So: How was that Pisces New Moon?

So what was that yesterday? Was it Dory the clown fish from “Finding Nemo” chanting, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming?” Or did it sound more like the theme song from “Jaws,” echoing from a barely-remembered dream? Oh, wait – it was just the New Moon in Pisces, midway between Neptune and Chiron. In all seriousness though, depending on your personal astrology and how your life has unfolded thus far, this conjunction of Sun and Moon at the midpoint of two such powerful planets in the zodiac’s ocean may have felt like either of those two ends of the spectrum – or something even cooler.

Yep -- that New Moon really was right in the middle...

As noted in the Daily Astrology posts this week, Neptune can be a wonderfully creative influence – or it can represent all manner of illusion and delusion. Chiron, in bringing things into sharp focus, can feel like illumination on the way to healing – or you may find yourself thrown into a crisis as a means to the same end, if previous messages have gone unheeded. For some, all of this activity in Pisces spells rich creativity, spiritual contact and sexual depth all flowing together like a warm bath. For others, the fluidity, inherent contradictions and changeability can be quite stressful.

We’re in a condensed ‘week of Pisces’, currently midway between the Sun’s ingress and conjunction to Neptune and the Sun’s conjunction to Chiron. As we warm up to that capstone, we thought we’d check in with our readers’ experiences of this astrology. (Note: some comments have been lightly edited for punctuation and spelling.)

***

“The energy is so potent, portentous, I have no idea how to contain it all or direct it properly. The pitfalls are constant and thankfully, Mars in Virgo is relentlessly reminding me to walk the line, precisely.”

***

“I am either a) delusional, floating on a narcotic cloud of optimism (but not every second!) or b) … must be a natural endorphin. How beautiful classical music sounds… the intent and joy. I hope it will sustain.”

***

“Tough New Moon for me, this one.”

***

“I am tuned in and turned on, and have used the process of taking personal responsibility, inventory, and amends to overcome past trauma, drama, and life difficulties again and again. … So, I am using the current astrology to again ‘get real’ and look at wtf I am choosing and what the payoffs are, positive AND ookie [sic].”

***

“I’ve had some intense opportunities these past few days, for my own healing and expression … I am so grateful for this it’s beyond words. Although, my work is partly in allowing adaptation to occur and to digest the process.”

***

“Floating on a sea of knowing all the while observing my confidence expand whenever I see and encounter another’s artistry and self assuredness. I cannot help but draw from their artistry and begin emulating it.

And to quote one of the Eagles songs worming around in my thoughts: ‘I’ve got a peaceful easy feeling … ’cos I’m already standing, on the ground’.”

***

“I’ve been reading how difficult/vague/nebulous this new mini-age of Pisces is for many PW readers. I am wondering if any other Pisces (besides me) are having an easier time with this? I posted the other day about feeling supported and clear about my boundaries and intention — which I’m sure for any other fishes out there, you understand how profound that is… It’s been a long time coming, but I think things are finally on the up and up for those of us fish, so used to being last!”

***

“With Venus, Jupiter, Mars and rising in Sag, lots of Capricorn and a Moon in Gemini, I am finding this shift a bit jarring. With only Neptune in Scorpio to ease the way, it feels as if my ‘fire’ has been squelched and my earth is now mud. The last couple of days have been an effort in futility as far as getting anything done, almost like I’m slogging through unfamiliar territory and haven’t quite figured out how navigate it yet. Dreams have been similar to the other posts on the blog – mostly waking and feeling like I missed something really important and if I could just remember… I would have all the answers. I think. So – I suppose it’s welcome to the wonderful world of Pisces!”

***

“Neptune is a strange energy indeed. Like trying to grasp and hold on to a bar of wet psychic soap. I am taking PW’s earlier advice and writing things down. Thank goodness I have! It’s all feeling very liminal. Subliminal.”

***

“The waves of feelings in the last week have been intense; contraction and expansion almost moment to moment.”

***

“… I definitely felt extremely poised and supported by the heavens as I cut off a long-term rocky relationship, which caused me a lot of psychological anguish over the past 3 1/2 years. I was able to see the ‘matrix’ like Neo, and cut through a lot of BS, that I previously didn’t have the discernment or full confidence to call out — at my compassionate Pisces stellium’s expense.”

***

“This Pisces is standing center on the middle of the teeter-totter at this time. It’s pleasant here, isn’t it?

“BUT – if my waking dream is any indication of current status, this moment is not meant to last, but is the time to break free of restraints that heretofore have appeared to be a safety net of sorts.

