by Robert Wilkinson
Over the next 4 weeks, the New Moon in Pisces guides us all “into the sanctuary” where our minds can be introduced to a new facet of our “Soul realm.” This period will grace us with echoes and signals of what Uranus awakened in 2005 that became the foundation for a new way of expressing our individuality beginning late 2006, and a part of our perceptual makeup beginning February 2007. This is a healing New Moon!
This New Moon in Pisces is watery, unifying, distributive, and marks a time of closures and signs of Divine Grace. As with last month, decisions will be made that affect our destiny, and the world at large will seem to be spinning off its axis due to the powerful Cardinal T-square made by Jupiter on its direct station opposing Pluto with both square revolutionary Uranus! So basically this continues several of the themes of the New Moons in Capricorn and Aquarius that allow us to move into vaster fields while saying goodbye.
We continue to be in a time where we’re all dealing with many cross currents. These challenge us to do our own thing in our own way based in the new individuality we’ve been experiencing the past couple of years. This one guides us to a greater healing through seeing the good we possess and letting go of old perceptual separateness arising from an imbalanced view.
This dissolving, closure-oriented, compassionate and forgiving New Moon occurs at 11 Pisces on February 28, 2014, at 11:59 pm PST, March 1 at 2:29 am EST and 7:59 am Greenwich (UT). That means except for the west coast of NorthAm, Alaska and Hawaii, this falls on March 1.
The Lunation finds 29 Scorpio rising in Santa Monica, 18 Scorpio in Vancouver, 26 Sagittarius in Toronto, 30 Sagittarius in Montreal, and 2 Capricorn in Washington DC. That means the span of Ascendants across North America is between mid-Scorpio and early Capricorn.
Continuing eastward, we find rising signs of 29 Aquarius in Rio, 30 Pisces in Lisbon, 21 Aries in London, 19 Taurus in Berlin, 23 Taurus in Sofia, 3 Taurus in Johannesburg, and 27 Gemini rising in Moscow. That means the span of Ascendants across Europe and Africa is between late Pisces through late Gemini.
Moving into Asia and Oceana, we find Ascendants at 9 Cancer in Abbottabad, 9 Cancer in New Delhi, 30 Gemini in Trivandrum, 22 Cancer in Jakarta, 9 Leo in Hong Kong, 4 Virgo in Tokyo, 19 Cancer in Perth, 20 Leo in Melbourne, 5 Virgo in Brisbane, 7 Libra in Wellington, and 1 Scorpio rising on Maui (Feb 28).
So you can construct a rough chart for where you are in the world, I’ll give you the rounded up degree for each planet. Use the Ascendants given above to get a rough sense of what’s on the eastern horizon where you are, and using an Equal House system, you can see what’s going on in your part of the world for the next 4 weeks.
In this New Moon at 11 Pisces, Mercury is 19 Aquarius (on its SD degree), Venus is 27 Capricorn, Mars is 28 Libra (on its SRX degree), Jupiter is 11 Cancer retrograde (also on its SD degree), Saturn is 24 Scorpio (also on its SRX degree), Uranus is 11 Aries, Neptune is 6 Pisces, Pluto is 14 Capricorn (also on its SRX degree), TransPluto is 1 Virgo retrograde, Chiron is 14 Pisces, and the NN is 30 Libra.
When a Lunation is on one of the angles of a chart, it is said to be particularly powerful. Among the cities covered in this column, this month the Lunation is culminating (near the MC) in Berlin, Sofia, Moscow, Pakistan, and India, and setting in Tokyo, Brisbane, and Melbourne. The New Moon is on the nadir (IC) on the west coast of NorthAm, and rising (near the Ascendant) in Rio and Lisbon.
This is the eighth in a sequence of New Moons that fall in the same sign as the following Full Moon. This is assumed to be the “normal order of Lunation Suns,” whereas the other Lunation order is the opposite, where the New Moon Sun falls in the sign preceding the Sun of the following Full Moon.
In other words, this New Moon in Pisces also has a Full Moon in Pisces and Virgo. This is the reverse of what we experienced between July 2011-June 2013, when we had a sequence of Lunations where the Full Moon Sun was in the sign after the New Moon Sun.
We shifted back to “normal” with the New and Full Moons of last August. Since I explain this phenomenon and what it means in the Full Moon articles, I’ll elaborate more on this shift into the “normal order of things,” and when the pattern will next be reversed, in the next Full Moon articles coming in about two weeks.
