Attuning to the New Moon in Pisces
New Moon in Pisces
February 20, 2023
3:05a.m. EST/12:05a.m. MST/11:05p.m. 2/19/23 PST
As we approach the Vernal Equinox on March 21, an annual time of new beginnings, early Monday we have a potent and enchanting New Moon in Pisces giving us a very special opportunity to gather our focus and consciously set some powerful intentions for the next six months that can be carried forward through the energy of the Equinox.
Romantic and magical, where Pisces lies within our individual charts we long to be connected and belong. Though we often view this through the lens of the outer world, at its core belonging is an inside job. Its siren song metaphorically sings to us the epic tale of how we can belong to profoundly to ourselves, our wild inner nature, and thus truly experience our place in the world at the deepest levels if we will only listen. One of the most profound lessons of Pisces is to surrender, to let go and trust.
Pisces yearns to connect, to merge. Venus is exalted in this sign and we can look to the archetypal myth of her birth for greater meaning.
Once upon time there was Gaia, the mother of all. Not wanting to be alone she created Ouranus (Uranus)the sky God who would come and lie upon her at night. They were very happy and fruitful and all was well. They had many children. But then some of the children that were born began to be rejected by Ouranus because in his eyes they weren’t perfect (the giants for example) so he shoved them back in the caves of Gaia (her womb). As you might imagine, this displeased Gaia and she conspired with one of her sons, Kronos (Saturn) to overthrew his father by castrating him and tossing his member into the sea. It was from the foam of this event that Venus arose. She was born from that procreative essence and thus rules the arts. Creativity is her divine nature, just as it is ours.
Neptune’s connection to Venus is profound, as she arose from him. Thus her exaltation in this sign.
Neptune, modern ruler of the sign Pisces, was the God of the Ocean, is symbolic of the collective unconscious and teaches us that we are all connected. He is the principle of higher love, unconditional love, and grace; to dance with Neptune is to know that everything is connected and that anything else is mere illusion.
Most importantly everything includes us, we are connected. To each other, to our dreams, and how we move through the world, both implicitly and explicitly is felt by everyone. In physics, this is the core of Chaos Theory…the infamous Butterly effect which states that when a butterfly moves it wings over Japan it is felt in the air currents in the United States. To paraphrase Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love, our playing small doesn’t serve the world.
If we have Neptune heavily emphasized in our chart, as I do, as we evolve we learn through our experiences that we must move beyond our desires and connect with whatever path our soul has chosen. We sacrifice (aka make sacred) the lesser for the greater knowing that we will be rewarded with a level of understanding that our personality-driven selves could not have known about. We begin to understand that all of our previous deprivations had to do with getting these lesser desires out of the way, so that we could be initiated into the deeper and higher levels of love and connection. And at that level, we begin to realize something very important. That love isn’t an emotion, or an experience, or a state of being. Love is a power. A connecting power. It’s the ultimate creative force. When I began to assimilate this, really viscerally take it in, and then worked at embodying it through practice my world vastly changed and opened. As I attuned to it my perception of everything altered.
Attunement is connected to merging, to love. In my last blog I spoke about Eros and his connection to argument and creativity. As I noted in early myths he proceeds Venus, but in later myth he is her son. We know him in this form as Cupid. Eros is connected to well, everything. These two archetypes are connected to that honeyed life we yearn for that is full of sweetness.
Neptune, Venus and Eros archetypally are connected to merging and attunement. It is from such merging that something completely different arises. Colors are a great example of this. If you merge blue and yellow you create green. Another way of saying this is if you attune blue and red, purple arises. Something entirely new is created. This is true of all of our relationships. Whether it is a relationship to another person, a creative project, your work or even your life. Including your relationship to yourself. Attuning ourselves to Neptune, Venus and Eros opens us. Something new emerges.
Think about it. Whatever we pay attention to in our lives, whatever we care about, grows in our consciousness. What our consciousness registers gets fed back to us in our lives. That is the power of this New Moon.
Nothing would be accomplished, nothing created, if it weren’t for love. To create something, we must first envision it, and the visionary principle belongs to Neptune and its connecting power. We must love our dreams, our inner vision, into being.
Meditation Ritual for this New Moon in Pisces
Find a quiet place to center yourself. Begin by light a candle (you don’t have to do this step but often lighting a candle as we settle supports us in creating a sacred space).
Settle yourself into a comfortable position. Close your eyes and take a deep breath within releasing it with a gentle sigh…aaaah. As you sigh allow any old tension to flow outward along that sigh. See it carrying it outward into the universe to be released. Repeat this three times. From here center your attention upon you heart. Breathe in and out of this place, this center, feeling a growing warmth. As this warmth expands visualize a golden light, that begins as a small pinprick, and then gradually swells beyond your heart until it lusciously fills you entire body. Envision a warm honey that you are emerged in, bathing you in its sweetness and nourishment to the point that you can even taste its sweetness. As you merge with this ambrosia bring your deepest desire (it is ok to just pick one for this exercise and it doesn’t need to be perfect, you can always do this more than once. Just allow yourself to profoundly attune with one wish.) Allow yourself to viscerally experience this connection. What does it feel like? What is its aroma? Imagine that there is even a ,melodious sound vibrating through you. Let this sound resonate throughout your being and then gradually return to your center, your heart still feeling the warmth. Come gently back into your body and when you are ready open your eyes.
For the next month, basically through the Vernal Equinox, playfully be alert for the new being born into your life that was invoked through the merging of your desire with a sense of Eros.
