Flow—New Moon in Pisces—February 20th.
So, this is how you swim inward. So, this is how you flow outwards. So, this is how you pray―Mary Oliver.
The new Moon in Pisces foreshadows Saturn’s long-distance swim through Pisces which begins on March 7th.
Pisces is the last, world-weary sign of the zodiac. This new Moon alludes to poignant endings and tentative new beginnings as we acknowledge our longing for something deeper, as we begin to weave new dreams, as we begin to tend to those places in our heart that know only Love.
Pisces is not an easy constellation to see with the naked eye. And in our birth chart, Pisces planets or the house with Pisces on the cusp, may be concealed by louder or more overtly visible planetary archetypes. A rumbustious Aries Sun or dutiful Capricorn Moon may be more comfortable in a world where we compare, compete, and have a “nice day”. Julia Cameron, writes, “The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people’s expectations.” We may hesitate at the water’s edge, admiring other people’s creativity, their altruism, their faith. We may disown our Pisces planets as the outer world presses its concerns into the sanctum of our intuition. We may not notice the signs and the symbols and pack away our childish magical thinking and innocent imaginings.
Pisces is where we journey to those soulful regions of our psyche, those places where we encounter mysterious daimons, and where powerful currents of emotion surge like a riptide, shattering our peace, bringing us to our knees. In this underwater realm, we hear the songs of whales, the whisper of sea grasses, the prayers of ancestors who lie full fathom five.
For those of us who like our lives anchored by certainty, the world may seem a precarious place right now. The Full Moon T-square Uranus on February 5th symbolised the devastating earthquake that ripped across Turkey and Syria the next day, leaving thousands still missing and the dead entombed by the rubble of defective housing. In New Zealand, people are just beginning to assess the damage of Cyclone Gabrielle as they wade through what remains of sodden homes and businesses. Still the ache of the war in Ukraine reverberates across the body of the earth and threads through our nervous systems.
As Saturn swims through the porous waters of Pisces (March 2023-February 2026) we may feel as if we are swimming through opaque waters, a psychic fog where we’ve lost our way. Things disintegrate, boundaries blur in the primal waters of Pisces. We may sacrifice something, release a tsunami of grief that may be collective, archetypal, rather than personal. This may be the time to let go. A person, a job, a way of being in the world as we feel the ache of a difficult choice, open our heart fully. This may be the time to become a creator instead of an algorithm-led consumer. By letting go, loosening our grip on self-growth, and anxious self-improvement, we may float awhile in unfamiliar territory as we absorb by osmosis, a looser life, a life less determined by “influencers” but rather by our own deep force of vitality. As the darkest shadows of human nature emerge in fundamentalism and bigotry, the swell of watery Pisces energy has a slower rhythm that meanders, pervades our dream time, flows into our creative life, cleanses, and revitalises faith, restores hope. Saturn was last in Pisces in the 1990s as AIDs ravaged the lives of millions. The Soviet Union toppled, and the Internet transformed the way we think and talk.
Now as Saturn returns to Pisces, José Ortega y Gasset’s celebrated quote, “tell me what you pay attention to, and I will tell you who you are,” may prompt us to notice where the gaze of our attention lands.
Those who experience their Saturn Returns in Pisces over the next three years, and those of us who have planets in the mutable signs of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius may be prompted to create art, music, poetry; discover a gift for needlework or photography, or focus on maturing a spiritual practice. Saturn in Pisces will transfigure the ordinary, arrive in a turn of events that strike us like an annunciation, as we choose to see differently, consciously do differently. In Pisces, we dive deep into opaque waters where music and poetry melt walls that divide. We may experience, in the words of Eckhardt Tolle, “all things that truly matter―beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace―arise from beyond the mind.”
Venus moves into Mars-ruled Aries on the new Moon, signifying a shift in tenor in our daily interactions with others, an opportunity to revaluate how we can live in this world more soulfully. Expansive Jupiter meets Chiron (in orb from February 28th- exact from March 10th-March 13th) joined by Venus in Aries (March 2nd-4th). Chiron is associated with the evocative image of The Wounded Healer who takes away our suffering, and in our horoscope, also one who wounds. Chiron/Jupiter contacts often accompany grandiose aspirations that may inflate/deflate as we pursue “enlightenment” or constantly feel the need to speak “our truth” or follow “our bliss.”
This conjunction activates the Aries part of our horoscope (self-expression, will, courage, action) offering inspiration and motivation to re-connect with a deep force of vital energy, to feel a stirring of passion and creativity, and to know ourselves more intimately. Mercury joins Chiron and Jupiter in Aries on March 25th as perceptions shift, new insights may wash to the shore of our consciousness.