The New Moons and Full Moons are “God’s footprints in time.” Each shows the next in the 12 phases of how things come to be each year. The cycle could be described as follows: Life energy is initiated in Aries, substantiated in Taurus, explored in Gemini, grounded in Cancer, renewed and creatively expressed in Leo, refined and ordered in Virgo, balanced in Libra, purified in Scorpio, expanded in Sagittarius, organized in Capricorn, solidified into a vision in Aquarius, and ended/perpetuated in Pisces.
An Overview of the New Moon
This New Moon in Pisces helps us dissolve to prepare for a new level of reuniting. This will show us how to flow forward, and either bring forth humanitarian feelings and actions or help us “get back to shore” if we’ve gone out beyond our depth. We continue a deep transformational process while being introduced to newer, more urgent things to take care of as our minds are introduced to a new area of our Soul realm.
Those who put themselves under Divine Grace rather than Divine Law will benefit most. This one should help us put a lot together, as well as forgive or let go, despite the friction, cross currents, and hard edge to the general atmosphere.
The next 4 weeks we continue to understand how we’re dealing with our emotional issues and responses under the spotlight since last Summer. Because of the swirl of planets going direct or retrograde, in some areas ruled by Mercury and Jupiter we’ll have great leaps forward, while in the areas ruled by Mars and Saturn we’ll begin a long review.
The Pisces seed indicated by this New Moon can help us get a greater understanding or stability in the emotional intelligence awakened last Summer. This will help us understand a vaster feeling-connection, and show us how to flow on into new life conditions using a sense of humor or irony as we get beyond ego limitations, whether our own or those of another.
This Lunation offers us a practicum in skillfully managing our emotions and mind as we stand on the threshold of a major life rebalancing. Here we continue to learn to find a reasonable perspective and balanced approach to long term pressures. We continue to focus on eliminating stagnant feelings and responses, finding appropriate boundaries and a sense of responsibility for our magnetism as we continue to shed various “skins of personality.”
This month Mercury leads the Lunation, and thus is the “herald” for all that is developing in March. Its retrograde brought it back through the trine to Mars and square to Saturn, which it will again do within the span influenced by this New Moon. It indicates that we all will confront some area where we get to rise to the occasion to put out something that’s way out of control. You can more about this “Mercury stationary direct” period and influence by taking a new look at yesterday’s article, which I’ve linked to at the bottom of this one.
Because Pluto is at 14 Capricorn, the degree where it will go stationary retrograde in mid-April, this is the first Lunation where we can get clear signs and signals about Plutonic seeds at work related to the coming Great Fracturing of late April when Pluto occupies still that degree. And on a related note, due to Saturn’s continuing influence as a major player in this Lunation through anchoring the Scorpio zone of the Grand Irrationality, we will continue to find ourselves at forks in the road of destiny in the Aries, Scorpio, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces realms of our existence.
Saturn continues to help us make choices about what to eliminate, what to regenerate, and how to let go of all that we don’t want nor need to take with us into a future that began to rapidly unfold last July and August around the time Mars conjuncted Jupiter. And as I’ve told you before, when in doubt, you might as well let go, since you cannot hold on to those things anyway.
Saturn continues to help us see a) how we have shifted our magnetism on relationships since Summer, and/or b) how we need to find a new view or way of understanding the losses and eliminations of the past we’ve been through. We all passed through major choices and changes in the first half of 2013 when Saturn triseptiled Uranus, choosing which innovations we wanted to incorporate into our life structures. Now we’re flowing into a long wave period of finding the right focus to allow inspiring teachings to transform our daily lives.
This New Moon will jumpstart Pisces energy wherever it falls in our chart. This helps us take a more compassionate and universal approach to the wider vision of Aquarius that solidified some personal power we assumed in Capricorn. By what we’ve accepted or eliminated, we continue to restructure our desires and ability to attract more appropriate duties and roles in the future.
This New Moon has an individual, mental, and spiritual focus. Because it happens in Pisces, Jupiter is the worldly ruler of the Lunation, and Neptune is the spiritual ruler. Due to Jupiter’s position, the backdrop to the message of this New Moon puts the focus on humor and irony to puncture “ego pomposities,” and find a lighter touch, “self-control,” “frivolity,” and/or “sharp discrimination and understanding of human nature.” Neptune is impressing us with a renewed look at a greater dedication we began to idealize in the Summer of 2013.
