The astrology immediately following today’s Virgo Full Moon (at 1:05 pm EST / 18:05 UTC) feels almost like being in love. Not in the sense of being dreamy and ecstatic, unfortunately. More to do with the consequences of being in love. More like feeling compelled to change your life by making room for other imperatives, different priorities, a new way of being.

Much like falling in love, some things may come out of the blue. The idea is to accept them. Also akin to the experience of love, it will probably be much better in the long run to feel your way in rather than to analyze yourself out.

The short run of astrology that implies being in love is underway already. It will continue over the weekend and into the first half of next week. You might break it down into two parts or phases.

The first part will be the meeting. That is to say, the Sun’s more-or-less annual conjunction with Chiron. As it has been for a handful of years (and will be for as many years more), that conjunction will consist of the Sun sharing the same degree of Pisces with Chiron for a day.

That day will be Sunday, March 8. Appropriately enough, the same day most people in the U.S. will be compelled to set clocks ahead for daylight savings time.

Appropriate because love at first meeting can temporarily deprive your heart of a few beats just as the advent of daylight savings time results in the temporary loss of an hour. Either occurrence can throw you off stride for a while.

Also, conjunctions do represent (among other things) a new beginning. When objects merge on the zodiac, they start a new cycle that will then move through all of its stages before yielding to yet another cycle.

In the case of Sun conjunct Chiron in Pisces, the initiation of a new cycle will implicitly serve to make you more deeply conscious of both the complexities and the entanglements that falling in love (among other things) brings up. Accordingly, and combining the swift apparent motion of the Sun with Chiron’s tendency to get your attention, you might experience something suddenly this weekend. A bit more probable is that you might feel with intensity.

All of which segues neatly into the second part or phase of the astrology following today’s Virgo Full Moon: what you might call (with a nod to the late, great June Carter Cash) a ring of fire.

Just as with the Sun’s conjunction to Chiron, the ring of fire is functional now, even as the constituent aspects apply towards precision. Hence, just as with new love, your life will likely grow more intense in days to come.

What is, with some loving license, referred to as a fiery ring is developing. The peak will come on Monday and Tuesday, as Mars advances through the sign it passionately rules — Aries. The Martian advance will precipitate a grand fire trine.

The grand fire trine will consist of Mars conjunct (sharing the same degree of Aries with) Uranus while still in trine aspect to both Jupiter (retrograde in luminous Leo) and an intriguing object called The Great Attractor in smoldering Sagittarius.

A grand trine looks like the points of a big equilateral triangle on the zodiac circle, invoking a rolling, flowing, inertia. The metaphor of flow works with any grand trine, whether connecting the three fire signs (Aries, Leo and Sagittarius), the three earth signs (Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn), the three air signs (Gemini, Libra and Aquarius), or three water signs (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces).

However, when it is the three fire signs so connected, and when the constituents are emblems of passion (Mars), volatility (Uranus), expansiveness (Jupiter) and polarity (the Great Attractor), falling in love is one of the few appropriate experiences to cite when anticipating the astrology following today’s Virgo Full Moon.

Therefore, the protocol for putting the astrology of the next handful of days to work for you. Honor your feelings for sure. There will be no need to repress yourself. Simply take the word “honor” seriously.

Perceive your vulnerability as well as your volatility. Respond with passion and respect in equal parts. Grow into what you experience. Carry the day instead of getting carried away. No matter how the astrology of the next five days expresses for you, express yourself so as to later be proud of what you have done and what you have found.

Offered In Service  

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

By Amanda Painter

We’re entering a very rich couple of weeks of astrology right now. Some months, a Full Moon like we have today in Virgo might feel like the peak of energy, a big, dynamic turning point with which you can mark your life. And it still might be that for you personally — but it’s also part of a series of interrelated events that are feeding into something with potentially significant personal and collective ramifications.

The Education of Achilles (ca. 1772), by James Barry. Here Chiron is instructing the Greek warrior hero Achilles in music; music is strongly associated with the sign Pisces.

That “something” is the last of the seven exact contacts of the Uranus-Pluto square on March 16. Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn have been dancing in this square aspect for nearly three years — but were in effect long before their first exact contact in June 2012, and their aftershocks will unfold over the next several years.

