiac season we are currently in, Aquarius. This energy brings a lunar cycle focused on embracing our genius, bringing our visions into form, and aligning our lives with our uniqueness, with our individuality, with our deconditioned Self. More on this subject after we address the upcoming Lunar New Year!
The Aquarius New Moon also falls on the Lunar New Year, which marks the first new moon of the lunar calendar. This year, it falls on February 10th in Asia and February 9th in the U.S.
The Year of the Dragon
Though incredibly complex, the Chinese zodiac calendar is best described as a 12-year cycle represented by 12 different animals, in this order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Your personal zodiac animal sign is determined by your year of birth, meaning 2024 will welcome plenty of baby dragons to the world. Those born in 2025 will be snakes, and so on.
The dragon is the only animal on the Chinese zodiac that is a mythical creature. In Chinese culture, dragons symbolize good luck, strength and power. They control the weather and water. (Also, they don’t breathe fire. They breathe clouds.) Those who believe in the superstitions even go so far as to try to have babies in the Year of the Dragon because they believe dragons are destined for greatness and good fortune.
Characteristics of the dragon, according to Lau, include creativity, power and charisma. They’re confident, so they have an ego. They’re also energetic and impulsive by nature.
What does this mean for the upcoming year?
First it’s important to understand that we’re coming off the Year of the Rabbit, who is the diplomat and the peacemaker.
“The rabbit is about making things nice,” Lau told The Times last year. “That doesn’t mean that the rabbit year doesn’t have drama underneath, but it’s kind of like, ‘Let’s be polite. Let’s maintain etiquette. Let’s move forward. Let’s have more productivity.’”
Some people like the calm. Others find rabbits frustrating. “Often you don’t know what’s going on … so you still end up feeling bad,” Lau said.
You know where you stand with a dragon. They’re an open book. They’re swift. They’re not going to drag anything on for too long.
Dragons, in contrast, are very straightforward and clear. You know where you stand with a dragon, Lau said. They’re an open book. They’re swift. They’re not going to drag anything on for too long.
Each year also has an element, and this year is the wood dragon. The wood tempers the dragon and makes it more introspective, Lau said. Wood also is associated with morality and ethics, and the dragon is an animal that likes to have a sense of purpose and duty.
Breaking Free from the Past & Reinventing Ourselves
In the Zodiac, Aquarius follows Capricorn and corresponds to the journey of understanding what we have been conditioned to desire and how we have been programmed to behave, see reality, and approach life.
The Aquarius archetype has to do with breaking free from the past, unraveling the results of the conditioning we internalized, and liberating from its impact. This journey is known as deconditioning and is a central part of our individuation process.
While deconditioning has to do with recognizing and unlearning conditioned responses, the individuation process has to do with discovering and developing our unique identity while integrating conscious and unconscious aspects of our psyche.
The Aquarius New Moon begins a new chapter in our deconditioning journey and inaugurates a lunar month centered around deepening our understanding of how our past and our traumas are still impacting us in the present. This lunation invites us to observe what behaviors, fears, and insecurities of ours are a result of the conditioning and programming we internalized and inspires us to get to know ourselves, to get to know who we are as unique, sovereign, and free individuals.
The Aquarius New Moon motivates us to embark on a process of self-reinvention catalyzed by the removal of layers of conditioning and inauthenticity, not by adding more layers or masks upon an existing persona.
New Moon square Uranus: Living Life On Our Terms
The Sun and the New Moon tightly square Aquarius’ modern ruler, Uranus, currently transiting in Taurus. When the energy of Aquarius and Uranus is prominent, the levels of unpredictability increase, and so do our restlessness, our desire for freedom, and our need for change and renewal. The activation of Uranus through a square angle, which is a highly motivating aspect, corresponds to a substantial increase in our desire to break free from inauthenticity and inertia and make radical changes in our lives.
This configuration suggests a low tolerance for any real or perceived restrictions and a growing desire to do things in our own way. The Aquarius New Moon challenges us to live our lives on our terms. This lunation inspires us to free ourselves from the shackles of the past and connect with the courage to live authentically, in a way that honors our uniqueness. Embracing the level of responsibility that comes with this is essential: if we choose to do so, we must take responsibility for our decisions, accept their consequences, and learn to navigate the unpredictability that comes with leaving the beaten path to create our own.
