on the lunations in Aries and Libra

On March 21st at 11:22 MT, at less than one degree there was a new moon in Aries. On April 5th at 23:34 MT, at 16 degrees there as a full moon in Libra. These are the last two lunations in this sign before a 18 month long eclipse season kicks off in the first and seventh signs of the zodiac. Aries is associated with The Emperor. Depending on whether you associate The Star with the Hebrew letter ץ‎ tzadidi or ה ‎hē, then the Emperor is associated with the other letter. As stated in my New Moon in Aquarius post, M.M. Meleen makes a compelling argument that The Star, a feminine figure, should be associated with the feminine letter ה‎ hē, meaning window . I justified this association by drawing a connection to one of The Star’s Hermetic Titles, “The Daughter of the Firmament.” The frmament is the realm of the so-called fixed stars and thus, our window to the rest of the universe beyond our Solar System.

So, following that logic, then Aries and The Emperor are associated with ץ‎ tzaddi, the fishhook. The Emperor’s Hermetic Title is “The Son of the Morning,” fishermen are known to rise early to get the day’s catch. The Emperor, being associated with Aries, the sign tied to the March (or Spring / Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere), then the “Morning” is the return of Sol Invictus - the invincible sun - rising from its winter resting place, and dominating the hours of the day with sunlight. The Sun is said to be exalted in Aries, for this very reason.

I have repeated in many of my posts about Aries, that Aries — and by extension Mars — is associated with willpower. Aries rules The Emperor because it is the sign of unbridled willpower. It takes exceptional, otherworldly will to become an Emperor. The old adage goes “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and nor do rulers become Emperors overnight. The first decan of Aries, where this lunation took place, is known as Lord of Dominion. The Two of Wands, the card associated with this decan, shows a man holding a globe in one hand, and one of the two wands in the other, looking out over a beach to the sea, and theoretically the rest of his dominion. When the British Empire was at its maximum, it was said that the Sun never set on their dominion, due to its expanse across timezones (a concept invented by that Empire) and all four hemispheres.

I have said in various previous posts, that Aries, being the first sign of the zodiac, is considered the “Baby New Year” of the zodiac. So why, then, is it associated with The Emperor, the archetypal Father, of the Major Arcana?

Rachel Pollack explains in Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom that:

But the father, especially in traditional times when the sex roles were stricter, remained more remote, and therefore a figure of severity. It was the father who bore the authority and thus became the judge, the father who punished (and the mother who intervened) and the father who taught the rules of society and demanded obedience…

In Freud’s scheme of mental development the father and the rules of society become directly linked. The infant psyche, demands constant satisfaction, particularly in its desires for dood and physical pleasure from the mother… By interfering in the child’s relationship to its mother, the father arouses the child’s hostility and for the still unrepressed infant, this means the desire to do away with the interference altogether. The urge to destroy the father, however, cannot be consummated or even the terrible dilemma, identifies itself with the father image, creating the ‘super-ego’ as a new guild for the self (replacing the id - the urges and desires which led to a such a crisis). But what form does this superego take? Precisely that of the roles of society, traditionally learned under the father’s guidance.

Aries is then thus the infant’s id and the process of the father becoming synonymous with the super-ego and rules of society. Thus, the Emperor embodies the id’s sheer willpower and unrepressed desire for power and control, and also the codified customs of the society they rule over.

The father becoming the judge of the family, and The Emperor functioning as the Supreme Judge of his dominion then associates The Emperor and with the card Justice. In the Rider Waite Smith deck, the Emperor and Justice are visually extremely similar. Both figures, appear male (or mostly masculine) and face forward, seated upon the thrones of stone, their heads heavy with crowns befitting their stations. The Emperor holds a tau cross in one hand and a gold orb in the other. HIs thrown is adorned with rams’ heads, Aries, being the Ram. Behind him is a dry desert landscape — Mars being “hot” and “dry.” Justice holds a sword in one hand and the scales of justice in the other. Behind them, is a red cloth stretched between two stone pillars, echoing the veil behind the High Priestess.

Libra is the masculine sign ruled by Venus. Justice is traditionally associated with a female figure, with a blindfold, and thus her hermetic title is “The Daughter of the Lord of Truth.” Waite, however, embodies the concept in a younger, more masculine figure, akin to a younger version of The Emperor. Justice is unanimously associated with the Hebrew letter ל ‎lamed which means “ox goad” — this links the card to The Fool, who, being the first card, is aligned with the first letter א‎ aleph - meaning ox. So Justice, being the ox goad, keeps the ox - or the Fool in line.

Accepting the correspondence between ץ‎ tzaddi and The Emperor and Justice and ל lamed, both signs tame an animal. The Empress, as opposed to the Emperor, represents the mother — and by extension — mother nature. The Emperor, by comparison, is all the man made structures erected in the world, used to create dominion, civilization and thus “tame” the wild, unruly nature. Libra, being a masculine sign, ruled by the Empress or Venus, it follows some logic that Waite would embody the concept of Justice in a masculine figure, with the Judge being a representative of the Emperor’s authority.

In the Thoth tradition, Justice is retitled “Adjustment” and is more similar to a cosmi or c sense of balance, rather than an earthly sense of law and order. Justice’s other Hermetic title applies more aptly here — the Ruler of Balance. It harkens back to my analogy for The Moon and its title of Ruler of Flux and Reflux. Adjustment also embodies Newton’s third law of motion - every action has an equal and opposite reaciton.

As the Sun is exalted in Aries, Saturn is exalted in Libra. The inverse logic of the Sun’s exaltation justifies Saturn’s exaltation in Libra. Libra, being associated with the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, heralds the Suns’ journey “underground” for the winter season, in which darkness — and Saturn — rules.

Saturn is called by Valens the “Star of Nemesis.” This could be waved away simply as Saturn being the Sun’s (and the other luminary the Moon’s) nemesis. However, Nemesis was a minor goddess in the Greco-Roman pantheon. She is akin to the West’s twisted conception of Karma, “you get what you deserve.” She is the goddess of retribution for sin or hubris. Her name is related to the Greek νέμειν or némein, meaning “to give what is due.” The root nem, coming from Proto-Indo-European, meaning “distribute.” Originally, she distributed fortune, neither good or bad, in due proportion to what is rightly deserved, and later she became associated with the sense that justice could not allow disturbance of that right proportion to go unpunished. Through Saturn’s exaltation in Libra, Nemesis and Justice become two manifestations of a sense of balance in the universe.

The next lunation is the first eclipse in Aries since October of 2014, when the nodes were flipped. This go around the North Node will be in Aries and the South Node of the moon in Libra. In the West, the tradition is to consider the North Node something a moral pole star, meaning we aspire to the highest moral good of the archetypes of the sign it is located in. Aries, being associated with the will, the self, The Emperor and leadership more generally, could be seen as asking us to consider how we lead others, how we present our self, and how we assert our will. The North Node in Aries wants us to show up as our best selves so we can serve our highest goals and lead our people to be their best selves.

It is generally considered taboo or even dangerous to set intentions during eclipses. So instead, pay attention to themes that arise during the upcoming total solar eclipse in Aries — happening on late on April 19th or early on the 20th depending on your timezone. These themes are likely to continue to arise over this series of eclipses over the next year and a half. Each time, you will be asked to apply to what you learned from the previous eclipses to the circumstances surrounding the current one. You may want to think back to what themes were present in your life 9-10 years ago, the last time the nodes were on the Aries-Libra axis, to see how the upcoming eclipse may play out for you.