Spring Equinox: Astrology of 3/20 – 3/26

Welcome back! This week is packed with dynamic energies, including the spring equinox (the Sun’s ingress into Aries) and a Full Moon in Libra on the same day!

Pisces Season can feel emotionally overwhelming for people, like being tossed around in the ocean. It is the mystic’s experience of mutable emotion – joy and bliss one moment, and despair in another. Additionally, our ego is meant to dissolve during Pisces Season and that can feel disorienting. We become more sensitive but often without totally knowing where our feelings are coming from. We feel the collective feels and the suffering. But remember this can be reverse-engineered – when you generate breakthroughs, gratitude, love and bliss states and evolve your own consciousness, you are adding to the collective symphony of energies and making it easier for others to tune into that vibe. This is why although it is also important to do things in the world, our vibrational state can also be a form of activism. I honestly don’t know why this isn’t talked about more – we can sometimes sympathize with the feeling of “feeling the collective” without recognizing that we can also broadcast feels into the collective. Be a lover and let it ripple out! If you want to learn more about navigating subtle energy, I would highly recommend Spiritual Growth: Being Your Higher Self by Sanaya Roman and Personal Power Through Awareness by the same author.

Now we move into Aries Season and although the Sun will make some challenging aspects (to Chiron, Saturn and Pluto this season), I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s time to get lit after all this swimming. ??? Aries Season is a great time to connect to the fire of individuality inside of you, the part of you that is excited to be who you are. Each moment and each experience becomes an opportunity to discover the answer to the question, who am I? Some can call that selfish, but I want to suggest that it takes heart to actually care about your own development in a conscious way.

Are you new here? I’m Sabrina Monarch and I write these forecasts every week to offer you insight on the challenges and opportunities of current astrological transits. Astrology is an electric language and I hope something in this forecast sparks you!

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(Top image: Edgar Maxence)

Here’s our week:

March 20, 2019

Mars in 22 Taurus trine Pluto in 22 Capricorn: 4:41 AM PDT

Mars formed an exact trine to Saturn last week, but with Saturn and Pluto so close together Mars is still trining both planets.

• Endurance is a personal power move right now. These alignments can feel heavy, but we may feel the libido and feel rewarded as we push through challenges.

• We can feel empowered and energized this week if we take radical responsibility for our situation, even and especially the things we perceive as happening “to” us. Regardless of what we’re facing, we’re the ones who have to face it. 

• Mars is traditionally a planet who likes total freedom, however, interacting with Saturn and Capricorn placements, Mars becomes more like a disciplined soldier and we in turn are invited to develop our courage in facing situations of responsibility and inevitability.

Mercury rx in 19 Pisces sextile Saturn in 19 Capricorn: 7:27 AM PDT

(Image: Alejandro Pasquale)

• This is an opportunity to put some of our more wild, poetic, or dare I say loopy ideas into language which is more formal, intelligible, or ‘responsible’. If you’re just making interpretive dance or poems, there’s no need. But if you want to take inspired ideas which perhaps transcend normal cultural limitations (like your visions) and bridge them into reality, this Mercury-Saturn alignment can support that.

• This can also be a good time for checking in with your boundaries. Mercury in Pisces has little boundaries, but Saturn is the planet of boundaries. As they harmonize, our ability to consciously alter our boundaries does, too. If we are lacking boundaries, we might be adjusting our speech already anticipating how other people feel or will receive it (which is also a useful skill in certain situations). If we are constantly enacting this pattern, we might be bending over backwards for people by default, or self-censoring ourselves instead of letting our true feelings be known. On the other hand, if we are rigid or have rigid egos, it can be difficult for us to form empathic communion with others or even other nonhuman beings, and we may benefit from dissolving some of our boundaries. 

• One practical tip for dissolving boundaries: imagination is a portal toward intuition and vision. We are culturally trained to see certain visions as “just our imagination” but the more we dialogue with imagination, the more lucid our third eye perceptions become and we begin to see the essences of things. If you have an inner-critic who constantly doubts your imagination or intuition, recognize it. You can witness that voice without needing to identify with it. How has that voice been trying to protect you? Do you still need that kind of protection?

Sun enters Aries: 2:58 PM PDT 

(Image: John Jude Palencar)

This marks the Spring Equinox!

• Aries season begins and we are brought in touch with our fire after a month of Pisces and its oceanic fluctuations and depths. This can be an exciting renewal and rebirth, like sprouting up from the ground after being tucked in for the winter.

• Aries is a Mars-ruled sign and brings us in touch with our hero/warrior selves, our courage, and our willingness to try new things and to put ourselves out on the line. Through Aries we experience the joy of being a self, and we become curious about the question, “Who am I?” Once we know an answer to this question, we become determined to follow our destiny and win at life.

