Proper Endings

The final lunation of an astrological year gives us time to reflect on what we have done (and not done) through the year, extracting wisdom that will serve us for the new year in Aries. This time, however, there is urgency to reflect on more than a yearly end, for this will be the last lunar month before Neptune begins a new cycle; it has spent fourteen years in Pisces (its sign) ending the current one. Moreover, our relationships will also be reviewed during the lunation due to Venus changing direction right after the new moon. And there is more! We are closing the final year having Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus in their current signs, since all three will change sign within a two-month span this year. All in all, it seems to be less a lunation to end the year. and more a rehearsal about ending the Age of Pisces.

An Enormous Piscean Energy

Of course, I am not saying that the anticipated Age of Aquarius will begin with the astrological year at the vernal equinox, or with the new moon in Aries; which, incidentally, will arrive with a partial solar eclipse. It is just that many celestial processes are in the final phase of the zodiac; and in its final degrees! I am writing this on February 19, a day after Sun entered Pisces and gave strength to the piscean energies of Mercury, Saturn, the North Node and Neptune, which were already there. Those of you with a prominent Neptune or important planets in Pisces may have felt Sun’s entrance activating your chart. Last night, a friend with Moon in Pisces told me that she felt strange throughout the day (“like never before”).

Pisces is the sign of the broadest and most inclusive feelings, the essence of all water signs, so it may be hard to distinguish which of our feelings are personal and which are collective. Even Mars is in Cancer, another water sign, evoking powerful feelings of protection towards the home, nation or “race”; energies we are seeing all around us. On the other hand, two planets in air signs, Pluto in Aquarius and Jupiter in Gemini, may provide objective mental energy as counterpoint to the emotional cacophony around us.

Besides a veritable ocean of feelings, Pisces also represents Cosmic Consciousness, which is felt by mankind as the collective unconscious. The new moon in Pisces, surrounded by such a strong piscean energy, will open many gates. Physically, expect issues related to masses of water, in the form of floods and the like, and of people, mainly as migrations, to be at the forefront. Psychically, the collective unconscious may enter our personal unconscious, mostly but not exclusively through our dreams; you are all encouraged to keep a dream journal, especially these days. Most of all, Pisces is about the metamorphosis needed for a rebirth in Aries, it is about “losing ourselves to find ourselves”, as José Millán often says before reminding us that faith is what ultimately impulses us to move through such a transformation. He also says, poetically, that faith is the “soul’s intelligence”. I see faith as trust in the existence of meaning behind life’s constant chaos.

New Moon in Pisces

The lunation will begin with the new moon at Pisces 9°41′, where you find Sun and Moon in the chart below. It will occur on February 27 at 5:45 p.m. in California, 6:45 p.m. in Mexico City, or on February 28 at 1:45 a.m. in Central Europe.

As you can see, there will be a “traffic jam” in the final degrees of Pisces, shown in an Aries chart at the leftmost position. Although Sun and Moon will have nearly eleven degrees of separation with Saturn (Pisces 20°34′), too large to be considered a conjunction, nonetheless Sun in Pisces gives a general undertone which is greatly amplified by also having the North Node, our collective life experiences, in Pisces, at 27°25′. As mentioned, Mercury (Pisces 24°40′) and Neptune (Pisces 28°51′) will complete the six astrological objects in Pisces when the new moon rolls around.

A Neptunian Mind

Conjunct with Neptune, Mercury, in his role as messenger of the gods, will bring Neptune’s message to our psyche. In its highest form, it relates to universal love and compassion though nowadays has found expression through obfuscation and faux spirituality. Their conjunction with the North Node ensures that such message will be offered to us by what we call “life experiences”. This would be true of such a triple conjunction regardless of the sign in which it occurs, but in Pisces makes Neptune the dispositor¹ of the messenger and the media, so to speak. It is reasonable to assume that life will give us opportunities to revisit issues from our personal and collective past (even karmic), and to reflect on our reactions to such issues.

