The Sun will enter Pisces just as it is setting tonight in the Northeast. There’s some poetry in this: Pisces is the final sign of the zodiac by many cultures’ reckonings (though certainly not all,) and as such, the end of the Sun’s journey before its loop begins anew. This may be part of the reason for the somewhat existential quality of the Sun’s time in Pisces, which plops identity into the torrents of feeling, the hammering eddies of experience, and asks it to either adapt to the full weight of these blows or dissolve. And oddly, the Sun is happier here than it was in Aquarius, for it is easier to find a persona centered in spiritual and emotional tumult than it is when focused on the world’s systems and taxonomies. Jupiter’s influence means that the Sun does still seek others here, and is usually thought to seek them with things in the deeply-felt but immaterial: with art and with acts of service and religious leadership. But Pisces is in many ways the most adaptable of the Sun signs, and its sense of self can be melted and poured into many different types of role, though it will always bring the river of feeling with it. I have seen administration and accountancy invested with the full-hearted care of a Sun in Pisces native. What may seem mundane from the outside might be epic poetry to the one who’s in its throes.

While preparing my write-up on this solar month, I noticed less significant dates than last month, but the dates that do hit punch hard. We have a lunation right off the bat, so let’s start there.

The New Moon in Pisces takes place on Sunday night, 2/19. I wrote about this in my weekly write-up this past Wednesday, and I’ll post those remarks here: “Though it is in a different sign, this lunation happens right on top of Saturn, heralding Saturn’s imminent movement into Pisces and calling on us to conclude any business we have with his current position of strength in Aquarius, its power to organize, set goals, structure teams, see the big picture that could lead to lasting change. We have until the Full Moon in Virgo on 3/7 to do so – this is truly the last call for Saturn in Aquarius until the year 2050. The lunation also occurs close to the nodes, calling us to look hard at what doesn’t fit the plans and pictures we see for our futures, and thus must be ejected, and to a more limited degree, what should be added.” Yes, Saturn will indeed be making its entry into Pisces shortly. More on that later. Outside of its proximity to Saturn and its aspect to the nodes, this moon doesn’t really pull in any other planets by classical aspect. If anything, this puts even more of an exclamation point on Saturn.

The lunation (and the Sun’s entire passage through Pisces) is classically ruled by Jupiter, who represents the gifts and talents we’re drawn toward and are able to share with our fellow man. Jupiter’s currently in Aries, which may see some being pulled into more dynamic, active sections of their lives, places which prize their personal power and agency. Jupiter has some interesting activity during this time, most notable being his long conjunction to Chiron, which will begin to lock in around 2/20, which will be exact on 3/10, and which will only begin to dissipate around the end of March. Chiron is an asteroid which primarily represents insecurities, and Jupiter’s expansive nature may unfortunately exacerbate painful and uncomfortable feelings for some, especially as concerns capability. But Chiron makes our wounds itch as it heals them, and Jupiter is known as the Great Benefic, so this may be a period where many work through such issues.

And that’s not all! Venus will join this party around 2/26, her conjunction to Jupiter becoming exact to Jupiter on 3/2, then to Chiron on 3/3. More on this in just a moment. For now, suffice it to say that issues around the power of beauty and femininity, as well as the ability to connect with others, things in this realm are more likely to loom larger in this time. After Venus moves on, another asteroid called Vesta will also pop by, joining the Jupiter-Chiron conjunction on 3/11. In truth, my knowledge of Vesta is not deep, and I do not usually take notice of her motion unless she is doing something particularly noticeable – like she is here. So how does she contribute to this mixture? Vesta seems to be about the purity of sacred commitment, an area you hold and maintain space for in your life as a matter of sacrament, even if others don’t understand it. Jupiter-Chiron may reveal new places to take this commitment, how to strengthen and refine it, how to make space for it if you haven’t been able. In antiquity, this referred to Vestal virgins maintaining an eternal flame. For us, it could be literally anything – look to where Vesta falls in your chart to learn more.