A faerie-circle of golden spring crocuses waiting expectantly for the bees may remind us that everything is interconnected. A homeless woman, hollow-eyed, thinner than her beloved dog, may stir our compassion. The mute suffering of factory-farmed animals may compel us to be more discerning about the food we choose to buy. Searing temperatures, drought, and fire, may prompt community spirit. Our challenge will be to remain alert to the moray eels, the sharp shards of shell concealed beneath the opaque waters of Pisces.
“Certain things grow in darkness. Babies, dreams, roots…” wrote psychologist Jill Mellick.
As the tethered fish of Pisces draw us deeper, may they guide our prayers and direct our faith, so that we can hold on tight to the dreams that grow in the darkness.
For private astrology consultation, please email me: ingrid@trueheartwork.com
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions, he had money as well—Margaret Thatcher.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe… money makes the world go around and silver sixpences have morphed into cryptocurrency, symbolised by the seven-year transit of Uranus through Taurus, (2018-2026.) Uranus in Taurus has highlighted the climate crisis and accelerated the power-hungry cryptocurrency bull run which leaves such a heavy carbon footprint. China is now minting its own digital cash, “in a re-imagination of money that could shake a pillar of American power,” writes James T. Areddy in the Wall Street Journal. As Uranus shakes and shatters Taurean ground, this archetypal force of chaos and disruption reminds us that we are standing on the rim of the widening gyre between rich and poor. That even wealthy Samaritans with the best intentions can lose it all in what Joan Didion calls this “ordinary instant”. That for most of us there is no settling feeling of security when work is patchy; that money and a gig economy are incompatible bedfellows.
The Age of Taurus (4,000-2,000 BCE) coincided with the prosperous river civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia; and for eons, the Bull and the Cow have been associated with wealth, with the flooding of the great rivers, the rich black sediments of the earth. Taurus, despite its association with the muscular bull, is associated with “the feminine”, which has been denigrated, distorted, disowned for thousands of years. Yet she is still there in the sharp green scent of green growing things, in the soft contours of the land, the artists brush that sweeps turquoise and violet across the tangerine skies at sunset. We know her indomitable presence that emerges in the daisies that turn their faces to the sun from cracks in the pavements, in sluggish city rivers filled with plastic, in filthy alleyways strewn with syringes and layered with human detritus where bright yellow dandelions grow.
Love is fearlessness in the midst of the sea of fear
Venus and Jupiter in Aquarius, meet on February 11th for a sweet caress in the apricot light of dawn. This brief union happens only once a year, yet it carries the promise of serendipitous meetings, joy-filled celebrations, favourable outcomes. For birthdays and weddings, for the fruitful budding of professional or intimate relationships, this day is incandescent. Aquarius encompasses our friendship circle, those anam cara, soul friends, who hold our hands tightly when we’re broken hearted. Mercury in Aquarius, still travelling Retrograde, encounters the sweetness of Venus and the optimism of Jupiter this week, draping our dreams in silken images that sparkle and inspire, offering us an opportunity to re-write the narrative of our lives and move toward “what if” … “what could be”…
wrapped in the sweetness of Love’s beginning is also the sorrow of it’s ending. Anais Nin wrote so poignantly, “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we do not know how to replenish its source.” So how do we replenish Love’s source? David Schnarch writes, love and desire are “not a matter of peeling away the layers but of developing them—growing ourselves up to be mature and resourceful adults who can solve our current problems.”
The Sun enters Pisces on February 18th. In the archetypal journey around the zodiac, we’re invited to wear our mermaid tails and adorn our hair with seashells. Perceptions may shift, new insights may wash to the shore of our consciousness, or ambiguity, uncertainty and confusion may swirl around us as we swim in uncharted waters. In Pisces, we dive deep into opaque waters where music and poetry melt walls that divide. We may experience, in the words of Eckhardt Tolle, “all things that truly matter―beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace―arise from beyond the mind.”
For those of us who like our lives anchored by certainty, the world may seem a precarious place right now. As our plans are sucked into the undertow, we may be cast adrift from the raft of our faith.
Chiron, in our birth chart, represents that place where we are maimed, irrevocably scarred, by the unfairness of life, where we discover that bad things do happen to extremely good people and that what goes around doesn’t always come around in any satisfactory or just kind of way.
In Pisces, Mercury drapes our dreams in silken images that sparkle and inspire. He withdraws from worldly concerns, submerged in fantasy, delighting in music, art or poetry. He aids emotive expression of our thoughts, our feelings, our heartfelt concerns. Yet, we can also be prey to delusion, confusion and misunderstandings in those deep and often murky waters where the two fish swim.