September 10 5:59 AM EST
This full moon in the intuitive and whimsical sign of Pisces is one of the most romantic of the year. But it can also be one of the most disorienting. Pisces is a master at feeling all the feels, picking up the ‘vibes’, and going with the flow. But when we are ungrounded in this process, we can feel nebulous and unrooted, leading to our minds ‘running away with us’. This is especially true because the full moon is conjunct mysterious Neptune. AND both the Virgo sun and Pisces moon/Neptune are in a T-square to busy Mars in Gemini. This heavy dominance on the mutable modality can lead to inner sea changes, which can be a good thing.
These are the type of aspects that are subtle and yet irreversible. Neptune, Pisces’ ruler, has the effect of dissolving. So what once seemed permanent, clear or fixed, can suddenly appear differently to us. This is a beautiful invitation to ‘break down’ old habits, patterns and feelings that may have felt stubbornly immovable. And then to ‘allow’ the new to ‘reveal itself’ to us. This process of dissolving and then slowly re-orienting ourself and getting clear ‘in the new’ can feel like a foggy process. This is a word often associated with Pisces and with Neptune. And of course the fog can be disorienting and even frightening, especially if we have had experiences in the past of becoming lost in the fog, or making the ‘wrong’ choices as we attempt to move forward. This also can bring back memories of “not seeing things/people clearly”. For many of us this has been an area of grief or trauma in our lives, where we may have thought we knew/were certain about something and then the hard reality was a bitter pill to swallow. Pisces is especially susceptible to seeing the world with such ‘rose colored glasses’ because they are the sign associated with our divine unity consciousness. Pisces dominant people have this instinctual empathetic connection with others and hence can have trouble making practical (earthy) evaluations of what is actually the reality in front of them. All of us are getting lessons in this right now.
The trick is to be able to hold both simultaneously; to be able to know people as their ‘Divine Self’, as sacred beings, while also being cognizant of the reality of how they are showing up in front of us, right here and right now. Then we can choose and proceed appropriately, not based on our projections or wishes. The discernment of Virgo, Pisces’ opposite and complement, can offer us assistance in this. Conversely, Virgo can push us too far in the other direction. After being burned too many times by ‘rose colored glasses’ type experiences, we can swing towards the Virgo end of the extreme and become overly fussy, critical and judgmental of others. We can find reasons to invalidate and push people away because they are not ‘perfect’. All of this, of course, is a psychological mechanism to protect us from getting hurt again. We can also be critical of ourselves for not being ‘perfect’. But all of this has the unintended effect of further confusing us, because we are again NOT acting based in reality, but still projecting onto others (and ourselves) and warping our sense of who they are, but this time in a negative direction.
Shuttling back and forth between these two opposite ends of the spectrum is something that happens in some form or another for all us, but is especially common for those with strong Pisces/Virgo placements. Considering that the Pisces/Virgo axis is sometimes known as the ‘axis of health’ this show us how profoundly important it is to see and acknowledge, then work to repair this dynamic.
Virgo is traditionally associated with our body and our physical health, while Pisces is related to our emotional and spiritual health. Our body (Virgo) is our great ally in discerning what is intuitively truly right for us (Pisces). So we must learn how to pay attention to our own unique body’s signals and information. At the end of the day, we can only truly be useful and of service to the world (Virgo) if we feeling good and happy and positive and in a sense of belonging internally (Pisces). But this is not what we have been taught, consciously and subconsciously in our culture. We have been taught that we must work ourselves to exhaustion (Virgo) and sacrifice ourselves (Pisces) for others. And as such our internal barometers are in even more dysfunction.
This full moon is our opportunity to re-calibrate. This is the work of the heart (Pisces) and body (Virgo), not of the mind (Gemini). Mars in Gemini can act as a distraction to this process. It can give us a million ‘helpful solutions’ and ‘hot takes’ that will only lead us further down a mental rabbit hole. But in reality, there is a divine part of us deep down inside (Pisces) that ALREADY knows what is right for us, we just need to still our minds and relax and listen long enough to hear it.
Mercury retrograde in Libra is actually enormously helpful in this process. Mercury turns retrograde less than 12 hours before this full moon, and hence is stationing and extremely powerful. Mercury is retrograde at 8 degrees of the sign of balance and harmony, Libra. This is an ideal opportunity to get back in balance and harmony with these themes! If we are not focused on the healing and growth and re-orientation that can occur now, however, then Mercury retrograde can cause drama and disruptions in our relationships and communications. Combined with all of the changeability of the mutable energy, and the fact that Mercury is opposing over-the-top Jupiter, this can further destabilize our foundations and lead to ‘reversals’ in some of our relationships and partnerships. Again, viewing this as an opportunity to see what is REALLY going on, or who is REALLY showing up, will yield us the best results. This is aided even more by the fact that the planet of relationships, Venus, is also in pragmatic Virgo, urging us to cull and refine our relationships and take responsibility for how WE are showing up as well.
A beautiful earth sign grand trine between the sun in Virgo, Uranus in Taurus and Pluto in Capricorn rounds out the aspects. This yet again is a brilliant aspect for lasting change and transformation. It gives us assurance that ultimately we will indeed be able to ground and re-root with our updated wisdom and new more refined direction. Whatever nebulous foggy energy we may be feeling as the old releases, and before the new comes into focus, will indeed dispel. But we cannot force the timing or try to ‘muscle our way through’. It will all unfold in its own timing, as we continue to honor our deepest needs, feelings, and emotions in the present moment.
*art by @indg0
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