In his column yesterday (The Essential Message of Pisces), Eric reminded us of the abiding association Pisces has with your inner life, where you are empowered to foment change. With the Sun’s emblem of waking consciousness now moving through Pisces until the vernal equinox on March 20, you will have ample time for creative introspection.

This does not mean the next four weeks or so will represent a uniform climate for self-examination, however. When you consider the Pisces Sun in context with the Moon and planets, this week especially will be a good time to take it easy on both yourself and others.

Let’s start with the Moon. In its astrological capacity as complement to the Sun, the Moon implicitly represents another side of consciousness. It goes almost without saying that there is an association between the Moon and the dreams that may come with sleep, but there is more to the lunar role than that. Emotions, intuition, imagination and issues of comfort and safety all correlate with Earth’s natural, original satellite.

As with all objects in the sky, your experience with the Moon will vary. First, there is your own individual astrology. Some people simply have more affinity for the Moon than others. It is neither good nor bad, right or wrong to relate to the Moon in a way that works for you.

Then, there are also the Moon’s phases. You know from your own experience that a Full Moon not only looks different but also feels different from a crescent Moon. Finally, the sign the Moon occupies and Luna’s geometric relationship (or ‘aspects’) to other objects on the zodiac are of significant importance when evaluating the astrological environment for any given event or timeframe.

That’s how you might be mindful that the Moon entered Capricorn this morning, and will continue moving through the sign of cardinal earth until Thursday. Because Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, and is on the opposite side of the zodiac from the cardinal water sign of Cancer (where the Moon is said to rule), having the Moon in Capricorn is a better time for some things than others.

One thing the Moon in Capricorn is not good for is being harshly judgmental, especially of yourself. As eminent astrologer Robert Hand has written: “The strict justice of Saturn does not blend well with the need to be human, as signified by the Moon.”

In addition, the Moon is now waning. Among other things, a waning crescent Moon means time is running out for the current lunar cycle as we head for the New Moon (and solar eclipse) on Sunday. Better to bide your time, then. This does not mean you should practice denial or procrastination. Rather, you should go gently into self-examination, at least until a new lunar cycle brings you out on the other side of the eclipse zone, which we all entered with the Full Moon and lunar eclipse back on Feb. 10.

As is so often the case, a number of other planets are also moving so as to reinforce the message currently being conveyed by the Sun and Moon. This week, versatile Mercury (which corresponds to your mind and its means of expression) and Mars (which so often correlates with your strongest desires) are going to be especially active, often with a parallel imperative to exercise care.

So begin your Pisces introspection slowly and gently, much as you would a relaxed walk. There is no need to hurry. Nor is there necessarily anywhere to go. Allow yourself to observe for now, with both an open heart and open eyes. Explore and note what you discover for a later time. It’s possible to get a lot started (and even a lot done) while still taking it easy on yourself. Remember only that, and this week will be made easier by none other than you.

Offered In Service

If you want a single word to interpret the zodiac as a whole right now, it would plausibly be “restraint.” The Sun has a lot to do with it. Tomorrow, the Sun completes its traversal of Aquarius (which started on Jan. 19) and enters Pisces. In addition, now is a good time to remember the huge role perception plays in determining reality.

Dating back to a least William Lilly (1602-1681), it has been common practice for Western astrologers to counsel restraint in making judgments, drawing conclusions or taking summary action when the Sun is in the latest degrees of one sign or the earliest degrees of the next.

The central role the Sun plays for all astrologers is itself largely a matter of perception. The Sun is a star. It is just one of hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. Among all those other stars, the Sun is not even close to being the most massive or radiant. Even so, the Sun is undeniably the largest, brightest and most influential object in the sky as your unaided eye perceives it.

In addition, the Sun is currently in the midst of moving between eclipses. One week ago, the Sun, Moon and Earth aligned with the lunar nodes to foment a lunar eclipse at the Full Moon. On Feb. 26, all those same things will align again to drop the proverbial other shoe with a solar eclipse at the New Moon.

The period between any pair of eclipses tends to correlate with certain identifiable topics. Among those themes is loss. The nature of loss, in turn, is also frequently a matter of perception. If you choose to divest yourself of something burdensome, it’s often liberating. Should something be taken from you against your will, it probably doesn’t feel so good. With time, however, it is not unusual to realize that even some involuntary losses are for the best.

Combine the Sun’s current spatial position on the zodiac with your temporal position between eclipses at present, and it’s relatively easy to see how restraint might now be advisable. This does not mean you should be indecisive. Neither is there any indication you should refrain from taking action. Exercising restraint does not entail existential paralysis. If anything, the next few days (and possibly the whole next week) will be an astrologically prime time to choose and do — but not recklessly or erratically.

