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Jupiter/Neptune Conjunction Pisces 2022 Tag

Still I Rise—New Moon in Aries—April 1st.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll riseMaya Angelou.

There are many ways to be brave in this world, to rise again with hopes springing high. As we wear our bravest smile and take the hand of a loved one whose light is dimming, courage is concealed in those seemingly inconsequential choices that flutter like monarch butterflies into a world where nothing is certain.

As most of the world now waits for a glimmer of hope in Ukraine, the New Moon in Aries invites us to begin again, to take that leap forward, to find ourselves anew. Aries marks a point of Beginning, which may be a lonely journey into the unknown. In Aries we encounter the mythic motif of conquest, which always implies an act of bravery and daring. Here we meet the mythic “Warrior” who sets off on a quest, the “Hero” who personifies courage and assertiveness. The leader who makes tough choices. Aries is where we encounter our own autonomy, our ability to return to life.

We may encounter many opportunities to be courageous this new astrological month. Petty tyrants may mirror our own discomfort about taking a stand while dangerous rhetoric morphs into bullets and the dark tide of anger rises, setting fire to old grudges and unexamined narratives.

Aries is a Mars-ruled sign. The dark face of the Ram is testosterone-fuelled anger, self-absorption, competitiveness, and conflict.

The raw energy of Mars is ignited by a goal; something to conquer or defendthe Romans pragmatically dedicated the month of March to the war-god as they set off on their campaigns, certain of fresh supplies. We may notice Mars energy all around us this month. Survival and procreation are embodied in the natural world as the urgent thrust of spring spills over the land in a cascade of colour and the sweetest song.

Writes Lissa Rankin in her book, The Fear Cure, “courage is not about being fearless; it’s about letting fear transform you, so you come into right relationship with uncertainty, make peace with impermanence, and wake up to who you really are.”

A New Moon at 11° Aries initiates a fiery blast of energy carried by the winged messenger, Mercury (travel, trade, deal making and the tricky art of communication) who has slipped into hot-headed Aries. Aries is our self-directed quest for individuation, yet the trite injunction to “find our voice” may deafen the voices of others; our need to be “me” may mean breaking the heart of someone who loves us. The Sun and Moon join Chiron, the archetype of the wounded healer, as we learn, in the words of Ram Dass that “suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.”

As Neptune and Jupiter edge ever closer to their 13-year rendezvous on April 12th, the collective is infused with idealism, compassion and a sense of unity that undulates through (some) nations as over 4 million refugees flee from the unspeakable horror of a war that will reshape all our lives.

Every 13 years, expansive Jupiter meets ambiguous Neptune and collectively,  we arrive at a moment that may inspire our faith, our creative imagination, or inflate delusion, propaganda, extend suffering, swell our emotions.  Although Neptune and Jupiter meet every 13 years in successive signs in the zodiac, this cycle is a once-in-a-lifetime moment because the last time they merged in Pisces was in 1856, which was 166 years ago when the Treaty of Paris deprived Russia of access to the river Danube, humiliating and stripping Russia of power at the end of the brutal Crimean War. These planetary archetypes manifest in manifold ways. When they united in the sign of Virgo in September 1932  millions starved to death under forced collectivization in Russia, Hitler gained power, and dust storms swirled over Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico.

The promises of peace seeded in this New Moon energy may dissipate in all too familiar falsehoods and a shared commitment to outrageous lies as Neptune and Jupiter will amplify Piscean associations with suffering and martyrdom. Nested like an assemblage of Russian dolls, flawed political decisions have resulted in our dependence on gas and oil (Neptune) which, along with the banks that finance them, are the most important source of Russia’s foreign income. As (some countries) decry the war in Ukraine, governments fund the war in payment for Russia’s fossil fuels. George Monbiot writes, “we have a truth crisis… it is much deeper and wider than we care to admit… it is systemic and universal.”

The celestial aqua-ballet dance of Jupiter and Neptune will infuse the collective throughout 2022. These amorphous planets linger within 6º  of one another from the end of October to December 20th when Jupiter enters Aries, the day before the Solstice. This leitmotif will wash over us all in waves all through this year, bringing back to shore what we are feeling and experiencing now. In the final weeks of November Jupiter hangs like a tear drop in the skies, at the culminating 29º point of resolution.

As Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron united in the humanitarian sign of Aquarius in 2009, James Cameron’s Avatar mirrored the zeitgeist of the time. Our personal and collective experience may be very different as Avatar 2 is released. Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces mirror a world-weariness, a collective post-pandemic grief that has been by-passed by governments eager for progress and profit. For those who have lost loved ones, for those whose lives have been dragged down into the undertow by loss of work or direction, everything may seem blurred, life’s pulse beat feeble. Yet in our grief may make fluid our rigid routines, dissolve our hardened habits, cleanse the debris of emotional blockages, we draw moisture into our parched lives. At this New Moon time of fresh starts and hopeful new beginnings, this beautiful quote from the first Avatar movie reminds us, “you are stronger and wiser and freer than you have ever been. And now you have come to the crossroads of destiny. It’s time for you to choose.”

