Dear Readers,
After a snow shower that blanketed my car last night, brilliant sunshine woke me this morning. The days are getting notably longer. Daylight saving time arrives this weekend in the US and the March Equinox is just around the corner. Today, as I got dressed to take my dog for a walk, I casually checked the temperature outside—36 degrees. Brrr… Clearly, it’s not spring yet. The winter that wasn’t seems to have arrived in late February with a flurry of storms that dumped much needed snow in the mountains running from British Columbia to California and heavy rain in the lowlands. But today, at least in the sunshine, we can pretend that Spring has arrived.
The astrology of the last couple weeks has felt similarly stormy. At the moment, we’re in the midst of a couple of back-to-back squares from Venus and Mars in Aquarius to Uranus in Taurus. The Venus-Uranus square was exact late Saturday into Sunday, but we were feeling it toward the end of last week, and it’s still in range today. Meanwhile, the Mars-Uranus square is heating up. Both Venus and Mars are relational planets, and these squares tend to be disruptive. Thank Uranus. Known for its associations with rebellion, innovation, and liberation, it’s a catalytic energy that can’t be contained.
Venus speaks to our capacity to attract what we value—love, beauty, pleasure, relationships etc. The square is about a conflict between these two energies. It tends to bring restlessness and a need to change something “right now”. If the last few days have felt fraught with regards to these topics, look to the tussle between Venus and Uranus. But the square also relates to a creative conflict, and one of Uranus’ primary significations is liberation. Maybe the intent of the disruption is to bring us into greater alignment with our values; a relationship dynamic might break down such that more pleasure, beauty or love can emerge, or the inverse—our peace, contentment and joy might be upended by a shock or surprising event that then leads to a breakthrough aesthetically or relationally.
Mars is just now moving into the square and will be exact on March 8. The energy of this transit is hard to miss. Mars is about action and assertiveness based on desire. He’s associated with conflict, cutting and separating, willfulness and physicality. The square to Uranus might feel like a surprise attack—internally or externally. If there’s tension built up in a relationship (with self or others), like the electricity that builds in the clouds during thunderstorms, it will find a way to release. Uranian energy too is electric and like lightening, it can strike suddenly. Combined with the energy of Mars, this can be an explosive transit. If we’re bottling up our irritation, annoyance, or anger, it would be wise to find a way to express it in a healthy way. Mars-Uranus energy has a way of finding us if we don’t find a way to discharge the energy first. Remember that Uranus wants to liberate us, but it’s not subtle and doesn’t care what apple carts get upended in the process. With Mars in airy, detached, and conceptual Aquarius, and Uranus in earthy, sensual and stable Taurus, perhaps the best way to deal with this energy is to get outside and ground it physically—get dirty while moving aggressively. Shoveling dirt or ripping out stubborn weeds in the sunshine comes to mind. Stay attentive to your body however, as this combination is often accident-prone if it’s connecting directly with important points in your birth chart (Psst… that’s the voice of experience)
In my last bulletin, we dove into the Piscean waters, and as these squares to Uranus resolve, the focus shifts back to Pisces again. We already have four planets there including Mercury, the Sun, Saturn and Neptune. Also on March 8, Mercury meets up with Neptune, and if there were ever a Piscean “moment”, this is it. As a reminder, Pisces is the twelfth sign of the zodiac, where everything returns to oneness, or the ocean of consciousness, and from whence all life is born. There can be a sense of surrender here and we’re more open to wonder, the mystical and magical. We can feel as if in a dreamscape, or a little lost and all over the place emotionally. Time and space are of the human world, and in Pisces, they can be harder to care about and track.
Neptune is the modern ruler of Pisces and a strong match for the energy. It’s connected to compassion, idealism, romance, escapism, spiritualism and the imagination. Neptunian energy can also be confusing and lead us into illusion and delusion. When we add Mercury, things can be a bit of a mess if we need to think in a linear fashion. But if we’re able to let go and flow with the energy, Mercury, our messenger, can guide us through the unconscious realms. This is the ultimate “pay attention to your dreams” transit, but daydreams and fantasies work too. Images and other symbolic information can emerge, offering us an opportunity to understand what is usually hidden. Heightened sensitivity allows us to be more compassionate in our communications and interactions with others, and perhaps with ourselves as well. Sometimes Mercury-Neptune can be overwhelming due to too much openness, so we must be careful with personal boundaries under this influence not to take on other people’s energy.
Early on the morning of March 10, we have a New Moon in Pisces with a nice cooperative sextile to Uranus. This will further emphasize all these Piscean themes. We can tap into our compassion, liberate our hearts, find ourselves suddenly open to psychic phenomena, fall prey to neuroses or addictive patterns, lose ourselves in dreams, drift off in unfocused escapism, become overly sentimental or submissive, or just as readily open our inner ear and listen sensitively to the needs of others and ourselves. Anything is possible here if we can let go of our need to know and trust life and its cycles. Again, Pisces is the last sign, and the Sun will soon move into Aries, signaling the beginning of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and the dawning of new life.
This New Moon also heralds the beginning of eclipse season. The first eclipse isn’t until March 25, but after this New Moon, we enter what one of my teachers refers to as The Dragon Hole, the liminal space of eclipse season where fate seems to play a bigger role in our lives than during the rest of the year.
With eclipse season just around the corner and the wild astrology of April (hint hint) also warming up, we’re all in the throes of big change. 2024 through 2026 promise to be big years astrologically, and if you’d like to know how all of this is likely to land in relation to your life, I’d be delighted to serve as your guide to the star map known as your birth chart. Email me for details: camelliablossoms@gmail.com or
Thanks Camille! Great advice heading into eclipse season. So much to look forward to!