Mercury will transit through Pisces in little over two weeks. Disguised as Cupid, it entered on February 14 to elevate the love felt on that day. On the 23rd, it will form a trine with a halted Mars (not even at 1% of its normal speed) from the Pisces 18 degree, which carries the key phrase of Public Self-Dramatization so one can expect a strong, emotional neptunian message around that date. Just prior to the new moon, on the 25th, it will form a conjunction with Saturn; I will say more about Saturn in Pisces later in the article. Moreover, right after the new moon, it will form conjunctions in consecutive days with Neptune and the North Node before leaving Pisces on March 3. The point is that, in a short two-week span, Mercury is determined to make the “Neptune in Pisces” message heard. Bottom line, do not be surprised to hear, perhaps violently, the voices of the up-to-now silent and forgotten masses.

For us personally, as I mentioned earlier, we should keep a dream journal since Neptune’s message is full of archetypal information that could easily touch our mind during sleep. The conjunction with Saturn could shed light on how to give form and structure to wishes and aspirations. The conjunctions after the new moon may provoke surreal but perhaps prophetic dreams during the initial days of March. That said, don’t forget that all these energies will be present throughout the entire lunation by being in the new-moon “seed”.

Stirring the Pot?

At the time of the new moon, Mars will be at Cancer 17°07′, moving very slowly in the forward direction through that degree until March 8, thus in a long conjunction with the degree’s symbolism. The Sabian symbol for Cancer 18 has the image: “A hen scratching for her chicks”, an image of nurturance, which reminds us that life supports life or, at a higher level, that teachers scratch the substance of their community to help those needing social or spiritual nourishment. At its highest level, it is about stewardship of Wisdom destined for those in need. At its lowest, it represents the tendency to fret and worry, or a desire to stir up confusion, over trivial issues. There is energy urging “us” to defend whatever has been the source of our nurturance, recently shown as parochialism and false racial superiority in world events.

Revisiting Relationships

Meanwhile, Mars’s complement, Venus (Aries 10°45′), entered Aries on February 4, just an hour before Jupiter began to move in the forward direction after being retrograde since last October. Venus in Aries is a Venus with Martian undertones, a desirous Venus that brings passion to our relationships and is not that interested in courtship, so to speak. But Venus will begin its retrograde motion right after the new moon; the letter ‘S’ next to Venus means “stationary” or less than 10% of its average speed. In fact, Venus will return to Pisces on March 27 and won’t reenter Aries until April 30. But, whenever Venus begins to move retrograde we reexamine our values system and our relationships based on them.

Venus goes retrograde once in its 19-month orbit around the zodiac (584 days). Last time, I wrote about Heather Ensworth discussing the myth of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality and fertility associated with the planet Venus. Inanna was also the goddess of war so she might have been a reference to Venus in Aries… That is a bad joke, but the myth relates her journey to the underworld where she remains dead for three days. The myth symbolizes the deep transformation our relationships must undergo, for our values system is in constant change. Regardless, all of a sudden the Aries passion and bravado felt in February must be placed on hold while we reflect on what is coherent (or not) between whom we’ve become and the relationships we keep.

In the new-moon chart, Mars and Venus are forming a wide square that will remain in orb for several days since both planets are moving quite slowly in the forward direction, although Mars is accelerating (and well out-of-bounds at 25°53′ in declination)² while Venus is slowing down. A square between two stationary planets has a particularly stubborn nature so we should try to avoid being hasty and judgemental when revisiting our relationships.

Spirituality at the Forefront

The highest archetype of Pisces is the Godhead, traditionally defined as the essence of the Divine Being. In our philosophy, we don’t ascribe to a God “personified” as a Divine Being, but what we call the Godhead is the state of maximum Unity in the Cycle of Being, which implies the highest and most integrated level of its essence: Cosmic Consciousness. The North Node spent 18 months in Aries offering us many opportunities to work on what we called our personal sovereignty, paying special attention to our relatedness, due to the South Node in Libra. Of course, the nodal axis changed signs in January and what we call “life experiences” will now be coming to mankind with the energy of Pisces, all the way up to Cosmic Consciousness.