New Moon sextile Chiron: Going Deeper in Our Healing Journey
The Sun and the Moon in Aquarius are also forming a sextile aspect to Chiron and the North Node, currently conjunct in Aries. This configuration suggests that, during the lunar cycle that is starting, opportunities to go deeper in our healing journey will be available and abundant.
Aquarius is the sign connected to trauma, dysregulation, and dissociation, and the connection between this New Moon and Chiron, the archetypal Wounded Healer, suggests that going deeper in our journey of healing the nervous system and coming home to our bodies will be a significant theme of the upcoming month.
We will have chances to confront wounds connected to the feeling of not having the right to exist and take up space, challenges asserting ourselves, issues with identifying and expressing our emotions and needs, and wounds that impact our self-esteem and self-confidence, our ability to believe in ourselves and the value of our expression. During the upcoming lunar cycle, we will be reminded that to move in the direction of our Soul’s purpose we must dare face what we haven’t yet healed.
Venus trine Uranus & Jupiter square Mercury
Uranus, the planetary ruler of the Aquarius New Moon, is also forming a trine aspect to Venus in Capricorn. This harmonic alignment invites renewal and renovation in our relationship with other people, our relationship with ourselves, and our relationship with money. The Venus-Uranus trine inspires us to be flexible, adaptable, and experimental in creating connections that support both independence and interdependence and encourage our self-actualization journey.
This aspect will inspire many of us to explore alternative forms of income and different ways of making ends meet, discovering occupations and opportunities aligned with our values, with our uniqueness, and that stimulate our creativity and inventiveness.
Meanwhile, Mercury in Aquarius and Jupiter in Taurus are squaring each other, an alignment that suggests the necessity to question existing beliefs, assumptions, and ideals. These days, we may come across new information that clashes with long-held worldviews. This configuration highlights our mental resistance and intellectual rigidity and challenges us to stay curious.
Pluto conjunct Mars, Venus, and Mercury: Evolutionary Threshold
Within a brief timeframe, all personal planets, including the luminaries, are entering Aquarius and crossing Pluto at 0º of the sign. As the Aquarius New Moon takes place, Venus and Mars are in the late degrees of Capricorn, approaching a conjunction with Pluto, while Mercury is in the early degrees of Aquarius, separating from a conjunction with Pluto.
This potent configuration highlights the invitation to radically transform our way of relating to other people, to ourselves, to our finances, to our sexuality, and to our desires, as well as to our existing communication and thinking habits. The activation of Pluto motivates us to alchemize past pain, access the objective awareness of what is and of the patterns at play in our lives, and liberate ourselves from ways of being and relationships that are not authentic.
This configuration suggests that we are at an evolutionary threshold, and we are being asked to let go of our security blankets, of behaviors that keep us from being vulnerable, of disempowering habits, and of everything that enables us, contributes to us remaining in a comfort zone, and doesn’t allow us to grow.
New Moon in Aquarius: Revolutionizing our Lives & Reinventing Ourselves
The Aquarius New Moon is bringing a breath of fresh air into our lives and is going to inspire many of us to reinvent ourselves and invest in ourselves, our visions, and our uniqueness. This lunation may bring events that shake our lives up yet, nevertheless, contribute to helping us move away from stagnation and motivate us to embrace a creative and experimental mindset.
Around this time and in the upcoming weeks, the increasing emphasis on the Aquarius archetype will offer us chances to work on our ability to embrace uncertainty, welcome chaos, and navigate unexpected changes with faith and confidence in our ability to handle what Life brings us. To be able to do this, we will need to confront unprocessed traumas and learn to support our bodies and our nervous system as they adapt to new conditions: these are crucial components of our healing and personal transformation process.
This lunation begins a lunar cycle colored by electric and innovative energy, restlessness, and an underlying, pervasive urge to change. Shortly after Pluto’s ingress in Aquarius, the Universe highlights the invitation to be experimental, to stop trying to preserve the past, to be creative in dealing with problems, to question what we think we know about ourselves, about life, about society, about reality itself.
The upcoming lunar month will be focused on recognizing how we hold ourselves back from full expression and rebelling against self-imposed limitations and constraints. The Aquarius New Moon invites us to dare to choose differently, dare to see reality from a new perspective, dare to see ourselves from a higher vantage point, and choose to believe in our power.