• Aries Season begins with the Sun just one degree away from Chiron in Aries, and later on in the month the Sun will square Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn. Chiron, Saturn, and Pluto are all heavyweights in terms of being emotionally challenging. Here are some things to keep in mind –

• Emergence trauma: we all may have moments where we spoke our minds or put ourselves out there in a way that was immediately squashed. Maybe we were enthusiastic about something as a kid in a state of innocence and then our bubble was bursted when we were made fun of for it and if we took that personally, a little fire was extinguished. Whatever it is, if we did something new and were in a place of vulnerability and we met swift judgement or failure, that can leave a mark. Perhaps this is a mark that has been unconsciously preventing us from being bold or starring new ventures. This may relate to why whenever we seek to do something new or draw any kind of attention to ourselves, we find ourselves facing anxieties around failure.

• Having this kind of trauma does not mean that you are blocked from following your destiny or your dreams. It does mean that you may find yourself at a crossroads where your path means feeling the fear and doing it anyway. This doesn’t mean irresponsibly jumping into dangerous situations. It does mean using your voice when you’re afraid you won’t be listened to, standing up for what you believe in when you’re afraid of becoming a pariah, and it also means seeking out healing of basic complexes or traumas which are holding you back in life. How might you actively pave new networks in your brain and new emotional/karmic pathways that affirm things like: I am safe and supported. I have the right to exist.

• If you are taking new actions or emerging in any way, your old karmic wounds or blocks can get activated. Work with healers and learn self-healing and self-parenting techniques that allow you to reprogram and free yourself.

• The illusion of being alone: try to be more realistic this season about the ways in which you are actually not alone. Being alone is an experience that can build willpower and courage – being alone can help us to radically separate from toxic communities or even just communities we are outgrowing and that aren’t coming with us. However, even the lone hero finds guides along the path. Don’t have too much pride to ask for support. Many people are happy to help someone on a mission. The self only exists in a matrix of others.

Full Moon in 0 Libra: 6:43 PM PDT

The Sun in Aries, Uranus in Taurus, and Moon in Libra are all at the 0 degree mark of their current signs. Besides the given opposition between the Sun and Moon, the main aspect this Moon forms is a quincunx to Uranus in Taurus.

• It is time for a radical revisioning of what the self in relationship means. Not just the dyad of self and other, but the relationship of the self to the entire environment and even cosmos and the way that all other relationships spring from this fundamental ground. Likewise, how do we relate to the cosmos and to the environment as though it were a relationship that we are participating in?

• For Aries season to start with a Full Moon in Libra may be an indicator that we are meaning to let go of some of our illusions of selfhood this season and move into ecological identities. We are unique and individual, yes, but we don’t exist in a vacuum, and reality itself is constantly providing us with reflections. When we go a step deeper and discover new ways of engaging with reality, reality unfurls new layers of itself to us, like blossoming intimacy within a human relationship.

• Take note of where you are on the balance of seeing life as war versus life as music. Where are you asserting your will and where are you harmonizing? Is one out of balance in particular for you?

March 21, 2019

Venus in 23 Aquarius square Mars in 23 Taurus: 1:07 AM PDT

When Venus and Mars face off like this it can relate to tensions in relationship or polarized tensions between sexes (like social media movements like #metoo/#timesup, #yesallwomen/#notallmen). A higher purpose is ultimately to breakthrough and move beyond duality, but heightened polarity can ensue as well. You might notice more discord between feminine and masculine principles, whether played out by individuals or energetically. Here are some internal themes that may arise:

• We may be feeling pressure to have more space – we might seek alone time to get immersed in our own energy again and clear our minds from all groupthink we have internalized that goes against our core values. What do I mean by this? You know when you get carried away trying to “fit in” or have “the look”, or get famous, and in so doing this you lose a connection to your own unique gifts and individuality? It’s not that you can’t get what you want, but it’s that you can’t get what you want by losing touch with yourself. That may mean that the way you approach life and the cultivation of your values may require some ingenuity and not just imitating methods that are trendy or that you see other people succeeding at, unless those methods actually resonate with you at a deep level.

• We may be feeling a need to liberate ourselves and feel obtusely stuck in some way. The sense of feeling stuck is dramatized because of conflicting liberation impulses. We may feel we are gaining insight or accelerated consciousness on the nature of HOW we are stuck, and we will need to be inventive to discover methods we can practically apply in our lives to “un-stuck” ourselves. Freedom may not feel free – it may feel like some work is necessary.