If these two planets have defined our current era, this next phase of that era asks us to get some perspective on what just happened and build toward a common vision. Not an easy task when you consider how hard it is for even a small group of people to agree where to go for dinner.

Astrologically speaking, the cosmos is giving us some clues. From where I’m sitting, one layer of clues are pointing to a correlation between how we give space to and integrate our gender polarities within us, our awareness of that process, and how that maturation within us might correlate to processes around us. You’ve heard the maxim “As above, so below”; you can also think of it as “As within, so without.”

Here’s what’s suggesting this theme of maturing and integrating gender polarities (particularly our inner masculine) in our immediate astrology: Saturday, March 7, the Sun conjoins centaur planet Chiron in Pisces at 11:21 pm EST (4:21 UTC Sunday). Setting the overall emotional tone for the whole weekend, the Moon ingresses Libra at 7:52 pm Friday (00:52 UTC Saturday), traveling through this sign until Monday.

On one basic level, the Libra Moon indicates sensitivity to relationship partners and a desire for harmony and balance with others. For the last three years, the Moon in Libra has also meant that the signifier for our emotional bodies and intuition is in direct contact with the Uranus-Pluto square. Notice this weekend how you feel about some of the personal-is-political issues that have become emblematic of our times, because those areas of upheaval, struggle and innovation are your examples of the Uranus-Pluto square at work.

So how does the Sun-Chiron conjunction in Pisces fit in? Consider that the Sun represents your mature ego, your awareness of yourself as an individual in the world. Consider also that Chiron — an immortal healer and teacher who sustained a mortal wound in mythology — was a centaur: a half-man, half-horse warrior. His half-and-half, “both and” status points to the themes of polarity and integration.

In a piece on Sun conjunct Chiron that Eric Francis wrote two years ago, he stated, “Sun-Chiron aspects can represent the very conditions that allow an immature man to grow into an expressive and responsible one.” He notes in that same article how in a woman, Chiron aspecting the Sun can indicate how she defines herself through the man she is with — until a transit from Chiron as it moves through the sky (and zodiac) prompts that identity orientation to shift.

This weekend, as the Sun and Chiron meet in mid-Pisces, you have a window to explore that kind of integration. In the same article, Eric wrote, “One thing that stands out about Sun-Chiron in Pisces is how as part of this process, men must make contact with their feminine side and their emotional nature, but without sacrificing their maleness.” You could say the challenge for women is to recognize the strength inherent in their feminine, emotional nature. Then you use that recognition to reclaim the sense of purpose and achievement associated with your inner masculine side.

Now, other than Sun-Chiron and Uranus-Pluto being exact within about a week of each other, what is linking them? Thematically, it has to do with this masculine/feminine polarity showing up in the astrology in another form.

Earlier this week, Venus (the planet symbolizing the inner feminine) conjoined Uranus in Aries and squared Pluto. Early next week, Mars (symbolizing the inner masculine) does the same.

What does it mean to have Venus pass through the culture-changing and era-defining Uranus-Pluto square so close to Mars doing the same, and so close to the last exact Uranus-Pluto contact? On a macro scale (rather than the personal), does it represent a revolution in feminine identity (or of how feminine identity shapes society)? Is it hinting to us how to break a deadlock and open up the space for maleness to see itself and mature collectively (Sun-Chiron)?

If so, it will likely take significant time before we see the ripple effect of this astrology in the world around us. However, we won’t see anything of the sort if we don’t pay attention to these shifts and opportunities within us — beginning this weekend.

For some deeper reading about this idea of reclaiming masculinity in a way that is holistic and healthy, see Eric’s article The Radical Notion that Men Are People.

To hear some tell it, the Virgo Full Moon on Thursday at 1:05 pm PST (18:05 UTC) heralds dire events to come before our current season ends. That’s almost certainly not true. What’s far more probable is that we will all be more than just a little tired of at least one thing (probably more) by the time the Moon swings around to mid-Virgo in opposition to the Pisces Sun.

