Dateblog: March 2015

.
March looks to be a month which begins with a few challenges (or our challenging ourselves) and which ends with things moving more or less in a desired direction ... PROVIDING that desire doesn’t include any gaining of ‘new ground’ (whatever that term might mean to you in your life) or thinking that everything which anyone says, thinks, writes or undertakes to do is to be taken on faith - or guaranteed, come what may.

None of this means that in due time you can’t get to some particular goal you have in mind. But it does say there’s a certain suggestion that ultimate fruition isn’t going to happen now except in a few rather tightly defined cases.

And what are those cases defined by?

The answer there is Saturn, symbol of time, dedication, effort, slow growth (sometimes very slow), structures and structuring things, responsibility, durability, regulation and much, much else which though not entirely frivolous and fun is nevertheless what allows us to achieve, to earn what we get from life and to be known for who we are.

(And who we have been. Don’t forget that part!)

So when is the ‘dividing line’ here? That would be around March 13-16 - a period of three days during which Juno (management) goes direct, Saturn goes retrograde and Venus wraps up a couple of weeks of sometimes less-than-inspiring transiting through Aries, a sign which doesn’t give us any of those Venus hugs and compliments we humans need in some measure merely as reassurance of connection with others.

After all, no (wo)man is an island, as they say.

Once Venus gets into Taurus, we can expect better reception and better results as Venus’ primary function as a signal of good will (even love) begins to function in our favor as of the 17th.

Yet that is just a couple of days shy of the March 20th (29 Pisces) solar eclipse, so we know there are places where all Venus in Taurus is going to mean is that some form of comfort and security ... or things which make us feel comforted or feel secure (even though that may be something of a lie) is being eradicated and ‘eclipsed’ precisely because the ‘old’ way of doing things or thinking no longer holds.

As the eclipse rolls through, Mars (which is in Aries, its sign of sole rulership) will just have moved into Aries’ third decanate - the degrees between 20 and 29 which in any sign are where the matters associated with that sign are all around us, in our workplace or society - or going on ‘out there’ in the world. So that which is happening (wherever) is nothing we precisely control, although we may well have to respond to it. Or maybe we just want to respond or participate.

Mars in Aries is a willful kind of energy which ‘pushes’ to do things and to stand behind statements of personal ego, all of which may be being expressed in the world - and which some of us will be surprised by. Or even enraged by. Its always to be expected that under Mars in Aries people are going to do things which harm or hurt, and since Aries is the sign of our ‘self-identity’ (including ego) expressions of that identity/ego, things which will get said or done (some in haste) during March - and this is a reference to the whole of March - which end up getting retracted, edited, softened, rephrased, repaired or ignored. During that period when Venus is also in Aries there will tend to be several camps: the helpless or ill-informed and those who willingly join in the fray, drawn in by a need to feel their own vitality ... and at least some among us will start there and get ‘corrected’ as we move through the Pisces eclipse.

But for others, March begins with life on ‘hold.’ And if this is you, and if you’re also someone whose chart ‘answers’ to 4 degrees of Sagittarius (by any aspect) you may find Saturn’s station removes some limit, blockade or impediment.

Some of this may well have to do with March 2015 also being month full of fire signs - fire being the element which imagines and envisions ... but which isn’t always based in fact or on pre-existing schedules, realities and (oh yes ...) those inconvenient little notions we call ‘human nature.’ 

  Legend: blue/water, brown/earth, light blue/air, dark blue/water

.

With all of March being so ‘fiery’ - especially with Mars passing through Aries, this is going to be a month when things will manifest ‘loudly’ and when the impacts made on the individual level (or which originate on the individual level) need to be thought through.

Theoretically, Saturn’s presence in Sagittarius (with Sagittarius being ruled by Jupiter in retrograde) says there are things in life or ‘in our way’ which are going to promote thought simply by delaying the possibility of success. Still, there’s nothing about this pair of placements which says what is going to get thought about. And with Mercury in Pisces for much of the month, there will also be a high emotional/evocative quotient lurking about which, apart from where its put to use in understanding emotions or discussing how and why such feelings exist, is apt to be too ill-defined to clarify misconceptions on a purely or randomly individual basis. In fact, some individuals are likely to be so filled with whatever they’re feeling as to avoid any new input specifically because they’re sort of out of emotional processing space.

Remember - there’s a solar eclipse this month in Pisces and at the greatest intensity of depth the sign is ‘designed’ (metaphysically) to evoke precisely because some of those feelings are ‘old hat,’ outmoded and pertaining to a past everyone is faced with having to let go of as Earth (and everything which resides on Earth) faces the need to integrate as individuals and on the individual level as well as on a global and planetary level. Incidents here and there are highlighting just how much we need each other and how dependent we are on societal structures which are relatively new in comparison with humanity’s older and more settled ways - the high-rise fire in Dubai’s ‘Torch Tower’ (an ironic name, yes) occurred with the Moon - a symbol of home - at 29 Pisces (the degree of the incoming eclipse).

Both charts above are cast for 2 a.m. in Dubai, U.A.E., and though some of the

reports as to exactly what time fire broke out are varying by some minutes,

given the rate at which the angles (and Moon) were moving, the association

of the 29 Pisces Moon in this chart and the IC (or Nadir) is a constant.

.  

Fortunately no one died. Even better, what this would seem to say about the eclipse is that where we have done well in constructing or ‘structuring’ the framework upon which other things rest and our ability to react in a structured manner we survive ... perhaps not unscathed, as incidents under Pisces often leave (or reveal) emotional dents which are particularly hard to resolve because they tend to be based in real events which have had a real (and realistic) effect on us as people.

And that leads to the heart and soul of Pisces - a sign which ultimately exists to remind us of what really matters in the end: life itself.

*********

Astrologer's Note: This post originally went up with two copies of the month by element - an 'oops' which has now been corrected. Sorry if anyone got confused!

*********

.
.
.