grounding ourselves
a post-eclipse check-in
This week, we had the second of two eclipses, a South Node Full Moon eclipse on Tuesday morning in the second decan of Virgo.
Where the first eclipse a couple weeks ago had a kind of heightened, agitated, electric, striving quality, this one might have felt more like a purge or emptying out, leaving us feeling tired and spent.
How are you feeling?
I don’t know about you, but I am wiped out.
On Monday, the evening before the eclipse, I fell asleep at 7:30 pm. I utterly crashed after a couple of weeks of feeling very, very wired.
I did end up waking up around 3 am Tuesday morning and was able to catch a glimpse of the Earth’s shadow partially blocking out the Moon, so that was cool.
I’ve been feeling fatigued and mentally slow most of the week and I’m feeling mildly sick today, so I called off work.
In addition to all this, we are in the thick of a Mercury retrograde in Pisces. Misunderstandings, miscommunications, and misfires abound, and in the fog of Pisces, things are a bit murky for our Messenger.
In Jupiter’s watery domicile, Mercury might find us feeling a little more intuitive or galaxy-brained, but there’s probably a sense of overwhelm when it comes to actually parsing everything out and a feeling that language couldn’t possibly capture the vastness of reality.
As such, I am going to leave this post brief and let it serve as a check-in.
This week is somewhat of a vibe shift and eclipse season is winding down.
To ground ourselves, below is a quick rundown of the coming days.
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A quick rundown
As always, when talking about general transits, remember to take in the big picture and think of the transits as ambient textures of temporality and less so as a series of discrete, linear events.
While astrological timing can be very predictable and precise, let us not treat these transits as necessarily feeling most palpable the moment they go exact, but rather understand them as situated within a multilayered unfolding.
In delineating any transit, I come with an understanding that astrological symbolism is multivalent and that there are multiple meanings available for each transit.
Moreover, we have to take into account a person’s own chart to get a full picture of what’s happening to them on an individual level. It’s very likely that there are other ways that the astrology is showing up for you, but what I say below should be something that you see at least within the collective.
Mars in Pisces
The Warrior has been in this mutable water sign since Monday morning, March 2.1
With Mars now being copresent with Mercury in Pisces, this could add a bit of contentiousness to the Mercury retrograde: misunderstandings, but now with greater conflictual potential.
Pisces is Jupiter’s sign and Jupiter loves a pulpit and a soapbox, so with both Mercury and Mars being here, presently moving toward each other, we could be a little bit more strident in expressing our beliefs.
Right now, Jupiter is in the second decan of Cancer and will station direct next week. Jupiter is exalted in Cancer and, at its best, is about inclusiveness and neighborliness, but in the second decan of Cancer (which Austin Coppock calls “A Walled Garden”), Jupiter might find us a bit cliquey, limiting who we share our generosity with.
With Mars being ruled by this Jupiter, we may find ourselves feeling like we need to protect the people and spaces that are sacred to us.
Do we find ourselves feeling aligned with certain people against others?
Are we embroiled in the push and pull of inclusivity versus exclusivity?
Mars is moving toward the North Node, which is moving toward Mars, with both being in the first decan of Pisces.
The North Node in Pisces I might speak to how we may mistake egoic striving for spiritual questing and with Mars here could give stridency to our conviction.
With nebulous, spiritualizing Neptune in Mars’ fiery domicile of Aries, there is a vibe of spiritual warriorship in the air, which we can see in this week’s news about the US Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) reporting that it had received emailed complaints that US service members were told the war with Iran is meant to bring about Armageddon, the biblical end times:
An unnamed noncommissioned officer wrote in an email to MRFF that a commander had urged officers “to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”…
The officer claimed the commander had told the unit that Trump “has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” (Al Jazeera)
Venus will be leaving Pisces on Friday, so this could remove a kind of cushion that we have against agitation. Moreover, Venus will be moving into Aries, so any attempts at harmony-seeking will have to be carried out using Mars’ tools.
Thursday
On Thursday (March 5), the Sun makes its closing trine to Jupiter, going exact at 12:13 pm EST, an important point in Jupiter’s synodic cycle, signaling that Jupiter is about to go direct. Jupiter will station direct next Tuesday (March 10) in the late evening.
Even amidst the strife of the moment we may find ourselves awed by the oneness of everything and seek to harmonize our inner and outer worlds, aligning our material existence with spiritual truth.
But with Mars in the mix, Mercury retrograde, and the Moon in a whole-sign opposition to Neptune in Aries, it’s good to practice humility.
Are we seeking non-dual paths or drawing lines in the sand?
At its best, Sun-Jupiter could help us foster goodwill, but let us not inflate ourselves or overly valorize those with whom we have affinity.
With the Moon in Libra applying to a square with Jupiter Thursday, our sense of fairness and justice is going to be tied up in all this righteous mess.
I’m not calling this ‘righteous’ to trivialize or demean how activated we can be around things that matter to us. That which fires us up and incites our rage and sense of justice is of utmost importance, which is why it’s essential to cultivate means of channeling these energies effectively. This means checking our egos, being mindful of reactivity, picking our battles wisely, and striving to think dialectically. All these things are key to developing a radically democratic praxis.
The Moon’s square to Jupiter will go exact Thursday at 6:22 pm EST, at which time the Moon will be void for nearly 29 hours! The Moon will be void until late Friday evening when she enters Scorpio, so Thursday evening and Friday most of the day may have a meandering quality, a sense that our efforts may or may not stick.