Instead, it’s implicitly a time to exercise care and diligence. Remember that your point of view is not universal, but that your words and actions nearly always influence those who perceive things differently — basically, anybody else. Make an effort to discern whether you are procrastinating or deliberating. Above all, be patient, both with others and yourself.

If this brief review of the current sky still leaves you feeling at a loss for how to proceed, begin by simply exercising restraint regarding the use of profanity. This does not mean you should censor yourself. Just choose your spots. If used too often, those “four-letter” (and longer) words you know so well lose their power to do any practical good, becoming only senseless triggers that can easily be perceived as an intent to do harm.

Assuming you wish to do no harm, the simple practice of refraining from profanity beginning now will probably constitute a good enough start on next week. By pausing to choose alternative forms of expression, you will do more than make the lives of others more pleasant. You will also open doors of perception for yourself which you had previously, and probably carelessly, missed.

Offered In Service

Strictly speaking, the astrological term ‘transits’ has greater dimension than just a current location of celestial objects on the zodiac. More specifically, transits are current locations relative to the distribution of the Sun, Moon and planets at the time of your birth. Today, however, is no day to be strict or coldly technical. It is an occasion to be tender.

Valentine’s Day may not have started out as a crass commercialization of our most sensitive set of emotions. Nonetheless, it sure has turned out that way. For those who lack money to purchase advertised trappings (or who simply lack for love), this is an especially vulnerable time.

Obviously, those who are currently in thrall of affection and in possession of discretionary funds should be respected as well. The practice of compassion has enough dimension itself to include the fortunate.

Hence, today’s astrological offering is offered without rigorous adherence — yet with consideration for your humanity. Hopefully, the words here will be of use for you today (and for the next several days) regardless of your personal astrology, what you are feeling or how much you have.

The astrological deep background of this Valentine’s Day has long been reiterated by the astrologers here at Planet Waves. The Aries conjunction of galvanizing Uranus with the emerging profundity of Eris has been continuously proving its pertinence since last year. Change is in the air.

We are not speaking of just any kind of change, either. Long historical trajectories are involved. To live and love during such a time thus entails both trial and privilege on a relatively grand scale. Then, there is Venus and Mars.

It’s not unusual for the emotional and relationship issues brought to the fore on Valentine’s Day to correlate with Venus and Mars. Because both planets are visible to the unaided eye, they have always been part of human awareness. Hence, the mythology behind the names has reliable meaning in your life.

For the ancient Greeks and Romans (at least), the mythical Venus and Mars were synonymous with the two planets so named. Taken together, they represented the polarization that nearly always goes with the territory of compelling attraction.

To have Venus and Mars both in Aries (along with Uranus and Eris) at this time implies that the qualities that correspond with even the most personal relationship are unavoidably entangled with bigger issues. Keep that in mind even if you are not living through the epic drama depicted in the motion picture Casablanca or the novel A Tale of Two Cities.

It would also be useful to keep one other thing in mind. Even though both Venus and Mars are currently sharing the same sign, they are not going to come together in the same degree of Aries. This year’s conjunction of Venus and Mars will be deferred until Oct. 5, when they finally achieve their roughly biennial merger — this time, in Virgo.

In addition to all the pertinent action in fiery Aries, we are currently in the temporal zone between a Full Moon (and lunar eclipse) late last week and a New Moon (which will also be a solar eclipse) on Feb. 26. Currently, the Moon is in airy Libra. The Sun, for its part, is in the latter degrees of airy Aquarius. If you consider the holistic combination of what the Sun and Moon are doing for Valentine’s Day (and at least the day after as well), several clear implications shine through.

First, it would be useful if you are equally conscious of both detachment and involvement at this time. Simply being aware that those two states of being (and the spectrum in between) are available to you will be empowering.

Next, take a little time to think about patterns and cycles. You have seen enough of your own life to very possibly locate your current position in personal patterns and cycles. If you can’t figure out ‘where’ you are at right now, there is bound to be at least some useful information in that, too.

Evaluating either relationships or the world as a whole in terms of patterns and cycles must necessarily involve some speculation. Nonetheless, so long as you refrain from either drawing final conclusions or judging others, some significant insights could well be more available now than at other times.

Finally, allow yourself simply to have your own Valentine’s Day experiences. There will be time for analyzing the details later. For now, take it all in so as to remember as clearly as possible. Even if what you are going through now is a trial, try to retain as much as you can. If there is anything to astrology, today’s memories will, at the very least, come in handy later.

