The New Moon in Pisces perfects on March 10th at 4:00am CST. The Sun and the Moon are conjoined at 20º of Pisces creating a New Moon. These are beginnings, cycles of initiation whether by fate or by our own hand. You may notice that New and Full Moons dominate our monthly experience, but they also work in annual cycles, the events that take place this month will culminate by the Lunar Eclipse on September 17th 2024 bringing a turning point to the cycle. The cycle completes itself, waning and beginning again, on February 28th 2025 with another New Moon in the same sign. The purpose of these articles is to hone a deeper understanding of these cycles, articulate the archetypes we may see as a collective, and to advise any challenging astro weather for a calmer mind and spirit. If you enjoy these, you can subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when a new post is uploaded.
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The Major Aspects:
• Sun-Moon in Pisces trine Uranus in Taurus (1º orb, separating)
• Mars in Aquarius square Uranus in Taurus (1º orb, separating)
• Mercury in Aries sextile Pluto in Aquarius (1º orb, separating)
• Mercury in Aries conjunct Neptune in Pisces (3º orb, separating)
Delineation:
I'd like to start this article with an excerpt from one of my recent journal entries.
Entitled "Grief and God" on March 2nd 2024 at 10:30pm
Sometimes we think we choose, caught in our busy lives. An event or an annoyance, a habit or a necessity, or any other little detail of life rears its head and we think we're steering the ship with our "ought tos" and "musts" and even our decisions made from excitement or mundane mindlessness, but then the Universe or God or the Aliens watching us from the sea move as an omnipresent force. They wait for us in the spot that they wanted us to be, silent and unseen or they walk behind us inconspicuously watching every one of these details...
This divine, terrifying, ominous force has an unwavering level of patience, it waits for the flawless moment to reveal itself, we only get a glimpse of this converging, miraculous moment where it all makes sense before quickly fading away. We have no choice but to move from the miraculous and into the mundane again. God is a thief in the night. I have felt this way many times in my short life.
I felt that way last week when I checked out "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion from the library on Sunday, wanting to understand illness, but really just because I heard her name in my head like a whisper. The inconspicuous thought posed as one I had all on my own, and then on the following Thursday, my uncle died. Why else would I have checked out Didion's masterpiece on grief if not to prepare myself subconsciously for this event? This was a moment where I saw God reveal itself before disappearing again. It is not understanding in its totality, it is only a "hello, I exist" a reminder that there is "something else", as Liz Greene puts it, moving into place as well as a prompt for a million other questions... a main one being, "Why?"
I feel that way when I look at the transits.. Like seeing and knowing that my uncle died when the Moon was in Scorpio on the day of the relatively rare Mercury-Saturn cazimi in Pisces, right after the Full Moon in Virgo, right as Neptune formed its third and final square to my natal Mars (I have been confronting many kinds of grief over the course of this transit). I see it and it makes some sort of sense, but I still don't quite understand why. What are you (God, aliens, universe) trying to teach me here?
I have always felt my whole life that, having experienced no significant deaths, that death is chasing me and it was bound to catch up with me sometime to claim a loved one. My uncle and I were not close (so, please hold your sympathy, it would be wasted on me), but I was on the same property, a short walk away from where he died. I gave a statement to the police. I went to the funeral home to help arrange the ceremony. I gave my opinion on his casket. I went to Walmart to pick out the clothes he'd be buried in. I have been instructed on what to do if (when) my grandparents die. I was there last summer when he frantically asked me if I had spoken to his daughter, like he knew time was running out, silently begging for closure. I am the tissue for the living who loved him. I wonder if this means death is chasing me and it is getting closer in proximity. Warning me that life is precious. I think about death a lot as a Scorpio rising, Aries stellium, 8th house Saturn and Jupiter.
