This is tomorrow morning, the 5th April, around 10:15 am GMT.
A new moon symbolizes a new start, and Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, all about the self in its rawness and immediacy. It is ruled by Mars, planet of desire, drive and aggression.
So basically this is a great time to get serious about who you authentically are (outside of social niceties) and what you really want. And to get moving toward it.
Blockages and limitations are present, though. The sun and moon in Aries are squaring Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, and it may feel like what you want will require the labours of Hercules to achieve, or a miracle. But Aries is warrior energy, so you just have to keep on going and keep on fighting. It's a “hero's journey” kind of scenario – and you don't get to be a hero by running from what scares you, or focusing only on what's easy and makes you feel good, or refusing to acknowledge the summons to change your life.
Our clusterfuck of a Mercury retrograde is over as of the 29th March, thank goodness. Mercury is still conjunct Neptune in Pisces, which means your brain may still be a bit underwater - but that conjunction (involving Venus in Pisces as well) is beneficially aspecting Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn. All this speaks of a profound spiritual dimension to this new moon – the “call to adventure” in your hero's journey may come as a summons from your deepest, truest self. Trust your intuition to guide you in the right direction, and pay special attention to your dreams at this time – they are certain to contain important messages for you. These messages won't be the kind that require much analysis, as you'll understand the meaning in your bones. If you're analyzing and second-guessing and worrying over what they mean (quite likely with Mars in frenetic Gemini), you're on the wrong track.
Relationships figure heavily this month despite the “me first” emphasis of Aries. This is to be expected with Uranus in Taurus shaking up our values around relationships. Our sense of the inauthenticity of certain social arrangements is likely to be heightened. There may be an urge to break away and go it alone.
And then as if to drive this relationship emphasis home, we get a second full moon in Libra, sign of relationships. This is on the 19th April and it will underscore the importance but also the difficulty of relationships; the need to maintain personal autonomy, authenticity and space within them. It could be a real “come here / leave me alone” vibe. Or remain vs. no deal, if you're following the endlessly crazy Brexit. Ultimately it looks like some balance has to be found between being true to ourselves and maintaining our important relationships (however annoying they may be). No one can go it entirely alone.
This is tonight, the 21st March, at about 1:45 am GMT.
It's a supermoon and a pretty big deal, as it coincides nearly exactly with the spring equinox.
The equinox happens as the sun moves from the end of Pisces into 0 degrees Aries. This is the kickoff point of the whole zodiac, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere - so it's pretty intense. The symbolism is of rebirth. In this case, the sun is also conjunct Chiron in early Aries, which is about an unhealable wound to the sense of self. So it's kind of an existentially fraught rebirth – who are you, going forward? It's not who you've been, that's for sure.
Also, an equinox is a balance point between the hours of light and dark, the turning-point where the sun returns to the northern hemisphere and retreats from the southern. And few hours after the equinox, we have the moon hitting 0 degrees Libra, the sign of the scales.
Libra is rational and relationship-oriented, seeking justice and harmony between different viewpoints. As full moons symbolise culminations or endings, the symbolism here is of setting something decisively to rights, or finally deciding.
Would that it were so simple! We also have Mars and Venus, the rulers of Aries and Libra, squaring each other from fixed signs, so you can expect a bit of a standoff. And as Mercury is retrograde in Pisces and conjunct Neptune, it will be a confused, obfuscatory head-fuck of a standoff.
Still, something very important is being decided even if the lineaments of that decision are as yet unclear. I guess it's fitting that as I type this, the UK is asking the EU for an extension to Brexit, their national existential crisis. It's meant to happen in 9 days though there is still no plan in place for how, because the UK parliament is in nervous breakdown mode. And the EU is mulling over how to be fair to the UK without leaving the door open for further destabilisation and chaos. It fits the symbolism of this full moon pretty well.
In your life, expect to see plenty of tension around relationships especially – but not the usual kind. This is some breakaway stuff, with red lines being trashed and new lines being drawn, or associations ended altogether because people's values have suddenly changed completely. Uranus is in Venus-ruled Taurus, and Venus is in Uranus-ruled Aquarius – this is called a mutual reception and means these planets are working together. And what they are working for is the disruption, upending and re-balancing of old patterns of relationships. So if you think you can ride the turbulence out by sticking to your old patterns and habits, you're quite wrong - radical change and accountability are what's called for. And once you're “woke”, you can't go back to sleep. We are collectively leaving Neverland.