“I don’t remember the dream in whole, but the waking vision was stark and strong and returned to me even after falling back asleep and dreaming other dreams. Not usual to remember something I’ve ‘dreamed beyond’ without writing it down.

“It was simple – a vehicle of some sort (plane, rocket ship whatever) had emergency, we went down/evacuated, the parachute on said vehicle brought it to safety – on a body of water (first it was a swimming pool but then it was an ocean) — but the safety device aka parachute was now the net – that is, as we came down into the water, it was laying itself down on the water’s surface — with me under it — in order to ‘survive’ I would need to find my way out from under the parachute.

Light from above was bright and strong coming through the white cloth of the parachute. But the cloth was large, and the water deep.

“I woke while swimming; close to finding my way, but not yet free of the parachute.”

67 thoughts on “So: How was that Pisces New Moon?”

  1. Just want to thank you for the great podcast this week. Sexual empowerment is a huge undertaking, requires an enormous committment as our society is so full of guilt and shame (and unbelievable uptightnes) about THE most natural & beautiful part of us. All the recent info too on this full moon was helpful as it brought an extremely deep healing in my life which has been building up the whole month before. I’ve been working on this issue for about 30+ years and is a major theme in my chart.

    I was brought up Catholic (the all girls school kind) and now am a tantric practitioner, helping others to heal their own sexuality. I have a Chiron/Sun/Venus/MC conjunction in Saj/Cap & T-Square (w/Saturn squaring & Uranus opposing), Grand Fire Trine w/Sun/Moon/Pluto in fire houses and Jupiter @2 deg. Pisces. All the Pisces stuff is in my 12th house and the new moon was conjuct my ruling planet, Jupiter, so it has been quite an intense time.

    Greatly appreciate the depth of your insights and interpretations of the astro material. Glad I became a subscriber last year.

  2. hi all, finally moved to create a profile on here by this pisces new moon.

    my natal moon is at 0.10 pisces. minutes before the exact new moon on tuesday i got a call to tell me that i have been made legal guardian for a friend’s child. does anyone have any advice about the significance of this and what else to look at in my chart and upcoming astrology to guide me? i am cancer sun, cancer rising. the child is a young aries! 🙂

    yours overwhelmedly, leah

  3. Thanks, Pam and Huffy!

    I can write about my daily life and have. It is when I get fired up that I do my best writing but too often, my “voice” seems too harsh or truthful to a lot of people. I have found my voice and it is rather clear, definitely not sugar coated, and gets to the root of things. I figure it isn’t what people want in this “feel-good, dumbed-down world” we are currently in.

    I have a blog but I don’t get around to writing in it much and I have been told that if I ever want to publish what I write, it cannot have been published on a blog because publishers want exclusive rights to it. So many rules for something that is creative. Meh.

    Thanks, everyone for the birthday wishes and the encouragement.

  4. Happy birthday Carrie

    What about writing about your daily life, mothering, your experience, getting purchase, what seems clear to you. Write something each day before you go to sleep, a few notes, and once a week go have a coffee and see what you’ve got? Or keep a notebook handy for relevant lines, you might find you had a poem or a song or a novel brewing

    xxxooo

  5. Thanks Fe and Sarah. I conked out early last night so missed your posts. Fe glad to hear you are developing the theme, happy to correspond if at all helpful…

  6. Don’t be put off dear Carrie! If you’ve got something precious to say (which you have) – there are so many people who need to read your words. A lot of editors are bitter and blocked writers, or maybe just confused and stressed out by a terribly demanding and consumeristic market. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter was turned down by something like 12 publishers before it got accepted – and now she’s richer than the Queen of England! And a very (belated) Happy Birthday. xx

  7. Aword, Yes it is my birthday and thank you very much! I am all of 52 years old and, according to my astrology teacher, entering a Leo flavored year. She said each year has an astrological “flavor’ or “color” based on your age. So birth to 1 = Aries, 1to 2 = Taurus, 2-3 = Gemini, 3-4 = Cancer, and so on. It recycles so it is easy to figure out what type of year you may be experiencing. So, year 48 would again be Aries which means turning 52 would be a Leo kind of year.

