Waning Moon in Pisces

Wednesday afternoon through Saturday morning

This afternoon, the Moon slips into dreamy Pisces, where she will join Venus in the early hours of Thursday. A midmorning sextile with Pluto in Capricorn on Thursday completes the Moon's classical aspects for this transit, after which she enters a void of course period until entering Aries on Saturday morning.

Wait ... what? The Moon is void of course for almost two days? In that space where ordinary time is suspended, and we hold back from beginning new things, for two days? Well, yes.

This Pisces Moon will be especially dreamy, almost disconnected-feeling. Patterns repeat themselves as a way to focus our attention, and this Moon transit ushers in the Mercury Retrograde in Aries that also begins today, just an hour and a half before the Moon enters Pisces.

Achiote fruit

This is the year of Mercury retrogrades in Fire, beginning with Aries, which is the beginning. When we enter a retrograde period with Mercury, we revisit our ways of thinking. We reflect, revise, reconsider.

These are valuable, indeed essential, times, when we have the opportunity to strengthen what is best, revising as needed.

Each retrograde period culminates in a New Mercury, the midpoint, when Mercury conjuncts the Sun. As with the New Moons, this is a seed time, when we can intentionally makes changes in flow with the cosmos.

Astrology for the 21st Century offers my favorite podcast on Mercury retrograde, and now offers a brief video illustrating what's happening in the sky during these periods.

With Mercury retrograde in Aries, we have the chance to reflect on, and reconnect with, our own ground of being. Each of us enters this life with a unique set of desires; the values, ideas, goals and feelings that draw us in and draw us on. These are not desires in the Buddhist sense of things we grasp to avoid suffering; these are the very wellsprings of our lives.

But what are they? Do we know? In the blooming, buzzing confusion of life, when we are told what we should want, what will make us happy, what everyone wants, we can so easily lose touch with what we want, what moves our souls and hearts.

So much energy has moved into Aries now, we can scarcely avoid it. Aries' fiery, impulsive, rash, risky, angry energy can feel overwhelming, adding another layer to our confusion. Perhaps this is why Mercury is moving retrograde now, to give us a chance to explore this territory. Pisces poses the question, what will we die for? Aries looks us in the eye and asks, what do we live for?

During this retrograde, we explore what excites us, what turns us on, what triggers us, what makes us angry, what makes us feel alive. The retrograde offers a set of brackets to remind us we can explore all these things without doing. We can think, we can reflect, we can remember, we can consider. We can consciously set aside all the messages, enticements, demands, and pressures of the world to reconnect in a deep way with what moves us.

Desire, after all, means "what comes from the stars." With Uranus, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and the Sun in Aries during this retrograde, the stars are lining up ready to connect. We can begin now, in the earliest days of this retrograde, to be ready for the New Moon in Aries.

On Saturday at 7:16am EDT, the Moon bursts into Aries. The next morning, Sunday at 10:32am EDT, the Sun and Moon join together for the New Moon, opening the lunar seed time for new beginnings of all kinds.

Moon in Aquarius

Monday morning through Wednesday afternoon

Osezaki lighthouse, Japan

Monday's aspects offer a series of potentially illuminating contrasts, as the Moon steps into the bright, cerebral light of Aquarius. We're prepared to be objective, staying cool as we survey a landscape that has been, and still is being, reshaped.

The Moon enters Aquarius at 7:00am EDT exactly. Not long after, the Sun squares Pluto, cardinal Fire and cardinal Earth facing off. Are we combining these powerful energies to make bricks, laying new foundations? Or pursuing a scorched earth policy, destroying everything?

Then, the cool Aquarius Moon flows energy in sextile with Uranus in Aries. Uranus rules Aquarius, so we might see the radical trickster talking to himself in infinitely reflecting mirrors. But we also have the chance to align our emotions and our passions. Aren't these two the same? Yes and no, and the Aquarius Moon opens a window on the complex dance between what we deeply want, our passions, and the network of emotions and judgments surrounding those primal desires.

Monday evening, the Sun and Moon reach their waning sextile, a time of deep insight and understanding. The light of Aries' fire can illuminate the sometimes chilly Aquarian landscape, highlighting what we most need to know, right now.