This is especially true with Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn conjunct the south node, laying bare the corruption underlying structures we took for granted.
The way through the turbulence at this time is via the moon in Libra: moral clarity, fairness and rationality. Don't get swamped by your sense of personal grievance. Think about what's best in the grand scheme of things, not what's only best for you. Have faith that what's best in the largest possible sense will turn out to be what's best for you personally, though it may be hard to see how at this time.
The sun and moon will be tightly conjunct Neptune in Pisces. Neptune rules the sign, so this is an extra-heavy dose of Pisces. Beautiful, dreamy, magical, mystical Pisces – which has a shadow-side that is all about addiction, delusion, deception and disappointment.
Here is Kermit the Frog singing a Pisces theme song:
“Have you been half asleep, and have you heard voices? I've heard them calling my name. Is this the sweet sound that lured the young sailors? The voice might be one and the same.” Yes, Kermit you dear little frog, you're singing wistfully about the mythical sirens: half-human monster birds who lured sailors to shipwreck so they could tear them apart and eat them.
And there you have Pisces in a nutshell. At best, this sign is about the highest spirituality, transcendent art, dissolution of the self. At worst, it tries to blur out the difficulty and harshness of life with self-deceiving songs about rainbows – or with fairytale romance, victim-saviour fantasies, drink, drugs – whatever works. Except nothing works permanently. Every mechanism to escape reality only magnifies the harshness of that reality when the inevitable reckoning comes.
So I always advocate caution when approaching Pisces-heavy skies like this one. I don't mean to be a downer, but this is a matter of simple self-preservation. Whenever you hear someone (or yourself) gushing about how perfect and fantastic and amazing and gorgeous something is, that is a signal to make sure your bullshit detector is switched on. Remember if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Especially under a sky like this.
For this new moon, fortunately, the sun, moon and Neptune are beneficially aspecting Saturn in Capricorn, which should hopefully provide some grounding in reality, and the ability to manifest your dreams. Still, it's unlikely to be an easy month. We have Mercury stationing retrograde in Pisces the day before the new moon (5th March). Mercury retrogrades are always frustrating, full of travel and communication glitches. But in this case, Mercury is retrograding through Pisces, a sign he doesn't function well in when he's moving direct, let alone retrograde. Expect plenty of confusion, obfuscation and head-fuckery, and be skeptical about the information you're given. Fake news will abound. Also be careful around drink and drugs. Things are going to get pretty weird, and boundary-dissolving substances will magnify that weirdness and any potential unpleasantness as well. They certainly won't help. (As to what will help: art, spiritual work, and finding something larger than the demands of your ego to serve.)
Uranus also re-enters Taurus for the long haul on the same day as the new moon, and this is a biggie. Expect big shifts – earthquakes really – in love and money scenarios, and to your values. What you thought was worthwhile yesterday may abruptly not mean a damn to you tomorrow, and what you didn't like might suddenly seem attractive. Sudden reversals of fortune are also likely. And the physical structures and routines of our existence – the ground under our feet – is going to be much more prone to sudden ruptures and upheavals. This is something to get used to for the next 7 years roughly. If you think the weather's been weird lately, you ain't seen nothing yet.
You put it all together and it looks like some real WTFuckery will be going down this month. It's the start of something big, but there's no telling what it is as yet! Major, groundbreaking changes will be surrounded by a fog of confusion, misinformation and outright delusion. This fog should clear a bit around the spring equinox on the 21st March, lit up by a full moon in the rational and fairness-seeking sign of Libra.
But overall, it's going to be weird. Try to keep your head firmly screwed on. To quote Kermit: "rainbows are visions, but only illusions". They are only a trick of the light, there is nothing real at the end of them. Be careful you're not chasing illusion instead of engaging with reality.
This is on the 20th March, 9:30 am (GMT). It's a total solar eclipse – symbolic of a supercharged new beginning – and it takes place at the very last degree of Pisces, the final degree of the whole zodiac, symbolic of the very end of a cycle. So it's beginnings and endings again. Death and rebirth. It's a scenario very reminiscent of the new moon in Aquarius last month – a reiteration of that theme.
