There are seven planets in Aries right now. Seven. The Sun, the Moon, Chiron, Neptune, Mercury, Mars, and Saturn have all gathered in the first sign of the Zodiac at the same time, and in Human Design they are stacked into just three gates: Gate 25 (Innocence), Gate 17 (Opinions), and Gate 3 (Order out of Chaos, aka “Life finds a Way”). This is not scattered energy across the whole of Aries; it is a concentrated transmission, a single pointed message arriving through multiple channels at once.
The new moon is exact on April 17th at 5:51 a.m. MDT, and it falls in Gate 3, the Gate of Ordering. This is the energy that the I’Ching calls Difficulty at the Beginning. The image is a blade of grass pushing through frozen ground, a single spark in a dark void of night. It does not know what it will become- a tree, a raging fire. But it presses toward light because that is the only thing it knows how to do.
Chiron, the wounded healer, is sitting right there along with the Sun and Moon, which means this new moon is dropping it’s seeds directly into old Aries wounds. This moon could activate the places where beginning new has felt unsafe or where your instinct has been silenced. The last time we had a new moon conjunct Chiron in Aries was April 8, 2024, for the Great American Solar Eclipse. I recently looked back to an article I wrote for Astrologer’s co-op about that eclipse, and was reminded how potent it was. That eclipse was in the Gate of Shock, and it truly broke something open.
Now, this new moon conjunct Chiron is asking what you want to plant in the fertile soil of the ground that broke open 2 years ago.
The dwarf planet Eris is also tightly conjunct the Moon at this new moon, and although I don’t always work with asteroids in my reports, she is definitely worth mentioning. Eris is the celestial body associated with the goddess of discord, the one famously left off the guest list of Peleus and Thetis’ wedding (the future parents of Achilles) because she was thought to be a troublemaker. In myth, her excluded presence from event eventually unraveled an entire civilization.
Astrologically, Eris is not necessarily a chaos-maker but rather a truth-revealer- and she’s here with Chiron, the sun, and the moon in the Gate whose shadow is known as Chaos. Eris is a force that disrupts false harmony by bringing to the surface what was already there but not being spoken about. She has been in Aries since 1925 and she moves so slowly that her presence here is generational. Conjunct the Moon at this new moon in the final degrees of Aries, Eris is asking what you have been swallowing to keep the peace. She wants to reveal what has been excluded from your own story, and what uncomfortable truth is ready to stop waiting at the door.
The Sun, Moon, Chiron, and Eris are all gathered in Gate 3, Difficulty at the Beginning, with the shadow of Chaos, the gift of Innovation, and the siddhi of Innocence. Instead of conjuring a mess that can’t be cleaned up, I like to think of Chaos here as original creative state, the condition of your inner child before they learned to color inside the lines. This new moon is the moment in the void before the form arrives, when everything is still possible and nothing is fixed and the raw material is alive in your hands.
The other planets in Aries
At the time of the new moon, Neptune and Mercury are meeting in Aries Gate 25, known in the I’Ching as Wu Wang: Innocence, or Heaven over Thunder. This is the gate of love without agenda, evoking a heart that has released its constriction, allowing the mind and body to move through genuine openness rather than tight strategy. A heart center gate in the bodygraph, Mercury and Neptune here are giving us an assignment to release the tension in our hearts through our breath, our laughter, and our communication. Just enough to let a little light in. (Thanks, Leonard Cohen).
Also on this new moon, Mars and Saturn are exactly conjunct in Aries Gate 17, known as Following, the gate of opinions and far-sightedness. This is some tense energy- two of the malefic planets are piled on top of each other. In gate 17, they are asking us to release our deeply defended opinions in favor of a more omnicient, longer view. Zoom out from your third eye, and un-furrow your brow.
All three of these gates (along with all the gates in Aries) have Thunder as their lower trigram. Thunder, the trigram that takes us from the Spring Equinox to Beltane in the Human Design Mandala, is the shaking that makes way for what is new.
Tune in, turn on….
This episode opens with a three-minute coherent breathing practice to help you arrive before we go deep into the gates and planets. Then we walk through each gate with its I’Ching image and Gene Keys shadow, gift, and siddhi. I also revisit the 2024 eclipse and why this new moon is a direct continuation of that thread.
Listen to the episode in the Substack player above, or anywhere you find podcasts.
This new moon, remember: Your Heart is a Compass
If this new moon is stirring something deep for you - if you can feel something inside you that is trying to sprout out into a new way of being, or if you’re seeking a more aligned direction in your decision making process- I want to tell you about my new offering Your Heart Is a Compass.
This is a five-week live course starting on May 19th, built around the 8 gates of the Heart/G Center in Human Design, the 8 holy days of the Wheel of the Year, the descent and return of Inanna, and the question of what it really means to let your heart lead.
We will work with the Heart Chakra (Known as the G-Center in Human Design) as a navigational system, as something you can feel in your body moment to moment and follow in your life season to season.
Each Tuesday from May 19-June 16 is a live session with me, with time for embodied practice and real conversation. Each week also comes with a guided meditation to ground and center in between meet ups.
In these times of great insecurity and propaganda, some of our old maps are failing us. There has never been a better time to find a compass that can help you orient, one based on the ancient wisdoms of your body and the earth…. with a little help from the goddess. I hope you join me for this creative, somatic, educational opportunity to tune our compasses together.
Early bird pricing (only $222) is open until May 1st. If something in today’s episode is pulling at you, this course is the longer work of it. I’d truly love to see you there.
YOUR HEART IS A COMPASS — EARLY BIRD LINK
And if you’re not ready to jump into a full course but want to support my work and get a taster, my paid subscription tier, Embody the Revolution, is only $8/month and includes bonus articles & podcasts as well as live seasonal rituals on Zoom to ring in the equinoxes, solstices, and cross-quarter days.
The next ritual celebration will be held on May 5th in honor of Beltane and Mayday.
Don’t be a stranger…
You can follow the spiral in a few places. On Instagram I’m hearthandspiral, where I post transit reflections, gate walks, and the occasional voice note from my garden.
This Substack, Living the Spiral, is where my longer work lives. And if you want to go deeper, hearthandspiral.com has readings, courses, and my Mandala 64 learning & oracle deck. Come say hello wherever feels right.
Thanks for coming along for the ride.
