By Amanda Painter
Tuesday night was the Pisces New Moon with a total solar eclipse. This puts us in ‘the eclipse zone’: the two weeks between a matched set of eclipses, one solar and one lunar.
Photo by Amanda Painter
The corresponding lunar eclipse will not take place in Pisces. Rather, it will span the Aries-Libra axis — a Full Moon with the Sun in very early Aries and the Moon in very early Libra.
In fact, the Sun and Moon will be early enough in their signs for this to count as an Aries Point event — the Aries Point being that first degree of the zodiac in the sign Aries where personal and political events seem to intersect and magnify to impressive effect.
I’ll cover that Full Moon and lunar eclipse in greater depth next week. For now, it’s enough to take a look around you (literally and figuratively) and within you in the wake of Tuesday’s Pisces eclipse as we head into the weekend.
Did you notice any unexpected synchronicities, particularly vivid dreams, or compelling fantasies that seemed to hold a clear message? Did you notice any insights about your past, especially something that seemed to release its hold on you?
You might want to explore anything that got your attention. Notice these next couple weeks if anything else rings the same bell that got rung for you Tuesday or Wednesday.
The two weeks between eclipses can sometimes feel rather like another dimension, one where life can shift markedly. It could be easy to read a statement like that and begin to worry that you’re not ‘doing enough’ to launch your life into a new phase, or that you missed some magical opportunity if you slept through the eclipse or did not even know it was happening.
Relax.
For one thing, not every eclipse is going to unfold dramatically for everyone. You might just be keepin’ on keepin’ on, doing your thing. After all, Pisces is all about flow. If you’re already flowing, there’s probably little need to question it aggressively.
Also, the universe always offers another opportunity down the road to learn important lessons. That is not to say you shouldn’t bother trying; more like, don’t freak if you notice a spiral-type shape to your path. Each time you meet a situation with a familiar theme, chances are you’re encountering it in a slightly different way and can apply more of your acquired understanding to dealing with it better.
This weekend’s astrological highlights include more Pisces events, as if to underscore the eclipse and the overall vibe for the month. That said, the Moon has already left Pisces for Aries; Friday it moves into Taurus to offer some grounding and earthy tangibility that might help balance you if the seas you’re sailing have felt rough or unnervingly bottomless. There’s a lot to love about Pisces (creativity, passion, empathy), but when things get too boundary-less, it can feel a little overwhelming if you’re already a very sensitive type. Take care of yourself.
On Thursday, the Sun conjoins centaur planet Chiron in Pisces at 11:27 pm EST (4:27 UTC Friday). An hour and a half later, at 1:01 am EST (6:01 UTC) Friday, Mercury conjoins Neptune (modern ruler of Pisces).
This presents a curious combination of a diffusion effect on mental processes (Mercury-Neptune), with a focusing effect on ego consciousness (Sun-Chiron).
In addition, Venus ingresses Pisces at 5:24 am EST on Saturday (10:24 UTC). So that extra-romantic, sensitive and poetic influence gets layered into everything else.
First thing I’m seeing is that you might get a wake-up call regarding giving yourself permission to heal, to stand out and, indeed, to exist at all as your whole self (Sun-Chiron). For men, this could relate to feelings about your masculinity, your sensitivity, and any past injuries to your integrated embodiment of those two facets of self. For women, questions about how you relate to your father and subsequently other men in your life, and where you place your identity in relation to them, might arise.
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The tricky part, thanks to Mercury-Neptune, could be separating logic from illusion (or recognizing denial) as you encounter these themes. In other words, how can you know when you’re being honest with yourself, versus when you’re trying to escape the questions facing you?
With so many planets and points in Pisces (including Nessus, Neptune, Mercury, Ceres, Chiron, the lunar South Node, the Sun and, after Saturday, Venus — plus others), the sky is practically begging you to indulge your creativity — paint, sculpt, play music (or listen to it deeply), make movies (or watch them), get on stage, dance, write, collage; perhaps have sex.
Whatever your chosen medium, and whether you participate actively or observe others doing so, ask yourself: Is what you are encountering taking you deeper into yourself and closer to your questions and their answers? Or are you indulging in escapism to distract yourself from certain truths that keep dipping a toe into the ocean of your consciousness? It might be hard to tell this weekend. But come March 23, that Aries Point Full Moon and eclipse could very well ask for some clear action using what you’ve learned.
Finally! It has happened Amanda; that “other” dimension you talk about hit this morning when I woke up, or got up out of bed actually. Essentially, all the detaching I’ve gone through for the last 6+ years to become who I am now was no where to be found. A sense of “what have I done” formed a cloud around me (I’m slow to awaken) and although I did recall all the steps to make my oatmeal/toast breakfast, the rest of conscious Me was still in bed. All my previous values (judgments) had returned, but thank goodness for astrology, I was able to see what was happening. After the oatmeal (which helped a lot) of course.
