Dear Readers,
The Moon in Virgo lit up the night sky last evening as it approached fullness around 4:30am today. Early yesterday morning, I woke up confused by a house full of moonlight - the unfamiliar clear sky granting the moon full access to my bedroom, dining room and kitchen. Across the sky, the Pisces Sun was still well below the horizon so after ascertaining that it wasn’t morning, I rolled over and went back to sleep. We have quite a gathering in Pisces now. Mercury has joined the Sun, Saturn, and Neptune there, and fittingly, my thoughts are a little garbled, my belly is a little grumpy and I’m in a melancholic mood.
Virgo is a practical earth sign, and for the moment anyway, all the Aquarius business we’ve been discussing lately can slide into the background. With Pluto still newly there, still the gatekeeper at 1° Aquarius any planet entering Aquarius or any of the fixed signs is faced with the prospect of deep inner work and the weight of the understanding that “this sets up a pattern for the next 20 years”. It’s been intense, but this week the spotlight is on the Virgo-Pisces axis.
Virgo is interested in what’s in front of us now—not what’s going to happen over the next 20 years. It’s ruled by Mercury (I’ll come back to this), so it’s analytical and detail oriented. It cares about specifics and little things. People with strong Virgo energy like to improve things. Virgo season is late summer/early autumn in the Northern Hemisphere—the beginning of the harvest. Virgo is all about sorting out what’s useful from what needs to go, like separating the wheat from the chaff. It rules the digestion, sorting what’s useful to the body from what isn’t.
Pisces on the other hand is the realm of the mysteries. It’s the twelfth sign of the zodiac, the mystical realm of oneness where everything returns to nothing to be reborn as singular in Aries. Pisces is spiritual, imaginative, and sensitive. It’s a water sign, associated with the ocean of consciousness and the collective unconscious, a “place” that lacks definition. When we tap into the imaginal realm we don’t know where our ideas come from. Similarly, Pisces struggles with boundaries. People with strong Pisces sometimes deal with overwhelm because they’re so open, and this can lead to escapism or the sense of needing to be rescued.
Now back to Mercury, ruler of the Full Moon. In Pisces, he’s imaginative and nonlinear, tending toward lyrical forms of communication that allow the expression of intuitive connections and original creative ideas. This is a soulful, emotional, compassionate Mercury, but out of his element because Mercury typically works to create clarity like in Virgo and Gemini, the signs he rules. In Pisces, Mercury is in detriment. This matters in our Full Moon chart because Mercury is also combust—meaning that he’s so close to the Sun that he’s invisible in the sky and immersed in the transformational process of “dying” as the Sun burns off all that needs to be left behind in order to be reborn. His attention is on this process, not on creating clarity. This translates to a Mercury who was badly debilitated opposite the Full Moon, setting up a rational vs. emotional or cerebral vs. sensual polarization that could have us see-sawing between the practical and mystical or imaginative all weekend. This could also feel like confusing or unreliable thinking, speaking, or writing (see paragraph #1). It could feel like we’re missing something important, or blocked from understanding some kind of illuminating knowledge that we know matters but we can’t quite bring into focus.
One my favorite astrological descriptions of the Moon is “translator of light”. Mercury is the messenger God, but he’s passing the Moon a pretty tough message to translate.
This Virgo Full Moon, however, is only the beginning of the story. As I mentioned, Mercury is getting very close to the Sun and will be cazimi on February 28. Combustion is when the planet is so close to the Sun that it’s invisible in the sky. It’s “under the beams”. This is a time when the planet is “dying”. When it’s cazimi, it’s in the heart of the Sun, protected from the beams. I often imagine it as a moment of initiation or benediction, a blessing and anointing by the king and an indication of renewal and rebirth—in the case of Mercury, a renewal of the mind.
The cazimi happens at 9° Pisces on Thursday morning (February 28 PST), and will also include Saturn, with both planets going through the death and rebirth process together. While we typically have several Mercury cazimis during the year, we only have one with Saturn. To have both together is a rare occurrence and an unusual combination of energies likely to create a strong ripple out into our lives—moreso if we have planets in aspect to it. Cazimis are very empowering, so we’re likely to experience strong Saturnian or Mercurial themes or a combination of the two for most of the week ahead.
We must keep in mind that all of this is happening in Pisces, wherever that falls in our charts. Saturn’s energy is much heavier than Mercury’s, and serious. He’s the lord of time and concerned with authority, maturity, and responsibility. Saturn was the limit of the known universe for the ancients and represents limitations and boundaries in astrology. As Saturn goes through his death process this week before the cazimi, we might become aware of things with deep roots in our history that are at the end of their usefulness. So here we are in dreamy Pisces-land seeing into the heart of the matter of something serious like a big life dream. It might be that we’re dealing with a reality check. Pisces can speak to endings and Saturn is often represented as the grim reaper. It would be valuable to take some time to formulate an understanding of whatever we’re dealing with. While it might not be fun, Saturn helps us understand what’s real, what’s necessary, how long it might take, and how much it might cost. Saturn encourages us to draw upon wisdom gleaned from experience. We can research and plan intentionally and thoughtfully and make sure we’re weighing our plans or ideas with an eye to the long term and personal responsibility.
With all this measuring and sorting, this week might feel strongly Virgoan as we evaluate whether the dreams we’ve built our lives upon have staying power or need to be released to return to the realm from whence all dreams come. The idea is to find ourselves on the other side of this rare double cazimi, with our mental processes refreshed and renewed and new energy, patience, and discipline to tackle whatever plans or ideas take the place of dreams we’ve allowed to die. With Mercury and Saturn in Pisces, we’ll have plenty of imaginative power to reel in new ones.
Last year, I had the great pleasure of meeting some of you face to face. If you’d like to begin 2024 with a better understanding of yourself or what the month, year or years ahead might hold, I’d be delighted to serve as your guide. 2024-2026 promise to be big years.
As always, thank you for reading.
Cami