So, technically this happened in the Virgo Full Moon cycle, but as I like to say, the Moon may seem momentary due to how fast she moves, but these are continuous and enduring cycles. The lunar cycles are always playing in the background, reminding us of their presence at every little lunar transit and seeping into the forefront of our minds at the major lunations. Maybe the Moon is this omnipresent force that I journaled about. Maybe the Moon is God... (or Goddess, rather). This continuousness is important because New Moons can sometimes seem a bit uneventful at first, the sky is dark, but that doesn't mean that nothing is happening. Even nothing is something. I always look ahead to complimentary transits that invoke the daemon of the New and Full Moons, the Full Moon counterpart to this New Moon is actually a Lunar Eclipse, this is the most significant complimentary transit of course, but not-so immediately obvious is the thread of Martian influence.
At the time of the New Moon, Mars will have just completed its square to Uranus, The Sun and Moon are also in Mars bounds and the Martian decan of Pisces. By the time we complete the first and usually most present two weeks of the New Moon (before eclipse season officially begins), Mars will have ingressed Pisces and will meet with Saturn less than a month after. The planets are always talking to each other, always foreshadowing, even transits that don't seem as important are actually "where it all began" when we look back. I feel that this is one of those times, I've been thinking about that song, End of Beginning by Djo.
Here are some of the lyrics:
A major sacrifice
But clueless at the time
Enter, Caroline
Just trust me, you'll be fine
And when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it
Another version of me, I was in it
I wave goodbye to the end of beginning
Is it a coincidence that this song went viral during a Saturnian season ruled by Saturn's transit through Pisces? A major sacrifice but clueless at the time... another version of me... I wave goodbye to the end of beginning. Hello to the Pisces daemon! It is very likely that this lunation has ties to the Mars-Saturn conjunction coming up. Sacrifice is a cardinal component to this sign and so is cluelessness, so are these multiple versions of self and how we may grieve them or long for them or feel embarrassed by them, so is the wave goodbye.
The Mars bound, decan, and transit through Pisces can be devastating, even our happiness can be devastating due to how impactful it is, how we know it will always meet with an equal opposite reaction, how our happiness creates future nostalgia, how clueless we are in our happiness at times, either through a lack of acknowledgement or in not knowing about a future tragedy.
For this New Moon I pulled out my copy of 36 Secrets by T. Susan Chang where she discusses how the Mars (the 10 of Cups) decan of Pisces, "Seems to cover everything from delight and marital intimacy to bestial acts. Like images glimpsed on the surface of the moonlit sea, these apparitions are literally dissolute. They aren't real– but then again, here at the Piscean end of all things, what is?" She goes on to outline that happiness and sadness and hope are all human constructions and perhaps my favorite quote from this chapter: "Mystery is not only inevitable but essential to our well-being. The truth of the matter is that life is infinite and cyclical, so happy endings– or, indeed, tragic ones– are human constructions. Endings are artifices, painted scrims we use to bookend reality so that we can learn to love it for a time." I know that I have used this quote before, but it seems especially relevant now with a death in the family. It drives me insane when readers say that the 10 of Cups is "emotional fulfillment" or a "the happiest card in the cups suit" because they may be missing out on a wealth of symbolism that the Martian decan holds.
Indeed, "bookending reality" is a very relevant theme with the upcoming Mars-Saturn conjunction in Pisces and Piscean natives, I imagine, are most susceptible to this line of thinking. The beginning never happened and neither did the end, but it sure is comforting to think incisively like that. Such Mars influence in this sign over the next few months may have us struggling, grappling with these concepts and feelings. Like my big unanswerable question– why do we get sick? Do we deserve it? That can't be true, right? So, why? Are these things we say in death true or do they simply make us feel better? "It was his time, it wouldn't have mattered if anyone checked on him."
Does god exist or is all of it meaningless? Does God have an agenda? Does it hold some magical meaning that I predicted this funeral months ahead of time and bought a book about grief a few days before the death? Does prophecy even matter if I couldn't change any of it? Or was it simply mental and spiritual preparation? Is preparation really preparation if I saw all of these things and still fell into a state of shock when it made some semblance of sense? These are the same questions I ask myself when I wonder about the meaningful or meaninglessness of astrology, does it matter? If it doesn't, I guess I wouldn't care due to the sheer fascination and joy I find in it, how weightless I feel when I communicate with the planets. These are all Martian in nature, the motive. What is the point? Love? The experience?
