An Aquarian client with a Pisces Moon describes her current situation as living in limbo, poised between two radically different lives, with one foot in each and an ass that’s still very much on the fence. She’s drawn to a new life, but committing to it means losing everything she has; remaining in the old one makes every kind of sense intellectually, but is emotionally untenable. There is little point trying to offer advice to someone in such a situation. It would be like telling a mouse that it needs to make a decision about whether to leave its trap.
This New Moon falls at the dying gasp of Aquarius’ very last degree, just one minute before the Moon enters Pisces and three minutes before the Sun enters Pisces. I’m on record as disliking the idea of “being on the cusp” between two signs. Usually, it is a concept boasted by someone who was born on the day the Sun changes signs, has not had his or her chart properly calculated, and takes it as an opportunity to plant a flag in both signs. I’ve always insisted that it doesn’t work that way; you are one thing or another, and you don’t get to be both. This cusp business has always struck me as a bit greedy, somehow.
But if ever something could claim to be “on the cusp” between two signs, it’s this New Moon. Like my client, it is a New Moon that is living on the cusp between Aquarian and Pisces experiences, and insists on laying claim to both worlds. It is a New Moon that is neither (Pisces) fish nor fowl, and a little bit greedy – for something new, for freedom, or simply for an end to a difficult situation.
Technically, it’s a New Moon in Aquarius, a sign as fixed and stubborn as they come, and perhaps you’re living a life that is technically much the same as it’s been for ages. But it’s a New Moon with one foot, or maybe two, wiggling their toes in Pisces’ waters. You might find yourself wondering what it would be like to grab for two lives with both hands, instead of settling for just one. Wondering whether you could pull it off, get away with it.
But I don’t know anyone who has, not really. Lives are filled with promises we make to ourselves, our loved ones, society. We are free to renegotiate them at any time, if we are willing to do so with honesty and honor and to accept the consequences. It can be so difficult to do that; but it we don’t, it’s not our loved ones or society holding us prisoner.
At this New Moon, I imagine some of us are caught up in that cusp, children hanging tightly to the edge of the swimming pool, afraid to let ourselves drift into deeper waters, however tempting they are, however seductive their influence. We imagine we could manage it if we were willing to dog-paddle vigorously enough, or if we could trust ourselves to simply relax and float. But we’re not sure of the water, not quite yet. It looks lovely on the surface, but we know that there may be dangers waiting for us over in the deep end. Maybe, we think, it’s better here, holding on to what is sure and solid, even if it’s sort of killing us.
Well, if this is your story, or the story of someone you know, I have about as much advice to offer as I would to that mouse in the trap. Other than to say, Aquarius is a sign that, at its core, demands freedom; and Pisces is a sign that isn’t precisely about that. The ancients saw it as a sign of spiritual obligation, of solitude, even of self-undoing. So if we let go of the side of the pool, hoping for an experience of delicious freedom, what we’ll find it probably something much more complicated. Perhaps something we couldn’t have foreseen. Almost certainly, a different set of obligations.
A life that has only exactly the amount of freedom we’re willing to grant ourselves.
© 2015 April Elliott Kent
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