New Moon in Aries

This is on Wednesday the 28th March, around 4 am GMT.

There's a lot of pep in it! We have a stellium in Aries, sign of birth and raw energy: the sun and moon, plus Venus, Mercury and Uranus.

New moons signify new beginnings, and Aries is the start of the whole zodiac – the kickoff point. So a new moon in Aries is always a fiery new beginning, and a great time to set your intentions for the year ahead.

What do you really want, going forward? Where is your desire leading you? What's of value to you; where do you find your happiness?

It might take a bit of radical honesty with yourself to find out, and please be aware that there might be some major hurdles and blockages on the road toward it. There's a real need for caution and looking before you leap here: Venus is retrograde, Saturn will be retrograde as of next week, and we are also headed into a Mercury retrograde – and all these retrogrades have to do with clarifying our desires and values before heading off into uncharted territory. A radically new direction is called for, but that doesn't mean you can just shoot off heedlessly. You'll have to think about what you really want and lay in some practical foundations for the new life you want to build.

So it's worth asking yourself: exactly what is driving you and where do you want to be going? Where would you like to be this time next year? What practical measures will you need to put in place now so you can get there?

The new moon will be at 7 degrees Aries with retrograde Venus in Aries conjunct at 3 degrees. Venus is about what we love and value – so this really is all about desire.

But with Venus retrograde till mid-April, getting what we want is not so straightforward, and will likely involve some soul-searching and adjustment. Venus retrograde is not a time to rush after anything. It is more a time for careful reconsideration of what we actually love and value – especially re. relationships and money. Planning and long-term thinking are called for here. (And please hold back on major purchases until she stations direct on the 15th April!)

For this new moon, we'll also have Mercury conjunct Uranus in Aries (exact 26th March) – this is about new ideas, shocking information and communication, radical and abrupt departures from the status quo, sudden brilliant clarity. It might be that what you once valued no longer means a damn to you, or people / scenarios you've invested in prove not to have been worth your energy. Whatever form this takes for you, the value-shift will be brought home with abrupt force – and the necessity of figuring out what makes YOU happy instead of rushing around pleasing others will be highlighted.

All this Aries energy is very fierce and impatient, but it is currently disposited by Mars in Taurus, which grounds the reckless forward drive and stabilises things. This is useful! With Venus in Mars-ruled Aries, and Mars in Venus-ruled Taurus, we are looking at a very beneficial mutual reception between primal desire and pragmatism. New ventures and relationship / money prospects can be undertaken with patience, realism and an eye to the long-term.

We also have a Mercury retrograde in Taurus coming on the 9th April. Again, this is about pragmatism and rethinking our love / money / values – it really is a huge theme this month. Mercury will station direct on the 3rd May, conjunct Uranus... So this retrograde has to do with new directions opening up, followed by a period of  practical consideration, and later, resolution / insight.

Give yourself time to process new ideas and information this month – don't rush into new commitments until you've thought slowly and deliberately about the practicalities involved. Be content with slow, incremental progress. And remember, you definitely don't want to be finalising anything or signing contracts until after Venus stations direct in mid-April. Hold off.

For this new moon, we also have retrograde Jupiter in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn (exact 30th March). Again, this speaks of a deep restructuring of our value systems, especially around love and money. There is a need for fairness and reciprocity in our dealings with others, and it will be pretty obvious when that need isn't being met: it's harder than usual these days to maintain relationships based on unbalanced power or energy dynamics. Jupiter in Libra wants a fair exchange, and Pluto in Capricorn intensifies this into an issue of resources and survival. You have to be getting back something equivalent to what you're giving, otherwise it's an unsustainable drain on your resources.

It's not exactly a recipe for light social interaction. And let's not forget, Jupiter in Libra is stressed to the max right now. He is part of a cardinal t-square involving Mercury, Uranus and Pluto. It's pretty hard to stay even-tempered and civil under these circumstances – our politeness and forbearance with others will be severely tested, especially as we head up to the full moon in Libra on the 11th April.

Another test: Saturn will station retrograde on the 5th April, in square to Venus and Chiron in Pisces. This looks quite painful – there's a real sense of poverty and loss here. What we most want will feel desperately out-of-reach, and this sense of deprivation will be in effect till the end of the month.

But after that, the Saturn retrograde brings us to a much sunnier place: we will have a grand fire trine between Saturn, Uranus in Aries and the north node (which moves to Leo in early May). This is a big energy shift, and it will hold for much of the rest of this year – an easy flow between creativity, self-determination and new visions for the future. Brilliant ideas, amazing new options, and we will NOT be doing the same old shit again, no thanks!

