Aries New Moon 2026
The glorious beauty and terrible vulnerability of Aries season
Before we dig into this fiery Aries new Moon, I’m hyping my upcoming event at Harvest Preserve for the Taurus new Moon on Saturday, May 16 from 3:00-5:00 pm! Think of it as this blog, but In Real Life! Instead of all of us sitting behind screens, we’ll be discussing the energy of that Taurus new Moon in a beautiful nature preserve and spiritual sanctuary, and setting new Moon intentions together, according to where the Taurus new Moon falls in our own individual natal charts. If you’re interested, please sign up here:
Taurus New Moon at Harvest Preserve
The Aries New Moon of 2026 occurs on Friday, April 17, at 6:51 am CST. We’re still in that same pattern of the Sun and Moon conjunct at the later degrees of the sign, and this time the new Moon occurs at 27°28’ Aries. This means that we’ve been in Aries season since the Equinox back on March 20, how have you been experiencing this Aries energy?
The Sun and Moon in Aries are closely conjunct Chiron in Aries at 26°41’. The ruler of this new Moon is Mars, who is located at 05°57’ Aries, amidst a big pile up of planets in Aries: Neptune at 02°48’, Mercury at 03°23’, and Saturn at 07°34’. If we count ‘em up, we see that there are a total of SEVEN planetary bodies in Aries. That’s a lot of bodies expressing themselves in an Arian manner!
What do we mean when we say “in an Arian manner”? We’ve spoken about Aries being that teenager energy, hitting the ground running first thing, with no hesitation, or much forethought. We’ve spoken about the Spring energy of new life, courageously struggling forth from the Earth, from the seed, from the egg, and from the womb. What we haven’t really focused on is the violence inherent in the coming forth of new life. Spring is a beautiful season, full of hope, ephemeral beauty, and the miracle of sweet new life, but if you take a closer look, that new life comes with blood, sweat, tears, and sometimes, even fratricide.
I remember when the Decorah Eagle Cam first became a thing, I was apprehensive about the whole idea. I knew that baby eagles often will murder the weaker baby eagle, especially if there are three of them, and I’m pretty sure there were three of them that first year on the Decorah Eagle Cam. The reasoning behind the babies killing their weaker sibling is likely because new life takes a lot of resources, and there are only two parents (at best) keeping those resources flowing nestward. If you have siblings, you might have some idea of some version of this experience, though hopefully not babies murdering babies.
Ask any human who has given birth about their experience - they will appreciate you for asking, and will also likely horrify you with their own specific, unique situation of violence. I’m talking about ripping and tearing of flesh, whole body trauma spasms, sepsis, emergency c-sections, and probably one of the most horrifying experiences - placentas that require manual extraction after birth. I have it on multiple good authorities that manual extraction of placenta pain is apparently worse than the pain of giving birth itself.
We’re lucky in this day and age that many human mothers survive childbirth, along with their babies, though that wasn’t always the case. And even today, there are still disparities in the system, with Black mothers and babies being twice as likely to die in the USA. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/hestat113.htm
Both of my immigrant grandmothers lost babies. The Irish grandmother lost one baby, and subsequently lost her mind for a time, which was really too bad for her existing children, who spent that time of Mother’s Lost Mind in a Catholic orphanage on Chicago’s south side in the 1930s. You know that can’t have been a good scene. Growing up, we heard SO many stories about “the baby that died”. I even think one of my siblings was named after the baby that died. The Scottish grandmother, however, was apparently made of sterner stuff; she lost four babies, and I only found out about that tragedy a couple of years ago, inadvertently and through a distant cousin, who is way into ancestry research. All this to say that Aries season, while exciting and full of energy and ephemeral new life, can also be scary and violent and a real bummer.
