Waxing Moon in Pisces

When the Moon waxes in Pisces we are invited to move into one of the more difficult paradoxes, the experience of needing to leave things behind to reach for something new.

seedling

We're in the growing half of the lunar cycle. We planted seeds at the New Moon and nurture them, wanting them to grow into something wonderful. We're early enough in this cycle that we can't see the emerging plants yet, but we know they're there, and we have hope.

Pisces is mutable Water, a sign of visions and dreams, well suited to this time of imagining the new things that can emerge from our wishes for the year to come.

Pisces is also a sign of release and loss. The last sign of the zodiac, Pisces represents endings, completion, and the realization that the cycle of life includes death. It is completely natural and necessary that we release some forms, allowing the energy contained within them to flow back into the cosmos, so that new forms can emerge.

We know this side of Pisces, and yet the experience of release is not always easy. Sometimes it is, of course. We complete a difficult project and are happy to move on. We realize a relationship needs to move into a new phase, or end completely, and are sometimes at peace with that, even ready to let go of something that no longer works. But sometimes, even when we thought it would be easy, it's hard to let go.

Today, the Pisces Moon forms a flowing sextile with Pluto in Capricorn, as aspect that speaks directly to this tough part of change. Pluto is the transformer, the planet channeling the energy of complete and utter change into our lives. When Pluto moved into Capricorn in 2008, his focus shifted to fundamental structures ... in financial markets, in governments, and in our lives.

Pluto is not an easy energy to live with, but there's an inexorability to the changes he facilitates that has can have us just step back in awe and accept what has to be. Today's Pisces Moon, communicating with Pluto's irresistible force, may open up our feelings about whatever has been shifting for us. Nostalgia, after all, is painful: algia, the suffix, is from the Greek work algos, "to feel pain" and also "to care about."

Pisces cares deeply, and today we may find ourselves caring too, perhaps about things we thought we were done with. The first part of nostalgia, nostos, means "homecoming," and moving into the new, even when we look forward eagerly to positive changes, requires us to leave behind what has been familiar, what has been home.

Checking in with our emotional selves today can help us honor what we are releasing, understand its importance in our lives, and then perhaps complete the process of letting go. Then the Pisces Moon can help us dream into the future, creating a vision in which we can find a new home.