Transcript of Episode 73 | Aries Equinox: De-Funkify Yourself (March 15, 2021)
Read show notes and listen to the episode hereJen: Welcome to the Big Sky Astrology podcast, with April Elliott Kent and me, producer and cohost Jen Braun. Hey friends, Jen here. Today is March 15th 2021. And here with me to spring forward is my friend, astrologer April Elliott Kent. Hi, April.
April: It’s springggg.
Jen: It’s springgggg.
April: We love spring.
Jen: Yes, we do.
April: You said it’s been a little springy, even where you are, Jen.
Jen: It was in the 60s over the weekend in Minneapolis, which is very exciting because the last couple of years we’ve had snow in April.
April: Oh, my goodness.
Jen: So, we’re hoping that doesn’t happen again this year.
April: I mean, that’s the same temperature that we’ve had here in San Diego.
Jen: It’s like we’re living in the exact same place.
April: I know. Almost. It’s springggg. Well, there’s something other than spring that we should celebrate this week, Jen.
Jen: What’s that?
April: It is International Astrology Day.
Jen: No kidding. Tell me about it.
April: It’s on March 20. It’s always on or about the Spring equinox, the Aries equinox. And this was something that was put together, I think the founding organization was AFAN.
Jen: Which stands for what?
April: The Association for Astrological Networking. And they initiated this some 27, 28 years ago or something, International Astrology Day. So a lot of local and national astrology organizations host special events to celebrate and to commemorate this wonderful world of astrology.
Jen: Fun.
April: If you want to find out what might be going on that you want to participate in, go to afan.org. And on the menu, select events. And then there is a little listing for international astrology day. And they try to track some of the bigger events that are going on. I know Kepler College is doing something and some of the NCGR Chapters, too and so on
Jen: Lots of happenings in the astrology world this week.
April: Yes, people might really enjoy getting involved. And of course, they’re all virtual this year as everything is, but there’s a lot going on out there. So check it out.
Jen: Sweet.
April: Sweettt.
Jen: And did you turn your clock forward, pal?
April: Hopefully, we got them all. There are so many of them now that do it automatically.
Jen: I know.
April: But we have some old school clocks. And it used to be I had a car that was like a 1986 Corolla… And it was so difficult to change the time, that I just stayed on standard time around. I just didn’t even bother with that one.
Jen: So once a year it would catch up to the real time.
April: Hey, you know, that clock is right twice a day and that clock was right twice a year. What about you? Have you caught all of your little analogue devices in your life?
Jen: Let’s hope so. We have one clock with hands, the analogue clock. And I think that’s it.
April: Hmmm, just one?
Jen: Yeah.
April: I find Daylight Saving Time is a lot less injurious now that Jonny and I don’t have to get up at a particular time to get to work.
Jen: It should be on a Friday night, don’t you think?
April: Hey, that’s not a bad idea. Let’s write a letter to somebody— the gods of time.
Jen: Saturn. Writing a letter to Saturn.
April: Hey Saturn, what’s up? Well, my pal, it is the week of the Aries Equinox. And we have a certain amount to say about that. But where shall we begin our episode this week?
Jen: Well, Mercury enters Pisces this week. That’s what we’re going to talk about first. Mercury will be in Pisces for the next three weeks, enters on March 15th at 3:26pm, Pacific Time and will be there through April 3rd. Mercury is moving from an air sign to a water sign; from a sign focused on logic to a sign focused on emotions; from a fixed sign to a mutable sign.
April: From a sign in which it’s exalted to one in which it’s in its detriment. So it’s going from one of its very strongest signs to one of its weakest.
Jen: Right on.
April: The two of us are both having some Neptune aspects now. So what are some of the downsides do you think of Mercury entering Pisces?
Jen: It can be a challenge to get words out.
April: Neither of us would know anything about that, Jen. With Neptune encroaching on our Virgo planets, we’re having a devil of a time with that.
Jen: So yeah, what would you say?
April: Well, Mercury is about the way we both collect and share information. While it’s in Pisces, Mercury collects information from the ether. Let’s put it this way. If Mercury in Pisces brings home something from IKEA, they are not going to look at the instructions as they’re trying to put together. And somehow they get there, but they like to work their way through it a little more intuitively.