Offered In Service

It’s difficult to say exactly when it happened. Somewhere along the line, love and money became contenders for humanity’s universal language. They have a lot an common with each other. For example, the distribution of both is not equal. Also, nearly anybody knows either upon sight. Yet, it would also be difficult to find two things more different.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing love and money have in common is their mutability. Anybody of a certain age knows love is manifold. There are even compelling, but less than empirical, accounts of love having manifested in living flesh. Arguably, however, love at its most viable is without tangible form.

Money has also transformed in many ways, uncounted times. Even so, there has been a through-line of sorts. First, perhaps, essential goods and services served as means of exchange. Later came agreement regarding the value of uncommon (and often reasonably uniform) materials. Manufactured currency followed.

Then, in one short lifetime, money has somehow been abstracted out of tangible existence while losing none of its potency. Were you to total all of today’s monetary transactions in the world, close to one hundred percent of them would be entirely digital from start to finish.

Now, one speculative way of explaining the times in which we live is to say that money has manifested in the living flesh. Granted, that is a distressing, and spurious, possibility. Nonetheless there would be at least two upsides were it true. First, there would be yet another way to tell the difference. More importantly, were money to somehow take life, it would be tangible evidence of the power of your mind.

For love and money have yet another thing in common. Both depend on your mind as at least a tributary to their reality. History is full of examples of what happens when people no longer believe in money. Unfortunately, that is also true of love.

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Beginning tomorrow morning at the latest (depending on your time zone) we will have again entered the roughly two-week period that typically separates matched eclipses. Some of us here at Planet Waves have taken to calling this period ‘the eclipse zone’ because (just as Rod Serling described his conception of “The Twilight Zone”) it is largely a dimension of mind.

Just as with love and money, nearly everybody knows the Sun and Moon on sight. When eclipses happen, it is because the Sun and Moon align with two invisible and intangible (albeit calculated) points called the lunar nodes. Hence, eclipses combine the same elements as love and money: that which is plain to see and that which cannot be seen at all.

For technical reasons that you will not be taxed with here, the particular eclipse zone we are all about to enter and travel through together has (among its many melodic lines), a distinct astrological tone. It will implicitly be an opportune time to make your own mind up somehow regarding love and/or money — plausibly becoming a bit more powerful as regards to both. If you can keep just that one theme in mind over the next two weeks or so, chances are you will emerge having somehow transformed yourself.

Offered In Service

Long ago in the 20th century, live television brought the weekly blessing of Gilda Radner. One of the recurring characters Ms. Radner brought to life in the early days of Saturday Night Live was Roseanne Roseannadanna, who proved that a sufficiently perceptive and fearless “nasty woman” could be a very good thing indeed.

One of the summary lines regularly repeated by Ms. Roseannadanna was the resigned yet cheerful declaration that “it’s always something.” Crafted as only Gilda could, that “something” reliably took the form of a hilarious (if dissonant) grace.

For what is grace if not a sense of being levitated by your perception of someone? Often, such an example is the result of refining discipline. Exceptional cases, such as that of Gilda Radner, go a step farther to show grace in unexpected ways. The elegance is hidden. Patterns of expectation are broken. New possibilities are revealed. Delight prevails, and gratitude results.

Earlier today, Mercury broke a nearly three-month pattern of astrological sign resonance by entering Aquarius. At the end of this week, the Sun and Moon will depart from a pattern of almost five months, with the first of a pair of eclipses — a lunar eclipse at the Leo Full Moon.

Then, well before this year grows old, the two perpetually opposing zodiac points called the lunar nodes (near which eclipses always take place) will themselves initiate a new motif. The lunar nodes will change signs for the first time since 2015: from the Virgo-Pisces axis to Leo-Aquarius.

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Given its correlation with all things mental, it’s appropriate that Mercury is implicitly leading the way. After all, nearly anything achieved (including grace) must first be conceived.

To have the Sun and Moon fall into step with Mercury so soon after Mercury moves on to Aquarius is a demonstration of how the connection between mind and consciousness can indeed be a two-way street.

The nodes are the two locations where lunar and solar emblems of consciousness align in eclipse. When they follow with a sign change of their own, a crucial further step (with the new perspective it provides) will almost certainly be available for you to take.

To be among those taking the next step would require some grace of you. Based on the astrology, you would not have to be exceptional to show some of the same finesse with which Gilda Radner found her way into so many hardened hearts. Indeed, you would only have to consciously take exception. Rather fall into lockstep with an accepted pattern, you would at least have to initiate an exploration of other ways to be — ways that would also serve to lift others.