    Here’s the list from age 1-100:
    Aries ages: 0, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96

    Taurus ages: 1, 13, 25, 37, 49, 61, 73, 85, 97

    Gemini ages: 2, 14, 26, 38, 50, 62, 74, 86, 98

    Cancer ages: 3, 15, 27, 39, 51, 63, 75, 87, 99

    Leo ages: 4, 16, 28, 40, 52, 64, 76, 88, 100

    Virgo ages: 5, 17, 29, 41, 53, 65, 77, 89

    Libra ages: 6, 18, 30, 42, 54, 66, 78, 90

    Scorpio ages: 7, 19, 31, 43, 55, 67, 79, 91

    Sagittarius ages: 8, 20, 32, 44, 56, 68, 80, 92

    Capricorn ages: 9, 21, 33, 45, 57, 69, 81, 93

    Aquarius ages: 10, 22, 34, 46, 58, 70, 82, 94

    Pisces ages: 11, 23, 35, 47, 59, 71, 83, 95

    She never said what this was based on so I don’t know where she got it from. I have never heard any other astrologer mention it.

  8. Yesterday I decided I needed a broom to sweep out my garage, but didn’t feel like spending the money for one at that moment, so I drove out into the country to borrow a broom from a friend’s shed. Said friend was out of town, but I knew he wouldn’t care if I borrowed it and I wanted to visit his land anyway. It’s good to get out of town sometimes.

    His driveway’s in rough shape on a good day, and the ground was wet and clayey. I managed to get my car good and stuck without too much effort. As I waited for my brother to come tow me out, I paced back and forth and thought about how stuck I was inside, and how stuck I’d been most times I’d been to visit that place. I used to garden out there, and I’ve spent a lot of time the last few years pulling weeds and mulling over heartbreaks. On one weed-pulling expedition last year, a loved one stopped by and told me he could not rearrange his life to include me. I didn’t spend so much time there after that — the land couldn’t comfort me the way it used to.

    So – an appropriate place to be ankle-deep in mud.

    My brother came to my rescue, working swiftly and efficiently. He’s a farmer – he’s been stuck in the mud before. I took him out for supper as thanks, and we had a lovely time chatting over our family’s ridiculousness. When I told him why I’d gone out there, he laughed. “This supper’s going to cost you twice as much as a god-damned broom would’ve!” Yes, but I had a much better time this way. Sometimes there’s nothing like a small disaster to clear the air.

  9. Brendan,

    Thanks and sorry I didn’t wish you well; I have been at the keyboard only sometimes these past two days which means I missed some things.

  10. I had a really illuminating day during the new moon. I did a qigong lesson via facebook, looked through some things I wrote in my sketchbook of shadows a few months ago and realized I have some things to organize into a webpage/book using astrology as the frame of organization, and offered my bass skills to a community jam where there were some shining moments including a solid rendition of Sly And Family Stone’s Thank You Falletin Me Be Mice Elf Again. Also as I practiced my root building techniques in the alleyway around the corner from the venue I encountered some fear. There’s been a lot of gang shootings going on in my neighborhood and I encountered a recurring fear of being shot. I felt the presence of Pluto and allowed the fear to dissolve, finding my ground, emptying my mind to return to the stage and offer my gift of music to my friends. There was even a pro singer/guitarist for whom I had the honor of supplying a bass line who loved my playing. Maybe I’ll get a job by the time of the eclipses and Venus transit in my 9th house. “He’s a Chinese martial artist who plays bass” one friend said. Yeah, I want to turn more musicians onto nei jia, the internal family of martial arts cause if musicians had Tai Ji instead of alcohol and pharmaceuticals to deal with intense emotional states many many ingenious musicians would still be with us. In the mean time I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. I’ve had a tendency to complain about the lack of income over the last couple of years, but the ball is rolling and the regular practice I’ve sustained has been foundation training that I can already see with only a few glimpses of a more sparkly and visible musical life was essential. With my retrograde Saturn it’s taken me a long time to be able to cultivate the humility to learn from elders. I feel blessed that there’s so many musical elders in my present social circle without whom I couldn’t have learned the skills I missed learning during my first round of self-taught arrogance when I learned bass as a teenager. In equal houses Pisces is my 6th house. In modern houses it’s most of my 5th. The sky seems to resonate with my inspiration to popularize the interface between musical performance and internal martial arts.

  11. Carrie, is today Solar Return for you? Well, then, Happy Happy Birthday and many Happy “Returns”!! 🙂

  12. Carrie – {{{{{{{Many hugs}}}}}}} for your birthday!

    To one and all: thank you for the wonderful thoughts and wishes, it means quite a bit to me. Things are going really, really well: my dad went home today! He may have another stent inserted but the doc wants him to recover for a month and then they’ll re-examine him to see if he needs it or not. This was probably more of a warning shot than a near-fatal experience. It’s going to be a rebirth, no question. He was walking around the hospital yesterday evening and today before they sent him home, so he was ready to leave. At his age, almost 82, he only goes to the hospital because it’s life or death. He’ll go see relatives if need be, but that’s the only kind of voluntary trip he’ll take there.

