Note: how Astrology individually affects us depends on the placement of planets in our birth chart. This forecast assumes an uncomplicated interaction between the transiting planets and a birth chart, which means parts of it may not apply to you (or may only apply to certain degrees). To learn about your specific chart, I encourage you to book a session with me. Also, this article was written for the Northern Hemisphere.

The 2019 New Moon in Pisces occurs this Wednesday, March 6^th at 8:03 a.m. PST. On New Moons, the Sun and Moon are atop each other in the sky, which causes them to operate as a unit (this is called a conjunction). The Sun is our fundamental Yang, corresponding with our ego and what drives us individually. It beats our heart. The Moon is our Yin, corresponding with our palette of feelings and our subconscious and unconscious. On the New Moon, this alignment can offer us insight into issues in our lives and how to address them, as well as energy for doing so.

In magic, New Moons are often associated with beginnings and intention setting. They’re also opportunities for diving within the shadow. Being in Pisces, this New Moon carries Piscean opportunities. Pisces is the sign of consciousness and transcendence. It’s the mutable water sign that ends the Zodiacal cycle, corresponding with the individual dissolving in the Great Ocean at death. If life were a movie, Pisces would be the last scene and the credits. Yet here we are, alive, navigating this energy. What can this transit mean for us? One answer is transcendence of personal barriers that hold us back: in our relationships, conceptualizations, etc. Pisces doesn’t merely think outside the box, it floods the box with water until the box disintegrates.

Chiron and Achilles by J.B. Regnault

The veil between the planes of existence may be its thinnest now. Many say that occurs during Samhain (when the Sun nears 15 degrees Scorpio). To me, that’s the Underworld veil. This is cosmic, the light of Eternity filtering in from beyond the Kabbalistic Abyss. On this night, the Sun, Moon, and Neptune are conjunct within one degree at the peak of Pisces (15 and 16 degrees, respectively), which will not happen again for at least 165 years. Mercury is also Retrograde in Pisces conjunct Chiron in Aries. Psychological wounds we’ve struggled to heal related to identity may pass through Pisces’s porousness, surfaced by Chiron (Chiron is somewhat like the psychological pus drainer of Astrology, and this wound-surfacing process likely began around when Chiron entered Aries on February 18th). Solar and Lunar Pisces provides us with the compassion and alignment with spirit to tend to these wounds and begin (or continue) healing.

Pisces represents the circuitry between the Higher and Lower Self, and Piscean people straddle the veils of consciousness. This is part of why they often end up in escapism, addiction, etc. and struggle with embodiment in the world. All water signs are psychic and porous, but Pisces is the most cosmic and the least grounded. Their sense of cohesion isn’t as strong as the other signs. A gift of this is an innate potential to receive information and impressions beyond our limited perspective, and a challenge of that is to not misinterpret what we receive or get lost in it. We can all share in this during Pisces season.

On Wednesday night, consider lighting a candle, setting an intention to connect with your Higher Self (however you conceptualize that), and free writing. No filter, no judgment – just write. Perhaps start with a prompt about healing deep wounds or what would be helpful for you to focus on now. If you read Tarot, consider doing a life check-in, casting the net wide and deep. This is a potent opportunity to explore our Karma and how we’re faring with our evolutionary process, though we need take care to balance any insights we have with discernment. Critically thinking about what we receive can aid in this tremendously, doing our best to discern between a psychic impression and our interpretation of it, which may be biased. An advantage of a medium like Tarot is that the conventional meanings of the cards (as diverse as those can be) provide an anchor that helps ground our interpretations in a healthy way. 

Bolstering this Moon is the transition from Uranus into Taurus (more on that below), which can provide innovative ways to sturdy ourselves on every level. With a sextile from the Sun/Moon/Neptune to Mars and Saturn (in Taurus and Capricorn, respectively), there’s energy to act (to do) on behalf of these issues of being. Maybe we discover we’re insecure to a degree we didn’t realize or thought we’d overcome. This earth energy can help us utilize that insight to move forward in our healing or clarify how to, as Chiron continues its eight-year march through Aries. We may also simply have ample energy to get things done and pragmatic clearheadedness.

Pisces also connects with compassion and service (i.e. “Your pain is an extension of me. I want to help.”). What we discover may relate to this. Each life can be of profound service in some respect, and service increases our spiritual alignment. It helps us see beyond our ego and experience the innate divinity of all, which is Pisces’ deeper actualization process. During this transit, we may glimpse ways our life can be of greater service, particularly by virtue of our healing journey and the wounds we carry.

Uranus Enters Taurus

Otherwise, Uranus enters Taurus the day of the New Moon, staying there until 2025, which is huge (Also, Mercury is retrograde from 3/5-3/28, which you can read about here). As an outer planet, there are societal trends that tend to follow in step with Uranus, in addition to what happens with us personally.

On that note, Astrology is the best way I know to recognize the Hermetic axiom “As above, so below” in action. Something happens on the planetary level, and simultaneously at the societal, communal, individual, etc. levels. How this manifests can depend: we may find ourselves acting in a manner consistent with a transit, events that mirror the transit’s energy may manifest in our lives, or we may simply persist with our status quo while feeling strong impulses we don’t follow. Even this New Moon can just yield a few off-feeling days of confusion or melancholy rather than a mystical dive into Eternity. That said, transits featuring the outer planets (e.g. the Saturn Return), tend to activate us in some way out of sheer persistence, so this Uranus transit will likely be significant in our individual lives.