One way to tap into these scary and violent energies is to schedule a necessary surgery, which is what I did. In reality, I was simply eager to get it over with, and this was the first date available, so I went with it. I like to have at least some faith in the divine flow of astrological energies, and to subsequently try to ride along with that flow, rather than trying to fear, control or subvert it. To continue to consciously follow that Arian energy while recovering from surgery, I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of The Iliad, a very Arian story. I’m listening to Audra McDonald read Emily Wilson’s translation - highly, highly, 100% recommend this particular translation. In the introduction, Wilson breaks down some of the themes within the poem, one of which is The Mortal Body. Wilson describes the poem as focusing “especially on the bodies of strong men at the height of their physical power, in all their glorious beauty and all their terrible vulnerability - as in the famous simile evoking the wounding of Menalaus’ thigh…The simile suggests that this leg becomes even more beautiful and valuable for being stained with blood. The pain and violence are essential elements in the aesthetics of war.” (Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Emily Wilson and Homer, W. W. Norton, Incorporated, 2024. Page xliii)
When we think of a thigh wound, we often think of Chiron, aka The Wounded Healer. With this new Moon so closely conjunct Chiron, you may feel that wounded feeling that accompanies the rush of excitement of new life around this Aries new Moon. Can you envision that wounded part of you as part of what makes you more beautiful and valuable? Can you get to a place that can begin to accept that pain and violence are essential elements in the aesthetics of not only war, but of life itself?
The ruler of this Aries new Moon, Mars, is in close conversation with the other three planets also in Aries: Neptune, Mercury and Saturn. All four of these planets are also sextile to Pluto in Aquarius at 05°25’. Let’s break that down.
Mars conjunct Neptune, Mercury, and Saturn: Remember back at the Pisces new Moon, we talked about something being gestated within us at that time, something that will boldly go out into the big, new world of possibilities and potentials at the Spring equinox? We also talked about Neptune and Saturn together in Aries being about bringing our ideals into reality. Now we have Mars and Mercury in that same Arian mix with Saturn and Neptune, so what insights have been birthed from your intellect and imagination that are ready to make their way out into the real world of matter? What sorts of ideals had been gestating for you, and which ones are now, at this Aries new Moon, ready to start to take form outside of your consciousness, where they will likely seem to take on lives of their own? I like to think of the Aries energy at the starting line of a race, and instead of “On your mark, Get set, GO”, it’s more like, “On your mark, GO, Get set”. So you might have some things that don’t feel quite ready to be out on their own, but they’re jumping out ahead of the gun, ready or not!
Just this week I had a VERY Arian experience of this type, some version of which seems to happen every Spring. Luckily, in my neighborhood I’m surrounded by intrepid Scorpio types who can stomach this type of brutal intensity of Spring life and death if need be. And I do need! On the tragic precipice between life and death, I’m clearly not made of the sterner stuff of my Scottish grandmother, but lean more toward the frailty and darkness of my Irish grandmother.
Here’s what transpired. Our beloved cattle dog mix has many specific barks, and while I was working away at my computer, I heard the one that indicates INTRUDER IN THE YARD. I hurried outside to find her circling a raccoon and barking. Miraculously, I was able to use a broom that I had snatched from the porch to coax her away from her quarry, who apparently doesn’t know murder when it’s staring them in the face. Extra miraculously, after some doing, I was able to coax our enthusiastic dog inside the house, and I then went back outside to shoo said raccoon away. I was convinced they were diseased, because they let me get VERY close to them, and clumsily scampered up a walnut tree and hung there, looking down at me, only after I had kicked one of our dog’s Jolly balls toward them. Why are they SO freakin adorable?? Eventually the raccoon hoisted themselves up onto a limb and stayed there. I kept an eye on them throughout the day, and after a time I noticed they were no longer in the tree, but lying stretched out a few feet from the tree, seemingly dead or asleep. Further convinced that they must be diseased, I called Animal Services and they mercifully showed up rather quickly at my front door with a big live trap. Together, the Animal Services Officer and I walked around the house and down into the backyard where the raccoon had been, but our dog’s incessant STRANGER AT THE DOOR bark must have roused the raccoon from their resting spot and they were sitting up a few feet from where they had previously been lounging (or seemingly lying dead). The Animal Services Officer walked over to check out the situation, banging on the cage. The little stinker ran away from her directly! They then tried to climb the fence and failed, but more cage banging was the fire they needed to get up and over the fence and up another tree, right on the other side of the fence. The Officer’s verdict? Not diseased, but healthy; just young and dumb. THIS is the type of near tragedy that can happen when young folk (or ideas) roam free in the world before they’re actually ready to be out in the world on their own. But, this dumb, young raccoon survived this particular foray into the world thus far, so even if your nascent ideas are still somewhat green and wet behind the ears, they may want to come out and sniff around and see what’s up anyway, and see if they can survive on their own in the big, scary world.
