July 14, 2026
New Moon arrives with a rush of eager anticipation for whatever plans, ideas, new themes, or other sparks are bubbling up in your consciousness. New Moon is the list you make to take to the store, and the fun of throwing things in the cart. Full Moon is all those bags unpacked, and contents piled on counters and tables to see what you’ll make out of them.
So for the next two weeks, you could take the brakes off your imagination and indulge in broad thinking. Research, go down rabbit holes, expand your mind. You plan, you dream, you get the messy first draft on paper. The energy New Moon brings is uplifting, and I hope you will take advantage of it.
Our cards will weigh in on this and show us what influences are showing up with it, in terms of emphasis and where to point our canoes:
- 10 of Swords reversed
- 2 of Cups reversed
- King of Pentacles
- Ace of Cups reversed
- Knight of Swords
Let’s start with what’s not happening, those reversed cards. We aren’t going to see an end to some difficult situation, and the soaring orchestral strings are most definitely not going to play with reunited lovers silhouetted against the dawn sky. The war of words is not settled, and fellowship is not launched or restored in the wake of it.
So those are off the board. Don’t look for resolution and hugs. Instead, we have a mighty combination signaling action: a king and a knight!
These are both masculine energy figures; the knight is the muscle, the enforcer. The king is the big boss. Now do those reversed cards make a little more sense, with this context? Do you think the king sits around saying, “Well, gosh darn it, that kerfuffle didn’t get resolved and restore our emotional equilibrium, so I guess everybody can just sit around for two weeks and we’ll see if it gets better. Who’s ordering pizza?”
Oh, hell no. Big boss energy says, “Right, well, you asked for it.” Having gotten no traction on what must have been the initial offering of a generous diplomatic solution – because this is Swords, remember, and about communication – the king readies his next offer, and he doubles down.
Now the Knight of Swords is on the field, and he’s working the phones, shaking the trees, rattling the diplomats, talking to the right people. What he figures out from his intelligence gathering is what it will take to get the deal done, and what comes this time is no longer about the rewards of settling, but the cost of not settling.
King of Pentacles is about security – food, money, and shelter. He’s not the King of Wands, who can afford to have a bad party once in a while, and who has factored in the cost of some percentage of his wilder initiatives going askew and not paying off. He’s not the King of Swords, who does not care what people think of him because he is going to document absolutely everything and let history prove him right. And, oh heavens, he’s not the sweet King of Cups with his dizzying emotional highs and lows.
No, King of Pentacles might not have the most glamorous, the most erudite and learned, or the most dramatic kingdom in the land, but everybody is going to have a dry place to sleep, some food, and guards at the gates.
If you take this reading to heart, and divine some guidance from it about what to think about and put into place for the next two weeks, consider what is going on in your life that has dragged on way too long, and which you cannot fix anymore with promises and assurances. It’s time now for a new strategy, and that has to shift from offense to defense. You’re not well served addressing problems with sympathy for the ones who caused or continue to cause them; it is time to bring action to this and get a backbone. Masculine energy is called for and some clear communication about consequences for bad actions.
Do you have to be a super villain with a nasty crew and go hit somebody with a pillowcase full of oranges until they give up? No, of course not. But there may well be a situation in your life that calls for you to be a king, and it is time to get the kingdom in order and stand against this threat instead of just waiting for it to resolve on its own.
