TRANSCRIPT Ep. 225 | A Venus in Pisces to Remember!

TRANSCRIPT Ep. 225 | A Venus in Pisces to Remember

Hello, invisible friend, April here, and the date today is March 11, 2024. Welcome to Episode 225 of the Big Sky Astrology Podcast. This week: Quieter skies as we begin to tiptoe toward eclipse season, which begins at the upcoming Full Moon. The Sun makes its annual conjunction with Neptune, Venus enters Pisces, and the Gemini First Quarter Moon offers a fresh start. And I answer a listener question about prenatal eclipses and the Lunar Node cycle.

Venus enters Pisces (March 11, 2:50 pm PDT)

Venus enters Pisces on March 11th at 2:50 pm Pacific Time. It’ll be in this lovely sign through April 4th. Venus is the planet of what we love and desire, and Pisces is one of its strongest signs.

Venus signifies love, but it’s often love of a very physical nature, the love of money and physical possessions, love of intimate physical connections, and there’s nothing wrong with any of that. But when Venus is in Pisces, that love is elevated.

There’s a lecture I gave about Neptune in relationships, and I gave the example of that scene in An Affair to Remember with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant. The two play two characters who are on a cruise. He is a real ladies’ man, a rakish man about town. She’s a sophisticated cabaret singer. And they develop a connection with each other, and you can see that they are falling in love.

The ship comes into port in a beautiful little village where Cary Grant’s character’s grandmother lives in an enchanting little villa. He takes Deborah Kerr with him to visit her, and she takes an instant liking to her grandson’s new friend. There is a scene where Debra Kerr and Cary Grant’s characters are in a beautiful little chapel that the grandmother has on her property, and they are kneeling together and lost in silent prayer.

There is something about falling in love with someone who is really special, someone that you know is going to change your life, who makes you a better version of yourself. And it is something that feels special and almost holy. While Venus is moving through Pisces, love and the things that we desire have the potential to elevate us, to get us more in touch with the kinder, sweeter, more poetic sides of ourselves, and to bring more kindness and sympathy and a certain spiritual something to our closest relationships.

Sun conjunction Neptune (March 17, 2024, 4:22 am PDT)

On March 17th at 4:22 am Pacific Time, the Sun makes its annual conjunction with Neptune at 27º21’ Pisces, on the Sabian symbol 28 Pisces, A fertile garden under the Full Moon. And I just wanted to say that in my last episode, when Mercury was connecting with Neptune on this same degree, I mistakenly identified the Sabian symbol as a fertile garden under a New Moon, but it actually is a Full Moon, so a lot more tends to be revealed.

This is probably one of the most appropriate planetary aspects we could possibly imagine for St. Patrick’s Day. Here in the United States, St. Patrick’s Day is basically a celebration of drinking and an excuse for people to really go out and get out of their heads for a while. And that is, in some ways, what we associate with the Sun’s conjunction with Neptune, or even Mercury’s conjunction with Neptune, which we had last week.

I think when Mercury and Neptune come together, it’s more an examination of what we call ourselves. Mercury is a naming planet. It’s not so much about who we are, but more about the story we tell about who we are. But the Sun’s conjunction with Neptune gives us the opportunity to, in some ways, submerge the solar self, our ego, our sense of who we are, and instead to reimagine it.

My husband and I have shared two sets of cats together, and the naming process for all of them was a little prescient. One, we named Spike, and we named him Spike because when we saw him in the animal shelter, he was really little, he had had mange, and his fur was very spiky, and before we even touched him, we named him Spike. Well, as he got older, his fur became beautiful and sleek. But his personality grew quite spiky!

The cat we named Bodhi turned out to be one of my greatest spiritual teachers as I nursed her for 10 years with feline diabetes.

Now the cats we have now, one is named Toby. And that sounds like a very ordinary name, but what’s funny about it is he has developed this predilection for biting my husband’s toes. Toe-by! The other one is named Violet, and she is extremely sweet, but she is very shy. She’s very skittish with people she doesn’t know, which, of course, later it occurred to me, oh, of course, she is. She’s a shrinking violet!

The names that we give to animals and to people are very powerful. They often tell us something about who we are, who we’re supposed to be.

So that was the quality of Mercury with Neptune. How does what we call ourselves determine what we become? But this solar aspect with Neptune says well, do you have to be that? Is that your real story, or just a story that you’ve given yourself, or a story that others gave you, that has just sort of lingered through the years?

When the Sun comes together with Neptune, it says, get beyond the name, get beyond your appearance, your upbringing, your everyday life and ask, who are you really? That is what the Sun is really trying to discover when it makes this annual conjunction to Neptune.