A void Moon is a period when the Moon will not form any exact aspects with any planets for the remainder of its time in a given sign, so the Moon will be void for half of its journey through Libra.
In a recent episode of Threads of Fate, Kira Ryberg so wonderfully described what happens during a void Moon:
[This is a period] where things are a little bit more ungrounded, untethered, feral. You’re kind of falling into rabbit holes and seeing where things lead and you’re not necessarily adhering to a rigid sense of structure or consistency.
Below is a link to an Instagram carousel that Kira posted on void Moons.
Friday
On Friday (March 6), Venus enters Aries, her sign of detriment or exile, at 5:45 am EST.2
It is in early Aries where she will conjoin Neptune and Saturn, reactivating the Saturn-Neptune conjunction from a couple weeks back. Venus’ conjunction with Neptune will go exact on Saturday morning and her conjunction with Saturn will go exact the following morning, on Sunday.
Venus in Aries might have us leaping boldly into the relational, while also finding us less conflict averse.
Saturn and Neptune’s recent conjunction in Aries was all about moving into the new, understanding that if we are to forge novel realities, we have to enter into a space of heat. Sometimes breaking into something new is going to take a degree of pain, risk, embarrassment, conflict, and unknowingness. Venus could find these kinds of themes coming up again, but particularly in relation to the Venusian, that is, the relational, the aesthetic, and things pertaining to women, femmes, and gender-nonconforming folks.
The Moon will enter Scorpio Friday at 11:01 pm EST, ending a long void Moon period. For me, when the Moon is in Scorpio, the sign of her fall, I often feel a lot of physical discomfort or a sense that everything is off or simply falling apart whether personally, bodily, or collectively. It can be quite glum. This could be mitigated over the weekend with Luna moving into a grand water trine with the Sun and Jupiter, which will be tightest on Sunday morning.
Saturday
On Saturday (March 7), Mercury will have its inferior cazimi, conjoining the Sun exactly at 6:01 am EST.
When we use the terms ‘inferior’ and ‘superior’ in astrology, we are referring to proximity to Earth. When something is ‘inferior,’ it is closer to Earth. When something is ‘superior,’ it is farther from Earth. This is why, in traditional astrology, Mercury and Venus are said to be the inferior planets and Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are said to be the superiors.
Mercury’s inferior cazimi happens when it is close to Earth and retrograde, whereas its superior cazimi happens when it’s on the other side of the Sun and direct.
Think of the inferior cazimi as more intimate and personal than the superior cazimi, which is more detached. Whatever insights gained while Mercury is in the heart of the Sun might hit closer to home. This will happen in the second decan of Pisces and in a close trine with Jupiter, so the cazimi downloads we get could feel expansive and spiritually profound, as if we are seeing the universe in a grain of sand, but also deeply moving, as this is watery territory.
It is during this cazimi that Venus’ conjunction with Neptune will go exact at 6:27 am. Venus-Neptune can feel like being delulu in love or like boundaries between people being dissolved, but this dynamic is complicated with Saturn being close by. Perhaps this weekend may find us having to navigate dynamics of initiating connection, but also fuzziness around desire and boundaries and around what’s real or what’s illusory when it comes to people’s feelings for one another. Be careful around intoxicants this weekend.
We also note that Saturday morning, the Scorpio Moon will both trine Mars and be square Pluto, so this cazimi period could find us dredging something deep or in a situation where something underground erupts to the surface.
Sunday
On Sunday (March 8), most of the US will switch to Daylight Saving Time, which means that I will switch from typing ‘EST’ to ‘EDT.’
Consider this a public service announcement brought to you by my Virgo stellium, but it is incorrect during Daylight Saving Time to say something like, “Let’s plan our reading for 7 pm Eastern Standard Time.”
‘Standard Time’ refers to the period from November to March when the clocks are set an hour earlier than the rest of the year. ‘Standard Time’ thus refers to the period when Daylight Saving Time is not in effect. It is “standard” because that’s the time when the Sun is more likely to be in the middle of the sky at noon.
I say this because, as a Virgo Venus native, I love you and want you to be your best selves.
At 9:39 am EDT Sunday (see what I did there with that ‘D’?), Venus’ conjunction with Saturn in Aries will go exact. That day Mercury will be trining Jupiter, which will go exact overnight Monday (March 9) at 1:23 am. With Venus-Saturn-Neptune, we are perhaps feeling confused and let-down and disillusioned around certain connections with others, or maybe we are radically committed to instantiating our relational dreams. With Mercury-Jupiter, we are likely brimming with thoughts and words about everything and needing to make sense of it all, but in a more intuitive and poetic sense that defies linear explication.
The Moon will be in Scorpio until Monday, March 9 at 11:36 am, at which time it will enter Sagittarius, the first Sagittarius Moon since Saturn has moved into Aries, thus freeing Luna’s time in Sagittarius from that rather dour and harsh aspect, perhaps liberating a sense of Sagittarian expansiveness.
Ok I will leave it at that.
How are you all feeling post-eclipse?
I would love to hear about how eclipse season has been treating you.
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Mars will be in Pisces until Thursday, April 9, where it will move into its fiery domicile of Aries, only hours after Mercury leaves its post-retrograde shadow!
Venus will leave Aries and enter her earthy domicile of Taurus on Monday, March 30.