New Moon in Pisces 23° March 13, 2021
“We talk so much of light, please
let me speak on behalf
of the good dark. Let us
talk more of how dark
the beginning of a day is.”
Maggie Smith, “How Dark the Beginning”
Primavera (detail), by Sandro Botticelli, a Pisces sun, Mars and Lilith.
Primavera—spring—is birthed from the darkness.
New moons are dark times, quiet times. Sitting in the bathtub alone, sobbing or resting or coming, we unravel our tangles and come fully apart at the new moon. We peel off our old skins, shake out the carcass of the past, touch our lips to the flute of the future, and come up out of the dark water like old swans on new wings.
Have you finished preening? Have you scrubbed the barnacles from your feet? Can you sink into the darkness, and can you then seduce the next sliver of light from its black box? I know how you’re craving it.
As a mutable sign, Pisces is about letting go of the side of the boat and seeing where the current takes you. Mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) align with the end of a season; they’re the earth’s exhale. Cardinal signs inhale, fixed signs hold the breath, and mutable signs exhale. Pisces signifies the closing of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the closing of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. As the last sign of the zodiac, Pisces is the final letting go.
Primavera, by Sandro Botticelli, a Pisces sun, Mars and Lilith
At its darkest, this new moon in Pisces conjoins Venus and Neptune in Pisces (in addition to the sun, as all new moons do) – a symbol of otherworldly romantica, the type of music that feels like someone else’s saliva dripping down your thigh in a dream. Your lover opens their mouth and their velvet tongue becomes the black hole that swallows you, just for a blessed moment. There is no sound in space. It’s silent, lushly silent, and it’s in this quiet house that the shriek of our inner mountain lion is the loudest. Listen to her. Under this dark sky we have to let go and let that scream swallow us. Venus is exalted in Pisces and Neptune is Pisces’ modern ruler, so perhaps we’re well supported and safe in letting go right now. What is your relationship to this kind of faith and trust? This new moon, there is deep, liberating pleasure in drifting out to sea, into outer space, sinking into art and sex and magic.
With Jupiter, Pisces’ traditional ruler, seated in Aquarius right now, perhaps there’s reward in taking a leap of faith on creating a new world, embracing the fear of being cast out or kept on the fringes, or leaning into friendships and community, the people who genuinely share your ideals. Do you still believe that your place in the world will be kept safe for you, or that your seat at the new, sturdier table is worth being saved or built or fought for? Is it foolish to? Consider what has shaken your faith over the last three months and sift through those feelings.
At the new moon, the Pisces stellium we’re under is making few other other notable aspects: we have a sextile to Pluto in Capricorn, and a square to Juno in Sagittarius. If we choose to take it, Pluto in Capricorn offers support as we begin to compost whatever it is that’s been breaking down inside of us, whatever we’re letting go of to clear space. A square to Juno raises questions about what lovers—and what fears regarding them—are coming into the new season. Are they swimming the same way as you? How can you unshackle your love to make it feel more like swimming in clear, open water?
The actual sound of Neptune, “created with actual electromagnetic emissions produced by Neptune which have been converted into sound waves.” Listen. How does it feel?
This Pisces season has roused new thoughts on the nature of sound. What we register as sound is pure vibration. When I clap my hands together, what you hear is literally the chain of molecules between my hands and your ear vibrating into each other. With my hands I created a vibrating wave of molecules and that wave crashed in your eardrum. When I whisper something low, all black cherry and satin, you’re hearing those molecules between my mouth and your ear vibrate more slowly than they vibrated when I clapped my hands. Slow as a caress. This is the literal, scientific explanation for what sound actually is.
Hearing a sound is a physical experience. I’ve often referred to sound as the purest form of what we often call “vibration” in spiritual circles, because what we hear IS the emotion or experience itself, not an approximation of it. When we hear someone cry, or we hear a brilliant piece of music, we feel it in our bodies and we react to it in a physical, visceral way. We know what the feeling is without words or intellect – the sound IS the feeling itself and it communicates the feeling far better than any plain language could. In a sense, all art is like this.
That’s what Pisces is like: the deepest inner essence of things, expressed purely as the thing itself, and the faith that we’ll understand and be understood in this visceral way. It’s faith that our essence will be felt in another’s body. It’s hearing a song and sobbing. It’s writing with the power flowing from our hands straight from (or into?) the whirlpool of the universal sanctum.
Primavera (detail), by Sandro Botticelli, a Pisces sun, Mars and Lilith
I pulled a tarot card for this lunation and got the 10 of Wands – the weight of the burden as we approach the end of the journey. We’re almost there. It’s been a heavy winter here in the Northern Hemisphere and as we come up on our one-year coronaversary, I have to wonder how close we really are to “there.” On a personal level, I feel far out to sea and I’m trying to embrace that dark water under this dark sky. Screaming inside of this muted Neptunian realm as I give the oars a rest and gaze into the eyes of the current, navigating by feel alone. As the sun approaches the equinox I feel my body begin to ignite and percolate with new ideas for how to seduce the next sliver of light while always melting into “the good dark,” again praying along with Maggie Smith
that the whole world will “let us
talk more of how dark
the beginning of a day is.”