Gemini First Quarter Moon (March 16, 2024, 9:11 pm PDT)

And now for the Moon Report. And it begins with the Gemini First Quarter Moon on March 16th at 9:11 pm Pacific Time. It’s at 27º03’ Gemini and the Sun is at 27º03’ Pisces. I love the Moon’s Sabian symbol here. It’s 28 Gemini, A man declared bankrupt. And it may sound a little funny for me to show such affection for that degree.

But I like it because it implies a fresh start. If you’ve been declared bankrupt, it means that your past sins, your past indiscretions, your past bad luck has been forgiven and you have been given a fresh start.

The Pisces New Moon on March 10th might have left us feeling a little bit stuck in quicksand or in bed and finding it a little difficult to get up and get out and engage with the world. Now, ideally, the Pisces New Moon is a cycle for healing body and soul, embarking on a spiritual path, but it doesn’t mean that we have to stay inside for 28 days. And this Gemini First Quarter Moon pulls us out of the quicksand, out of bed, so that we can begin moving on.

Gemini is ruled by Mercury, and it loves making lists. It’s also a sign of connections with others. So if somebody asks you around this First Quarter Moon to go out and do something, to be more social maybe than you’ve been lately, say yes. Because in order to figure out the big answers to life, which is the thing that Pisces is really interested in, we first have to ask some questions, have some new experiences, and cultivate curiosity and in all of these things, Gemini excels.

Just remember, at this First Quarter Moon, you don’t have to know all the answers. You just have to ask plenty of questions. And because the First Quarter is the time in the lunar cycle to take some kind of action, it’s simple. Just ask a question, read a book, talk to somebody, and ask the kind of questions you have never thought to ask before.

This First Quarter Moon also makes a nice aspect to Mars in Aquarius. So, simply being in motion, and hopefully with groups of people, should be invigorating.

Lunar Phase Family Cycle

This is the First Quarter in a lunar phase family cycle that began on June 17th, 2023 with a New Moon at 26º43’ Gemini. Now, nine months later, we have a First Quarter Moon near that same degree, and that means that whatever it was you were consumed with, thinking about, intending, at last June’s New Moon, whatever it was you felt you might want to imagine for yourself – now is the time to initiate some action. Not only on what we were thinking about at the most recent New Moon in Pisces, but what we imagined for ourselves at that June 17, 2023 New Moon.

Nine months from now, the Full Moon in this same Lunar Phase Family Cycle, on December 15, 2024, will show us a little more about what was actually initiated at the New Moon. And then nine months after that, at the Last Quarter Moon near this degree, on September 14, 2025, we can take one more final action to bring all of the matters of this lunar phase family cycle to a satisfying conclusion.

Void-of-Course Moon Periods

Let’s talk about the Void-of-Course Moon periods for this week. On March 12th, the Moon in Aries sextiles Mars in Aquarius at 4:08 am Pacific Time. It’s Void of Course for just about an hour and a half, and then enters Taurus at 5:28 pm.

Sextiles bring opportunity and the opportunity of this Void-of-Course Moon period is to get used to taking advantage of situations that offer spontaneity, and also to get in the habit of fighting for the things that really matter to us, causes that are close to our heart, situations that make us or the people we care about less than free.

On March 14th, the Moon in Taurus sextiles Neptune at 3:29 pm Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for just about five hours and then enters Gemini at 8:16 pm. Here’s another sextile aspect, and the opportunity of this Void-of-Course Moon period is to let go of patterns where you find yourself floating along in negative Neptune behaviors like denial or procrastination and not taking care of life’s practicalities. This is a good Void-of-Course Moon period for initiating new habits that focus on working out that balance between Taurus’s practicality and Neptune’s wonderful imagination and empathy.

And finally, on March 16th, the Moon in Gemini squares Neptune at 9:43 pm Pacific Time. It’s Void of Course for about 5 hours, and then enters Cancer on March 17th at 2:40 am. There is a conflict when we see the Moon in a square aspect to another planet. And the conflict that begins this Void-of-Course Moon period is that a busy mind, Moon in Gemini, can be at odds with contemplation, with meditation. A chatty tongue can sometimes be hurtful to people who are very sensitive. A desire to be everywhere at once can be seen as inconstancy and it can break hearts. So, what we’re looking for during this Void-of-Course Moon period is to break habits that keep our minds and our tongues a little too busy at all times and to cultivate habits that invite that Neptune experience of being a little quieter, a little more still.

Perhaps this is a Void-of-Course Moon period for initiating some kind of meditation practice or a prayer practice. To focus on just stilling your mind and letting spirit rush in.

Listener Question: Prenatal Eclipses and Nodal Returns/Oppositions

In this week’s listener question, listener Taylor asks, “Why are prenatal eclipses so important? And are they more significant than nodal returns and oppositions? What can we expect during these times, and how can we best use prenatal eclipses and nodal return periods?”