How we use astrological energy is our choice, which is one thing Evolutionary Astrology is about. In this blog, I focus on healing, mysticism, occultism, and service (because those are my passions), but there are many ways to harness astrological energy. The key from an evolutionary perspective is to appreciate that we have choices. Planetary energy will flow into our lives, like weather patterns – so below will be as above – but we can influence how so below is as above. We can catch the wind of a transit in the sails of our intentions and ride it toward greater insight, development, and well-being.

Regarding this transit, Uranus entering Taurus can herald profound shifts in our resources, personally and societally. Old financial paradigms may break down (it makes sense that cryptocurrency is popular), and other matters related to the physical acts of living will likely shift. How we eat, build shelter, work, care for our bodies, have sex, etc. are all Taurean matters (and how we innovate around them is Uranian). We may revolutionize our way of living, leading to increased satisfaction (e.g. buying a house with friends, which we then revel in).

On a societal level, seismic shifts could come. Uranus was last in Taurus from 1934 to 1942, during the Great Depression and World War II. Taurus follows Aries, and Uranus in Aries is generally a powerful time of societal assertiveness, often in the context of aggression toward “other.” In the last Uranus in Aries cycle, Nazism thrived. Today, there are movements like Brexit and “Make America Great Again” that radically champion a nationalistic “me” over the greater human “us.”

During Uranus in Aries, one contingent is often ready for a paradigm shift while others aren’t, generally leading the most resistant others to embody the shadow of both Aries and Uranus, which, in a nutshell, is rebellious selfishness (e.g. “This is MY country! I’m taking it back!”). In many ways, the Trump presidency epitomizes this side of Uranus in Aries. Its utterly unconventional ascent to power was Uranian, and despite being ostensibly Conservative, Trump is an unconventional “leader.” Meanwhile, this warlike “us versus them” (i.e. “Build a wall!” “Lock her up!” etc.) is in Aries’s shadow. A self-actualized manifestation of Aries is Arjuna from the Bhagavad Gita, who learns to fight for Dharma without bloodlust or attachment. The shadow side is delighting in violence, the basest manifestation of Mars. Trump’s presidency also highly involves novel technology (like Twitter), which is Uranian. Relatedly, Trump has radically shifted what it means to be a US president.

Every major Astrological transit provides opportunities to evolve or resist evolving (the overall progression is to evolve though, per the alchemical axiom, “all things move toward their preordained state of perfection.” But sometimes things get destroyed in that process, like the Roman empire). Unfortunately, because inner and shadow work is difficult, resistance is often a significant part of these transits (the status quo usually leans toward resistance, given the ego’s desire to stay with what it knows). This isn’t all or nothing though. What often results is a mixed bag.

We saw this in World War II, which featured the Uranian breakthrough of women flooding into the workforce, even if that was spurred on by an astonishingly devastating war. The first electromechanical computers arrived in the late 1930s, and war brought other technological advancements that changed the way we conduct our lives. Meanwhile, the Great Depression inspired alterations in how we live too. The New Deal began in 1933 and continued until 1936, providing revolutionary shifts in American resource distribution and work (and today we face another New Deal as this transit starts again). The Social Security Act and National Labor Relations Act came in 1935, the latter of which guaranteed the right to unionize (Uranian). The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set maximum work hours and established minimum wage, came into effect, and a 79% income tax on incomes over $5 million was imposed (ahem).

Uranus was also in Taurus from 1767 through April 8, 1775. The American Revolution began as the transit ended – a revolution connected with resources, security, autonomy, etc. Much of Uranus in Taurus was spent building the tension behind that revolution, and we see a parallel to that today between the collapsing American middle class and the plutocracy. In the 1850s, when Uranus was last in Taurus (1850-1859), Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published (inspiring much of the anti-slavery movement), the Republican Party was founded (then an anti-slavery and activism-oriented party), and the Panama Canal Railway was created, which linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Scarlet Letter was hugely successful and raised a number of Uranus in Taurus-style concerns in the public consciousness. Darwin’s “On The Origin of Species” was published just after Uranus left Taurus and entered communicative Gemini (it was written during the Taurus transit). The Civil War, like the America Revolution, followed on the heels of this transit in 1861.

Peace Pilgrim, who epitomized service and compassion. 

Does this mean revolution or war is coming to America? Will the current iteration of capitalism crumble amidst a fundamental shift in resource distribution? It could. Am I inadvertently cherry-picking from history based on what fits the Astrology? Perhaps. Either way, there’s an opportunity for revolution in how we live here. If we utilize the Chiron in Aries transit to heal wounds of personality that separate us from others, ample social progress can occur during this time. Whether we move toward or away from each other is our choice. Will we feed, house, and provide medical care to everyone (a pinnacle manifestation of Uranus in Taurus), or build walls out of fear and a misguided notion of what “security” means? The evolutionary inclination of Uranus in Taurus is revolution that yields a higher quality of living for all. The shadow is 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale. If we can enter our shadow though, heal, and integrate what we find there to develop wisdom and compassion, we can evolve spiritually and progress as a species.