Goodbye Pisces Sun, Hello Aries and Happy Astrological New Year

The Sun entered the sign of Aries at 12:57 p.m. on March 20, 2014, officially kicking off the Spring Equinox and the astrological New Year.  After all, Aries is the first sign of the zodiac.  Although a month ago I was extolling the virtues of the sun in Pisces, I am more than ready for the action period that Aries represents.  I can’t deny that the sun in Pisces was a boon for my creativity but it was also a time when I had to dive deeper into that emotional ocean it represents than was in my comfort zone.  And the moon was in deep watery Scorpio until 8:39 a.m. today, so it was pretty intense, especially so with its last aspect being a conjunction to Saturn.  I have a moon Saturn aspect in my chart, so I always feel that particular contact pretty strongly.  I am trying to regard that conjunction as an opportunity to clean up old emotional patterns that no longer work and move forward.  Aries is a cardinal sign that supports moving forward in a big way.  I don’t have much fire in my chart, being mostly water and air, but I am learning to embrace the enthusiasm of fire signs as I get older.  Aries represents leadership, initiative, courage, determination and action. It is a time to try something new and be more spontaneous.  And today’s Sun in Aries trines the Sagittarius moon, so adventure may be on the horizon for the weekend.

While the Sun may have left Pisces, we now have Mercury in Pisces again.  Mercury entered the sign of Pisces on March 17^th and today it will finally be out of the retrograde shadow.  Have we forgotten that recent Mercury retrograde period from February 6^th through February 28^th?  I don’t know about you, but I have been feeling that “shadow” for the past couple of weeks and am quite ecstatic that Mercury is finally out of that shadow so we can really move forward.   Talk about TGIF!  Mercury in Pisces will be conjuncting Neptune in Pisces on March 22^nd, so sensitivity will be ramped up to a whole new level and the tendency to see things through rose-colored glasses is prevalent.  Neptune will be in its home sign of Pisces until 2025, so we have quite a few more years of the annual Mercury Neptune conjunction to experience.   Molly Hall wrote a beautiful piece called Neptune Goggles On: Sensitized Sight. Check it out at:

http://astrology.about.com/b/2014/03/17/neptune-goggles-on-sensitized-sight.htm?nl=1

I loved what she said about Mercury crossing 3 degrees of Pisces being a release phase of the retrograde—an atmosphere to see into subtle and soulful realities.  Epiphanies may very well manifest in the coming days.

And then there is Chiron in Pisces.  Chiron will remain in the sign of Pisces until 2019.  Michael Lutin’s Next Week in Review had the following to say about Chiron in Pisces on his site:

The last two weeks
have seen a major Chiron incident
in everybody's life---
one that produced
a highly emotional
response.
Love
Pain
Dedication
Regret
Guilt
Creativity
Some saw God
Others lost faith

This week is a week of recovery.
Step back if you will
and look back
could you really have done something different
to change where it all stands today
or did it happen
Exactly the way it had to?

Action is one thing
destiny quite another.

Even though in private your mind keeps going over
and over and over
the incidents of the past month,
you must attempt
to move forward
because life demands it.

I think that really nails the Chiron in Pisces experience, especially its reference to when Chiron conjuncted the Sun in Pisces on March 3, 2014.

Chiron is known as the Wounded Healer and has a fifty year cycle.  I started wondering what was going on the last time Chiron was in Pisces, from 1962-1968. Chiron in Pisces represents the last stage of healing at the soul level.  I also realized that the current transit of Chiron in Pisces has been squaring my natal moon in Gemini since late January 2014 and will continue to do so throughout 2014.  I checked the ephemeris and realized that the last time I had this transit was back in February 1964.  My father nearly died of a bleeding ulcer back then.  Trips to the hospital were part of my life then, as they are now.  My father’s hospitalization occurred on February 9, 1964.  How did I remember the date?  I confess it was because I remember watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show that night.  If you were alive back in 1964, who could forget the first time you saw the Beatles? 

What is the theme of Chiron transits to the natal moon?  Well, they force you to look at emotional  hang-ups caused by psychological scars of the past which can be related to the mother.  That resonated for me because my maternal grandparents died in November and December 1962 when Chiron was also in Pisces.  My mother was devastated by their deaths which occurred within less than six weeks of each other and in many ways I felt emotionally abandoned and a sense of responsibility for her emotional well-being.  So when my father got sick my mother must have been terrified, especially when my brothers and I started expressing our fears that our father would die.  So Chiron is once again opening up old emotional wounds regarding my fears of emotional abandonment and loss of a loved one through death.  My loved one is still in the hospital awaiting the green light for surgery that will improve the function of his enlarged heart.

But the Sun is in Aries and it is time to move forward and heal.  I will actually be starting to offer Reiki treatments on March 26^th at my favorite acupuncture clinic, so I am getting in the spirit of that Aries energy by trying something new.