Lunar News: Lunar Eclipse in Virgo
Mary and her white lamb
Lunar Eclipse at 23° Virgo on March 14th at 12:54 AM MDT
Sabian Symbol: Mary and her white lamb
Did you know the Lunar News Spotify playlist has 12 songs, one for each zodiac sign? Each song a horoscope for your sign’s lunar cycle
Welcome to the first eclipse of the year. The Full Worm Moon lunar eclipse will take on a red hue beneath the shadow cast from the Earth and Sun. This Virgo lunar eclipse is affecting us primarily at the intersection of our bodies and minds.
The Virgo—grounded, material, physical—and Pisces—spiritual, ethereal—polarity draws a stark contrast between the physical and metaphysical, but just because the mind and body are different, that does not mean they are separated by some vast gulf. The body and mind work closely and in tandem, and we are meant to find a balance between their form and function. The higher octave of this perceived duality between the mind and body is the material and the immaterial, or the practical and the spiritual, and one of the most important lessons of our lives is to remember that the duality doesn’t have a solution because it is not a problem. Virgo, the practical busy-body, is constantly rushing around taking care of everything and everyone and every detail that everybody else seemingly forgot. Virgo takes a firm stance in the material realm to organize all that needs to be ordered from the chaos of the metaphysical realm that Pisces occupies. These two qualities of practical and spiritual need each other to exist, however, otherwise there is too much distortion toward one end of the pole which causes maladies and entirely avoidable dilemmas. In this way, this Blood Moon reminds us of the necessity of shadow work and integration of the darker parts of ourselves with the lighter parts. Duality is a difficult phenomenon to encounter and work with because we think we are not capable of holding conflicting or contradictory qualities within ourselves. We tend to think dualism automatically means incompatible opposites, or some other such difference that has to be solved. In reality, though, there is room enough in our humanity to maintain a myriad of different expressions and attributes. The other interesting thing about Virgo here is that this sign is ruled by Mercury, who is a deity that exists at and for the border between the earthly and spiritual worlds. Mercurial Virgo is an expert on rectifying seemingly disparate things and so encourages us to find the strength to do the same: to locate and face the parts of ourselves that we wish were not a part of us, and realize that we would not be who we are without all components.
More specifically, the lunar eclipse draws heightened focus on the ways our mind-body / spiritual-practical spectra are imbalanced through neglect of one and neurotic obsession with the other. If you are out of balance in some way, expect the lunar nodes of fate to act without impunity and for the upheaval of this transformation to stir lots of waves. Because of all the recent activity in the sign of Pisces, we are still likely dealing with some intense unconscious residue clinging onto our psyches, and it would be understandable if we are now dealing with the consequences of physical neglect. The Moon in Virgo is also in between an opposition to both Saturn and Neptune causing enormous amounts of tension and an impulse to escape our responsibilities, repress our emotional challenges, or delude ourselves into thinking we can put off dealing with our issues until a later time. With all that has been going on with the Venus retrograde and Mercury stationing retrograde, it’s been a difficult time especially in our interpersonal relations with one another. We might feel rather world-weary during this Full Moon and the best way to recover from all of the celestial activity is to practice grounding, clean your space, and get organized. The challenges are far from over and we can expect more obstacles to crop up over the next few weeks. Maintaining healthy routines and keeping your immediate environment orderly will calm your mind and keep the chaos from subsuming you altogether.
As this is a dramatic Full Moon, we can expect chapters to close at this time, but new seasons are on the way and after every bittersweet ending comes the fresh start down a new journey.
Lunar Cycle Transits
March 15: Mercury stations retrograde
Days after the conjunction between Mercury and Venus, Mercury traipses back going after Venus and retracing his steps back into Pisces. During this retrograde transit that ingresses from Aries into Pisces, we are encouraged to meditate on this threshold between the physical and the spiritual. What are the differences between the two worlds? How do we reconcile them in our day to day life? In particular, this retrograde will challenge us to face that which we repress, hoping it won’t spill out in our conscious lives, but this never works.
