Healing Images for the Aries New Moon

With the new moon cycle occurring between April 4 and 18, here are some symbolic images and myths to help attune you to the lunar energy.

  As a young girl growing up on a farm in a small, Midwestern town, I often felt lonely and cut off from the wider world. To comfort myself before falling asleep, I would gaze longingly out my bedroom window at the horizon. In the distance, the lights of the city twinkled brightly, beckoning with its promise of adventure. My soul yearned toward this symbol of unexplored promise. The image of the horizon has always stirred in me the Aries pioneer who dares to venture into terra incognita. Thus this Aries new moon, coming right on the heels of the spring equinox, is a time to contemplate the horizon in your life: Where is your "edge," the border where the familiar verges with the strange and new?

To help you discern the nature of the new adventure, it may help to meditate on images of the horizon found in nature--an ocean sunset, where water and sky meet in a blaze of color. Or hold within your mind the sight of a distant range of mountain peaks soaring like cathedral spires. While meditating on the horizon, experience the sensation of being pulled forward.

  In the myth of the Greek god Prometheus, we gain insight into the archetypal role of Aries. Defying Zeus' edict never to take anything that belonged to the gods, Prometheus, filled with compassion for the cold that humanity suffered, outwitted Zeus by stealing a spark of fire from Olympus. Furious, Zeus condemned him to be chained to a mountain, where each day an eagle tore at his liver. Prometheus refused to give Zeus the apology he demanded (how like an Aries!); eventually, however, he was freed by Herakles.

Though it is a cautionary tale that warns about the suffering we surely will endure for daring to defy "the powers that be," it is also a parable about the deeply human need to progress, to uncover new truths, to take a risk, to simply be brave. This Aries new moon, therefore, provides a timely opportunity for contemplating the Promethean tasks you may fear taking, yet must risk if your soul is to unfold in its evolutionary journey. Have you shunned love for fear of rejection? Dammed up creativity for fear of failure? Feared asking the boss for a raise? Abandoned political action out of cynicism? Or turned away from spiritual practice for lack of energy? Any one of these areas may be the place where you need to "steal fire" from the gods, to claim divine gifts that are your birthright.

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