This article piece continues from the August 30, 2008 New Moon Newsletter

So, with the New Moon in Virgo acting as the tail end, or the caboose, it will serve to 'backup' the process of this awakening. It is also worth noting that this locomotive scenario of energetic 'influence' began about July 22nd, 2008 the day the Sun entered Leo. But since the New Moon seed is the basic initiator of evolutionary cycles, it is more important to look to the last New Moon which occurred on August 1st and which, it so happens, was a Solar Eclipse! (read more...) This particular locomotive planetary energy pattern will continue to be active through to late January 2009 whereupon Venus will be the first of the faster moving planets, due to Mercury turning retrograde twice by this time, to catch up to Uranus. There are actually a few reasons why this is very interesting and positively exciting as well, as illustrated in the following:

 1) Venus conjunct Uranus is generally considered very positive indeed, especially when in Pisces where Venus is 'exalted'.

2)  Two days after this conjunction of Venus and Uranus there is a New Moon at 6 degrees Aquarius 30 minutes. In Dane Rudhyar's An Astrological Mandala this degree symbol offers the following image: A child is seen being born out of an egg." This is further interpreted with the following keynote: "The emergence of new mutations according to the great rhythms of the cosmos." Beyond a lengthier discussion which can best be appreciated by reading the book itself and having some background of Rudhyar's phenomenal genius and expansive and influential contributions to Western Astrology especially, we read this final key phrase: "Emergence of global man." (Whatever else you may think or believe, please understand that Rhudhyar was hardly focused on this particular New Moon nor is it likely that he was aware of the particular reality of this locomotive planetary picture at his time in history, at least probably not consciously.) This time in history is pivotal and simply the fact that 2008 is the first official 1 year of the New Millennium is testimony to it. As is the nature of Astrology and synchronicity, this symbol backed by this planetary locomotive picture will prove to coincide or synchronize with some major events and developments over the next 6 to 12 months and I predict that many people will consciously recognize it. I will give more emphasis to the particularities of this New Moon in my New Moon Newsletter in late January 2009 and will add dimension to it in each Newsletter between now and then and after.

3) Finally, I would like to add that the locomotive planetary picture will continue beyond this date with first Venus alone as the lead engine until Mercury finally catches up on March 29th, 2009. That Venus will have turned retrograde on March 6th, 2009 is another layer of the story which will also have to wait for further insight and commentary around that time.

 So, there can be much more to a New Moon that it might at first appear. The Lunation Cycle is a small cycle backed up by many much larger cycles and planetary activity and pictures as illustrated above. However, the Lunation Cycle which consists of 29.5 days is more practically significant to our personal daily lives. The duration is one month and hosts the New Moon to Crescent to First Quarter, or appearing as a half Moon waxing, then to Full and then Last quarter and back to New Again. (There are actually 8 official phases of the Moon.) 

That the Lunation Cycle is intrinsically tied in with Eclipses may be new knowledge for some of you readers and hopefully raises at least one brow of awareness and appreciation of the Moon's monthly cycle which is usually experienced in pieces and parts and often even not at all acknowledged. It is a relatively small cycle yet is the basis of a larger backdrop of planetary alignments and cycles which are constitute the bigger picture of our personal and collective destiny. We can observe, feel and generally make sense of and, therefore, practical use of this, the Lunation Cycle.