Pisces New Moon: InSight
Pick up a thing and hold it close
until you learn its secret name
and say 'thank you'. Do this over
and over with each thing you touch,
until the day you discover
its only one thing,
with a thousand different faces,
teaching you to love.
Kai Skye
The New Moon on February 20, 2023 at 1 Pisces
invites us to detach
from worldly commitments and concerns
to tend the garden within, opening ourselves
to the magical and mysterious
beauty that permeates life -
that so easily can slide out
of our awareness
when we are caught up in daily life.
Saturn conjunct the New Moon
Ruler Neptune in final degrees of Pisces
Classic Ruler: Jupiter is conjunct Chiron and sextile Mercury and Mars
Pluto at the final degree of Capricorn
Our feeling nature is accentuated and we become more sensitive and vulnerable. We are encouraged to be soft with ourselves. In time spent away from the business of life, realizations offer fresh perspective on what is growing, changing, and moving within us. Insight is found through the lens of compassion for ourselves and acceptance of what is.
We are encouraged to empty out and be quiet within ourselves so we can hear the beating of our heart. In this space, we are integrating experiences and learnings of recent months and re-establishing our connection to what matters most in the eternal scheme of things.
We may feel grief for what has been lost. We let go of what we cannot control. We come present and find the still point between what has been and what will be. We feel what is rising within us, like the sap ready to rise with spring. Something dormant in ux is stirring as our focus is given to nurtuing and growing seeds of love, compassion, kindness and creativity.
We feel the pull to enter a realm outside of time where all things emerge and return - a realm beyond judgment, beyond right and wrong, beyond success and failure, where we can attune to the symphony of life and how the song of our life is threaded into the vast tapestry of creation that is eternally unfolding, everchanging. We feel the gift and miracle of life and the magnificence of how we are interconnected with all creation. Time spent in this realm brings insights that we need to be quiet to receive.
We are mosaics - -
Pieces of light,
Love.
History,
Stars- -
glued together
with magic
and music
and words.
Anita Krizzan
To care for our soul, we can activate our imagination by watching the movements of the clouds and identifying what shapes we see in their formations. We can woo and nurture our creativity by singing in the shower or dancing under the stars. We can honor our sensitivity by taking walks in nature and pausing to contemplate a bird perched on a branch, the bud on a flower readying to open, or an that is perched on a blade of grass. We are to attune to our feelings and invite our vulnerability rather than succumb to an urg to numb or avoid them with substance or activities that distance ourselves from intimate contact with ourselves.
Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac, marking the end of a cycle. In its waters, we surrender and feel what is stirring deep within us and open to an expanded perspective what our life is truly about. We are in a period of integration that requires that we quiet with ourselves This will open us to accepting all that is happening and trust in the movement of our life. We can become aware of that ineffable something that guides and propels our lives that exists outside the scope of our empirical mind. Beyond what we want to achieve in the world, we become connected with our soul journey and with what we are learning and how we are growing as a human being. Time spent connecting with this will not be visible to the world, but it will recharge our battery and have us aligned with our soul’s intent. In this space, we sense what is being seeded and is ready to rise as we ready for the Spring Equinox (March 20) and first solar eclipse of the year (April 20).
The shadow side of the New Moon. If we do not heed the call to turn inward and detach from the business of life and allow worldy concerns to hijack our time, our attention and our sanity, we may enter a fog of confusion. We become overwhelmed by life, imagining we are not up to completing all we have identified that needs to be done. Because our feeling nature and imagination are heightened, we can get ourselves into hot water if we muscle our way forward trying to be pragmatic and rational.
If we seek to numb or distance ourselves from our feelings and hold vulnerability, addictions, self-deception and the desire to engage in escapist activities are accentuated. Our feeling nature is needing air time and if we don’t give it attention, care and recognition, we can feel disillusioned and world weary. The remedy: prioritize adequate time for the care for our soul.
But I'll tell you what hermits realize.
If you go off into a far, far forest
and get very quiet,
you'll come to understand
that you're connected
with everything.
Alan Watts
Integrating the Numinous into our “Real Life”
Saturn conjunct the New Moon
The Pisces Season begins with this New Moon which also foreshadows Saturn’s 3-year movement through Pisces that begins on March 7. The New Moon is activating the degree point that Saturn will inhabit and pass over three times before 2023 is complete. Saturn asks us to be responsible and committed to increasing our awareness of what is happening energetically in the same measure that we are committed to the business of living. One without the other leads creates imbalance.
The Archetypal Hermit is evoked with Saturn’s alignment with the New Moon. Retreating from the mundane world, we open to an intimacy with ourselves, with the natural world and our eternal soul. We are drawn into silence. We become receptive. We receive. In the creative ever-expanding majestic beauty of the universe, we can connected to and part of a larger design that is beyond the dimension of how we operate daily. At the center of this experience is an eternal present that is infused with harmony, well-being and peace.
Our intuition opens and we receive something that is often beyond language but can inspire poetry, music or a new way of approaching a pressing issue. Tapped into this dimension, creativity, intuition and love flow into and through us.