    Since my paternal grandmother died from arteriosclerosis way back when, this is an indicator for me and my siblings. Good old genetics: gotta keep them in mind, always.

    My mom is doing really well considering her life partner of 61 years had this much going on. She actually was supposed to go to Guatemala this week, but this put the kibosh on it for a good spell (Cancer, 83 this year, and yes, she married a younger man). Not on a tour either, she was traveling alone to meet a friend there, stay with her, and do little day trips all over.

    An amazing pair, my folks.

    All in all, quite the shift both in the stars and here below this week. Thanks, everyone.

  13. feh, I came down with a nasty head cold so no Mardi Gras fun for me. This month has been mostly about mild yet mysterious health problems…a mouth rash from Tom’s toothpaste new formula which now has sodium lauryl sulfate in it. On the psychic front it has been hard to focus on anything, but one thing I notice since Neptune has entered Pisces is now I feel that I can fully breathe…and am starting to feel somewhat grounded again. Neptune had been transiting my natal first house…and I felt so ungrounded for most of that time.

  14. “I suggest you find your voice and focus your message, and do what articulate, fired up people often do — become a writer.”

    I want to….I really do. But apparently not enough to do what it takes to do that. My time and energy pie is taken up right now with mothering so I don’t think I could do that very well. I feel like I could do it sporadically which isn’t what most publishers want. Most seem to want 100% of my energy and time in what feels like a tug-of-war to me. I know it is their bottom line and I understand that so I just don’t bother even asking.

    I also am not so good at focusing the message without some outside mentor or director to help point me in a direction. When I am asked “write something” I always ask “what do you want me to write about?” My experience with the few publishers I have interacted with is that they don’t want to direct me, they want me to come up with brilliant stuff but when I do, it isn’t what they wanted which is why I ask them. It is a waste of my valuable time and energy to write, only to be told that’s not what they want. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to tell me what they want? Ah well, perhaps there’s something about the business of which I am ignorant.

    I guess I am just not driven enough.

  15. Brendan, I’m happy for you that your father is doing so well. In fact, I love that you love your father and maman and that it shows in your writing.

  16. It was absolutely wonderful for me!! I’ve been waiting for this for a long time….. feel released and cleansed somehow, very excited with the sense that something wonderful is soon to happen……. a major shift. Natal Jupiter at 3 deg, Chiron at 6 deg Pisces. Neptune conj Mercury in Scorpio – I just saw the most beautiful sight – three (very odd – I have never seen more than two together) whitetail hawks did a full circle right above me – the official ending of 13 years of hell for me.

  17. It has been incredible to read through these comments… the past few weeks have left me feeling even more alienated than usual as I’ve trudged through quite the emotional onslaught. My sense of confusion and self-criticism was pretty intense yesterday when I forced myself to follow through with my monthly new moon ritual. And today…I feel better. Emotional lifting, though the exhaustion is still there.

    Grateful to everyone for sharing…

  18. Carrie, as a gay man I just want to say thank you for your energy. I, too, am sick to death of being abused, denigrated, demonised and tolerated. I hope your rants have helped all our understandings of each other, and enabled you to regain a little sanctity of quietude in your mind.
    Your Chiron is exactly conjunct my natal Moon so, as a healing gift from my oft-neglected emotional self, may I wish you a most sincere happy birthday. I hope you find the peace and love in the company of your husband and children which you so richly deserve.

  19. I gave a qigong lesson via facebook message, reviewed pages from my sketchbook written/drawn months ago and grokked in fullness that I have some seeds that can become more visible, and did my Tuesday devotions at a community jam. Lately I keep finding myself in musical situations with high quality guitarists and drummers who notice what I’ve been cultivating. Yes, Chinese martial arts enhance my senses which includes sensitivity to music. Saturn’s retrograde in my first house seems to be coinciding with picking up some things I missed and not all of them are bad. Relaxing the tense muscles around my heart seems to be working.

  20. For me, it’s been liking wading through mud underwater. Can’t seem to gain much traction, focus, forward movement. It’s a stuck feeling accompanied by a strange detachment. Meanwhile deadlines approach, obligations need meeting, time ticks away. Made some intentions during the new moon though. The astrology so far this year has been more challenging than last year’s, in most arenas of my life. Feels like a more challenging grade all the way around.

