The Full Moon in Pisces reached its peak at 9:36pm EST tonight, sitting implicitly across from the Sun in Virgo.  The seeping stare of the Lights along this axis tends to evoke discernment and dissolution, the sharp angles of Virgo’s mercurial insight and the lapping edges of Pisces’ boundless jovian expanses.  The blade of terrestrial thought, and the curve of a glass whose contents bridge to the otherworld.

The Virgo Sun is ruled by Mercury, also in Virgo, the sign of its exaltation — but the swift planet is retrograde, and the Full Moon in Pisces is conjunct Saturn, which adds a touch of heaviness and ‘ocean floor’ (@ddamascenaa) to the heart-opening dimensions of such a moon.  A desire in service to love, connection and understanding, met by obstacle and mental fugue states perhaps — weightiness and boundary-sorting to move through, gaps in communication and styles thereof.  All these things track for how Mercury and Saturn might be interacting with this lunation.

Discernment is rooted in one’s ability to tell the difference between things on a subtle level as much as an overt one — and that is something Virgo is well suited to.  Associated with the stomach and digestive system, Virgo separates what is deemed worthy from what is to be discarded, not unlike the body does with nutrients and waste.  Just like these systems as a perceived midpoint of the body from top to bottom, Virgo and the Harvest Maiden guide us across the midpoint of the natural year in assessing the sustainability of our actions, and registering the energetic / nervous system results as they are reaped.

Our judgment of others can have a prodding mercurial bite, and when met by the stare of a diffuse, absorptive Full Moon in Pisces, the crisis of integration might be between, say, critical character insight and a desire for watery, empathic acceptance — teetering back and forth between incisive conversations in need of having, and a desire to maintain ‘heart center’ during more difficult moments of integration.

Venus’ present retrograde through Leo has also seen the star of Aphrodite reborn into its morning star phase just over a week ago.  Just as Venus is planetary counterpart to Aphrodite in Greek mythology, Inanna is her mirror of Babylonian / Mesopotamian preeminence — goddess of sex, love, political power and divine law.  Our lives bear witness to constant shifts in power dynamic, and may just see Venus moving through such movements across her domains  — matters of love and power balance refined and clarified, as many wanderers in the planetary pantheon are retrograde as well.

The difference can be as dramatic as psycho-spiritual breakthroughs and flickers in persona that hint at something beyond the veil.  And it can be as mundane as taking aside a loved one for a moment of constructive criticism about a perceived misstep… compared with, say, getting altered and waiting for temporary problems to blow over without fully addressing them.  A Pisces Moon might drink deeply from this well too, for better or worse, filtering out what it does not want to see or burying the work in escape.

It’s important to keep in mind that as Mercury retrograde rules the Sun in Virgo, and the Full Moon in Pisces separates from Saturn in the same — this Moon is also ruled by Jupiter in Taurus, days away from its retrograde.  What’s more, Uranus in Taurus just stationed retrograde, with Neptune and Pluto.  A whole lot of the planetary pantheon is in seemingly different speeds relative to Earth’s orbit.

Just some themes to look out for…

*discernment vs. lack of differentiation

*mixes of clarity and muddled confusion

*emotional heaviness, but a desire to connect

*heart-opening vs. sharp, chaotic or confusing dialogue

*softness, sweetness as a balm for hypercritical thinking

*gaps in communication styles, or inconsistent communication from one party in an exchange

*a feeling of ‘divine discontent’ vs. proactive measures to move through difficult moments

*”I’m willing to fight, but not with you” (Adam Sommer re: Mars in Libra, ~2014)

*separating what is deemed worthy from what is felt to be unfit

*what’s the big thing you’re going to change or cut out lately?

*a change in our experience of good or bad fortune and the pace of their distribution

*a sense of weight, guilt, or impaired mobility, especially for those with planets in early degrees of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces

*an air of unpredictability

And, of course, the need to be gentle with oneself and others.  Swim well stargazers!

—A.B.

[ feature art: "La Vetta" by Cesare Saggacci, c. 1912]