Jen: That’s great.
April: And this would be true too for people who have Mercury in strong aspect to Neptune. Sometimes they would prefer to collect information, use information in that way. The first thing that Mercury is going to do while it’s in Pisces is it’ll make a sextile aspect to Uranus. That will be more towards the end of the week on March 21st, at 4:35pm Pacific Time. Mercury sextile Uranus is an innovative combination. It takes that Mercury in Pisces process that’s a little more nonlinear and intuitive, and gives it that little spark of Uranus, too, which is creative and sort of collects things out of the blue. It’s like little lightning strikes of information that come toward us. So if there’s something that you’ve been wanting to do that’s a little more creative, and that you’ve maybe been a little bit stuck with, this is a week when possibly we see some breakthroughs with that. Because Uranus liberates us, it gets us off the duff, it makes us do something, it jumpstarts the process in some way.
And while it’s in Pisces, Mercury will go on to square Mars and Gemini, it will square the Lunar Nodes in Gemini and Sagittarius. It will make a conjunction to Neptune. These are all things we’ll talk about in more detail in the next couple of weeks. But the general idea is there is this conflict about what is more important– truth and facts, which is the North Node and Mars in Gemini, the South Node in Sagittarius, or kindness. And it reminds me of that saying that’s been attributed to a lot of different people, which is before you speak, ask yourself, “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Does it improve the silence?”
Jen: That’s a really good question for Mercury in Pisces time.
April: Yes, and very good, too, to temper the really strong intellectual flavor of Gemini and Sagittarius. And this reminds us that there’s another dimension to this. It’s not just about speaking the truth, which especially with Mars in Gemini can come across a little bit harsh sometimes. This is, think a little bit -temper that with some kindness and put yourself in the other person’s shoes. The missing mutable sign in all of this – we’ve got Gemini, we’ve got Sagittarius, and we’ve Pisces represented – we’re missing some Virgo. So the Virgo would be the dimension that puts information to a practical test before it speaks. That is the “Is it true?” I guess part of this … … configuration. Mercury in Pisces gets there. It could Take a minute or two. And then you’re in this case where it goes this where goes. Yes, thank you.
Jen: I mean, some people might be missing Virgo, but you and I certainly are not.
April: No, we’re not missing it at all. It’s taken the last train to Clarksville. We feel we don’t even need our Virgo planets at the moment.
Jen: Well, Mercury has been in Aquarius for a long time. So this will feel maybe a little bit different, because I think it was early January when Mercury moved into Aquarius. I think it was like the 6th or the 8th or something like that, that it went into Aquarius.
April: Hmmn. So it has been a while. Yeah, whenever Mercury goes retrograde in the sign. I mean, usually it’s going to be in that time a lot longer than usual. It will definitely be a different flavor.
Jen: And this year, Mercury is retrograde in air signs. So we have a little bit of a break with the Mercury retrogrades until it hits Gemini.
April: Yeah, and Mercury going into Pisces and eventually squaring Neptune can work a little Mercury retrogradeish, anyway.
Jen: Yeah.
April: All right. Next up this week, Sun and Venus have been travelling pretty close together. And this week, they will both make sextile aspects to Pluto on different days. The Sun will sextile Pluto on March 16th 11:26am, Pacific Time, and Venus will sextile Pluto a couple of days later on March 18th at 10:20am Pacific Daylight Time. And both of the sextiles take place on the same degrees of the signs of Pisces and Capricorn. The Sun will be at 26 degrees 23 minutes of Pisces. Venus will be 26 degrees and 25 minutes of Pisces. So I guess what we’re trying to say is they are activating the same Sabian symbols, and so we’ll sort of take them together here as we talk about them. The Sabian symbol for the Sun and Venus at the sextile to Pluto is 27 Pisces, “A harvest Moon,” and the Sabian symbol for 27 Capricorn is, “A mountain pilgrimage.” These are both symbols that I have a great fondness for.
Jen: They are nice.
April: I think with both of these planets connecting with Pluto, there’s the opportunity to go deeper to see who you really are and determine what you really want. Who you are is the Sun portion, what you want is Venus. And then going deeper always says Pluto. “The Harvest Moon,” to me, is a symbol that talks about extra light in the darkness. So it’s extra insights, it’s the ability to go deep and see, really see what’s happening inside yourself. Also within your relationships, because it’s Venus.