Saturn conjoined the New Moon compels us to be attentive to our soul’s ambition and to the intangibles that we look to nuruture within ourselves and integrate into our life. Life is more than paying bills, receiving recognition for a job well done, getting along with our families and maintaining a home. We incarnated to develop and grow something intangible within ourselves that will in turn make our mundane life more satisfying and meaningful - like learning how to better love and be loved; or how to move beyond judgement and right versus wrong to embrace the fullness of life; or how to release our need to control and protect and find ways to trust life, ourselves and others more. Achieving our soul's desire demands time for reflection, being in touch with our feelings and opening to something larger than ourselves.
Spiritual growth and spiritual maturity are rewarded (Saturn conjunct Pisces New Moon). Quiet within ourselves, we can recognize how we have grown and have successfully integrated the spiritual lessons or beliefs into our life. We are ready to walk our talk in a whole new way. We have come full circle with some level of growth and and readying for the next level of our growth (Saturn moving into Pisces) to realize and embody the eternal nature of our soul.
The cosmos is within us.
We are made of star-stuff.
We are a way for the universe to know itself. Carl Sagan
Embodying Soul Wisdom
New Moon Ruler: Neptune in Pisces
Neptune is nearing the end of its 15-year sojourn in Pisces (2011 – 2026) and won’t return to Pisces for another 150 years. These years have been marked by a spiritual movement within the cultural mainstream. Traditions, practices, beliefs and wisdom of the world’s cultures have been made increasingly available for those who seek them.
We have each been afforded the opportunity to open more to the spiritual dimension of life, to see ourselves as spiritual beings having a human experience, and to nurture a longing that goes beyond the human trappings of agendas, tasks, deadlines and meeting expectation. We have had the opportunity to dismantle narrow views of the divine, the sacred and the cosmic meaning of life and open to a more expansive understanding of who we truly are and what are life is ultimately about.
As Neptune completes its years in Pisces, we are to acknowledge how our engagement with the spiritual dimension of life over the last 15 years has transformed us, opened up our way of seeing and shaped or reshaped our list of life priorities. We have been afforded time to root ourselves in something enduring so that we can more easily absorb and move with the inevitable losses that occur in time. At different periods in our life, things we counted on being there for us suddenly disappear and we are left discouraged or disillusioned. We live in a rapidly changing world and more changes are coming. If we are rooted in a relationship with the divine eternal, the perpetual source of all creation, then we can move and bend, like a reed in a river of change.
Venus has been in Pisces conjunct Neptune this last week, sparking idealism and a longing for the romance in life. Valentine’s day was fueled by this conjunction, a day of roses, chocolates and candlelight dinners. But romance is more than what we can find in intimate relationships. Romance is found in a sunset, in watching the daffodils blooming at the end of winter, in watching the rise and fall of our bellies when we breathe, in discovering the contents of a box that had been buried at the bottom of the closet...The romance, the magic, the beauty of life can be found in small and large things in every moment in wherever we turn our attention. Venus has remained in Pisces for the Full Moon and soon after she will move on, but she giving one last nod to the value for and the love of the inner garden that we are tending that will have us recognize the beauty inherent and always present in life. We have only to make room for it and to have every day be Valentine’s Day, a day that is dedicated to celebrating the love in our life.
A Newfound Language to Speak what is in our Heart
New Moon Classic Ruler: Jupiter is conjunct Chiron and sextil Mars and Mercury
Yes, there is the invitation to take a personal retreat (Pisces New Moon), but it doesn’t mean we need to be alone. In truth, we may wish to be social and engage others in dialogue. The key is that we engage with vulnerability. We can draw others into our private self and create an intimate interaction where are discovering a new language, a new clear voice for how to speak what we are seeing, learning and feeling. We are trusting ourselves more and feeling more confident to talk about the things we hold in our heart in a way that can build bridges, resonance and trust with others.
We are Worthy
Pluto sextile to Venus in Pisces
Pluto is in its final weeks in Capricorn. For 15 years it has been testing the validity of structures, systems and laws and dismantling what is not worthy of continuing. At the New Moon, we are identifying lessons we have learned about having healthy relationships. We are to acknowledge where we have healed and broken free of cycles where we were caught in unsatisfying ways of relating. We have increased self-worth. We have been working through issues of worth and have grown in our trust of the love we have to give and in acknowledging our inherent worthiness to receive love.
Look at the stars.
It won't fix the economy. It won't stop wars.
It won't give you flat abs, or even help you
figure out your relationship. But it's important.
It helps you to remember that you
and your problems are both
infinitesimally small and conversely,
that you are a piece of an amazing
and vast universe. Kate Bartolotta
Divine Inspiration
Fomalhaut conjunct the New Moon
Fomalhaut is a fixed star in the constellation of the Water Bearer and is one of the four Royal Stars. Its presence magnifies and reinforces the invitation of the New Moon. Fomalhaut bestows insight and ignites the magical, the mystical and the creative within us. It inspires the artist, the idealist and the dreamer. For those aligned with Fomalhaut, it bestows charismatic leadership and heroic mysticism.
To embrace Fomalhaut's gifts, we must move beyond personal motivations and the need for personal achievement. If we are rooted in our ego, alignment with this star can lead us astray with premature transcendence, self-deception or blind fanaticism. The star’s presence demands that we be clear and honest with ourselves, that we are humble and recognize that we are not the owner of our talents or our creations. We may be born with gifts, but where do they come from? How are they developed? What ignites them? There is a great mystery, a great cosmic create movement that moves through us. To maginfiy its presence, we are humble and express gratitude for how it enlivens beauty and magic in our life, our creations, our days, and with all we love.