Please get in touch if you would like a private astrology consultation: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

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Tears of the World—New Moon in Pisces—March 2nd.

As the barest inkling of renewed life begins to emerge for humankind after months of prolonged uncertainty and life-shaping sequestration, a deadly percussion of explosions rocks Ukraine, ricochets across the world.

We’re still becoming acquainted with the rites of grief. And now an uninvited shadow of war casts its darkness over us all. Images of tanks and shattered buildings, wide-eyed children, and desperate mothers maroon us in the suffering and the numbing horror of state-sanctioned death and destruction.

The astrology of the moment reflects the temporal turmoil of this time. Millions of lives, human and animal, will be scattered across the wastelands of war as the tethered fish of Pisces draw us into the territory of grief, opening our hearts to a far deeper cry than our own. Planets that wear iridescent Piscean clothing offer strange tinctures of genius and madness.

Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac and there’s a world-weariness as we collectively empty out, let go, at the portal of a new era.

This month a porous Pisces Sun joins Jupiter and Neptune in the water-logged realm of the Tethered Fish. This archetype is a marshy boundaryless space where a miasma of uncertainty leaches moisture from our imagination. We may feel suspended in a sea of hype or unspeakable horror. Netflix’s Inventing Anna, Tinder Swindler and Fyre, depict Pisces propensity for glitz and glamour, charisma, and deceit. Neptune-ruled Pisces swirls in fantasy, drowns in deception.  Film, oil, gas, and deadly viruses also fall under Neptune’s briny deeps. So do charismatic leaders and self-appointed messiahs.

On March 2nd the luminaries meet in the darkness, a monthly tryst that carries a deeper significance as grandiose gas giant, Jupiter joins this lunation. This alignment may amplify Jupiter’s excess, immorality, and a potentially dark and destructive influence comes from the alignment of Mars and Venus with Pluto. Venus (diplomacy) and Mars (war) are still paired as they move through the skies. Mars and Venus edge closer to Pluto, god of ruthless destruction, and meet on this New Moon, as Jupiter and Neptune move to a tight conjunction on April 12th (greater demand for oil and gas, propaganda, financial bubbles). Jupiter then moves into hot-headed Aries from May 10th, amplifying blood-thirst and a demand for weapons of war.

Planets, like history, move in circles and cycles. The last time Neptune and Jupiter met in Pisces was on March 17th 1856 (18° Pisces) when the Treaty of Paris deprived Russia of access to the River Danube, humiliating and stripping Russia of power at the end of the barbarous Crimean War.

Michel Eltchaninoff, editor-in-chief of Philosophie magazine and a specialist in the history of Russian thought, writes, “the Russian president’s dangerous sense of victimhood draws on 20th-century ideas of his country’s frustrated potential. It is necessary, then, to understand that what is actually happening in Ukraine is the result of a vision of Russia that is deeply embedded in the mind of Putin.”

Neptune/Jupiter conjunctions accompany hype, great expectations, territorial expansion, and the kind of faith and hope that carries us through struggle. In a hopeful piece, historian and philosopher, Yuval Noah Harari writes, “at the heart of the Ukraine crisis lies a fundamental question about the nature of history and the nature of humanity: is change possible? Can humans change the way they behave, or does history repeat itself endlessly, with humans forever condemned to re-enact past tragedies without changing anything except the décor?”

The suffering in Ukraine affects us all. Lynne McTaggart proposes, “if a quantum field holds us all together in its invisible web, we will have to rethink our definitions of ourselves and what exactly it is to be human…if we’re not separate, we can no longer think in terms of “winning” and “losing.” We need to redefine what we designate as “me” and “not-me,” and reform the way that we interact with other human beings, practice business, and view time and space. We have to reconsider how we choose and carry out our work, structure our communities, and bring up our children. We have to imagine another way to live.”

George Monbiot points out in his book, Out of the Wreckage, that humans are unique, spectacularly unusual, when it comes our sensitivity to the needs of others. We have an innate altruism, an inborn sense of community. Neuroscience, evolutionary biology and psychology all conclude that we have evolved to care, to cooperate with one another. “By the age of fourteen months, children begin to help each other, attempting to hand over objects another child cannot reach. By the time they are two, they start sharing some of the things they value. By the age of three, they start to protest against other people’s violation of moral normswe are also, among mammals, with the possible exception of the naked mole rat, the supreme co-operators,” Monbiot writes.

We may feel bone weary after months of adrenaline-charged coping, of being our best and bravest, kindest selves, yet the sky-story this month depicts a sequence of events that will marshal our good manners, our co-operation, our wisdom and our compassion.

“I am marooned on a crag of superiority in an ocean of soldiers,” wrote Wilfred Owen, (Sun and Venus in Pisces) who was killed in the mud and blood of World War I, one week before armistice was declared.

We are collectively moving through a time of initiation that may transform us at our core or maroon us on a crag of authoritarianism.

What will we choose?

For astrology consultations or more information about webinars, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

 

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