Feb. 23, 7:31 am PST

Feb. 23, 2:31 pm UTC

Dream Your Vision

Each New Moon is a time to create our intention for this lunar month. If we were a culture that based itself on the Moon’s passage through the heavens, a New Moon would signal us collectively to attune our lives around each month’s lunar meaning and influence. This month’s cycle begins in the sign of Pisces, which the Sun has also just entered. The Pisces field of energy has to do with connecting with the deepest part of ourselves, the Soul, or our most eternal nature. Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac, a receptive water sign, an energy signature signified by two fishes, swimming in the deep sea, but in opposite directions. Though in physical reality, this may manifest as  confusion or self-contradiction, on the larger metaphorical scale, this imagery has to so with the understanding that the opposites of all polarities, when actually joined together and integrated, create a greater sense of truth. We all contain shadow and light, a multitude of seeming contradictions, but in actuality a richness that goes beyond binary thought.

Pisces is ruled by Neptune, (also in Pisces now) which represents the essence of the deep imaginative realm from which all consciousness springs. Neptune is very “far out” both physically and metaphorically. Too much Neptune and we are spacey, dreamy, or “out of it” and not in touch with physical reality. But Neptune is also the stuff of our dreams and visions, the richness of our psyche, the well we can drink from to restore meaning and direction in our lives. Mercury, which represents our thinking mind, is also now in Pisces, and is presently retrograde, adding to the very dreamlike and internalized feeling tones of this month’s lunar influence. This is a time to really deeply do your internal homework, to reflect and meditate, to inventory your present life patterns and see what needs shifting. It’s also a time to cherish and cultivate quiet, to disconnect from technology and return to somatic awareness, focusing as much as possible on the present moment, so that internal wisdom can be received from these more subtle realms, as well as from what our bodily awareness is telling us.

However, (there’s always a however!) there’s a Capricorn convention happening in the skies.  We are still under the influence of the Saturn/Pluto conjunction in that sign from last month, and Jupiter is also now joining them in Capricorn. Jupiter rules our expansive energy, and in Capricorn, it is helping to pare down and expose whatever has become excessive, whatever is no longer useful or outdated. Capricorn is ultimately a sign of practicality, the focus being upon what is meaningful and expedient. Jupiter this year will be hovering around Saturn and Pluto, creating a rare fusion of these three major planets in a pivotal year of our history. This is powerful revolutionary material for humanity; we are in the middle of a major paradigm shift, the old fighting for domination, oppressing and denigrating the new.

Mars has also just entered Capricorn, and at this New Moon forms a positive trine aspect to Uranus, the planet of revolution and change. This is a time to be receptive to insight, perhaps from dreams, or from meaningful occurrences that suggest to us new paths to follow, new patterns and habits to adopt. Mars is the activator planet, bringing action to wherever it touches. As it courses through the degrees of Capricorn faster than the previously mentioned planets, it will form a conjunction with Jupiter and Pluto the third week of March. Look for this to be a time of (even more) activation and movement on the political world stage.

Venus is now in later Aries, moving toward a yearly conjunction with Eris, the significator of strife and trouble on February 27^th, which also will conjoin the Moon in Aries. And all three will be square (forming a challenging right angle) to Saturn/Pluto/Jupiter. Since Mercury will be still retrograde, watch out for major missteps and miscommunications around that day (as well as other people’s driving). The feminine energy (which we all have within our psyches) is in major feisty trickster mode around then. If unacknowledged, its importance will be manifested unconsciously in our outer world.  If acknowledged, and made conscious, something good could come of it, perhaps a boundary issue cleared up, a pushing forward where we’ve been hesitant, or a refusal to put up with a situation which has become intolerable.

“THESE are the times that try men's souls,” said Thomas Paine in 1776, the very last time Pluto was around this degree of Capricorn (since it takes about 248 years to go around the Sun). And so we are back again at this revolutionary crossroads of history. Only its not just the US and Britain involved; it’s the entire planet at stake. Use this month to align yourself to your highest aspirations, to get in touch with how you can best navigate the great changes taking place now on our planet, to connecting with friends, and most importantly to doing self-care: carving out time and space to go within, finding our inner wisdom, apart from the clamor and demands of the world around us.  Meditate, journal, connect with your higher, deeper self, watch your cynicism, for the planets are asking us to show up, and be a force for change. In order to manifest a healing world, we must imagine that it IS somehow possible, that it CAN happen.