In Aries, the Call takes the quality of the sign: beginning from oneself, without waiting for permission. I would like to show what this lack demands of each of the three Black Moons, and where it finds a livable form.
What Aries does to the Call
Aries is the first sign, the sign of fire that sets out. When a Black Moon stands here, the lack lodges in initiative: the person feels they should begin, assert themselves, enter life through their own gesture, and that is precisely where something is missing or resists. I meet two faces of this placement: the one who always waits for permission to set out, and the one who sets out endlessly, fights everything that resists, and mistakes solitude for freedom. The lack is not a lack of courage. It is a place left open in the impulse, and that place calls.
I then read the three Black Moons separately, because they do not ask for the same thing in the same sign: the Mean seeks a course there, the True brings up what calls in the body, the Corrected seeks attunement between the two. For each, here is what I wrote in volume 1.
Mean Black Moon in Aries: the Alicorn
The Mean holds the course, and in Aries that course takes the quality of the sign. The demand is fine and it is formidable, and the answer is never to reach the absolute perfectly:
In Aries, the Alicorn indicates a direction in which something must be able to begin from oneself, without waiting for outside permission to supply the first movement. The demand for autonomy can make hesitation, dependence, or anything that seems to slow the impulse unbearable, to the point of confusing freedom with solitude. The response is to become capable of initiating without needing to fight what resists, and to turn the impulse into a force of birth rather than a permanent assertion of self.
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 1
True Black Moon in Aries: Athena
The True shows what calls in the instant, in the body. In Aries, matter rises in its own way, and Athena reveals what can no longer be deferred:
In Aries, matter rises as a need to act, begin, or defend one’s space. Anger can appear when the vital impulse is held back too long or an essential boundary has been crossed. Athena then reveals the fire that protects life, and the response is to give it an act fitting enough to open a passage without burning everything down.
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 1
Corrected Black Moon in Aries: the Unicorn
The Corrected seeks attunement between the course and the push. In Aries, that attunement has its own terms:
In Aries, attunement is sought between personal impulse and what the situation actually allows one to undertake. Assertion may become so immediate that it leaves no room for what it encounters, or hesitation so great that impulse loses its force. The Unicorn seeks a way of acting that welcomes desire and takes reality into account: beginning without forcing, taking a position without turning every resistance into a battle.
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 1
The open cross in Aries
Each Black Moon unfolds a cross: four stations that go from the call to the trial of the return, and that occupy the four signs of a single cross of the zodiac. The one starting from Aries passes through Cancer, Libra and Capricorn: the call in Aries, the price of passage in Cancer, the response at the point in Libra, the trial of the return in Capricorn.
In volume 2 I set side by side, station by station, the two respondents that travel this cross, Apollo for the Corrected, the form made habitable, and Priapus for the True, the power made present. At the first station, I have Priapus say, in Aries:
"I want, and wanting halfway is not wanting: it's everything, now, or nothing. The first move is the only thing that counts — I charge ahead, whole; weighing things is a word that doesn't concern me."
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 2
And Apollo:
"I want a just, new world, one that respects the rhythm of every being. I am a benevolent initiator."
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 2
The three other stations, and what each one costs, are read in the book.
What the book adds
Volume 1 gives for each Black Moon the complete portrait of the sign, and volume 2 unfolds the open cross in Aries over its four stations, for Apollo and for Priapus, with the relationship to the world, to constraint, to otherness and to the future that each one engages. That is where the reading becomes precise, and that is where I left it.
Frequently asked questions
What does Lilith in Aries mean?
That the Call of the Black Moon takes the quality of Aries: beginning from oneself, without waiting for permission. I do not read it as a shadow, but as a demand seeking a livable form, and that form is not the same for the Mean, the True and the Corrected.
Are my three Black Moons in the same sign?
Not always. The True can stray from the Mean by up to about thirty degrees, and the three are often found in two different signs. The application tells you which ones are in Aries.