Hope this message finds you floating in dreamland with a soft gaze, smiling gently as you imagine The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible*
We’re in the depths of Pisces season, with a stellium of planets in the sign of two fishes. The sun and moon are meeting here in the early hours of Sunday, sandwiched between Saturn, who has been in Pisces for since last March, and Neptune, who has been in Pisces since 2011. (These two powerful planets will both be leaving Pisces and making a great conjunction at 0 degrees of Aries in 2025, completing their 36-year cyclic dance!). Mercury, the planet of communication, also just left Pisces, where he cozied up next to Neptune this past Friday, bringing an added dose of the ethereal to our communications this week.
The sun and moon’s meeting in Pisces gives potent energy to your manifestations and planting seeds for your wildest dreams to grow out of. Neptune, who is the modern day ruler of the sign of the fish, adds fuel to that subconscious fire, making our visions and ideas even more dreamy. Saturn, on the other hand, is the lord of time and Karma, and he feels a little less at home in this watery underworld. With Saturn here, we will feel a teeter-tottering between reality and fantasy this new moon, or will feel the desire to create pragmatic containers around our lofty desires.
The In-Between Realm
I just glanced at my calendar on the fridge, and saw so much coming up in the weeks ahead- Daylight Savings! Spring Equinox! St. Patrick’s Day! Easter! The dafodil and crocus bulbs that I planed last fall are popping out of the ground, and the energy of people I’m running into lately is much more…. alive.
I spent the last 3 weeks of February in Costa Rica, leaving on a heavy winter snowstorm and returning to tee-shirt weather. It was a trip to take a dip into hot summer of Central America for a bit and then return to a wholly different season! Caught up in the glow of my fading tan, I was about to put the snow-boots away for the season today when I looked out the window and saw a blizzard of snowflakes falling on the daffodil sprouts.
Nope. Not spring yet. We’re in the in-between, the liminal space of the whirlpool of fishes. The time of the year that rules the 12th house, the house of spirit, sublimation, the subconscious, and secrets.
Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius are all mutable signs, meaning that they indicate a change between seasons, an ending and a new beginning. Gemini is the phase between spring and summer, Virgo between summer and fall, and Sagittarius between fall and winter. All of these transitionary seasons have a certain energetic similarity. But out of all the mutable signs, Pisces feels the most mutable, the most unpredictable, the most obvious in it’s requirement for adaptability.
I went out last night and danced with a bunch of friends. In the middle of the dance floor, one of many familiar smiling faces said to me “We’re all coming. out of our winter hibernation! Yasss!” A sweaty mass of undulating bodies churning up dance moves in a warehouse, the wet snow raining down outside onto a folks sitting around bonfire, seemed to me a perfect snapshot of this mutable time. Boundariless, ever-moving, and moving in and out like waves of the tide.
I adore the poetry and the dance and the flow of this time of year. And I’ll admit that I’m also feeling. a bit woozy in the midst of it all. The limitless ocean of Neptune and Jupiter, the Saturn-in-Pisces feeling of trying contain water in a cardboard box.
Pisces is the sign that reflects the energies of all of the other signs, letting us know that the divisions we made between them were arbitrary in the primordial soup, where there is no beginning or end. I am mind-blown to be here, to be reaching. the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new one: a revolution.
A revolution is a trip around the sun
I started this Substack in January 2023, while on trip to the big island of Hawaii visiting the red lava flows of her erupting volcano. Unexpectedly, a little over one year later, I found myself soaking in geothermal pools of another volcano, Costa Rica’s Arenal. Submerging in pools heated by the depths of the earth gave me a deep feeling of connection to the elements around me, as well as a deep gratitude for having embarked on this investigation.
I’ve now written about my personal experiences and the collective energy every full and new moon since Spring Equinox, 2023. As I sit under the darkness of this Pisces new moon, the last new moon of the year, I’m struck by her energy- it feels nauseatingly infinite, uncontainable, and vast.
On the precipice of a new astrological year, I am deciding to submerge myself in these waters, aware that as seasons change, the feeling of floating and swirling inevitably goes away. The infinite potential of the seed in the dank soil becomes a sprout, and begins its journey anew. There is no turning back into the powers of the unknown, of darkness, until the cycle completes itself. So, I’d say: enjoy this moment of mystery, even if it feels like catch tissue, like dissolving. There is beauty, during this new moon, in leaning into the way wholeness cannot possibly be understood through separation into parts. Wholeness must simply be experienced as wholeness, from within.
Everything is everything. After winter must come spring. Change comes eventually.
-Lauryn Hill
The new moon is in a couple of hours, and I’m truly exhausted from all of this week’s floating and visioning and trying to breathe underwater. I’m overwhelmed with trying to fit infinite potential into a plan or a strategy. I think this means that the night-dreams are calling. Only they can make sense of things during a Pisces new moon. I’d say the best somatic/embodiment practice for this new moon is deep sleep, deep dreams, and submerging in water, if you can.
Endings (Moon Musings) and New Beginnings (A Weekly Podcast!)
As the wheel is turning to a new beginning, this will be my last post of the series of new and full moons. It’s been SO good to be here with you! Thanks for all your support along the way.
Now for an announcement: Starting THIS Spring Equinox, I’ll be launching a new project for a new year: A podcast! I’m calling it Cycles of Time. It’s a weekly horoscope/forecast exploring multidisciplinary, multicultural perspectives of the wheel of the year. I’ll dive into mythologies and stories, and give guidance on how to work with cycles of time through the lenses of astrology, the Taoist 5-element cycle, the I Ching, Human Design, and the Indigenous Medicine Wheel. I’m super excited to share and learn with you in auditory form!