But that was the prelude. This, coming just after the final Uranus-Pluto square on the 16th March, is about life in the aftermath zone. Uranus (shock, upheaval, revolution) and Pluto (death, rebirth, transformation) are only a few seconds past their exact square in the chart of this new moon, so although the square will be loosening from now on, we are looking at a month colored by the high intensity and pressure of the final square.
It's like after a big earthquake - the aftershocks keep rolling through for a while. The shocks may be interior ones, or they may be in your external life – or both! But we are looking at unsettled situations that remain in flux for the next month, amid a sustained pressure for radical change. The dust won't really settle till mid-April.
Here's a link to hexagram 51 from the I Ching – all about shock, and how it wakes us up.
If you're feeling almost insane with the internal and external pressure, hang in there. Pay attention to the wake-up calls and revelations you're being hit with – and they're coming thick and fast these days, right? Don't tune out. Keep working to shoot yourself clear of your old patterns. We don't get this kind of opportunity for deep, systemic change – really ever. Ever. Many of us will never have it again.
Think about the last few years – the years of the Uranus-Pluto square (2012-2015). What can you never go back to? Where are you standing now, after the hurricane has dismantled your old life? What are you moving toward?
(NYC post Hurricane Sandy)
We have a big stellium in Pisces right now, and dreamy longing, blurred vision, regret and addiction to the past will be cheap and easy fixes for the next month. Let's not indulge in that stuff too much, tempting though it may be! It's one thing to process and release old pain – another thing entirely to wallow in it.
Try to keep the focus on where you're headed, not on what you've lost. There's no going back. But what's ahead of us could be very interesting...
The sun hits zero degrees Aries – the Aries Point, the start of the zodiac – around 10:45 pm (GMT) on the 20th. And suddenly it's spring! Anything could happen. We'll have Jupiter in Leo beneficially aspecting Uranus in Aries for a good while – all through the summer. All kinds of happy accidents and sudden windfalls are possible. So keep the faith, keep moving forward... even if things feel kinda hopeless and stuck right now. Remember life can turn on a dime.
Mercury in Pisces is just past exact conjunction with Neptune right now – this is a dreamy, poetic, otherworldly mental influence. He will move to conjunct Chiron in Pisces on the 24th March, and this can be about painful but necessary thought and communication. It can be great for dissolving old mental habits and conditioning - but it can also be the hangover to end all hangovers.
It's a brief influence anyway – Mercury moves fast. He will enter Aries on the 31st March, and this should be clarifying, as far as our mental processes and communications are concerned. The Piscean veils of insinuation, illusion and doubt fall away and we'll be able to see and communicate the obvious with blunt simplicity. (And with Mercury moving into the Uranus-Pluto square during the second week of April – well it looks like the obvious is damn well going to get communicated. Like it or not!)
Venus entered Taurus on the 17th March, and this is a stabilizing, grounding influence, especially in relational and money matters – something has been decided at the root level, even though it might not entirely feel that way yet. Stick to your values, whatever happens. Hold to what makes you feel happy, satisfied and secure in a deep-down way.
Mars will enter Taurus on the 31st March, and that should further stabilize and ground our energy and will, and help us to stick to our guns. With Mars and Venus in calm, steady Taurus – the explosive relational issues we've been dealing with over the past few months should start to settle.
We'll have a very fraught full moon eclipse in Libra on the 4th April, and this looks like a point of closure for those issues to me. It will probably come as a relief on some level, but Jesus - it doesn't look fun. Aaargh. I'll write about it closer to the time.
Anyway, nothing to do (ever) but keep moving forward. May the force be with us all.
Some dreamy Pisces songs for ya:
A "checking out & moving on" song:
And here is some cheese! Hair metal & power ballads will pull us through, if nothing else can!
This is tonight, the 5th March 2015, around 6 pm GMT.
We have an intense month ahead, as we head into the final Uranus-Pluto square on the 16th March. Things are shifting fast. The skies now are about accelerated relational dynamics and power shifts. Bedrock changes involving how we relate and what we value are afoot. Alliances are being formed and broken at astonishing speed, and people are waking up to how unfulfilling and insufficient their lives are within their old realities. Everything is pressing for radical change right now.