“A mountain pilgrimage” is a symbol that refers to a challenging climb. And a challenging climb can show us what we’re made of as we’re testing our limits, as Pluto always does. And also in spiritual traditions, you climb a mountain to meet with a holy leader, with somebody who has really transcended everyday life. So there’s a lot going on, at these two aspects.
Jen: If you’re climbing to the top of something, it’s good to have extra light.
April: Yes, absolutely. These are particularly relevant sextiles I would say for our friends with planets in Leo, Taurus and Libra, because the Sun rules Leo; Venus rules Taurus and Libra; Pluto is the modern ruler of Scorpio, so perhaps, they’d be resonating with these as well. The sextiles always invitation aspects, aspects that speak about new information coming away, perhaps, and stuff that might be a little bit challenging to deal with, but is healthy in the long run; it’s good. Make sure you reset in an authentic way.
Jen: That’s a really good point.
April: Yeah. So what’s up next, pal?
Jen: Next up, we have the Sun entering Aries on March 20th at 2:37am Pacific Time. This brings us to the Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the Autumnal Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. So the Sun is moving from water to fire, from emotion to action, from the last sign to the first sign of the zodiac.
April: Indeed, and the equinox, sometimes people have a hard time remembering the difference between the equinoxes and the solstices. Equinoxes, when the day and night are equal length– equal, equinox. And that happens in the spring and the autumn. And you know that from your own experience, you know that the days are not as dark as they were here in the winter. And this process really goes quickly between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. And we’re noticing it here that we picked up extra daylight every day.
Jen: Maybe for people living in San Diego, it goes fast. But for people living in Minneapolis, when you’re getting snow in January and February…
April: It can never go fast enough.
Jen: …those are the longest two months of the year.
April: I hear you there. Yes. And as you said, the beginning of Spring here up north, Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, Spring is the time of year when we have to break the hard compacted soil of winter, and prepare it to receive the seeds and the new growth that we’re going to, you know, see for the springtime.
So you look towards zero degrees of Aries falls in your birth chart, more link to that post that I have on my website. Because that’s like the energetic New Year’s spot for your chart. That’s the house of your chart that describes the areas of life in which you’re bold and pioneering and unafraid; where you really like a challenge, you really enjoy testing yourself. We’re all getting kind of our real New Year, our astrological new year during this week.
Jen: And we go into this in great detail in our equinox episode that is exclusively for donors to the podcast. If you’d like to become a podpal, go to bigskyastropod.com, kick in $5 or more and you’ll not only get access to the equinox episode that will be coming out a little bit later this week, where we kind of do a three-month look ahead at what’s coming up with the transits. But you’ll also get three more Solstice and Equinox episodes, you’ll get a year’s worth. So join us if you would like.
April: And a Bingo card!
Jen: And the Bingo card.
April We cannot overemphasize how excited we are by these Bingo cards. We hope you do enjoy it.
Jen: We offer it in fellowship.
April: We do. We absolutely do. And I just wanted to quickly mention to people that what we’re going to do is send all of our donors an email with instructions about accessing the special episode. And very often, these messages will go in people’s spam folders. So if you haven’t received that email with the link by March 20th, certainly go into your spam folder and see if you find there. If you don’t, shoot me an email—april(at)bigskyastrology(dot)com– and I’ll get you sorted out.
Jen: Good idea.
April: Yeah. So not only is the Sun going to enter Aries this week, but of course, so does Venus because again, they’re moving together hand in hand in the sky. So the very next day on March 21st 7:16am through April 14th, Venus will be in Aries. We find Venus between the sign of her exaltation, which is Pisces, where she does some of her best work, and then its ruling sign, Taurus, which will come next as of April 14th. This Venus in Aries is ruled by Mars, and Venus has a little harder time just relaxing and enjoying life when it’s in Aries. There’s nothing wrong with it. It just struggles to do Venus things. Because Venus is more just about enjoying yourself and having a good time and enjoying the things that bring you pleasure. Mars is always a little more focused and a little more assertive and wanting to move forward and do things. So it’s a lot more motivated, a lot more compelled to do things.