Then, should you choose to do so, you would need to go only one step farther than refining (but not necessarily revealing) the elegance of that special “something,” which has always been yours to share. Ultimately, you could do more than just make a difference for others. You might even find a way, to the liberated delight of everybody else, to enjoy being a bit more nasty yourself.

Offered In Service

The Sun will reach the midpoint of Aquarius on Friday. According to Zhongxian Wu (in his book The 12 Chinese Animals), the “JieQi” system of Chinese cosmology considers the new year to begin when the Sun reaches “the celestial longitude of 315 degrees” — which corresponds to the middle of Aquarius in western astrology.

Interestingly, the middle degree of all four “fixed” signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius) is also meaningful for western astrologers. That’s because the Sun in the middle of a fixed sign corresponds to the exact midpoint of the current season.

Hence, on Friday, we will be precisely halfway between the Capricorn solstice (when the Sun first entered the cardinal sign Capricorn) and the vernal equinox (when the Sun next enters cardinal Aries).

For many ancient traditions, and most modern astrologers, the tipping point of any given season is an auspicious time. Even today, such “cross quarter” days still receive vestigial, albeit trivial, recognition. Halloween (correlating closely with the Sun in the middle of fixed Scorpio) is one example. Upcoming Groundhog Day observations will represent yet another instance.

There is a reason cross-quarter days were sacred to our ancestors. If you have to grow your own food (as has been the case for nearly all human beings until relatively recently), keeping track of the seasons is absolutely vital. Now, even though the cultural context has changed, the implications of where the Sun is remain important.

When the Sun enters a cardinal sign (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn) all beings on Earth are connected through a common experience of the Sun. The Capricorn solstice in December, for example, featured both a sunrise and a sunset taking place as far south as they will ever get.

Every day since the Sun entered Capricorn, the Sun has risen and set farther and father north — regardless of who you are, or where you live. Similarly, the upcoming Aries equinox will find the Sun rising precisely east and setting exactly west, with a corresponding equality of day and night for everybody.

It follows, then, that cross-quarter days resonate unavoidably with the turning of the seasons. As with any other halfway point, the theme is one of both perspective on the past and anticipation of the future. This year, the astrological context of the Sun at the midpoint of Aquarius implies something even further: the importance of how you think and what you feel.

As of today, all of the traditional sign-ruling objects except for the Sun and Saturn are in, or will soon be in, cardinal signs. The Moon enters Aries today and will remain there until late Thursday or early Friday (depending on your time zone). Mercury is in Capricorn. Mars has been in Aries since the weekend. Jupiter is in Libra. Finally, before Friday is over, Venus will be in Aries too.

Throw in Uranus (continuously in Aries for nearly six years now) and Pluto (continuously in Capricorn since 2008), and it’s plain to see that the sky is full of cardinal energy. This energy corresponds to both new beginnings and common connections.

As the Sun’s emblem of consciousness moves toward the point of essentially bringing all of that cardinal energy to fuller awareness, the Moon (correlating with your feelings) and Mercury (having to do with how you think) are playing especially important roles. The Moon, for its part, is waxing. With every passing night this week, the illuminated portion of the Moon will grow larger and larger, implying feelings getting stronger and stronger. Jupiter opposing the Aries Moon indicates even further amplification.

In the meantime, Mercury is moving faster by the day. A fleeter Mercury implies a more active mind. A rapidly reactive mind is great for quick thinking, but not so good for careful and patient reflection.

You don’t need to look very far into current events to see how the combination of reactive thinking and strong feelings are playing out. As this week goes on, so likely will the trend. Fortunately, when it comes to how you think and what you feel, you have a choice.

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Being aware of your choices when it comes to sharing your thoughts and feelings will be especially important this week. In the days to come, every rush to judgment will implicitly have the potential of initiating events that could easily get out of hand before they run their course.

While there is little or nothing you can do with regards to the decisions others make, you explicitly have it within your power to regulate and direct what you think and how you feel. In doing so, you can support (rather than undermine) both your intent and your interests.

It is almost certain everybody will not be exercising the same degree of care. Some will set unfortunate precedents. Others will sabotage themselves. You, however, need not be among them. If you have simply retained what has happened for you since the third week of December, you will have the information you need to keep your perspective solid and sound.

With a firm grasp of the immediate past, you will be prepared to go a crucial step further. For it is those who concentrate their energy on what they can change who will be most effective when it comes to both anticipating and defining seasons yet to come.

Offered In Service