Mars et al in Aries sextile Pluto in Aquarius: Saturn is the taskmaster of the Zodiac, the energy of rules, structure, and boundaries. Mars is the planet of action, courage, and assertion. These two planets, when flowing together, can have the energy of “git r done”, or, if not flowing together, the energy of peeling out, the legal term for which is “unnecessary rotation of tires”. I learned this legal term growing up in Lee County, where peeling out was once a form of entertainment. If these two planetary energies flow together, a lot can be accomplished, but if they can’t seem to work together, you might get pulled over by the cops and ticketed for a loud, smokey, burnt-rubber offense. Mercury is the trickster, the shimmering, elusive glimmer that plays between the intellect and the imagination, and between the conscious and subconscious. Neptune is the dreamy ideal, the fairy glamour, the enchantment. All of these energies are currently in conversation together, and they are all sextile to Pluto in Aquarius. Pluto is the energy of power and transformation, as we discussed in the Libra full Moon post two weeks ago. Since I received some feedback from somebody who is currently experiencing an intense Pluto transit to two personal planets and an angle, letting me know that what was said about Pluto in that post really resonated for her, let’s go ahead and revisit what was said about Pluto at that time.
“Pluto is like the undertow that can pull you under with no warning, and there is no use tiring yourself out fighting against that undertow, you gotta just ride it out and hope you resurface relatively unscathed sooner rather than later. Pluto is ultimately transformation, but like wise teacher Quinn once pointed out, before the caterpillar is transformed into the butterfly, there is a necessary stage of Goo. During the Goo stage, every part of the caterpillar is essentially annihilated and turned into Goo. This Goo will eventually reform again into the beautiful butterfly, but try telling that to the caterpillar, or even to the Goo. Only the butterfly will understand, and even the butterfly takes a while to cling to the chrysalis, stunned at what they’ve become, air-drying and straightening its wings before it can fly away. So if those annihilating, ugly cry emotions surface, ride them out, or even revel in them for a time if that feels appropriate. Feel the Goo, be the Goo, but hold onto the faith that you are in fact a mf butterfly in the making. You might be stunned with your soppy, wrinkly wings, clinging to the chrysalis for a while, but your wings will air-dry and straighten out eventually, and you will soon flit off, transformed, into the wide blue yonder.”
The sextile aspect indicates opportunity, so here is an opportunity for us to utilize these Arian energies to go through that intense process of transformation in some area of our life or psyche. What does that look like for you?
How can you utilize these energies in your life?
What type of transformation can courageously be made real at this Aries new Moon?
How can you courageously bring your ideals into reality in a powerful way?
Thinking back to the last new Moon in Pisces, what was on your Mercury’s punch list of items to explore from the most recent Mercury retrograde through Pisces? Can any of those items be allowed to roam free in the world, to sniff around and see if they can survive unscathed?
How can you step into the most enchanting, powerful version of yourself by taking courageous action toward what was gestating forth from your intellect and imagination at the Pisces new Moon?
Setting intentions or manifesting by house placement (or area of life) topics;
if the New Moon falls in your:
1st house: Your needs for self-discovery and self-identification
2nd house: Money, possessions, income, tools of the trade
3rd house: Neighbors, siblings, relatives, communication
4th house: Fixed possessions (houses or land); the style in which you choose to roost or live; basic inner nature
5th house: Sports, fun, giving or receiving love, play
6th house: Daily work, physical health/wellness, routines, pets
7th house: Relationship, friendship, participation, interaction
8th house: Intimacy, commitment, responsibility to other, couple money
9th house: Spiritual or religious study, belief systems, meaning
10th house: Applied beliefs or principles, vocation, contribution to society
11th house: Groups, social circumstances, organizations, aspirations
12th house: Solitude, mental health/wellness, inner world exploration