This full moon in Virgo shines a clear, analytical light on what has to change in our lives, and what practical steps we have to take to get to where we want to be. Virgo is about order, efficiency, clarity and detail work. It's about being practical and systematic, paying attention to the small stuff and not getting bogged down in emotional chaos or delusion.
This kind of grounded clarity is helpful, as the changes hitting us now can be overwhelming and painful. There are a lot of things we can't take with us, going forward. Bad relationships, addictions, romantic illusions, mouldering old gender roles and expectations, victim-saviour dynamics, the excuses we make for continuing down paths we know are no good for us – all that stuff has to go.
And regret for all we're having to leave behind will likely pull at us this full moon. The sun in Pisces will be conjunct Chiron (exact on the 8th March), and this describes deep wounding - an existential kind of hurt. And the sun and moon will be squaring Saturn, which is an emotionally constraining influence. Overall the mood is likely to be pretty serious and subdued.
It doesn't matter – we have to keep moving forward.
Letting go of what you've invested your time, energy and love in is very hard, yeah. But when a thing is done it's done – there is really no going back. You can't let what is unviable or unsound drain you any further.
It's like the image above for the tarot 8 of cups – the pilgrim in the picture is leaving an emotional arrangement he has painstakingly constructed, because it no longer satisfies him. He's walking off into darkness and rough terrain alone, and the situation is not particularly happy or light, but there's a feeling of necessity about it. He has to find something more meaningful, even if it means facing hardship and loneliness.
This full moon should help you to discriminate between what you can work with going forward, and what you must leave behind – and to take the necessary practical steps, however crummy you might feel about it all. Venus is hitting the Uranus-Pluto square right now, reinforcing this theme of detaching from our stuck old patterns, especially as regards relationships, money, possessions and values.
It's a great time for a clear-out. This could be as mundane as clearing out your garage or bringing your old clothes to Goodwill...or it could involve getting clear of untenable relationship dynamics and old psychological conditioning, or a bad job, or habits that undermine your health, or whatever you know is a drain on your energy and resources. The important thing is to let go of what is no longer fulfilling and clear a space in your life for something new to happen. It's not fun, but it's necessary.
If you stay stuck in your old patterns out of regret, addiction or fear of change, you miss out on the great opportunity of this time – the potential for amazing new things to happen. But if you clear some space in your life and refuse to let it be filled by the same old shit, something new is bound to come along.
The 'something new' part involves a grand trine between Jupiter in Leo and Venus, Mars and Uranus in Aries. This is fiery, exciting influence, full of the potential for sudden windfalls, happy accidents, inspiration, new alliances, magic and opportunity. Saturn in Sagittarius is also involved, which grounds the energy and makes it easier to materialize whatever opportunities or inspirations come your way. This is luck you can work with.
It's really nice to have this happy, energetic, lucky stuff going on – because the weeks ahead are so tense. We are moving at warp speed toward the final Uranus-Pluto square on the 16th, and radical change is the name of the game. Anything could happen.
A lot of that 'anything' is potentially violent and shocking, especially with Mars currently conjunct the south node and moving to conjunct Uranus in Aries on the 11th March. So please be careful. Drive defensively and avoid crazy people if you can.
And don't take your guns to town, son...
If you start feeling all pent-up and enraged, it's a good idea to get in some physical exercise.
Mercury leaves Aquarius for Pisces on the 13th March - this should soften up our mental processes and communications, which have been all zinged up and electric under Mercury in Aquarius. Nice influence for artists and musicians – very intuitive and poetic. But it also means our thinking might be a bit underwater at a time when we need to keep our wits about us.
On the 14th March, Saturn begins his retrograde. It will take him back through the early degrees of Sagittarius and into Scorpio for a final revision period (15th June – 18th September) of the dark, thorny issues we've dealt with over the past two years during his tenure in Scorpio. This is kind of a drag – kind of dispiriting and exhausting. Just when we're itching to move forward and solidify the changes in our lives, we have this dark undertow dragging us back through territory we thought we'd finished with. Specifically, it's a retreading of ground we covered between mid-December of 2014 and now – any Scorpionic issues you were dealing with then will likely come up for revision. (Scorpio issues involve sex, death, power, shared resources, debts, the shadow).