Jen: That make sense.
April: Yeah. Now, I think that when Venus is in a particular sign, it tells too about the things that we’re going to enjoy during its season while Venus is in the sign. I think we tend to enjoy Aries things while Venus is an Aries– sports, exercise, exerting ourselves, competition, even. There can be more conflict than usual in relationships. But that can be a good thing, because it tends to be the kind of conflict that clears the air. Again, it is Venus, and Venus is a benign symbol. And it will bring positive things if you even give it a little bit of room to do that. Now, this can become a problem, of course, if the arguing or conflict becomes too intense or goes on for too long, then you’re establishing a bad precedent and a bad pattern in a relationship. But generally speaking, I think Venus going into Aries between its happy places of Pisces and Taurus, it’s not so bad thing. It sort of kicks us out of our comfort zone a little bit.
Jen: Yeah, and we’ve really been lacking the fire element in the skies, except for when the Moon moves through every now and then. So it’ll be nice to have some drive, maybe a little more motivation a little fire…
April: Yeah.
Jen: …with the Sun and Venus now in Aries.
April: Right. I think you’re right about that. I think we don’t have until… I think it’s Jupiter goes into Aries in 2022 sometime. We don’t really have outer planet energy. And the fire is not just… It’s sort of like we were last year with the air signs. And there was nothing. So yeah, I think you’re right. Especially coming into spring, it’s so nice to have that fiery, enthusiastic spirit that we see with the fire signs.
Jen: So there’s a nice balance between the four elements. There are four.
April: Ah.
Jen: Do you feel balanced?
April: You love that as a Libra, do you?
Jen: Oh, of course.
April: You really do.
Jen: Yeah. It’s all about the balance.
April: It is. And it’s good for the equinox, too.
Jen: Absolutely.
April: Jen, do you know what time it is?
Jen: Is it Moonwatchhhhh?
April: Moonwatchhhh. It is! Play it!
April: Yes, my friend, we are going to be talking to about the Cancer First Quarter Moon on March 21st at 7:40am. March 21st is a very busy day. But first, we want to tell you that this Moonwatch segment is brought to you by our non-imaginary sponsor, Tenth House Creative.
Jen: Yay!
April: Yay! Well, what a pleasure. It has been over the past month to tell you about Mina Habibi, and her good work with Tenth House Creative. If you’re called to caring, healing or socially aware service, maybe you’re a spiritual business owner or an entrepreneurial empath, or a small mission-driven nonprofit, the very qualities that make you really good at what you do – your sensitivity, your focus on other people – can make it challenging to put yourself in your message out into the world. That’s where Mina Habibi comes in. Mina is the creatrix behind Tenth House Creative.
Jen: Tenth House Creative builds dynamic and genuine branding design for heart-centered businesses. Whether you need a functional and down-to-earth website, maybe you need a great logo or some engaging and genuine brand photography, Tenth House Creative collaborates with you to create branding that speaks to your audience.
April: Now more than ever, the world needs you and what you’re offering, and Tenth House Creative is here to help you be seen. Mina uses her intuitive vision and strategic reflection to boost your visibility, so you can play big and shine bright – which this Leo completely endorses. If you’re a yoga or meditation teacher, a therapist, holistic and wellness professional, spiritual mentor, astrologer, or other esoteric arts entrepreneur – if you want to put the woo in woohoo! – or if you’re part of a grassroots nonprofit, Tenth House Creative is for you.
Jen: To learn more about Mina and find out about working with her to make your business shine, visit her website, tenthhousecreative.com. And follow her on Instagram @tenthhousecreative. Please note tenth is spelled out, it is not the numbers. So it is tenthhousecreative.com. I will link it in the show notes.
April: Mina, thank you so much for your sponsorship over these last four weeks. We really appreciate it. And I hope that everybody gets a chance to check out the wonderful work that you do.
Jen: Me too.
April: All right, then. Back to the Moonwatch already in progress.
Jen: Yeah, tell us about this First Quarter Moon and what this means for us.
April: This is the First Quarter in a phase family that began with the Solar eclipse last June, June 20th or 21st, depending on where you are, 2020. The Solar Eclipse was at zero degrees of Cancer. I know we talked a lot about that the time. I’m not sure which episode it was.