Venus in 23 Aquarius sextile Jupiter in 23 Sagittarius: 7:16 AM PDT

• There is a lot of heaviness on the planet because of suffering and our ability to be aware of suffering from all over the globe because of the media. We may feel as though it is a moral imperative to take in suffering and always be aware of it as a result. However, it is also supportive for the planet and the planet’s evolution for individuals to find their own freedom and bliss and bring the fruits of these heightened states into the way that they participate with reality. With Venus in freedom-loving Aquarius sextiling Jupiter (a party planet, a planet related to optimism and good moods and expansion/fortune), let’s be reminded to stay lit ? and develop a life-enhancing faculty of detachment and non-reaction that allows us to be in better relationship to reality.

• Non-reactivity means you can observe things without impulsively forming a response and going into fight-or-flight. The next step, from this vantage point, is choosing responses which can allow you to make higher choices. We can actually choose to be happy for example, regardless of what is happening. And happiness, as a form of energy, can allow us to radiate inspiration and healing into the world around us. Not feeling like we have to be stressed out, full of despair, etc. just because there are “reasons” to be doesn’t mean we turn away from morality or ethics. It just means we can do our dharma on this planet with a happy and well-resourced nervous system. Too blessed to be stressed.

March 24, 2019

Mercury rx in 16 Pisces conjunct Neptune in 16 Pisces: 10:27 AM PDT

If you’ve been tracking the transits with us, do you remember what it was like last time Mercury and Neptune were conjunct before the retrograde (around February 18, 2019)? Well, it’s happening again!

• This transit makes clear boundaries, rational thinking, and traditional logic more difficult, but enhances our ability to think beyond boundaries, to think poetically, and to merge with things by contemplating them (to have visions). It enhances our dreams and fantasy life.

• The “order” supported here can have more to do with surrendering to reality than trying to manipulate or control reality. All the same, mantras or manifestation practices are a form of active dreaming and still can work as they always have power to. What doesn’t work is thinking that we can preconceive how things are going to go and execute things to the mark. The Pisces realm is not that ordered and predictable. As I say a lot with Pisces energy, it’s more like surfing! You don’t control the wave but you become one with it.

• See where you are being asked to “let go and let god”.

March 26, 2019

Venus enters Pisces: 12:43 PM PDT

Venus will stay in Pisces until April 20, 2019.

• Venus in Pisces is a very enchanted placement – combining the archetype of love and beauty (Venus) with the world of fantasy, imagination, vision, glitter, and the sublime (Pisces). Venus in Pisces more easily sees through rose-tinted glasses, which can support the magnification of beauty and romance in our lives. The potential downfall, however, is lack of discernment in love and not truly seeing others for what they are, instead projecting fantasies onto them.

• As an archetype, Pisces relates to both delusion and extreme spiritual clarity. Think about it! Sometimes your imagination is a fluttering of insight and truth from your third eye, and other times it’s just ‘imagination’. The only way to understand Pisces is within Piscean experience, and you can’t reach the depths of the ocean with floaties on! Ultimately we must learn to navigate multiple realms: to be able to entertain fantasies and the realities that are agreed upon by the masses. To be able to entertain the reality agreed upon by the masses, and transcendent realities beyond our culture’s apparent reach. To be able to entertain our dreams and anchor them down to earth.

• How might this apply to love? Love that we share with others is a portal to other realms. When we are in relationship, we do channel new possibilities – that’s why we dream up the future together. An art of Venus in Pisces is to discover how we dream with other people and how we relate to this co-dreaming process. Are we jaded and hardly dream at all? Do we dream a lot with others but never ground it into reality? Do we stay in relationships with people just hoping that they will change? Do we grow together in our relationships by sharing our dreams and acting upon them?

• We have to suspend our judgements and inhibitions sometimes to move out of the narrow boxes of social conditioning and see what else is out there, to even entertain or come to a direct experience that magic exists. That’s not for the faint of heart but for the brave of heart. How much are you willing to value your imagination, and can you form a relationship to it that enhances your “real” life too?

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! I really appreciate you being here with me as I know that if you connect to this writing we have likemindedness and that is so special. Please share this article with a friend who you think would resonate!

Please let me know what you think in the comments – truly I want to know so leave a note! I love you and you are tribe to me, thank you for finding your way to these words and resonating with them in whatever ways you have. If you feel you would benefit from further guidance on your personal natal chart and transits, I am available to help! Book a reading with me here.

With love,

Sabrina Monarch

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts, works with clients and teaches. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She is a novelist and is currently pursuing her masters in Philosophy. She also enjoys kundalini yoga, meditation and ashtanga yoga.

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