Thank you for letting me share my astrology insights with you. It means a lot to be able to do so. May they offer you helpful insight.
One day, I was walking down the hall of my work, my mind occupied with the question of what I would have needed to feel safe in terrifying, life- and soul-threatening circumstances. Because that’s the question, right? What happens when we find ourselves in incomprehensible situations, situations that grab you by their rapacious hook and pull you down into their malignant domain. When bad things happen, when life doesn’t match our belief in what life is meant to be, what is the thing we need to feel secure within, regardless of circumstances? What is the thing that, when we get it, we can stay grounded in love no matter what?
I’d been preoccupied with this question for some time. I had never felt an inner sense of safety and security in my life and this question was probably the first inkling of my inner reality reaching my consciousness. The answer to this koan, the answer that eased my mind and settled my being in my body, at least momentarily, was simple. All I would need would be to know that I was loved. If I knew that, if I was clear on that, I would be safe within, at peace within, no matter what happened to me or those around me.
Today, I still struggle to realize a sense of inner safety and security. While the answer that freed my mind from its fixation on this koan was powerfully true, it was only realized at the mental level. I still know my cognitive answer. But my work is to embody that answer in my cells, to anchor it, to incarnate it. I don’t think I made the connection between that moment and my current desire to anchor love within until now.
No doubt this memory is surfacing now during the lead-up to the Lunar Eclipse on March 14th for the next level of integration. Lunar eclipses are like cosmic reset switches. For a moment, the switch is turned off. Then, when it is turned back on, the solar system reboots along with all of us in it. In the sign of Virgo, the reset has to do with our daily routines. Opposite Pisces, we learn from the astrology chart that our daily routines are meant to serve and embody the Divine.
In the chart for the eclipse, Venus is retrograde and Mercury is in a powerful station before it turns retrograde on the 15th. The retrograde periods of both are occurring as Mars moves through the final integration period of its retrograde cycle. Venus represents embodied love and security, which we could call the feminine manifestation of love. Mars represents the identity and action principles, which we could call the masculine manifestation of love. Mercury represents the body-mind complex connecting our inner state (Venus) and outer action (Mars).
Mercury also rules Virgo, the sign of the lunar eclipse. We can think of its station on the day of the lunar eclipse as like a cosmic finger pointing to Virgo saying this is where the paydirt is, pay attention, tend to this. It is our daily practices that will get us through these times. And it is our daily practices that will anchor love in us and us in love more safely, securely, and soundly.
Going back to the story I shared at the beginning, what is the thing you need to feel safe and secure no matter the situation? Once you have your answer, the work in this eclipse season is to take your answer and enter into daily practices designed to help you integrate it into your body and being. But here’s the catch: the Sun in this lunar eclipse chart is shining its light in Pisces - higher, unconditional, all-encompassing love. That is the light the Moon is reflecting and the light that will be interrupted momentarily. The work in these times is about loving ourselves and others more - about taking the ideas of love that live in our minds and values and ingraining them in our every cell, breath, and action. I believe that is the only way through this mire to the other side.
At the end of its retrograde period (when it stations to turn direct again), Venus will conjunct Saturn, reaper of past habits. Both will be in Pisces when they conjunct. This signature represents both the weight of the past and the promise of a new future arising from new habits. Forming the habit of love is not easy work. But it is worthy work. And the energies of these times, I believe, are not only pulling for us, they are stepping up big-time with abundant support.
Personal Reflection
In addition to representing all-encompassing love, Pisces represents how we work against ourselves. With the Sun in Pisces conjuncting Saturn during this lunar eclipse, it may be shining a light on how we habitually work (Saturn) against ourselves. This has certainly been happening for me.
I am noticing my tendency to spin in fruitless attempts to secure outer safety and security. Despite knowing that my health requires me to prioritize inner safety and security, I continue to scramble to try to make something happen externally that will fix my inner security problem: if I can just have a stable home, a stable income…
During the past week, I set about designing the new chart wheel I’ve included with this post. I love it (and hope you do, too!) But, soon after the initial inspiration to create it waned, my stress levels went through the roof as my mind began anticipating punishment for spending time on such a frivolous pursuit, frivolous, of course, being someone else’s value judgment that I internalized (Venus). After days of this experience, I finally noticed the desperate distress ransacking my body. As importantly, I realized how extreme it was. Nevertheless, fixated on finishing the task I had started, I staved off the call to tend to the profound levels of insecurity I was feeling. Days later, still not done with the chart, realizing that my age-old, habitual (Saturn) strategy wasn’t working, I finally took time to tune into my feelings (Venus) and process what came up.
As I write this article, my habit of undermining myself in this way continues. While I have developed the ability to feel my emotions and tune into whatever is there that needs tending, I still put it off, preferring the diminishing dopamine returns of external results despite knowing that every time I prioritize outer achievement, I perpetuate the cycle of spinning my wheels and pushing out further the realization of my dream and desire for the kind of inner security that doesn’t bend to fear.
Changing this pattern, like changing any pattern, will take time. In my experience as a Capricorn, beginnings are a long drawn out process sprawling across years of sporadically inspired effort. The practices that worked yesterday do not carry me today, so I have to wait for the next one to reveal itself. But, when I look out at the process as a whole, I see progress. Years ago, walking down that hallway, I had access to the practice of inquiry. It was all I knew. Today, I have access to the realm of feelings, an ability that holds the promise of me being able to realize, in time, the full potential of my human heart. At a level beyond the misery I so often feel as a human, I couldn’t be happier, couldn’t feel more hopeful, couldn’t be more grateful.
And then there are the upsides that occasionally come from the process. As I have been tending to the stress I have been feeling, something healed that I didn’t even realize was an issue. I saw that a lot of the stress I felt when engaging in creative work had to do with an idea - a perception, a way of seeing (Mercury) - that some work is for kids and some work is for adults. In my mind, the kind of work that inspires and motivates me was for kids. When I heard people talking about returning to what enlivened us when we were young, it seems I heard that to mean there’s something wrong with adulthood - that to be happy you have to remain or return to being a child. As I was processing my body’s experiences, what I felt in my body and being and saw in my mind was a different perspective - it is in fact the very act of engaging in the things we enjoy that carries us into adulthood.
I have often thought of Virgo, opposite Pisces, as the boat that carries us through the limitless ocean. But that’s not quite right. Virgo is the skill we learn to build and steer the craft. Taurus, ruled by Venus and representing our gifts and talents, is the craft itself. Learning the art of feeling helps us shape our craft so that it fits true to ourselves. In these times, a lot of our work is actually the work of undoing (Pisces) the patterns (Saturn) that steered us away from ourselves. It’s not about getting back to our child selves. It’s about getting back to our authentic selves so that we can mature as full-hearted humans with gifts shaped into blessings and offerings honoring the Divine, ourselves, and our fellow humans.
Cover Image Credit
Updates
March 14, 2025
In the first sentence of the final paragraph before the Personal Reflection section, I changed the word cycle to season. Venus will conjunct Saturn at the end of its retrograde period, not at the end of its retrograde cycle.
March 15, 2025
In the first paragraph after the Mercury Retrograde (1) graphic, in the sentence beginning "Once you have your answer…”, I changed the word them to it, correcting the grammar.
In the caption beneath the graphic for the Venus Retrograde cycle, I added the degrees for all dates without them.