Jumping back to Venus: she will enter Aries on 2/20, just after the new moon. I wrote a bit about Venus’ flavor in Aries on Wednesday: “Venus enters Aries’ just after the new moon, on Monday (2/20.) While Venus’ time in Pisces made the alluring feel effortless, Venus in Aries inverts that. It may be more brash, more glitzy, more attention-getting, but these are generally artifice. Venus in Aries is traditionally the sign of the tomboy, though the unfolding flux in the rhetoric around gender identity might be cause for redefinition here. Either way, Aries is ruled by Mars, driven to accomplish and to root out problems. Mars is a severing energy. Venus is a connecting energy. Thus, Venus is usually thought to be less comfortable in Aries, though natives here put great effort into the appearance of comfort. There may be the confidence of someone who has it down to a science (Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor are all Venus in Aries natives,) but it’s different than the person with a strong Venus who never had to try much at all.” Jupiter-Chiron may make the struggles of this Venus more pronounced, but may also make the effects of her efforts more effective.

All of this is ruled over by Mars, who is still in Gemini after all this time. This is the final solar month that this will be true, as he will make ingress into Cancer during Aries Season. Because it is a Mars of plans and discussions, we may find much of this Jupiter-Chiron activity playing out through conversation, writing, gathering information, and the like. With this is mind, lean on Gemini’s natural adaptability to try many different ways to get out of your own mind, lest you drive yourself crazy.

And we do have some crazy-making transits inbound! For example, Mercury in Aquarius will square Uranus in Taurus exactly on 2/21, and will make an exact trine to Mars the next day. More from this week: “Mercury is truth, research, conversation; Uranus is revelation and earth-shattering surprise. There is a higher-than-likely chance of having your mind blown during this transit, and of the scientifically-curious poking their nose in the wrong bear cave. Expect the unexpected! And if there’s something you really don’t want to see, just expect it and it might not happen at all! Uranus always throws you a curveball. But if the irrefutable finds you, you must accept it, or that same curveball will crack your skull.“

On 3/2 (the same day as the Venus-Jupiter conjunction,) Mercury will be exactly conjunct Saturn in it hits anaretic degree, though the conjunction will begin to click into orb sooner than that, around 2/28. Mercury’s winged-feet are heavier under Saturn’s influence, though as a consequence, his truths are usually more dense and cutting as well, a heavy scythe wielded with surgical precision. Mercury represents the young and Saturn the old, and interesting results are birthed from this combination. I most often think of a Maron-esque stand-up comic, turning grief into levity without letting you forget its weight. There is satire at play under this combination. Mercury’s psychopomp status is at play here too; he’s the last planet to touch Saturn in Aquarius before it “passes on,” ferrying it on across the sign boundary into Pisces.

Of course, Mercury will lead the charge on that front. He enters Pisces later that very night, on 3/2. Mercury doesn’t do so great in Pisces. It’s almost like that great, surging torrent of emotional experience that we mentioned at the top of this piece is…I don’t know, hard to sum up in a report? Like it’s hard to express the ineffable? Like you’re trying to do a book report on Encyclopedia Brittanica?I’ve found that it can be good for songwriters and fantastical storytellers, those who favor the dream-reason of the poetic over the actual-reason of the good journalist. In any event, he’ll lose even more strength as he gets closer to the Sun. More on that later.

The Full Moon in Virgo is on 3/6 (though it technically becomes exact the following morning around 7:30 a.m.) That same day, Saturn’s makes its ingress into Pisces. Mars will have already begun locking into a square with Neptune that will color the last half of the solar month, denoting that efforts to knock things off of one’s hitlist are likely to run into fogs of confusion, delay, that more enticing distractions will be on offer. These may also take the form of various substances that look like they’d be fun to abuse. Mars will also be casting squares to the Sun and Moon here, creating an aspect pattern which is classed a T-Square. The result is that this lunation is more likely to be colored by the Sagittarian: by wild, colorful displays and personalities, by institutional dogma, by excess and fixation on one subject or activity, by the raucous gatherings of inebriated centaurs. Your mileage may vary. This full moon also occurs in near-exact trine to Uranus, so some big surprises and revelations may be in store.

Saturn is leaving Aquarius, one of its natural homes. Saturn does well in the realm of Air, where its gifts of rigor and organization can be applied to information, the realm of databases and registries and such. It’s different in Pisces, more akin to a fish ladder, the realm of the naturalist, a set of organizing principles applied to that which defies organization. When one applies Saturn’s principles to the natural world, we get zoos and inaccurate terminology like “fish.” Still, these sorts of things are helpful in the unwinnable-but-survivable effort to make sense of the world, and in that vein, we may find ourselves defining our hearts, our feelings, our personal mythos.