We will have time to expand the meaning of the North Node in Pisces, and the corresponding South Node in Virgo, during the next 18 months. However, as soon the North Node entered Pisces, it was met by Neptune with which it formed a conjunction. Neptune and Pisces share multiple symbolisms³ including spirituality and mysticism but also obfuscation and fashion. This is why the astrologer Sibila Delphos called Neptune’s conjunction with the North Node a combination of “fog and destiny”. But Neptune has been in Pisces since 2011 and has given us, for example, blends of fashion and spirituality in various movements that in reality promote spiritual individualism. Or, spiritualism obtained under the influence of drugs (natural or synthetic), another piscean and neptunian realm, or through various forms of individualistic ecstasies. Such a state of confusion will prevail as long as Neptune in Pisces is conjunct to the North Node. Nonetheless, expect the emergence of what the real or figurative seas had hidden. Of course, one of those seas is the collective unconscious.

Polar Opposites Meet

The brilliant physiologist and biologist Denis Noble talks about water as the basic component of life due to being the universal solvent; no other liquid can better dissolve, and therefore carry, valuable chemicals, minerals and nutrients. But, water cannot dissolve lipids and evolution uses these two facts to build cells and intracellular organelles. Denis Noble jokes that we are made of water-solution bubbles but this is a vivid example of two processes at work: Saturn building the lipid walls that delimit the various water solutions where Neptune has dissolved needed compounds. This mental image is particularly good to visualize the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune in Pisces. That is, when their two processes collaborate, for Saturn is the great differentiator, erecting walls that delimit forms and build structures. If Neptune and Pisces symbolize maximum Unity, the archetypes of Saturn and Capricorn refer us to maximum Multiplicity.

Saturn and Neptune will be about 9° apart, which I normally take as too far for a conjunction. However, we know Neptune has been waiting for Saturn, and they will eventually be within orb of a conjunction multiple times in Aries and Pisces this year. Furthermore, both planets have been imbued of piscean qualities for years so they are already acting together. Saturn is the process of building structures and Neptune the process of dissolving them, and they are in the sign that prefers no structures at all. Neptune dissolves and transfigures like an acid applied with the force of a tsunami. Saturn may try to build structures to control such a tsunami but, if they don’t collaborate, guess who will claim victory at the end? We will have plenty of time to study their conjunction, I just want to point out that structures in the oceans, such as oil rigs, windmill sea farms, and cargo ships, are needed for global commerce, as we learned from the supply-chain disruptions experienced during the pandemic years.

Aries at Last! Another World War?

Neptune will remain in Pisces throughout this Piscean lunation, which will include a powerful total lunar eclipse on March 14, and even in the seed of the next lunation, the new moon in Aries and partial solar eclipse on March 29. Neptune will enter Aries on March 30, the following day. Unfortunately, the entrance of Neptune in Aries has always meant war. Neptune’s current cycle began on April 13, 1861, literally the day after the US Civil War broke out.

Of course, we saw the numerous astrological parallels between WWII and now when we discussed the trends for 2025. One of them involved the sequence of events leading to the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 which started the war. Three days prior, on August 29, there was a full moon in Pisces, just two days after Mars began to move “direct”, having spent eleven weeks retrograde. Mars was in Capricorn, on its way to a third and final opposition with Pluto in Leo on September 30. As I have said, Mars will begin to move forward on February 24 and we will have a new moon in Pisces, the opposite of a full moon, on the 28th. Mars is in Cancer, opposite Capricorn, on its way to a third and final opposition with Pluto in Aquarius, opposite Leo, on April 26. Up to now, and indeed in the trends article, I have shown several differences backing my belief that there will be no war this time.

No conventional war, fought perhaps with nuclear arms, but I now think that there may be a Third World War, except that it will be mostly an economic war. I say mostly because there is certainty of more violence but not nuclear annihilation. That said, the European Union will rule on a case against big American tech companies by March 25 that will likely result in billions of euros worth of fines. Trump has said he will back the companies against the EU. so stay tuned because an economic World War might be what is needed to destroy the oligarchies that exist all over the world, starting with the US plutocracy. And, as if another trigger was needed, in the new-moon chart, Mars and Pluto form a near exact quindecile aspect, 0°14′ of being exact, a disruptive aspect of obsession and compulsion that demands to be heard.⁴

Conjunction of Sun and Moon

By now we have an idea of the enormous piscean energy released from the 9° stellium of Saturn, Mercury, the North Node and Neptune in the final degrees of the zodiac. Meanwhile, from Pisces 9°41, Sun and Moon will form a square with Jupiter (Gemini 12°12′) already moving forward and expanding our visions, especially in the area of communications. Jupiter will stay in Gemini until June 10, so the next four months will be ideal for projects involving writing or speaking. During the upcoming lunar month, it is fair to assume that the communications will tend to be very emotional.