Oh well. June to September of this year will be the last time Saturn is in Scorpio for nearly 30 years, so you might as well use it to make good and sure that you have really gotten the garbage out of your life and psyche. Anything rotten or unsound you are still clinging to: an addiction, a relationship, an ideology, a fantasy, etc...Well hopefully you have been trying to extricate yourself from what you know is no good for you. But maybe it hasn't been as easy to get clear of as you thought it would be. There is still some work to be done here – and messy and dark as it is, we'll have to do it if we want to move forward.
Hard-ass Saturn is telling us here: surface change is just not good enough. It's easy to declare you're finished with something but then go on to repeat the same pattern in a different form, like a dry drunk. Really getting free involves psychological work - digging down to the deep roots of a behaviour, and cutting them out so it can't regrow in another form.
Anyway, it looks like a pain in the ass, but it has to be done. Come September, it will really be time to move on from whatever this is about for you, and for good.
On the 16th March we have the 7th and final exact square between Uranus (shock, revolution) and Pluto (death, rebirth, transformation). It's a big deal. I wrote a lot about it in my last post, so won't re-hash it.
But suffice it to say, the weeks ahead are full of drama and intensity. Try to stay balanced amid the shifts – things are very pressurised right now. Take a step back if you feel yourself getting overwhelmed.
Virgo is about health and service, so a full moon in Virgo is a good time to focus on those things. Try to eat right, exercise and get enough sleep...and if you find yourself overly focused on your own issues, shift the focus onto what you can do for others. Those strategies can help to ease the tension.
Mercury entered Pisces today (31st Feb), hours before Venus goes direct tonight. And the moon will be moving from detached Aquarius into sensitive, impressionable Pisces to conjunct Mercury and then Neptune in Pisces...that's tomorrow afternoon (Feb 1st). And then she's moving on to hit Chiron in Pisces later tomorrow evening.
This gives a wistful, wounded emotional tone to the weekend...the ghosts of what could have been (but will not be now) might take a while to dissipate.
You'll know what regarding love and money matters is real and what's a mirage with Venus direct, and you'll be ready to move on. But there is definitely some sensitivity involved here; some last dream-tendrils to break free of; some grieving.
Well you can't move on without leaving something behind, right? And good-byes can be hard...
Mercury will be in Pisces till the 7th of February, turning retrograde just conjunct Neptune in Pisces. And then he will move back towards rational Aquarius, re-entering the sign on the 13th February, conjunct the sun. Just in time for Valentine's Day and a full moon in Leo - I'm thinking this looks like a good thing. You will hopefully be able to review love and money matters with a big measure of detachment and emotional control after Mercury re-enters Aquarius.
Anyway I think these currents are all about dreams and reality and how they intersect. Mercury in Pisces (and conjunct Neptune) is visionary, imaginative, creative, poetic...also often vague and wooly-headed, distractable, inarticulate. It's about intuition and the difficulties involved in translating intuitive knowledge into language or action.
I guess it's safe to say that with Mercury in Pisces you'll be able to see the issues at work in your life in a larger, transpersonal context, and hopefully have some sort of intuitive understanding of what's happening and what it all means, even if you can't necessarily articulate it.
--This is a very good influence for artists and musicians, who should be able to squeeze a lot of creative inspiration from it.
As Mercury retrogrades and moves back through rational Aquarius, you'll get a chance to reformulate your intuitions and put them into a logical framework. To marry your dreams to rationality and to a concrete vision for the future.
It's about practical idealism: finding out which of your dreams are actually attainable.
Be careful with alcohol and drugs over the next week, and especially this weekend - Mercury-Neptune is a real mental head-fuck even without them, but with them you can get really scrambled. And with the cardinal t-square in effect, things are tense: you will want to keep your wits about you as much as you can.
But overall this looks like a dreamy, sensitive, somewhat weepy, but imaginative and romantic influence. A chance to just feel what you feel, after the cold-hearted Aquarius new moon. And to transcend your feelings and imagine what would be the best next course of action...not just for you but for the grand scheme of things, if you get my drift.