The end of the Sun’s time is Pisces sees it drawing closer to Neptune, getting within close orb by 3/12 (though the Sun has a larger orb, so it will be felt as far back as 3/5.) This means that an already very fluid, porous sense of self is going to pass through a giant ocean of the mythic and fantastic. Neptune is the collective unconscious, the great sea of dreams and nightmares, and celestial objects passing through its sphere of influence seem to undergo massive distortion. What’s more, Mercury will have begun to really catch up to the Sun by this time, its voice getting more and more drowned out as it gets further “under the beams,” finally reaching a state known as combustion where the Sun is said to devour its power. This may feel reminiscent of a Mercury retrograde to some; communication may become difficult, brains may become foggier, technology may cease to function.

This will all culminate on 3/16, when the Sun, Mercury and Neptune all occupy the same degree in what is known as a stellium, a fancy term for a conjunction of multiple planets. On that same day, Mars will be in an exact square to the pile-up of planets mentioned, so all of the hazy volatility of the full moon will be on offer here. The stellium will also be catching a sextile from Pluto, and it is on this same day that Venus’ square with Pluto will be exact. Needless to say, there’s quite a lot going on: the Venus-Pluto square speaks to issues of power and control and unexamined impulses surrounding what we are drawn to. The Mars square to the Sun-Mercury-Neptune square seems to speak to hostile feelings around how the shaping of narrative affects our sense of self, and more to the point, our ability to act. Here, the least likely actor may make the most stirring speech: Mercury sits in a condition known as cazimi, speaking loudly and clearly from within the Sun’s heart. This feels like the beaten-down finding a voice.

Following this, Venus will make ingress into Taurus on 3/17, where she will be immediately be conjunct to Juno, an asteroid which deals with partnership and commitment. Whatever trials and tribulations Venus experienced in Aries now carry her into a place of strength, one of her strongest positions, ready to luxuriate in her favorite sensations and find a worthy lover. (Again, mileage may vary.) The conjunction to Juno will be exact on 3/21, atop the North Node. The North Node is a manifestation point oft-associated with prosperity, and this seems like a good time to get married or otherwise cement a partnership.

Mercury meanwhile makes his entry into Aries a day or so later, late at night on Saturday 3/18. This is more focused and direct Mercury, focused and plain-speaking, a Hemingway looking to argue down any Fitzgerald who looks at him funny.

Finally, the Sun will ingress into Aries on 3/21, along with the moon, making this the New Moon in Aries. But this lunation is outside of the scope of this article, and will have to wait. Until then, here are some notable dates:

2/19 – New Moon in Pisces.

2/20 – Venus’ ingress into Aries. Jupiter’s conjunction to Chiron begins to lock into place. Mercury locks into a trine with Mars and a square with Uranus.

2/21 – Mercury’s square with Uranus is exact. Moon in Pisces runs across Neptune.

2/22 – Mercury’s trine to Mars is exact.

2/24 – Sun in Pisces configured to the nodes by soft aspect.

2/27 – Venus applies to a conjunction with Jupiter and Chiron. Mercury applies to a conjunction with Saturn.

3/2 – Venus-Jupiter-Chiron conjunct in Aries (Jupiter and Venus exact,) Mercury-Saturn exactly conjunct in Aquarius. Mercury makes ingress into Pisces late that night.

3/7 – Full Moon in Virgo, Saturn’s ingress into Pisces. Mars squares Neptune.

3/11 – Jupiter-Chiron-Vesta all exactly conjunct in Aries, Venus sextile Mars exactly.

3/12 – Mars square to Neptune is exact. Sun-Mercury-Neptune conjunction is tightening in Pisces.

3/16 – Sun-Mercury-Neptune are all exactly conjunct in Pisces, and in an exact square to Mars. They are also in a sextile to Pluto who is exactly square to Venus in her anaretic degree.

3/17 – Venus’ ingress into Taurus, immediately applying to a conjunction with Juno, sextile Saturn and square to the moon.

3/18 – Mercury makes ingress into Aries.

3/20 – Venus-North Node-Juno conjunction in Taurus (Venus-NN exact.)

3/21 – Sun and Moon both enter Aries, marking the New Moon in Aries.