- After understanding the current star energy, think about the parts of your reality at this moment that don’t match your desires. Some part of you is not in agreement with that desire. Explore this deeper to understand the roots or the “disagreement”. Alignment or full agreement feels like fluid motion, rhythm. Disturbance or disagreement feels like resistance, blocked motion, and hurdles. When you’re in full agreement with your desire, then everything begins to move effortlessly. And, when static shows up, it allows you to see where you’re in disagreement so you can realign. Once realigned with your truth, then you can watch your desires alchemize into reality, because when we take back our sense of choice and own where we were a little off the mark, our powers to manifest change are irrefutable! If you have a hard time looking beneath the surface for the moment, try drawing tarot cards or interpreting a recent dream for clues from the subconscious.
Once you clarify the connections between your inner state and outer experience, write out a new “agreement” (previously coined affirmation) for this moon phase. Be careful to avoid statements that vibe with a sense of lack. Use positive expressions in the present tense. For example, instead of “I want lots of money.”, try “My income is always increasing” or, “I always have plenty of money.”
Personally, I found that my obsessive desire for independence and freedom was in disagreement with the thoughts inside my head. My thoughts and actions were all about ‘getting away’ or escaping my reality, but in truth I crave more love, connection, and security. The new agreement I have chosen is more in alignment with my authentic self… I am loved, connected, secure and safe while also keeping my autonomy and freedom.
Ceremony is a powerful way to get into agreement or alignment with your desire. When you’re working ceremony, you rouse your inner awareness, drawing to the surface some part of your consciousness that isn’t always alert. You deliberately make the choice to show up, do the thing, and let it happen!
Before you choose a spell or ceremony, consider why you are working magic. View moon alchemy as a way of bringing yourself into balance and harmony. You wouldn’t work magic to draw a new lover to you if you know you’re not ready for a relationship; in that instance you might want to work magic to clear cords or stuck feelings lingering from a past relationship.
Based on the time and resources I have at this moment, I chose a combination of ceremonies for this moon cycle which included listening to a video by my favorite tarot reader. In the privacy of my room, I sang some songs from the heart that made me feel connected and safe, and I practiced a few minutes of breathwork while gazing at the flame of a candle and repeating my new agreement inside my head like a mantra.
Everyone’s journey is different, so reflect on your personal new agreement and choose one or more of the ceremonies below that resonate with you. Creating authentic intentions and agreements activate your secret power of ownership and choice. Performing the ceremony is an energetic signal and symbolic gesture that activates your inner magic (or alchemy) by aligning the body, mind, emotions, and spirit. As you work the ceremony, it eases the resistance around the desire and lets your expression unfold.
- Banishing or clearing ceremonies
- Cutting cords
- Sage
- Palo santo
- Meditation
- Sound healing
- Clearing/cleansing crystals
- Spiritual bath
- Mantra
- Yoga postures
- Spiritual cleansing prayer
- Essential oils
- Sauna and sweat
- Breathwork
- Spend time in nature
- Ayurvedic rituals
- Essential oils, self massage/aromatherapy
- Drawing or Attraction Ceremonies
- Create an herbal sachet for success, love, peace, money, etc.
- Sleep with certain crystals under your pillow.
- Meditation
- Mantra
- Singing
- Yoga Postures
- Essential Oils
- Create a vision board
- Create something beautiful (painting, sewing, pottery, stained glass, write a song or a poem, redecorate an area of your home, have fun and PLAY)
- And of course, appropriate spells and affirmations
When you believe you will receive!
We hope this helps make new moon rituals easy and accessible. Enjoy watching the seeds you plant grow into existence! You can use these rituals for your own self-care, perform it with friends, and of course please share with us by commenting on your experience below! Make sure to check out our new resource library, find dates for the moon phases, or request a care package for you or your loved one. Also, we are seeking writers to join our team! If our values are similar to your own, please get in touch by filling out the form at the top of our home page. Use your writing skills to promote your business! We have a certain amount of funds to pay writers and we can also give receipts for your tax write offs. So, what are you waiting for??
Sources: Lunar Alchemy by Shaheen Miro, New Moon in Aquarius: Reinventing Ourselves – Moon Omens, What is Lunar New Year? A 2024 guide to the Year of the Dragon | CNN, What Chinese astrology says about 2024’s Year of the Dragon – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
Awesome article! Thanks so much for the ceremonial suggestions. 🙏❤️