Monday, November 13th
New Moon
In Scorpio 20°43'
1:27 am PT

November New Moon: Back to Basics
By Sarah Faith Gottesdiener

On Monday, the Moonday, we greet an auspicious New Moon. This is the first time a New Moon in Scorpio has not also been an Eclipse since 2021, and this particular New Moon officially ends the acuteness of this year’s Eclipse season. This will feel like a reset from deep inside: let the relief emanate from the marrow of your bones.

This New Moon ushers in clarity alongside respite: more illusions have been lifted, and the need for half-truths and superficial dopamine hits has diminished. The more you can stay in this more accurate, illusion-piercing state, the more you’ll be able to discern what exists beyond appearances. You don’t have to believe everything you are told; you know yourself on a fundamental level, and you know what you are here to do.

With all this reconnection, you’ll be able to discern what is for you and what isn’t. Certain opportunities that sound good on the surface won’t be a match, and you can respectfully say no. Little sparks of insights will crackle before you, and the cultivation of those glimmers will lead to unplanned detours that resonate with your next steps. You will gain a greater understanding of how your projections, judgments, and defenses are contributing to your relationships with others and life itself. You’ll be able to take accountability for your contribution to certain dynamics or misunderstandings, understand others’ perspectives, and see the bigger picture. We’re here to help one another, and it is through relationships that we have the opportunity to heal more than we harm. Community care has never been more important. Invest in others—let them invest in you.

This is also the time to begin to build a new you, a different outlook, and another pattern of responses. It’s time to embrace Future You. It’s time to recover the True You: who you are underneath external conditions and influences. This is a New Moon for getting back to basics.

To clear away what holds us back we have to know what’s kept us in stasis. The effects and influences of trauma are brutal. They can imprison the mind inside of the past and sever intimacy in the present. The smallest perceived threat becomes an attack on our very being. Often, trauma heightens our defense mechanisms to such a point where we don’t think it is safe to let anyone in. This defensive impulse can extend to our dreams, desires, needs, and certain aspects of our own selves: it feels safer to keep our dreams, needs, and desires far away—if we don’t try, we can’t get hurt.

Healing always requires recovery. There’s usually some excavation to be done, some buried treasure to find. It’s a clearing away of obstructions that keep you away from your true self, as much as it is a process of seeking. On some level, some part of you has been here this entire time, waiting, and it’s now safe to let that part surface. Some essence of a gift, or some core part of your being has been waiting to be noticed at the edges of your perception, and now, as it infuses more into your awareness, it rejoices.

Who were you before you were told who you were?

What gifts did you come into this world with?

What have you been working on this entire lifetime?

What were you exceptional at before you could read or write?

Praise those parts, welcome them back, let them dance, let them lead.

This is the time to make the first move and to set things in motion — not from the perspectives of others, not from a space of reactivity, but from a place of spiritual accountability. There could be no external change at first: it might feel lonely, but keep going. It can feel disheartening when there’s radio silence from the universe, when we can’t catch a break, when we’re waiting for the green light or the permission slip or the lightning strike of inspiration. Sometimes, we can’t wait for a sign: we must become it. Take one step, and then another, and the Universe will respond.

— Excerpt from the 2023 Many Moons Lunar Planner. To read the rest of Sarah's exclusive essay and her Back To Basics Tarot Spread, get your copy of Many Moons. The benefit edition is here. The digital edition is here. 

Pre-order your copy of the 2024 edition HERE!