So this New Moon in Pisces is ruled (in worldly things) by Jupiter in Cancer, which is ruled by the Moon in Pisces, creating a ”mutual reception,” which is a very powerful self-reinforcing energy. With Neptune in its home sign, it makes these 3 planets dominant as the background for all the planetary energies.
The Grand Irrationality
The reason this section is a recurring feature in the Lunation articles is because it was set into long term play by the 2011 Solar Eclipse, which is triggered each time any transiting planet occupies any of the 7 zones of the Grand Irrationality. Since then it’s been reinforced and triggered by various Lunations, planetary stations, and transits.
This Lunation finds the Grand Irrationality is not an active force, since it is not being triggered by any other planet (though of course those places with any of the 7 “hot zones” occupied by the Asc or MC will find themselves confronting their destiny.) That said, we still have 3 points of the 7 pointed Star pattern occupied by Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto, making this month a continuation of the extreme events globally that are throwing people and nations into hard edged choices and change.
For those who are new to the site, here’s a bit of explanation about this thing called “the Grand Irrationality” that may help new visitors understand why everything continues to be so weird. As I’ve explained many times before, the Grand Irrationality is a long wave non-rational influence that has put everyone on Earth on the unceasing edge of major choice and change.
Everyone has been confronting inner compulsions, continual choices that seem to have a major impact on our destiny, and occasionally irrational behaviors in others or external conditions. It is why things seem to have an unending hard edge, why so many choices are continually thrown in our faces that require immediate attention, and why reason seems to fail at critical moments of decision.
When the Grand Irrationality is in play, it’s a time when things don’t have to make sense. Get used to it, since we’ve been living with it for about 18 years, and will be in play for a few more years to come.
Thresholds of important choice and change that have heavy future implications were most recently set into play after Mercury went stationary retrograde at 19 Scorpio on October 21, 2013, and again when Venus went stationary direct conjunct Pluto at the end of January 2014. As Saturn will now begin to retrograde back toward 19 Scorpio, those Mercury retrograde signs and signals will continue to be important through Summer 2014.
Please refer to the articles I gave you about Mercury retrograde back then to learn more. I’ve written extensively about the Grand Irrationality in the articles Astrology in November-December 2013 - The Grand Irrationality Affecting Everyone and Astrology in late November and Early December 2013 – In the Heart of the Grand Irrationality. These articles sum up what we’ve been dealing with, so please check them out again! (I’ll be updating them later in March).
The current degree spans that trigger this transformative mass configuration are around 21-25 Scorpio, 12-16 Capricorn, 4-8 Pisces, 26-30 Aries, 17-21 Gemini, 9-13 Leo, and 30 Virgo-3 Libra. If you have a planet or angle in any of these zones, you are making critical choices and decisions that will alter your future in important ways. And because it’s in motion due to outer planets, these are pretty much forces beyond your ability to control, even if you can always control your response to these critical events.
To note, this configuration has been in full force during the time Saturn has occupied the Scorpio zone through about now. The effects will continue to be triggered over the next four weeks, even though nothing is specifically triggering it in this Lunation chart. This configuration is activated every day the Moon and Ascendant are in any of the 7 hot zones. The days the Moon focuses the energy are Mar 3-4, 8, 12-13, 16-17, 20-21, 24-25, 27-28, and 30-31.
Neptune and Chiron at the Cusp of the Age:
Now that these two are further into Pisces, they are no longer at the Cusp of the Age. Since they first entered the zone back in 2011-2012, we’ve been navigating through the threshold of an entirely new era that will not resemble the old Age in any way within just a few decades. We’re already solidly in the Dreamscape, and are already seeing long wave manifestations of the ending of the old and the emerging field we’re all learning how to maneuver through.
Other than the brief look we had in mid-2011, this is only the twenty-sixth New Moon with Neptune in Pisces for the next 150 years. We had Neptune in Pisces for the 3 New Moons for May, June, and July 2011 which gave us a front end look at how Neptune will function through 2025.
Between August 2011, when Neptune retrograded back into late Aquarius, and the January 2012 New Moon, we were given one last look back at a greater ideal, and the changes of the last half of 2011 helped many to break out of our "chrysalis" and transform how we live and all our relationships. That is now established in the collective consciousness, as well as a growing sense of the larger light field in which all sentient Beings live and love.