So there's a new world under construction, kicking off under this new moon in Aries. Just keep in mind that things don't always work out as fast as expected or stay within the budget. There will be severe blockages, and these will be pretty apparent over the next month. But they're not going to be around forever - a shift is coming. And for now, blockage will give you a chance to lay in some careful groundwork.

Remember anything worth building takes time and consideration. Patience is a virtue, have it if you can. With so much Aries in the sky, patience will be hard to come by! But it's absolutely necessary this month. However edgy and impatient you may feel, you can't rush this kind of major change.

Full Moon in Virgo

This is coming up on Sunday, 12th March – about 3 pm GMT.

This full moon in Virgo - the sign of order, precision and hygiene - looks medicinal and astringent to me. It's a wound-healing moon. The wounds being healed are mental ones: confusion, delusion, addiction, self-deception, laziness of thought.

The new moon in Pisces a couple weeks back looked like a confused, angry mess – well here is the corrective. A dose of harsh reality.

Try to hold still – this may hurt a bit. It's for your own good though!

The sun at 22 degrees Pisces will be conjunct Chiron and Mercury. This denotes a painful, messy sense of unease – a wound to our minds and to our sense of collective reality. I'd say this has to something do with all the “fake news” stuff in the news lately. It has become very hard to know what to believe, and our confusion is being cynically manipulated for political ends.

But this has been a theme across the board, from the collective level to the individual. Look at your own life: what lies have you been telling yourself, how have you been evading reality, how have you manipulated and decieved others, how have you colluded in your own manipulation by others?

I think at this full moon, the extent of the cover-ups, obfuscations and distortions of reality will be coming clear. Information is bound to come to light that puts hidden things into proper perspective. We will be seeing through the lies and bullshit – lord knows we've had enough of listening to blatant liars discounting all criticism of their behaviour as “fake news”. Facts are facts.

Mercury in Pisces will be exactly square Saturn in Sagittarius for the full moon. This is harsh but credible communication – the voice of moral authority cutting through the smokescreen.

We'll see how it plays out on the world stage. But your own stage is where this really matters: if you've been zoning out, not facing reality, pretending life is whatever you want it to be and facts equal feelings – here is your wakeup call. Reality is reality, and it doesn't care about your feelings or your victim-story. This is harsh, astringent clarity, like disinfectant being poured on a wound. It's meant to wake you the fuck up, so please don't be resentful.

If someone calls you out on your shit or tells you you're being sloppy / lazy / careless / delusional, there's no point getting all indignant and defensive. The point is to heal the wound, remember. That means addressing the underlying pathology instead of denying or defending it.

Taking criticism on board in important here. With the Mercury-Saturn square, you can trust the information you're given – people are not going to be spouting off for the sake of it, or trying to wound you out of malice. They will be trying to convey their observations in order to help, and out of an uncomfortable desire for fair-dealing and justice (courtesy of a tense inconjunct between sun-Mercury-Chiron in Pisces and Jupiter in Libra).

The take-home message here: ignore criticism at your peril. We all have bad habits, and sometimes we all need a bit of a shove to show us what needs changing.

Listen to your inner critic as well. You know deep down what you have to get rid of.

It's important to remember that at a Virgo full moon, we are at the midpoint of the Pisces lunar cycle. Pisces is, at best, about acceptance and letting go – releasing, forgiving, forgetting – so that energy can flow freely instead of remaining stagnant and congealed.

Virgo is what helps us to clear out all our rotten gunk and blockages. You can take this literally and use this energy to organize your living space and get rid of whatever is cluttering it up – or you can apply it internally to clear your mental and emotional garbage. Or both!

The point is, we need to make some space for the new moon in Aries, which is a fiery rebirth – a time for focusing on new prospects and what we really want for the year ahead. (It comes on the 28th March this year). You can't really think about starting anything new when your life is cluttered up with old garbage! So this is clear-out time.

A caution about new prospects though: your dreams have to line up with what's actually possible and practical. There are hard limits here – you can work with them but you can't make them disappear. With both Venus and Jupiter retrograde, don't jump headlong into new ventures, especially ones involving relationship and money. Hold back until you have a clearer perspective. I'd say that'll be mid-April, and it's unlikely to feel so great – Venus goes direct on the 15th April conjunct Chiron and in square to Saturn. Bear in mind that your hopes may not measure up to the realities, or may require a lot more work and committment to fulfill than expected.

But don't let it get you down too much. Take the long view and plan to work toward the life you want in a methodical, stepwise way, and you'll be on solid ground.

PS- Venus retrograde is traditionally held to be a bad time for making important purchases. You'll regret your impulse-buys. Remember we are in a phase of clearing out here, not adding to the clutter of stuff we don't really need.