March 19: Sun conjunct Neptune
This day will serve as a fitting finale to the strange and eventful Pisces season we’ve experienced this year. We’ll find that Neptune assists us in our intuition or psychic abilities today, and we’ll be more finely attuned to the spiritual. This is a great enhancement to our creative abilities, and it helps us to relate to each other on a deeper empathetic level. The tricky part of this increased sensitivity, however, is it makes us less able to cope with the reality of the world. The need to escape into our daydreams is highly felt; the need to turn to substances will also be higher today. The practice of grounding yourself in your own body will help to deal with these tumultuous feelings.
March 20: Sun ingress into Aries
Welcome to the astrological new year! The wheel continues to turn. The Sun in Aries ushers into a time of great emergence from the murky depths of Pisces. The solar encouragement to break free from the collective unconscious helps us all to begin the process of rebirth and individuation. This is a season for focusing on self-expression and standing up for one’s self. All the difficult lessons of integration we were given over the last four weeks are finally easing up and we can step into a new season with a more evolved character.
In the northern hemisphere, today is the pagan holiday of Ostara, a time when the Earth begins to awaken and warm as it turns closer toward the Sun. Spring is here and now is the time to plant the seeds that will grow into our sweet nourishment months from now. The intentions we set at this time will fruit in no time, so keep your thoughts abundant and full of love.
March 22: Sun conjunct Venus Rx
Venus comes to be purified in the white-hot flames of the Sun. This is a renewal for Venus as she moves back through the underworld and we can expect this to be a climatic moment in our lives, especially in our relationships to others, yes, but more importantly to ourselves. Up until now, we might have been pre-occupied with seeking attention from other people, or winning the affection of certain people or love interests. The great illumination from this conjunction with the Sun urges us to consider that we cannot and will not register as legible or worthy partners unless and until we get our relationship with ourself sorted.
March 24: Sun conjunct Mercury Rx
And for the next purification victim: Mercury is baptized with the fire of the solar rays this time around. We can expect clarity in our conversations or meditations that will make something finally click in our minds. It’s not necessarily wise to go out and try to verbally express or communicate this inspirational, divine message, for we might be unable to match the right words to the thoughts occurring to us at this time. It’s a good day to channel the messages today, but allow yourself to interpret what they mean for you and your life over the course of the next couple of weeks. Don’t force anything today, just focus on gathering the information.
March 25: Venus Rx re-ingress into Pisces
Our sense of moving backwards or regressing might be heightened today as Venus activates a part of her journey she’s already been on this year. A strange familiarity with the world of dreams and impressionistic intuition and instincts comes back to us and we are plunged into a dreamier reality. Venus exalts in Pisces and so her retrograde journey back to this place where she is an honored guest will ease the pain of confronting our shadows, but that doesn’t mean anyone is exempt from the confrontation itself. We can expect to revisit themes from January with a new perspective.
March 28: Venus Rx conjunct Neptune
Think back to February 1st when Venus was last conjunct Neptune. It was an indulgent day and this conjunction then likely brought us rose-colored realities full of magic and creativity and inspirational thoughts. Neptune is a tricky planet, however, and can be full of deception and illusion as much as beautiful inspiration.
Now that Venus is coming back around, we can expect certain truths to come to light, particularly truths about illusions or delusions we were fostering at the beginning of February. At that time we were prone to hitching our expectations on the beautiful fantasies being served to us, and now Venus is coming back to revisit those fantasies and we might realize our expectations can’t ever be met. Today might be disappointing or disorienting; it will likely be difficult to reckon with reality. It is your responsibility, however, to face the reality of your circumstances with courage and clarity and not give in to the impulse to escape into delusional fantasies of what you’d rather be happening. Indulging the self-deception only makes the lessons that much harder to learn in the long run.
Mercury Rx re-ingress into Pisces
To add to the Neptunian storms, Mercury careens back into Pisces (and into a conjunction with Neptune as well) filling our lives with more confusion. Deception and trickery are on the rise today, so take on a little more skepticism in your day to day movements, but don’t overcorrect and become paranoid. Finding the right words to express yourself might become more challenging, but enjoy the poetry that spills out of you instead.