In general, it will be a lunation of subtle energies for those of us in the direction of positive evolution, yet presenting plenty of noise to feed the fear of those who are trying to remain anchored or, worse yet, go back to “the good old days”.

Sabian Symbol

The original card with the Sabian symbol for Pisces 10 has the image: “An aviator in the clouds” that Rudhyar modified to “An aviator pursues his journey, flying through ground-obscuring clouds”, further expanded as Man’s ability to develop powers and skills which, by transcending natural limitations, allow him to operate in mental-spiritual realms. Its keyword is: Mastery. Rather than mastery, however, I see the symbol as a reference to faith in the sense defined above, as trust in the existence of meaning. The aviator in the clouds has no choice but to have faith in the correct functioning of his instruments, trusting they represent the actual flying conditions.

Like the aviator, we are surrounded by clouds of chaos that impede our view of the reassuring ground. We will have to rely on mastery to navigate through the clouds having faith that there is purpose behind all the chaos. We are indeed in a world of destiny and fog, as Sibila Delphos said.

Wrapping Up…

This is another lunation with a clear message of the duality we are living but don’t extrapolate too much from what we see and hear in the evening news. Yes, so far those profiting from the old paradigms have the power and we, the creative minority in the words of Arnold Toynbee, appear to soon be soundly defeated. However, these are just the initial minutes of a long match. This year alone, we will see every slow planet but Pluto change signs, and Pluto only has a few months in Aquarius. Believe me, there will be more than enough opportunities to achieve victory.

Personally, try to be attuned to the highest vibrations of the Neptune and Pisces energies, perhaps use the visionary energy of Jupiter to write or paint something with a strong emotional content. Venus will make sure our relationships are scrutinized and Mars, from the nurturance degree, will give us energy to defend our closest ones.

As usual, it is best to declare your intention in the present tense before a new moon, ideally after the moon has completely disappeared from the firmament. I try to do it the night before.

Always Love. 🌹🙏💖

1. A planet is said to be the dispositor of another when the latter is found in a sign ruled by the former. Since Neptune rules Pisces, it is the dispositor of every astrological body found in that sign. While in Pisces, the planets develop a “neptunian” flavor to their traditional characteristics, in particular a tendency to dissolve structures and preconceived notions taken for granted. ↩︎
2. Recall that a planet is “out of bounds” when its declination exceeds the 23°26′ of maximum declination of the sun, in reality the angular tilt of Earth’s polar axis. An out-of-bounds planet is said to behave in a rogue manner which, in the case of a Mars that has just began to move forward again, may be dramatic or violent. ↩︎
3. While most of the archetypes are shared, Neptune is a marker in the orbit of a helical process moving in time at a rhythm of 165 years per revolution. This process has the keyword dissolution. Pisces is a phase of the zodiac where such a process is particularly useful to gather wisdom from the ending cycle, discarding most everything else and thus being prepared for the next cycle. The tropical zodiac is a coordinate system in space of a particular time process: the apparent motion of the sun on the ecliptic. Therefore, the signs manifest the phases of a cycle, and a cycle is a whole in time. Of course, zodiacs relying on constellations are coordinate systems of space, but then their “signs” don’t represent phases in the planetary processes. In either case, the corresponding archetypes in space are found in the twelfth house. ↩︎
4. The quindecile is formed by an angle of 165° and should have a very tight orb, I never go over 1.5°. The aspect was popularized by Noel Tyl who wrote the foreword for Ricki Reeves book: The Quindecile, probably the premier book about the aspect. ↩︎