Jen: We did and I will link it in the show notes.
April: Thank you. And as always, our episode on eclipses, Unboxing Eclipses, episode five, is a good one.
Jen: That’s a great one to mention. Yeah.
April: The energy of the First Quarter Moon is always to initiate action. Sometimes when we feel stuck with something, the best thing to do is anything. You just have to get the ball rolling in some way.
Jen: Clean one drawer…
April: Yeah, clean one drawer. Just get it moving.
Jen: …as April’s mom would say.
April: Yeah, as Dee Elliott would say, for sure. That is the energy always of a First Quarter Moon. Where have you been stuck and wanting to do something, but feeling really, “Oh, it’s hard to get moving”? This First Quarter should help with that. The key to what it is that you want to be initiating is, you know, you look for the house of your chart, where Cancer resides because that tells us the territory that you’re dealing with probably is something that you first conceived or thought about, perhaps back in June of 2020 at that eclipse time. Think about that and look back to that.
Jen: They’ll tie together, perhaps, is what you’re saying.
April: Yeah, we’d see that connection there. I think this is a particularly high energy First Quarter Moon coming right after the equinox as it tests because the Aries point is so powerful. It’s what we call zero degrees of the Aries, the Aries point and the Moon is going to square that at just a little over one degree of cancer.
This is one of the better First Quarter Moons of the year probably for taking action, initiating, getting the ball rolling, getting out of your funk.
Jen: She said as she glances off into the distance…
April: I know.
Jen: …longingly.
April: De-funkify yourself is what we’re saying here. Well, I was telling you before about some work projects that I’ve really wanted to get going on. And it’s been really hard, I think, while Mars was in Taurus, especially. It’s a sign of inertia, Taurus. And once it gets going, it can’t stop it, but getting it moving, it’s kind of like: Picture a car stuck in the mud. And it’s you know, spinning, spinning, spinning its wheels. And this is finally a moment I think, where we can give the car a big push and get ourselves out of the mud…
Jen: Yeah, I like that.
April: …and get moving.
Jen: Sisyphus finally rolls the boulder up that hill.
April: Yes. And then it’ll probably roll backwards again and smash us a little bit. But that’s the nature of these things.
Jen: April, I noticed that all of the planets are smashed into one half of the chart. Is there anything that would be helpful for folks to know regarding that?
April: It depends on where that falls in your chart. If you look at the houses between Capricorn and Cancer, that’s the half of your chart that all of this energy is going to be in.
Jen: So from Capricorn, Aquarius, blah, blah, blah, through Gemini and Cancer.
April: Yeah, just know that section of your chart has a lot going on. And depending on where your natal planets are. Maybe they’re all there too. And you’re getting a lot of conjunctions and squares, or maybe they’re on the other half and you’re at a place where you’re going to be balancing things out. So really individual, from person to person how this works out. But just know there is a great concentration in every chart in one half of the chart.
Jen: Totally.
April: Well, speaking of getting things moving, we also have a wonderful Trine between Mars and Saturn. Also, on March 21st, at 7:35pm Pacific Daylight Time, 10 degrees and 33 minutes of Gemini and Aquarius. Mars has the energy and drive, and Saturn guides the energy and drive so that we can be very productive. And that’s an aspect that you and I share in common, Jen.
Jen: Yes, this transit is brought to you by Team Mars-Trine-Saturn.
April: Exactly. And ours is in earth, which is a little bit of a different energy, but it’s the same general idea.
If you’re a person who has a hard time controlling the shadow side of Mars, and in particular right now, Mars as it moves through Gemini, which can be arguing, saying unkind things, driving too fast, too recklessly, missing important details, because you’re in too much of a hurry. I think Saturn will really help by slowing you down just enough that you’re watching what you’re doing. And if you need to accomplish something that requires a lot of mental energy and discipline and focus, this is a really good time for that.
Jen: Do your taxes this week, if you’re living in the US.
April: At last, the time to do the taxes. Although Mercury in Pisces could make it really interesting. You’ll instinctively feel your way through your taxes.
Jen: Totally.
April: Yeah, but that’s good advice, actually. And I’m needing to my taxes so I’m going to take your advice there, Jen.
Jen: Perfect.