If this is what is happening to all of us – at different times – it is going to be a really weird two weeks. In my case I’ve been totally involved with what is going on “outside” of myself; preparing for family visit next week, immersed in the political circus, and was suddenly thrown into the vacuum of my personal self. A dream that stayed with me seemingly pointed out that I “knew nobody”, a dream in which I was living in a dormitory-like facility (sort of what I might expect a woman’s reformatory to be like) . .not horrible but not at all personal.
Perhaps that icky feeling in my stomach was just hunger (not what it felt like though) but if other people are having this experience then I would say to them, brace yourself for a rude awakening. Literally. Right now I feel that it (eclipse period) is about getting a different perspective – like a Republican seeing the world through a Democrat’s eyes, or vice versa – but that could change. Just thought you should prepare to hear some really weird stories in the days ahead.
be
Be — thank you for checking in and sharing your experience. I have not heard too many post-eclipse experiences so far; perhaps everyone is so immersed in whatever they’re swimming in, they have not come up for air yet?
The sense of inversion you’re describing sounds rather disorienting; I wish you the best as you navigate it. The eclipse itself for me felt rather subtle. But it was preceded and has been followed by an unusual number of dreams with water themes (though, strangely enough, not the night of/morning after the eclipse — those dreams were rather dry and not memorable).
That said, I had an out-of-the-blue phone call from a particularly problematic ex on Tuesday. The call itself was fine (he’d seen a mutual acquaintance — now with a baby — who said hi) — no “negative energetic charge” as it might have had years ago. It was not until later that night after the eclipse, as I journaled, that I recalled that the eclipse was aspecting his lunar nodes the same way it was mine. The lightbulb flashed on: that call was not random; it was a karmically marked eclipse synchronicity.
So… I suspect that being “thrown into our personal selves” might be a theme — though how each individual experiences or expresses it looks like it could vary quite widely. I recall Eric mentioning somewhere that this eclipse (and maybe Pisces in general?) is marked by internal/introspective tendencies. And he also mentioned the presence of asteroid Memoria. So… for some internal memory to come up in a way that is immersive or emotional or nebulous makes a certain sense, I guess!
With the next eclipse on the Aries-Libra axis, I am curious about how that shift will feel.
Hang in there, Be! (And glad you got the oatmeal made… my breakfast got severely delayed by writing down dreams after oversleeping — my own version of my conscious self lingering in bed, I suppose?)
Well, there you go! Memoria. . . .for you it recalls a former time with said ex and for me it was a time before what is euphemistically referred to as Ascension. Back when life was comparatively simply like everyone else’s, and one just followed the beaten path without a lot of questioning.
I know how you feel about the delayed breakfast too. That happens a lot when you live to capture those thoughts on paper or computer; a fleeting dream or mini epiphany that could change the world! A lot of us or maybe all of us have gotten a glimpse (or even more) about our role in the morphing of humanity/society into a new and better place. It can become all-consuming can’t it?
Reading your comment I think I now have a better grasp on what the Jupiter/NN opposition to the Eclipse et. al might mean, which is – like Len has said – the mirror effect that a full moon provides. On one side we have the future/opportunity and understanding (NN and Jupiter) and on the other side we have a brief blackout of the NOW (eclipse) accompanied by memories (Memoria), perhaps some pain, discomfort or apprehension (Chiron) and something pertaining to motherhood or nurturing (Ceres).
In my dream there were several tables in a big room with various foodstuffs, all looking tired or watered down, all of which I passed on. For you it was news of an acquaintance’s new baby. How absurdly simple it all is! By the way I have a natal Sun-conjunct-Chiron-conjunct Ceres-conjunct-Urania-conjunct-Huya, not necessarily in that order. Thanks for this and all your articles Amanda.
be
” On one side we have the future/opportunity and understanding (NN and Jupiter) and on the other side we have a brief blackout of the NOW (eclipse) accompanied by memories (Memoria), perhaps some pain, discomfort or apprehension (Chiron) and something pertaining to motherhood or nurturing (Ceres).”
Well, now — I’d say that hit the nail squarely on the head, Be! Interesting that you made the connection with my mutual acquaintance’s new baby. I’ll have to ponder that. I think I’ve been more aware of all the spiritual “practice” I’ve gotten over the years in setting and standing by my (subtle, sometimes slippery) energetic boundaries with the aforementioned ex, and what a different place I am in now in that regard. The ex himself has some complicated pre-verbal issues relating to his infancy in an orphanage (and whatever other past-life karma); one friend of mine used to refer to him as “the man-child.” So I see another angle into the Ceres connection — including the journey through “hell” I took to bring myself back years ago.
No, it does not *exactly* fit the Ceres-Hades-Persephone myth, but I’m not going to worry about that. Sometimes the metaphors are inexact.
Anyway, thank you for parsing all this out here on PW. And you are welcome for the articles — my pleasure to be of service.