If you want to know what's coming for many years to come, take a look back at the intuitions and sense of belonging to a vaster interrelated whole you were shown in May, June, and July 2011. It may help to give a sense of our collective lesson in dissolving our separateness as we finish this transition through "the Winter of the 21st Century" on our way to Spring, beginning in 2025!
In 2011 both Neptune and Chiron revealed our unique part to play within a larger light/life field. During that time, these planets at the beginning of Pisces and end of Aquarius occupied degrees representing "the Cusp of the Age," the span where the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius meet. The article deals specifically with the first degree of Pisces, which is where the Precessional point occupies at present.
From one point of view, where we were collectively between February 2011 and March 2012 revealed what the period of (approximately) 1990-2140 is all about in the broader context of human evolution. I suspect that future generations will look back at 2011 and 2012 as being crucial in showing long range patterns of larger evolutionary necessities. You can find more about what we’re going through to get to the coming Age of Aquarius in the article The Sun Enters Pisces Today Illuminating the Cusp of the Great Age, Where The Age of Pisces Gives Way to the Age of Aquarius
Neptune and Chiron dancing between signs on "the Cusp of the Age" had the effect of making it seem like we have all been occupying a very weird dreamscape which we'll be navigating for years to come. The trick for us is to apply our new strengths and understanding freed from the ghosts of the past, and by riding the waves of intense (but curiously steady) pulses of spiritual energies shaping our minds, we can find techniques where our efforts will lead us to forms of good fortune.
In this chart, Chiron is direct in motion at 14 Pisces. This will help us heal anew through our positioning within collective consciousness, helping us find a form of protection or camouflage so we may do our Spiritual work in peace. This awakened in everyone April 2006 through February 2007. We can now heal wounds from that time, or see how what we’ve awakened to since then has helped us healing into our higher Self.
Given we are now again “entering the sanctuary,“ and been examined for our dedication and skill, we get to find a technique to continue to merge the sacred and the everyday in our lives. In this Lunation Chiron helps us to a new understanding of our inner worth, and will certify our merit in some way that we’ll be able to use in 2015, since Chiron will occupy this degree between early October 2014 and early January 2015 as a result of going stationary direct on this degree.
Over the past couple of years, we have healed through knowing what we stand for, hearing a call to a life renewal, and letting go of unnecessary baggage to quicken the pace in achieving some social goal. We have all mastered something, been offered higher responsibilities, and been shown what spiritual goals we’re fit to accomplish.
We’ve been guided into a more spiritual life, had to prove our qualifications, and find courage to focus our will to be an expression of a higher Spiritual Will. This Lunation activates our “entrance into the sanctuary” and shows us how to act on what was awakened between 2005-2007, or alternatively, events will occur that are directly related to that time period.
In this chart Neptune is at 6 Pisces, a degree we first experienced in the Spring and Summer of 2013. This degree gives us glimpses through intuition and a greater feeling-connection of our positioning within a vaster field.
According to the Sabian Symbols, this shows the collective field is about a new dedication to a broader set of social goals, a new glimpse of a more fulfilling connection with others, and new service to be done. We shall find some “collective values” we want to uphold and defend, and many will perceive higher goals through a process of “self-testing.”
More on Saturn’s Universally Important Influence
Because of Saturn’s path the past year, through our magnetism and desires we have begun to demonstrate a higher level of social functioning. Now that we’ve learned what is permanent and stable in our life structures, this is the next step in practicing those Saturn lessons. We’ve now hit a new threshold when Saturn will again go retrograde, and begin a time of reviewing the lessons of the past few months. This one will help us regenerate through inspiring teachings, and help us eliminate what we need to in order to move into a new social or cultural power.
Saturn in Scorpio indicates a period of elimination and regeneration, as well as seeing what to let go of that which no longer works. We are finding ways to get focused and clear about what structures are worthwhile and which need eliminating or purifying, and have finished the preliminary stage of a long wave process showing us how to conduct ourselves at a higher social level of interaction. We now enter a long-wave transformation time that will last through September.