Taylor, thank you so much for that question. And since we’re just about a week away from the beginning of eclipse season, it’s a great time to talk about prenatal eclipses, which I don’t think I’ve ever actually mentioned on the podcast.

For anyone who’s not sure what a prenatal eclipse is, it’s simply an eclipse that occurs prior to your birth. There will be at least one solar eclipse that happened within six months prior to your birth, and often a lunar eclipse as well. And for most births, that’s when we’re still in the womb. Poetically, I imagine these points are kind of imprinted on us through our mother’s experience of them when we’re in the womb.

In my eclipse report, Followed by a Moonshadow, I cover these points and I compare this imprinting to little chickens who are born recognizing the shadow of their natural predator, the hawk. This might be a little dramatic, but I do think that these prenatal eclipse degrees are very sensitive points in your chart. And they respond strongly to transits and to contacts from other people’s charts. You might find that some of the most important people in your life, in fact, have important planets or angles in their birth charts that are close to the degrees of your prenatal eclipses.

If several eclipses happened within six months prior to your birth – it is possible – they all seem to be important, but I think probably the one closest prior to your birth might be a little more sensitive, but I’m not a hundred percent sure of that. I definitely would look at all of them.

Anyway, when these prenatal eclipse points are activated, whether by a transit or in an interaction with another person, experiences force us to confront these instinctual fears or sensitivities. I think this is especially true when eclipses repeat at these same degrees. That happens about every 19 years. So, around the ages of 19, 38, 57, 76, and so on. I think it’s also true when transiting eclipses oppose these prenatal degrees. That happens about every nine and a half years or so. And it’s especially noticeable if these prenatal eclipse points were connected with planets in your birth chart and especially planets that are in difficult aspect.

So, Taylor, you asked, how can we respond to these times in a helpful way? And when it comes to the prenatal eclipse points, the feelings that they awaken can be strong and kind of irrational.

But I think simply knowing the degrees of your prenatal eclipses – and you can do that by just getting the ephemeris, leafing back over the six months prior to your birth, until you find the eclipses. And then once you know those degrees, you can identify when those are the points that are being activated and you know it’s an important time then to take steps, to ground yourself, to ask for a little help from people you trust and overall to avoid panicking about things that might be very strongly felt but somewhat transitory.

I feel the prenatal eclipse points are actually really important. Returns and oppositions of the lunar nodes in your birth chart are just as important. They’re just different. They refer to something in the birth chart. So by definition, after your birth. So, I think they work a little differently from the prenatal eclipses.

And because a Solar Eclipse can occur at a New Moon within more than 17º of one of the lunar nodes, and a Lunar Eclipse within 11º. Eclipses and the Lunar Nodes don’t necessarily even fall in the same signs in your birth chart or during an eclipse season.

The cycle of the Lunar Node axis is 18 years, and every 9 years the North and South Nodes trade signs. Right now, for instance, the transiting North Node of the Moon is in Aries. Nine years from now, the North Node will be in Libra.

If we look at this axis as describing personal and spiritual growth, we could say that the returns tell us that if we’re faced with a situation that threatens our sense of ease and security, Then, actually, that’s a good thing, and it’s a good time to move ahead and take action toward the unfamiliar, which is represented by the North Node.

The South Node has kind of a terrible reputation. I am not part of an astrological tradition that views it as being quite so evil, but in fact, I think the South Node, because it represents what we know well and what we’re very comfortable with, it’s kind of like a storehouse of these great qualities and treasures that we possess. We just have to avoid hanging out in the South Node, because if we do, then we don’t challenge ourselves and we don’t grow.

At the Lunar Node’s transiting opposition, which is when the transiting North Node is on the natal South Node, I picture the transiting Node making a stop at that storehouse of South Node riches, stocking up on them, and then carrying them forward along our path back to the North Node, where what we know can help us get more comfortable with the unknown that we’re trying to embrace.

So that, I think, is what’s important about the prenatal eclipse points and the transiting lunar nodes. Transits to the prenatal eclipse points awaken our instinct that we might be in a situation that’s potentially harmful or hurtful. As we get a bit older, I think we learn to protect ourselves in these situations. And just knowing when these transits are happening is helpful, because it’s a signal not to panic, just exercise appropriate caution. And the nodal returns and oppositions are a signal to make sure we’re moving forward, and not just hanging out in our safety zone.

Taylor, I hope that that helps. Thank you again so much for your question. And if you, Invisible Friend, have a question you’d like me to answer on a future episode, just leave a message of one minute or less at SpeakPipe.com. Or, you can email me at april (at) bigskyastrology (dot) com, and be sure to put the “podcast question” in the subject line.

Donor Thanks

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That’s it for this episode. Join me again bright and early next Monday and until then keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars!