Aries Last Quarter Moon at 27°52′
—July 19

In the air is the opportunity to emotionally detach from your natural, almost instinctual egoic impulses—with your very essence of selfhood… if you dare.

Shamanic astrologer Raven Kaldera refers to this moon as the Survivor’s Moon, a moon that influences “the confrontation of our wounds…”

Kaldera continues, that “while the first round of wounds we must wallow in may be those inflicted on us by the people we care about and trust—there is a second round of wounds behind that: anguish over the betrayal inflicted on us by Fate, or God, or the Universe, or Society… we confront our helplessness in the face of that pain.”

This is squishy stuff.

Just before the moon moves to square the sun through its last quarterly phase (while simultaneously t-squaring Pluto, by degree) the courageous Aries moon connects to Chiron in conjunction >oy!< through a degree that associates itself with ‘inward withdrawal’…

Did I speak too soon!?

Squishy squish squashed.

Any conjunction to Chiron is in confrontation with a wound, indeed, and through the moon, this confrontation is emotional and possibly co-dependent, and maybe even psychosomatic…

An Aries moon—entirely egoically centered.

This specific degree of Aries is challenging the ‘need to loosen us emotional blockages’ and can also pinpointedly torment the ‘struggle to hold onto [your] original identity’, should you be confronting changes in your reality that this would regard, as well as the need to/trouble with ‘compromise because of societal expectations’… an Aries moon energy demands a particular selfhood, and this is typically uncompromising, and without explanation or apology—any confrontation toward this singular need will not be taken well.

The essential question here: what is it you seek through your selfhood?

This Chironic conjunction degree is also very much about unresolved issues that continue to linger quite heavily, particularly in emotionally packaged ways, remaining repressed, “causing fear, isolation, and loneliness…” should they be too difficult to discuss.

And, if all of this is sounding a bit too dramatic for you—for you, this could point to simply “pausing to think things through before setting out on a new course… versus acting out of boredom…” which an Aries moon is wont to do.

These energies could also involve “learning to establish better communication lines; sexual adventurousness; high romantic expectations; mellowing with age; giving others slack because you’ve been there; renewing ties by letting go of anger or suspicion; and taking what one wants from life without waiting for permissions…” though, you can see how all of these sort of overlap in their underlying essence of vulnerability—and how these wildly varying topics all require a healthy foundational base.

Moving from here, the moon meets its connection to the sun while also squaring Pluto—exact by degree—and so immediately it is to be presumed that transformation and transition, and the willingness for, are either in progress, or necessary.

This t-square occurs through a degree that associates itself, as astrologer Dane Rudhyar transcribed, the “necessity for mature preparation and self-criticism…” particularly toward what Rudhyar picked up as being “an often recurring situation in the life of an individual person… the manner in which it is met determines the individual’s future possibilities of development and achievement.”

The issue here, then, according to Rudhyar, is how the circumstances are dealt with… not so much what the circumstances are, or how one feels or thinks about them. Rudhyar suggested that “what is required, therefore, is an objective inclusiveness of the whole environment; thus a sense of responsibility for what one’s actions will produce in people who have been made to expect significant results.”

In other words—absolute, without excuse, personal accountability.

Are you being personally accountable for yourself and selfhood?

Further, is too much being expected within your circumstances?

Or, is too much being expected of you by an/Other?

Does your sense of fulfillment or achievement—whatever you’re seeking—too heavily rely upon an/Others approval or permission or admiration, etc?

Are you seeking whatever you’re seeking through living through an/Others responses or reactions?

Do you, yourself, live impulsively and egoically through your own reactions?

Perhaps these transformations and transitions are a call to more slowly and patiently and quite soberly review your goals and ideals, plans and circumstances, and reassess what needs to be prioritized, put on hold, and what needs to maybe be dropped altogether… and your reactions or responses to this very process could be quite a lesson for yourself.

What exactly are you seeking?

Another simple question: an Aries moon needs action… are you living your life from on the stage, or from within the audience? Regardless of your personal placements—these current energies are still asking you to ask yourself, because your reaction/response will likely lead you somewhere that will spark a new or renewed insight.

This reminds me of the lyrics to ‘End of the Line’ by the Traveling Wilburys, that “you can sit around and wait for the phone to ring/waiting for someone to tell you everything/sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring… maybe a diamond ring…” (unrealistic)

Even if you’re not currently struggling with anything—though, you very likely are if your sun or moon is fixed in nature and/or cardinal—this remains a time to ask yourself new/uncomfortable questions.

Interestingly, as this last quarter phase occurs through the third decan of Aries, astrologer Austin Coppock expresses that ‘peak experiences’ are available here, that this decan associates itself with “the power… to overcome hostility.”

A lower vibration to these energies is absolute hostility and self-centered import…

While the higher frequencies of these energies would be to rise to the occasion of opportunity, the opportunity to be more emotional available and resilient, to be stronger, and to be more capable to receive… particularly those goals and ideals that aren’t as realistic—these, of course, will still need to be better realistically strategized, though the openness to cooperate with this notion, alone, is huge.

The 4 of wands in the tarot is associated with the third decan of Aries, a card that represents seeking.

Aries energies, inherently, and quite naturally, are seeking… Aries sets out on the trail that no one else will dare, and comes back to tell about it. What is Aries seeking?—absolute adventure. Aries wants to be the one that stories and tall tales are about… Aries is seeking notice; attention, in other words. Pure and simple: look at me!

Why? Why else?—Aries is inherently solo… Aries seeks belonging.

And so the 4 of wands, as translated by tarot writer Jessica Dore, pinpoints all of this quite beautifully, and even unintentionally connects the Chironic dot of today’s energies ever so succinctly…

Allow me to share—Dore writes, “one manifestation of this seeking is the classic ‘looking for love in all the wrong places’, the ugly duckling wandering around asking every animal, ‘are you my mother?’ and feeling an increasing sense of exile through the process… many of us have done this and it’s a common symptom among those who never really felt seen or understood in a home of origin.”

Further, “this particular kind of seeking may be evidence for innate longing for home in the human psyche… even if we have never felt at home, in the marrow of our bones there is a knowing—a sense that home does exist… that it must.” (clenching at my heart…)

Dore continues, “there is a wounding that happens when we feel chronically out of place… and when that out-of-placeness is our norm, we can begin to mistake that feeling for what home is… seekers of familiarity by nature, we are often drawn as if magnetically to situations that replicate what we’re used to whether it’s good for us or not—for many of us, it is a significant developmental task to reset our sense of home so that we are drawn to situations that are reaffirmative and life giving rather than replicators of the sense of exile we came up with… the reset usually involves attending to the original wound, where you first felt you were outside and unable to get in.”

Bam.

Dore offers insight into options of resetting…

But ultimately, you must reset your programming yourself—that’s where the personal accountability comes in.

But it would be advised to seek out that which accepts both your strengths and your vulnerabilities, your offerings and your weaknesses… Dore quotes Clarissa Pinkola Estes, that “you will recognize it because it makes your life stronger rather than weaker.”

And, again, as the Traveling Wilburys put it, “don’t have to be ashamed of the car I drive/I’m just glad to be here, happy to be alive/and it don’t matter if you’re by my side/I’m satisfied…”

❝Finite as we are, lost though we seem to be in the woods, or in the ‘wide air’s wildernesses’, in this world of time and chance, we have still, like the strayed animals or like the migrating birds, our homing instinct… we seek.❞
——Josiah Royce

🖋️ by Jamie James; 📷 by lalovenenoso

Coppock, A. ‘36 Faces.’ Three Hands Press; ©2014.
Dore, J. ‘Tarot for Change.’ Penguin Life; ©2021.
Goldsmith, M. ‘The Zodiac by Degrees.’ Weiser Books; ©2004.
Hill, L. ‘360 Degrees of Wisdom.’ A Plume Book; ©2004.
Kaldera, R. ‘Moon Phase Astrology.’ Destiny Books; ©2011.
Kaldera, R. ‘Myth Astrology.’ Llewellyn Publications; ©2004.
Rudhyar, D. ‘An Astrological Mandala.’ Vintage Books; ©1973.