In the early hours of Sunday, August 26, we have a Full Moon in Pisces. This means that the Moon will be in Pisces while the Sun holds ground in Virgo.
For this lunation, what I’m wondering is this: how does the unseen, the mysterious, weave its way into our material world? Pisces helps us to understand that everything is energy and imagination, and that it’s all connected. Virgo then takes this knowledge of oneness and helps us to focus on the concrete and practical intricacies of whatever it is each individual can do to contribute to that oneness.
The Pisces flow of divine love and trust can be a magical and soothing place to be. It is in fact associated with bliss and ecstasy. In its more shadowy currents, however, Pisces is deep despair, grief and intense feelings of loss, loneliness and longing. It is where belief goes to die -- so that it can be reborn, but the loss of belief often opens a chasm of existential dread and crisis within us, and it can be difficult to sense how near is the fire of rebirth.
What does rebirth require? A little bit of inspiration, imagination and fantasy. Pisces excels at all of these things.
Here’s a digression for you…
Time increasingly feels like some weird wormhole. I was recently reflecting on the current Mars retrograde, because it ends on Monday the 27th. It began at the end of June, which feels anciently far away and yet...was only two months ago.
I’ve been through quite a bit personally in those two months, characterized mainly by a sense of being detached, dissociated and outside of my body. This isn’t totally shocking, as Mars in Aquarius can in fact be quite detached. In the past week, however, everything has started moving. The feelings and emotions are on the move again.
When I zoom out of my personal stuff, I’m also taken aback to revisit what has happened on the world stage in those two months. Children separated from parents. Scandals. Constant shock and awe that seems entirely concocted to continuously shake us out of our bodies and out of our ability to do anything about it (this is Mars retrograde alongside the South Node, squaring Uranus).
But it’s not just stories from the political power landscape. There are earth stories in there, too. I think about Talequah and her calf; photos of red tide in Florida, particularly those of my favorite beach in the world which is currently a no-human’s-or-sealife’s land; images I’ve seen of increasing amounts of dead whales washing ashore in Alaska and points North…
And I remember that for the past two weeks, my home has been deluged by smoke from wildfires, making the air unbreathable even for healthy folks. We’ve had to stay inside. Buy masks to wear. It was somewhat like this this time last year as well, but this year has been worse. It is depressing at best. Totally exhausting, life threatening and terrifying at worst.
Living in the world we do, many of us have become psychically and emotionally numb in order to cope with our collective situation. But when environmental disaster is outside your front door, we can’t get away from apocalyptic imagery. It surrounds us and impacts our lives directly every single day. Those of us (and it is most of us, really) who constantly suppress our emotional responses to what’s happening to our world feel those emotions surging to the surface. We wonder, consciously or not, whether this is “the new normal.” Whether investment in masks that allow filters to be replaced is wise. Whether just breathing the air will cause permanent damage.
We mourn the loss of summertime -- which in the Pacific Northwest is everything. We lose connection as we cancel plans with friends because we have to stay indoors. And again, it rises: is this what it’s going to be like now? We can’t ignore it.
At the beginning of Mars retrograde, when it finally hit my emotional body that my country is justifying child abuse under cover of morality, and in complete denial of how insidious our cultural racism is, I found myself in bed, incapacitated for a day. I was texting with a friend who was in a similar state. They said:
I keep thinking we’ve hit rock bottom, but then we find a new low. I think we’re going to have to get used to this.
In the past week, another rock bottom has been discovered.
I’ve always been able to hang onto hope, but in the time since the 2016 election, that hope has felt dim. The threads I’ve been able to follow to possible futures seem to have increased, and yet at the end of all of them have reflected...nothing good. I see folks continuing to fight and work for a better world giving up left and right. I see folks continuing to fight and work for a better world continuing on, and dealing with increasing doubts, fatigue and listlessness.
And yet...it’s so strange. Because this week, I saw it again. The thread that’s been absent for the past two years, that left me during the eclipses of August and September in 2016 -- Pisces/Virgo eclipses. That thread that leads to a world cleansed of all this destruction and death -- beautiful and bright. I could fully sense it: clean air, calm earth, fresh water. Serenity. Peace. Groups of beings remembering what they came through, connecting in deep gratitude and light heartedness to be through the dark and out into the light again.
I can feel it again.
What a relief.
It’s not hope, though: that’s the Sagittarian way. It’s not an emotionless, detached vision: that’s the Aquarian way. It’s Piscean. I can feel the world of the vision. I have no doubts about the difficulties it will take to get there, but I’m connecting back in to the mystery, and to timelessness. The parts of me that know that the future exists now.
I recognize that some of the best medicine right now is Piscean surrender -- acceptance of where we are and what we are. Surrender to more grief for the world that is dying when that’s what is called for. Surrender of old wounds and patterns that are re-emerging for me personally and the world at large and do the best I can not to re-attach, but to instead hold space for the emotions and let them rise and then fall back again. Released. Purified.
Pisces is known for fantasy, ideals and delusion. We can hold onto fantasies in ways that are problematic and allow us to escape from reality. Fantasy and imagination are different functions, although they can feed each other.
For this Full Moon, I’d say fantasize. Because it seems like there is some strong visionary energy around, and fantasies are a fantastic way to ground positive, drenched-in-light-and-love feeeeelings here on the planet. Let those fantasies feed your vision -- not just of what you want for your own personal life, but for what your ideal world would look and feel like in its complete complexity.
Here’s the thing, though, friends. These can’t be fantasies that take out the reality of the world we live in. We are going through ecosystem collapse. That will change the way the future looks for ourselves and our children. We do have to find ways for dealing with the emotions that arise there, and we have to help each other through it. We cannot ignore the absolutely difficult predicament we’ve placed ourselves in and head straight to fantasy -- that’s the Piscean shadow of escapism.
But we can imagine what we want the world to look like so that we can work towards it. We can start small, by imagining ourselves and our loved ones in a simple setting. Clean air. Calm earth. Fresh water. Cool breeze. Abundant, fresh food. Love. Strength. Health. Joy.
And then build from there. Spend some time in the fantasy now and then, nurture it. Allow vision to become reality. And then use the Virgo side to figure out how you can work in service of that dream.
For the next two weeks, allow yourself to release what might be arising from old hurts and wounds, and allow yourself to surrender to flow as much as you can.
Then, for the next New Moon - which takes place in Virgo on September 9, plant the seed, set the intention to plot your way to the future you imagine. The one you fantasize about. Hold the thread loosely but with intent. I’ll see you at the other end.
Moon/Sun at 3 degrees 12 minutes Pisces/Virgo
August 26, 2018 @ 4:56am PDT
Sun in Virgo trine Uranus in Taurus and Saturn in Capricorn
Jupiter in Scorpio trine Neptune in Pisces
Asteroid Lilith at 2 degrees Virgo
Mars stations direct on August 27
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Amanda is an astrologer, soul worker and cathartic past life regression therapist. She can be found in the virtual realms at www.aquarianspirals.com, and does astrology and tarot consults at East West on Thursdays from 12-6.
Those who support Amanda through Patreon at the $10+ levels will receive a guided visualization as well as tips for this Full Moon. You can join and receive this immediately here.
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