Full Moon, floodgates.

This Full Moon in Pisces marks quite a saturated time, and for many will in some way highlight themes of what one stands to gain, versus fulfillment in what already is.  Exact this morning and then conjunct to Neptune, dreams and desires feature aplenty — but it’s helpful to maintain some degree of prudence or selectivity in what we pursue.

’Careful what you wish for’ is one aphorism… addressing what one has already dreamt up, taken on, willed, brought about — compared with chasing the next novel dream — is another visceral reality when you’re right in it.

As a mode, the energy of the ‘mutable’ signs — Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces — is helpful to consider in context of how they play the role of ending their respective seasons in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.  Many describe mutable energy as adaptive and fluid; I’m fond of describing them also as reintegrating and synthesizing, carrying the lessons of one season into the instigation of the next.

Placements in mutable signs are also sometimes described as opportunistic.  Having studied how these signatures show up in sport and games, I’ve definitely seen some correlates between Jupiter with ‘Risk’, and Mercury with ‘Odds.’

Jupiter (and its home signs of Sagittarius and Pisces) are particularly keen on the inherent risk or gamble of acting at all, the aim and striving for an object of ‘faith’, no matter how simple or zealous.  Strong Jupiter placements can indicate showmanship, or a spilling forth of moments that emphasize the bounty available when one takes the chance.  It is beautiful to do so, but can also be tyrannically uncompromising — and potentially blinded by a sort of positivity from which the vision seems to arise.

Mercury is aware of the odds or percentages, and what place in the back-and-forth dialogue will best leave one on the winning side of an exchange.  While in some contexts this can be achieved by skill in counting forward or directing vision to the external, there is a potential cruelty that befalls the human spirit when it maintains the strangling need to come out on top, or have the last word.

It’s important to consider not only the full moon fulcrum of Pisces and Virgo, but additionally how all fleeting Sagittarius and Pisces lunations will come to interact with Mars in Gemini by opposition and square during the red planet’s stint there from late August to late March.

Some of the dimensions of human nature that we agree upon as being dishonest, misleading, ‘obscure’ with our intentions, arise from the parts of us that are skilled at seeing opportunity, novelty, change — that might run a higher risk of falling off center in our breath about what already is.  In fact, the classically adaptive energy of mutable signs that makes placements in them so well disposed to riding the tides of change, is the same fluidity that can leave these parts of us so easily hijacked by passing fancy.

Since I began using The Book of Thoth as a tool in 2009, one that taught me the decanic order before I ever had a solid ground-up approach to astrological chart delineation, I’ve often found the attributed decan names to Virgo and Pisces particularly helpful to consider in terms of each other.  Virgo I and Pisces I are ‘Prudence’ and ‘Indolence’, while Virgo II and Pisces II — across which this Full Moon in Pisces first emanated — are ‘Gain’ and ‘Happiness.’  Virgo III and Pisces III are ‘Wealth’ and ‘Satiety’, respectively.  Some things to ponder.

Reconsiderations, unexpected pivots, cancelations, revelations and relationship seesaws may also pervade, as Mercury’s shadow phase, which spanned August 22nd to September 9th, ends today with the swift planet officially stationing retrograde.  This Mercury rules the Sun in Virgo, mitigating the remaining twelve or so days of the Sun’s yearly traverse across the Harvest Maiden.

Other dynamics to look out for:

*clarity and confusion

*love and vulnerability vs. aversion or critique

*a mind flitting between big dreams and little details

*swells of passion, emotion, desire, hopefulness, consummation, happiness, that compete with the more shrewd or critical aspects of psyche

*these more ‘pronged’ mercurial aspects even threatening to pop our ballooning buoyancy within

*cloaked judgments

*blind spots that arise from disguising our own motivations, even to ourselves

*visibility vs. wishing not to be perceived

*taking on too much vs. balancing new motivation with existent endeavors

*risk-taking vs. ‘percentage play’

*what to embrace vs. what to cut out

*a keen awareness of what isn’t working

*reconsiderations, unexpected pivots, cancelations, revelations and relationship seesaws

*going for the next big goal or protecting existing interests; how to do both?

*pursuing the thing(s) you want most, rather than only taking care of the minor tasks and in-between moments

*the awareness that doubt does not contradict faith, but that these are mutually enmeshed together, inseparably coexistent in the divine mystery

This Full Moon is ruled by Jupiter, presently retrograde in the first decan of Aries which it has exclusively occupied since May, a tenure that does not abate until late October when it reenters Pisces for the final two months of the year.  Given the nature of this face of the Ram, some excision or ‘cutting out’ of things from our lives has been a persistent theme, even with a lunation as embracing as the present can be.

Venus in her fall of Virgo from September 4th to September 29th has much different quirks and allure than the sign preceding it.  From a proud strut comes a sharp, at times embittered examination of what isn’t working, one that can certainly cut.

Prone to poking holes in Venus’ pastures of pleasure, Virgo and ruler Mercury as host may find adjustments made, desired, derided, debated about in creative projects, relationships, money and the like.  Venusian matters might seem to take a hit, but the desire factor can be turned up as the wish to please, be pursued or find wholeness is pitted against our own exacting standards.

The Sun and Venus might be dispatched by Mercury in seeming backwards motion, the Moon ruled by a similarly retrograde Jupiter, but it's important to remember that retrograde placements are not inherently bad.  They ride 'goofy foot', shoot left-handed, and represent a re-visionary reaching toward the same goals we all share.  It just takes some imagining one's way out of the puzzle.

The Full Moon in Pisces might bring this fever pitch of desire, reception, hunger, hope and release — posed against the mercurial critiques and power struggles of the season.  Whether it’s as grandiose as all the triumphs and tribulations churning within, or simply a labyrinth of tasks to complete, be strong in assessing one’s priorities, receiving or denying what comes to pass.

Swim well, stargazers ~

—A.B.

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