Tuesday continues the theme of clarity and insight, as the Moon flows energy in trine with Saturn in balanced Libra, then flows energy in sextile with exuberant Jupiter in Aries. Different points of view, different ways of experiencing the world––what does each offer?

Meanwhile, Venus, newly arrived in Pisces, joins Chiron the wounded healer. Venus is the Lesser Benefic, a gentle messenger of beauty and grace. Joined with Chiron in the sign of dreams and visions, these two offer healing.

Wednesday morning, the Moon flows energy in sextile with Mercury in Aries. This moment of clear thinking comes early in the morning, 7:16am EDT, offering incisive insight in the last hours before Mercury turns retrograde, where he'll remain until the end of April.

In late afternoon, the Moon joins Neptune at the last degree of Aquarius, an emphatic reminder of the importance of dreams and visions, before swimming into Neptune's own sign of Pisces at 6:38pm EDT.

Clarity is not always comfortable; sometimes we prefer dim lights and fuzzy outlines. Given the magnitude of the changes swirling around, though, everything might be feeling a little too murky. This Moon transit through Aquarius offers a time to turn on the brightest lights, illuminating where we are and what we need to know.

Moon in Capricorn

Friday evening through Monday morning

Tonight at 9:57pm EDT, the Moon steps into dour Capricorn, just as the weekend begins. Bummer, right? 'Cause Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, is the sign that blows the whistle, yelling "everybody out of the pool." This is the energy of work, so not what we want on a Friday night.

But the cosmos, amazingly enough, is not geared to the human work week, and here we are with a Capricorn Moon for the weekend. What do we do now?

steam engine

We can look at the whole "work" thing, which we have some funny ideas about in the US of A. Americans work hard, with less vacation than anyone else in the developed world, but many of us put in the time to pay for a life we may not even like. Work is admirable but boring, regrettable but required. In a perfect world, we'd all be following our bliss, not working at all. Maybe.

The first thing the Moon does in Capricorn is square Uranus in Aries, cardinal Earth squaring cardinal Fire, where flaming radicalism meets the laws of physics. Mechanical work is a force acting through distance, a transfer of energy. Uranus in Aries has certainly been transferring a lot of energy lately.

Energy is transformed into work when it encounters an object, which has its kinetic energy changed as a result. We are being worked on––maybe worked over––by Uranus, and this weekend's energy may help us connect with the feelings we have about that (Moon) and figure out what to do about it (Capricorn).

We humans need work, and not just to pay the bills. As physical beings, we need to express who we are through action in the physical world. Somehow, we need to find meaningful work.

The connections the Moon makes during this Capricorn transit bring this up again and again. Saturday, the Moon squares the Aries Sun, the last quarter of this waning cycle. This is the time when pigeons come home to roost, and we reap the harvest. The Moon joins Pluto later that morning; we see how this cycle has transformed us.

Later, the Moon squares Jupiter in Aries and Saturn in Libra. We are asked to look squarely at the work we do, and why we do it. What is our praxis? In ancient Greece, praxis was work done by free men. In philosophy, praxis is the process of making ideas real. With this Moon transit through Capricorn, we look at the connection between our ideas and what we do, between our values and how we act.

Capricorn is not much associated with values, usually, just with goals and how they can be pragmatically achieved. But the Moon is about our emotions, and about our traditions, what we value. Saturday, Venus calls our attention to values, as she joins Neptune and then swims from Aquarius into Pisces, a transition from big ideas to deep feelings.

Sunday, the Moon squares Mercury in Aries, keeping us in that space of questioning what we want, what we do to get it, and how we feel about it. The tension between action and values is sounded again, as the Moon flows energy in sextile with Mars (the actor) who is still in visionary Pisces, her last aspect. The Moon will be void of course overnight, stepping into the bright light of Aquarius early Monday morning.

So, this could be a serious sort of weekend. You might decide to stay home, find yourself getting into philosophical discussions, or feel the urge to clean the basement. Here's one way to work with this energy: If your taxes aren't done, do them. Mercury turns retrograde on Wednesday, March 30, and doesn't turn direct until April 23. So this is the time to get important paperwork taken care of, and the Capricorn Moon can help that feel like the right thing to do.