After all, who on the East Coast and Midwestern portions of the U.S. has not grown just a bit tired of the freezing, icy, snowy weather? Maybe a few ski resort owners, or kids excused from school, but likely few others.

Then there’s politics. Who is not tired of elected representatives who claim to do their job by suspending government functions and holding you hostage? Perhaps those whose true agenda is no government at all?

Then there is war — only those who profit from it have not been fatigued to numbness by perpetual armed conflict. Thugs (in suits or ski masks), bullies (with or without badges), institutionalized oppression, corporate hegemony, and inhumanity to human beings as standard operating procedure are just among the many things that suck vitality out of modern living.

And you know what happens when you get tired. You might get cranky. Probably you make mistakes. You may possibly even self-medicate to excess (or get behind a steering wheel after even moderate medication) and make it all worse for yourself and others.

How about making things better? What an idea. You could start by not entertaining tired old astrological predictions of gloom-and-doom based on doctrines that assume we are helpless puppets of the heavens. You can claim your birthright of power to participate actively as fully-fledged members of the solar system.

One way to actively participate in astrology is a simple two-step process: observe and correlate. It is recommended that you compile more than three observations before attempting correlation. That takes some patience and some effort. Fortunately, the Virgo Full Moon coming up represents nearly the end of a very interesting and long pattern which is now ripe for your observation and correlation.

It goes like this: Thursday’s Full Moon will be the seventh in a row (since the Pisces Full Moon of Sept. 8, 2014) to take place in the middle of its sign. That’s right, Full Moons in Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and now Virgo, all at either 14, 15 or 16 degrees and the pocket change of an arc minute (one sixtieth of one degree) or an arc second (one sixtieth of an arc minute) here and there.

The trend will not end until after the Libra Full Moon next month. It is an unusual streak, and it has meaning because mid-points have substantial meaning for astrologers, and for you.

Ever hear of Halloween, Groundhog Day or May Day? Those are the husks of ancient astrological holidays observing the midpoints between seasons. The very fact that some remnant of what the ancients called cross-quarter days still remains active in common consciousness testifies to the power of mid-points in your life.

Beyond the traditional cross-quarters, the Full Moon (and opposing Sun, please remember) at the midpoint of any sign places both Sun and Moon in the middle of a square aspect between the cusp of signs that share the same quality (cardinal, fixed or mutable).

The cusps of signs that share the same quality are always 90 degrees apart. A separation of 90 degrees on the zodiac and/or in the sky defines a square. Squares represent tension, usually internal in origin but often ascribed in error to external causes. Anything in the middle of a square is thus symbolically in the middle of astrology’s prime emblem of anxiety.

Thursday’s Full Moon, for example, will find the Pisces Sun halfway between the cusp of fixed Aquarius and fixed Taurus. The Virgo Moon in turn, will be at full phase just as it is precisely (to the degree) between the cusp of fixed Leo and fixed Scorpio.

When you are in the middle of something you are often so involved so as not to be fully aware. It happens to all of us. When the Sun and Moon are in the middle of a square for seven Full Moons in a row, the implication is that your entire psyche is rather deeply involved with some prolonged tension, and probably not aware to what extent.

No wonder it seems like there is so much for you to be sick and tired of no matter where you go. Because no matter where you go, there you (and your long-sustained internal tension) unavoidably are.

But now you are aware. Now that you have received what seems to be the pertinent observation, and now that you have been given a plausible correlation, you have something to work with. Not the weather, not the politicians, not thugs, not bullies, not even the masters of war and industry. Thankfully, what you have to work with is the one thing in the Universe you can change — yourself.

And, mercifully, you have a timeframe. After next month, the Full Moons will move off sign-center and imply different correlations, new challenges and different rewards.

In the meantime, get to work on yourself. Try having a nap instead of a drink. Instead of ascribing what you are sick and tired of, describe it. Observe what others are doing with their tension. Get them to to describe what theirs is. Encourage them to own it. Support them. Find something in common rather than seeking conflict. Find reason to bond.

That’s your Full Moon in Virgo. Not an end. Not at all. Rather a real and meaningful beginning, if you will but make it. What say ye?

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.