April: This is an aspect that’s strongest, let’s say, one degree either side of that exact moment on March 21st. Mars is the faster moving of the two. So we say the faster moving planet is applying to the other planet, the slower planet.
Jen: Yeah. And will you say what applying really means for people versus separating?
April: Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of like, as the faster moving planet is approaching the exact aspect, and the energy is building and building, that’s an applying aspect. Then the separating aspect is when the aspect is already been exact, that the faster moving planet is moving on past the slower one. And it’s still carrying some of that spirit with it. With this one, we’re going to say about a degree either side of exact and Mars moves about one degree every two days. So the window of opportunity to make the very most of this aspect, I would say is roughly between March 19th and march 23rd. So that’s plenty of time to get your taxes done.
Jen: Okay, that’s great.
April: Well, that seems to be everything on the show sheet, my friend. Do you think that we’ve done it?
Jen: We’ve done it. Episode 73. And we want to let folks know that starting with Episode 80, we will be featuring an ’80s song for every episode that we work our way through, and April and I are already working on our ’80s song list.
April: And I hate to correct you, my friend, but it’ll actually be TWO ’80s songs per episode because we each get to choose one.
Jen: Although I should get two for my graduation from high school year, I think.
April: I’ll allow it!
Jen: Great, thank you.
April: Thanks to everyone for listening to the Big Sky Astrology podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to subscribe. Follow us on Spotify. Leave us a rating or a review, and we hope that you’ll help us spread the word by telling friend. You can read show notes and full transcripts and leave your comments about each episode at our website, bigskyastropod.com.
Jen: We are enormously grateful to everyone who showed support during our podathon last Fall. Each week, we always think some of you by name. Who do we have this week, pal?
April: This week, we are giving a Big Sky Astrology podcast shout out to Tracy Mills, Emma Colvile, and Birgitta Knowles.
Jen and April:
April: Now, Tracy, I know resides in one of my favorite cities, New Orleans.
Jen: Oh, I love New Orleans!
April: I wonder what would it be like to live there? I’ve always fantasized about it.
Jen: Beignets, and, you know…
April: I love that city.
Jen: …delicious food.
April: Oh, it’s all about the beignets. The beignets and the bacon-wrapped shrimp at Mr. B’s. Oh my gosh, so good.
And, Birgitta joins us from Wales!
Jen: Wow! That’s awesome to know!
April: I’ve always been super fascinated by Wales. I thought that my people were from Wales and then I got my 23 and Me thing, and there’s no Welsh there. Now, they might have drifted over there at some point in our family’s trajectory. My name, my birth name especially, it’s got so dang many Ls in it.
Jen: April Lynn.
April: April Lynn Elliott. That’s way too many Ls. And Anna, I believe, is in the UK as well – but I’m not 100% sure. So kind of exciting to be saying hello to you lovely listeners in entirely other parts of the world than we are.
Jen: That’s fantastic. Thank you so much to you three specifically, and to everybody who has made a donation to the podcast. Now, if you’re a listener who didn’t get a chance to support us during our podathon, you can always make a contribution at our website, bigskyastropod.com. If you donate $5 or more, we’ll invite you to the upcoming Equinox episode that’s coming out later this week. Join us! You’ll also get a year’s worth of Solstice and Equinox episodes. And what else will they get, April?
April: The Bingo card! And there can always be other little surprises that we might send your way.
Jen: You just never know.
April: Hey, it’s five bucks worth of fun! That’s all we can say.
Well, that is it for us this week. Please join us again bright and early next Monday, and until then keep your feet on the ground…
Jen: …and your eyes on the stars.
Thank you for listening! To learn more about April Elliott Kent, please check out her website, www.BigSkyAstrology.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter, read her thought-provoking weekly essays, purchase her books, sign up for a personal astrology reading, and more.
That’s all for today. If you like what you’re listening to, please take a moment to rate and review this podcast and hit subscribe to stay current with new episodes.
You can follow Big Sky Astrology on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter: @BigSkyAstrology
To help support the Big Sky Astrology Podcast and to keep it going for as little as a dollar a month, please visit www.bigskyastropod.com.
Thanks again for joining us, and we’ll catch you next time!
© 2021 April Elliott Kent & Jennifer Braun
