The Sun and Moon will begin a new cycle with each other on March 10 at 1:00 a.m. on the Pacific coast, at 20 degrees Pisces. The Sun has already been in the sign of Pisces for three weeks, since February 18. This means that when the Moon joins the Sun in Pisces on March 10, we’ll be in the last third of the Sun’s time in Pisces for this year. Later in the evening of March 10, the Moon will move from Pisces, the last of the zodiacal signs, into Aries, the first.
Every New Moon is a time of endings and beginnings. The couple of days leading up to a New Moon and the day or two after, before a crescent is seen in the sky—that time’s called the “dark of the Moon.” There’s a ferment of release and then a seeding for what’s to come next.
All the more so when the Moon is new in Pisces each year, because Pisces is so quintessentially about endings and beginnings. Pisces is of the water element and the mutable or changeable mode. Its glyph is two crescents facing away from each other and bound by a horizonal line. Its totem animal is two fishes swimming in opposite directions.
Pisces’ association with two fish comes from the Greek myth of Aphrodite and her son Eros when they were being chased by a monster god called Typhon. In one version of the myth, Aphrodite and Eros are rescued when they jump on the backs of two fish; in another, they shape-shift and become fish themselves. Aphrodite and Eros, these beings of Love, are then eternally bound together by a symbolic cord, as in the horizontal line that binds the two crescents of the Pisces glyph.
This sense of miraculous escapism and being one thing and then another is essential to a Piscean way of being. In astrology, Pisces has two planetary “rulers.” Traditionally, Jupiter, known as the Great Benefic, is Pisces’ ruler. It’s an openness to far-reaching adventures. Modern astrology has also connected Pisces to the outer planet Neptune, associated with visionary dreams, whether they are attainable or not. With Pisces, I’m reminded of the famous 1960s revolutionary slogan: “Be realistic, demand the impossible.” It comes from an insatiable quest for justice—which is impartial love made manifest—even against all odds. Pisces evokes an unfathomable desire to love everyone and everything.
With Pisces, there is also a sense of lastness. It’s the twelfth and last sign of the zodiac. Each wave of the sea must recede for another to rise and reach the shore.
The Pisces New Moon, this year, arrives before yet close to the Vernal Equinox of March 19. The Sun that day will enter Aries, the first of the signs, on what is considered the beginning of the astrological year, a time celebrated as the pagan holiday of rebirth, Ostara, and also as the beginning of a new year in many cultures. “Equi-nox” is the time of equal hours of day and night. Balance is the key note.
At the March 10 lunation, the Sun and Moon will have just made an encouraging sextile with outer planet Uranus, the force of unexpected breakthroughs. You might want to hitch your sails to something that feels truly liberating. Mercury, the Winged Messenger, will have just crossed from Pisces into forward-marching Aries, heralding directness in thought and speech. On March 11, Venus, which has been traveling lately with companion Mars, will enter Pisces. We know from ancient Hellenistic astrology that Pisces is one of the signs where Venusian energy is most at ease.
This cluster of planets in Pisces and Aries, again, speaks to the theme of this lunation: endings and beginnings. We’re now at the beginning of an eclipse cycle as the Full Moon of March 25 will be a partial eclipse, followed by a total solar eclipse in Aries on April 8. Jupiter is making its way toward the start of a new 14-year cycle with Uranus, beginning with their April 20 conjunction. The Jupiter/Uranus conjunction is one of the most prominent transits of 2024. Jupiter (big opportunities) together with Uranus (surprises) in stable, earthy Taurus speaks to themes of finding one’s inner resources, safety and security, and having enough.
As I’ve been contemplating this post, I’ve also been re-reading a book that’s now a 40-year classic in the field of feminist theaology. (I am spelling that last word correctly, to mean feminine ideas of the sacred.) In 1980, Carol Christ published Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest. Christ wrote that the spiritual quest of women, in particular, begins with an experience in nothingness, like the emptiness out of which Creation continually emerges. The title of Christ’s book itself makes me think of the New Moon in Pisces because to me it makes no sense to dive deep without also having an intention to surface.
At this March 10 New Moon, my wish for myself and for you is to find the necessary depth to welcome endings, for their own sake and also to make way for what is to come.
Blessings for the Pisces New Moon and, with and for the world, prayers for peace.
~ Sara
Sara R. Diamond, an astrologer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a life-long student and practitioner in several esoteric paths. Her style of astrology combines modern-psychological astrology with insights from traditional astrology. Sara is also an estate planning attorney. In addition, she has published four books on right-wing movements in the United States and earned her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. You are invited to contact Sara via her website at www.SaraDiamondAstrology.com.
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