New Moon in Pisces: Strange Journeys

Tonight’s New Moon in Pisces opens our minds and hearts, inviting us on strange and magical journeys. The Sun and Moon at 01º22’ Pisces are seekers, looking for new paths and new lands to explore.

Pisces is the last sign in the wheel of the zodiac. Here we reach out for what lies beyond what we know, beyond the individual ego. In this mutable Water sign, it is easy to connect and much more difficult to maintain good boundaries. We long to lose ourselves in something larger, something meaningful.

The Sun and Moon have just entered Pisces, leaving the sign of Aquarius behind. Moving from fixed Air into mutable Water is a startling transition.

In Aquarius, we experience certainty. We have our principles, carefully worked out and precisely articulated. We have a vision for the future and plans to get there. We are sure of our facts, decisions, and conclusions.

In Pisces, certainty dissolves. We become aware of how perceptions can be influenced by illness, by our emotions, by life experience. Perhaps our conclusions are not so factual. How can we be sure?

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Saturn at the end of Aquarius will soon enter Pisces, but for now, stands firm and tries to get the Sun and the Moon to do the same. While structure is definitely vital for supporting life, the movement into Pisces makes mist and fog seem inviting. What beauty might we discover here? What magic can we experience? The stark light and chiseled shadows of Aquarius seem too harsh. Pisces feels restful.

Saturn may slow the Sun and Moon down, insisting on careful planning and checking supplies, but cannot stop this movement through the zodiac.

Saturn is not the only planet at the end of a sign. We find Venus, exalted in Pisces, in its final degree. Separating from a conjunction with Neptune, whose watery energies are so at home here, Venus will soon step into bright, fiery Aries.

Yet at the moment of the New Moon, Venus and Neptune enhance and deepen Piscean qualities. The changeability of Pisces opens doors to creative breakthroughs. If artists are those who see the world differently, Pisces is certainly a place where that can happen.

The Piscean tendency to dissolve barriers opens us up to spiritual as well as psychic experiences. Being able to see beyond the boundaries of our physical selves opens our minds to whatever is beyond. Dreams become vivid and sometimes prophetic. We can have felt experiences of the numinous that change us deeply.

At the New Moon, Mercury, Mars, and Chiron are in a conversation. Mars separates from a sextile to Chiron. Perhaps one part of Mars emerging fully from the retrograde is to heal whatever we learned about how and when and why we act–or don’t act.

Mercury applies to sextile Chiron. Maybe we need to understand what healing is needed and then how to move forward. Mercury also applies to trine Mars. Here, Mercury brings speed as well as information. “What are you waiting for?” Mercury might say to Mars. “Let’s get going.

As Mercury gets closer to Mars, they also will square Uranus. Here we pick up elements of surprise. A Uranus and Mercury square can suddenly drop in new information that overturns what we thought was true. It can open up new perspectives, which can be useful as the Sun and Moon enter strange new lands.

Whatever happens in Pisces, Mercury will be there soaking it all up and trying to make sense of it.

The planet Neptune, the modern ruler of Pisces, was discovered at the same time Freud was proposing his theory of the subconscious. Of course, the subconscious mind was always there, just as Neptune was, but we didn’t know about them.

The idea that we can think and act based on aspects of our personalities or experiences we have no conscious awareness of is unsettling. This concept led to new ways of thinking about human behavior and what it meant to be human.

In earlier times in history, people were of course aware that sometimes we do things for no apparent reason, or begin acting differently than we have before. What Freud did was refocus the reasons for odd or sometimes dangerous behavior away from possession by gods or demons, toward a natural if sometimes inexplicable human quality.

Carl Jung, student and later colleague of Freud’s, shifted this understanding to acknowledge the depth and spirituality of intense human experiences. Suggesting, as he did, that the subconscious mind was not solely conditioned by day to day human experience but also influenced by deep encounters with aspects of a shared, collective, human unconscious.

These are very Piscean concepts still actively debated and explored.

I mention them because all of these aspects of mysticism, creativity, spirituality, deep psychology, and the unknown will be coming forward for us as the Sun moves through Pisces over the next month. The seeds of these experiences are sown tonight with the New Moon.

Venus enters Aries a scant hour after the New Moon is exact. This transition is clearly part and parcel of this New Moon. Venus in Aries is direct, independent, active, energetic, and passionate.

My image of Venus in Aries is, I admit, the pirate queen. She is someone ready to seize her own destiny and chart a clear course of her own.

Who better to steer our ship through Piscean waters? Venus will carry her own Piscean dreams with her and never make fun of ours.

And so we embark. The ocean is Pisces. Sun and Moon are our ship. Venus is our piratical captain. We can think of Mercury as the cabin boy scurrying between First Mate Mars, Ship’s Doctor Chiron, and that crazy Navigator, Uranus.

We sail tonight.. Have a dream journal ready. This could be a night for deep and beautiful dreams worth recording. Those dreams could become part of the map for our journey.