As Saturn rules the bones, and Scorpio rules regenerative processes, you may want to regard the current Saturn in Scorpio transit as symbolizing a type of “bone regeneration,” or the elimination of all in our skin and bones that would block our ability to meet and greet others at a higher level of dignity, reserve, and “civilized” behavior. This shows us a long wave elimination and regeneration work each of us is doing in our own ways and times.
2012 finished our philosophical and ideological understanding in life areas related to Libra, Capricorn, and Aquarius in our charts, and since October 2012 we have entered a Scorpio experience of an intensification of magnetics to attract what we need and repel what is not needed. Saturn in Scorpio will continue to be a MUCH different manifestation of Saturn than we were used to between 2010-2012!
Due to the 2012 and 2013 Scorpio Solar Eclipses, we’ve been looking back to rehearse the future after eliminating elements of the past. This opened the doors that we walked through in late December 2012 that continued through January 2013, and the Solar Eclipse from November 2013 renewed the pulse. Whether we want to or not, we’ve all had to be willing to embrace a purification process, especially purifying the life of stuck feelings and desires, and open to a new game and a new way of playing that game.
This is the first Lunation with North Node in Libra and South Node in Aries. Good for reasoned, balanced action! With NN in Libra, our greatest development is through our ability to balance, weigh, judge fairly, be diplomatic peacemakers, and generally cultivate our grace, style, elegance, and sense of beautiful forms.
We have now entered a time of growth through learning how to repair or reconstruct whatever we need to, and can grow by seeing the balances or imbalances in our relationships. Where it is in this Lunation chart shows we can grow through being nuanced or moderate in our assessments, even as we complete a certain type of “philosophical perfection” or holistic view of things.
As Saturn moves forward, it is concretizing all that we’ve been learning via the North Node when it was in middle and late Scorpio. Though the lessons will take a Saturnine form, we are now almost at a threshold of reviewing how we’ve contacted our innermost “God force” and move beyond old forms. Last Autumn we learned to go to our “center of reality” and see how Spirit and Soul are dancing with whatever in our personality is conflicted. Now we get to do transmutation practices.
This Lunation features a number of very powerful favorable aspects between the planets, which I’ll speak about in the next article of this series. I outlined many of them in yesterday’s article on Mercury going stationary direct, so please check that out to see the numerous specializing aspects at play in this Lunation.
Among the most powerful, besides the ones discussed yesterday, we have the New Moon semi-square Venus and sesquisquare Mars while conjunct Chiron. Again, the next 4 weeks should be a time when we “heal into our higher Self.” Between the numerous semi-squares, sesquisquares, and the Cardinal T-square, we can expect a lot of friction breaking a lot of things loose at the end of a cycle. Along with these, there are also some very favorable trines and tredeciles, which I explained in yesterday’s article and will touch on in the next article in this series.
And of course, we’re still in the umbra of the encroaching Uranus square Pluto indicating the global collision between a new humanity and an old slave system. Along with the number of very frictional aspects forming, which will break a lot loose in life areas where these octile-series aspects fall. Just keep relying on the emotional intelligence and stability you’ve cultivated since last Summer, and as always, show patience.....
In the next part of the series we'll discuss the various aspects at play in the chart, as well as some important degree symbols and other interesting elements affecting all of us for 4 weeks to come.
Since November’s Solar Eclipse in Scorpio is still a powerful influence, here are the articles for your review.
Astrology in November 2013 - On The Threshold of a Hybrid Solar Eclipse at 12 Scorpio
The Hybrid Solar Eclipse at 12 Scorpio Nov 3, 2013 Pt. 1 - Who Does It Affect and for How Long?
Since that Solar Eclipse occurred so close to the Inferior Conjunction of the Sun and Mercury, here's the article outlining how that influence was a factor in what we experienced this past month, and will be dealing with for the next 3 years.
© Copyright 2014 Robert Wilkinson
It is my father's 82nd unbirthday today (29th birthday) who is one of the most logically trapped Pisceans I have ever met, yet due the past couple of years having been confronting for him, (much grief for our family since 2010) and the energy of this new moon in his solar return I am very much hoping it will help him to heal and adjust now, what you have said in just this part 1 and even though mundane planetary assessment mainly, it does give me hope, for him. Thank you
Posted by: debbie | February 28, 2014 at 09:48 PM
Robert that is when I decided to start really making my own music!!! Wow and I have still a lot to learn but I have come a long way! Wow
Posted by: Micheline | March 01, 2014 at 12:32 AM