I’ll be sending the full podcast recordings out here on Substack along with their transcripts each week, so be sure to subscribe here to receive them in your inbox. It’ll also be available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and most other platforms. I’ll be sending out the first introductory post tomorrow, and the forecasts will begin on the following Monday morning. Stay tuned- follow my Instagram at @astro.somatics or @cyclesoftimepodcast to stay in the loop !
(And if you prefer reading to listening, I’ll still be writing monthly articles for each Zodiac Season for the beautiful collective I’m part of, Astrum Opus.)
Astrosomatics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The Cycles of Time
I’ll leave you with a snippet from my 2023 astrological new year post, a musing about the myths of Zodiac through the ecological wheel of the year and the wheel of a human life. I invite you personally to go deep with me on all this through the Podcast!
TheAstrological Wheel of Life is one of many wheels of life told across space and time. From Mongolia to China to North and South America to Africa, the Wheel of Life is a universal symbolism that reveres the changing and ever-renewing beauty of life. Here’s my interpretation:
SPRING : BIRTH & YOUTH
ARIES
Aries is birth - ram horns, a seed bursting into a sprout out of the dormant ground into the Spring. A new year, a new life. A cardinal fire sign, Aries is like a spark from a match, igniting new beginnings.
TAURUS
Taurus is toddlerhood - a bull sitting in a meadow learning about the world through the 5 senses - sensuality, and what’s theirs, what belongs to them, what they value. A fixed earth sign, Taurus is like a grassy valley, still and verdant, blooming with the scent of flowers.
GEMINI
Gemini is childhood- two twins chatting with each other, babbling, learning about the perspective of another for the first time. A mutable air sign, Gemini is like the wind, carrying voices back and forth in conversation. Gemini is the bees, pollinating the flowers of Taurus season.
SUMMER : ADOLESCENCE
CANCER
Cancer is early adolescence- withdrawing into the shell of the crab, closing the door to their room, to learn about the watery nature of emotions from within. A cardinal water sign, Cancer is like a spring bubbling up from the ground, the way emotions bubble up from deep inside us.
LEO
Leo is late adolescence -the early 20s in our modern lifespans- when the lion moves away from the den, leaning into their unique identity, and proudly shows it off to the world. A fixed fire sign, Leo is a burning summer campfire, drawing people to its heat, radiating out its light without even trying. Leo is fruit ripening on the vine and honey flowing out of the honeycomb.
VIRGO
Virgo is early-adulthood, late 20s- a time to be like the Vestal Virgin of Roman times and belong to yourself. Get your shit together, harvest and analyze and organize what you know and who you are. A mutable earth sign, Virgo is the fruit and grain ready for harvest, the harvester discerning the wheat from. the chaff, the ripe from the rotten.
AUTUMN : MATURITY
LIBRA
Libra is mid-adulthood, 30s- meeting others with the desire for union, partnership, community, and balance of the scales. A cardinal air sign, Libra is like the first exhale, the first breath, bringing union between a body and the external environment around it. Libra is a gust of fall wind blowing leaves to the ground, meeting the underworld for the first time since they were born out of it.
SCORPIO
Scorpio is mid to late adulthood, 40s - the transmutation from the scorpion to the eagle to the phoenix, a focus on transformation through intimacy with self and others- shared resources, collaboration, and getting deep with the unknowns of existence. A fixed water sign, Scorpio is like a still, deep lake, a permafrosted soil, so much going on beneath the surface, beyond first sight.
SAGITTARIUS
Sagittarius is established adulthood, 50s- the archer sets out to learn about the wisdom of the larger world. A mutable fire sign, Sagittarius is like the embers of a flame that are transferred to a torch, able to move and spread warmth and light throughout the lands, as well as start new fires. Sagittarius is a prescribed burn or a wildfire, breaking open seeds and breaking down plant matter into nutrients for the soil.
WINTER : ELDERHOOD & DEATH
CAPRICORN
Capricorn is late adulthood (60s-70s), a person at the top of their game, the sea-goat connecting wisdom from the depths of the sea and carrying them to the peaks of the mountain. A cardinal earth sign, Capricorn is a volcanic eruption, creating new, hardened earth that only the toughest plants can survive in, before it turns into the most fertile soil throughout time.
AQUARIUS
Aquarius is end of life (80s-90s) - the eccentric old water-bearer pouring wisdom out to the world, nourishing humanity with their stories and ideas for the future. A fixed air sign, Aquarius is the atmosphere, a constancy of knowledge, holding the existence of the potentials future above the changing weather patterns below. Aquarius is mycelium, aerating the soil and bringing the atmosphere into the depths.
PISCES
Pisces is the time of death, the space after death, before life begins again. Two fish swim in opposite directions in the eternal, etherial sea of dreams, connected by a rope. A mutable water sign, Pisces is a waterfall, is the mist from a waterfall becoming vapor, becoming gas, enveloping everything, everywhere, nourishing the rich soil where the seed of Aries will sprout once again. Pisces is the seed itself, filled with infinite potential.
As we enter Spring 2024 and all this new-ness, it’s helpful to remember that there is no real beginning or end. We are in a continually moving cycle of time, and we must respond in kind. I love the visual of a person walking to the top of a globe: whenever they seem to reach the top, the globe rotates so that they have to take another step forward, or else they will fall over, and fall off the top of the world.
As Einstein said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep our balance, we have to keep moving.”
Thanks for reading, sharing, and letting me know what you think! All my love as you move closer and closer toward your wildest dreams.
xoxo,
Alison
Notes:
*(The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possibleis the title of a book by Charles Eisenstein).
That's an exciting new project! I'm looking forward to it :)