My grandmother calls my grandfather and I an "experience" when either of us are being difficult or annoying or when we unnecessarily overcomplicate things, we are often told how similar we are in every way, but especially in how absolutely ridiculous we are. Even in these less than desirable traits, when she calls me an "experience" I realize now that I feel so loved, seen, accepted instead of offended. Maybe this is the point, to experience, maybe I am the point. Would I change the terrible? The traumatic? Or even the seemingly meaningless? Not if it took away how deeply I experience life. Breaking open pushes us deeper into the embrace of whatever this flawless, divine thing is– Mars reminds us all that the truly terrifying is also the truly motivating or how the meaningless can actually give us incentive in that "Well, if nothing matters, why not?" kind of way. And yet, this understanding still does not fully remove me from existential crisis because, as Chang said, mystery is still essential. Not only is it essential to happiness but it is also essential to this "grappling".
Mars square Uranus may bring devastation, collapse, the unexpected, but it is really only liberating us. I realize that this article, this perspective, no matter how complex, is real and freeing in its transparency. The Mars bound, decan, and upcoming transit through Pisces reminds me of how much respect I have for those who grapple with God, who question what they've been told and what's real, there is no one more religious than those who push the limits of what God looks and sounds and feels like. I adamantly rebuke and deny those who say they believe in God when they have merely been indoctrinated into one culture's ideal of obedience and seek to conform the rest of the world into their version of reality instead of exploring the differences and recognizing where there is continuity among all faiths and fables. (Can you tell I've been poked and prodded by the Southern Baptist ideology this week?).
This is also all very Venus ruling most of the planets in the sky directly or through exaltation, maybe we love people more when we grapple with who they are, even calling them an "experience" and accepting them anyway. Maybe it is the more loving approach to be honest about our relationships and boundaries than to lie and say that "My uncle and I were very close and I'll miss him very much" or "That didn't hurt me, keep on doing what you're doing." This New Moon, there are certainly opportunities for projection and guilt trips and general messiness, but remember how it is more loving to take a Hard Truth, accepting it fully for what it is.
I think it's good to mention too, Jupiter in Taurus rules this lunation and when Jupiter is not in a comfortable sign, it can feel most tangible. Jupiter is never truly "comfortable" as a symbol of expansion, but in Taurus (or even in Gemini, thinking about the ingress this Summer) it is especially uncomfortable. In fact, in all of the major Jupiter ruled lunations and transits since May 2023, I have been confronted with expansion that I do not want, that I dread, that I would really rather not touch, the "anything but that" sort of feeling, but with a kind of expansion that is necessary for survival. Maybe that is also Jupiter's close communication with Saturn (and it will continue for quite awhile). Even in the uncomfortable, Pisces as a Jupiter ruled sign is the sign of acceptance too. Allow the uncomfortable, the unknown, the illusory "beginning" and "ending". Know that for all of your sacrifice and expansion there are likely to be unexpected rewards later down the line (probably at the end of April or by the Lunar Eclipse in September), this lunation doesn't just live and die in one moment and you know, neither do people.
It may not make sense now, but there is a much larger cycle occurring here with the Lunar Eclipse in Pisces, we are only now seeing a foreshadow to the Nodal transit through Pisces 2025-2026.
I hope that this New Moon you are devastatingly happy, but since I know that won't be the case for all of us, instead I hope that you challenge yourself with more freeing ideals and perspectives, that you are able to morph into some new (improved) version of you and that you are recognized as such. That is something I've felt in the days leading up to this lunation– acknowledgement, acceptance, recognition, peace in areas that I didn't expect. I hope that whatever endings you are confronting establish a beginning somewhere else and that they are comparable in significance and meaning.
Above all, I hope that you can live in the present instead of the end or the beginning.
Happy New Moon.
Your friendly neighborhood astrologer,
Katie