  21. Cassavia: Any more vacancies at Karma House? I could use a new environment. Good to hear you are unpacking and reclaiming your life.

    JannKinz

  22. “OPS” or “OPs” used to mean “other people’s” as in “other people’s smokes” as in “smokin’ OPs” for the people who never bought their own cigarettes but always “borrowed” cigarettes (like they were gonna give ’em back after smoking them). Now, OPS is still “OP” as in “other people’s” but it’s other people’s shit. Sometimes taking on OPS also means defending them when we perceive that they are weak or hurt, and many times, that is merely enabling them to continue to be a victim. We can’t protect people from themselves.

    I, too, used to get physical pain from OPS, and in particular a jabbing pain in the left side of my neck. I knew who/where it came from – transferred, projected energy from someone who had hurt me. For a long while I reveled in that pain, thinking it was at least still a connection with that person who had abruptly and intentionally ejected me from his life. Then I figured out that I was now the one with the hurt and pain and it wasn’t a connection that was good, that my former friend was an energy pirate. I learned several different rituals for cutting negative energy cords (while preserving any good energy cords). Finally, I learned to banish that negative energy whenever it started creeping into my energy field. All went a long way toward letting go and liberation. Lessons learned along the way.

    Maeve – ah, yes, the crows, or ravens. This morning the group that lives behind my house were chattering loudly and a lot. I honestly don’t know if the group is a murder of crows or an unkindness of ravens (“murder” and “unkindness” being the respective collective nouns). Either way, those midnight colored birds are my friends, my totem. They provide warning, and a call to pay attention. Usually it’s for good things. So, I think that their collective nouns unfairly demonize them.

    May we all have lucid and lifting dreams tonight, ones that we remember. Thanks all here at PW.

    JannKinz

  23. I moved into a beautiful apartment called “Karma House” (really!) out of an apartment that was the major scene of a painful relationship. I was helped by many good friends in good spirits, and have been spending time setting up my new den, including a cabinet full of my most special trinkets that have been packed away over the last two years. After the isolation of said relationship, old friends are glad to catch up and reconnect, and I have been relieved to see that I am still creative, funny and delightful. Last night in my dream I spent an entire day with my Grandpa, who died on Valentine’s day 1996, and he talked to me about getting old and the types of “objects” we want to acquire while we are living, and then the joy of letting them go when we die. I’ve been drawing mountains from above. A good new moon. Chiron and Neptune are transiting my 5th house now, though, so I feel like I’ve gotten lucky.

  24. patti – I echo Fe’s thanks. I gave birth to my son in London (in fact, I was sitting in London this morning, too, looking at the rain!), and I was fortunate enough to have been in a hospital that supports active birthing. (It is now closed, and I’m sad about that.) But, having done my research beforehand, it was quite striking to see the caesarian statistics and their variance from hospital to hospital. The large NHS-based hospital in the area I lived in would have been my first port of call, but for the fact that its caesarian rate was incredibly high – significantly higher than surrounding hospitals. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that the head surgeon was a vocal supporter of elective caesarians and had stated that women were no longer biologically suited to natural birth. Pfft!

  25. Out of the blue I was asked to write about the state of modern birth – the culture of fear around it and the way increasing numbers of women are wiling to dismiss birth as no big deal and submit to the macho technocratic imperative of modern hospitals (ie caesareans) – and of course the decline of the midwife. By the the way all you Virginia/vagina watchers, the scalpel is just as much a penetrative act of male dominance and an attack on the uterus as the ultrasound dildo; it’s legend amongst midwives how common it is for surgeons get erections as they cut into women… Birth is an area I was involved with for many years as a campaigner/counsellor and writer. I left the arena exhausted and fed up, because while individual women can and do stand up and demand a more meaningful, safer, more authentically female experience than major abdominal surgery, women as a collective seem to be increasingly unable or unwilling to acknowledge this momentous occasion in their lives and make it count. And feminism I think has mostly let women down in this regard.

    patti:

    As a Virginia-vagina watcher, I thank you for your comments. I think Neptune-Chiron-Pallas in Pisces era is ushering in the whole discussion on female reproduction, not just female contraception. The ocean, is after all, our mother.

    I am intrigued by your comments about how feminism has let down women who have had children, because that encompasses so many, across class, race and culture. I plan on looking at this much more deeply as the year goes on.

    As for me and this Pisces New Moon, I finally had my dream experience. I was cooking in a kitchen for several of my friends and acquaintances. The kitchen had wood-heated burners, with a clay pot dish on each. Every time I was close to finishing a dish, someone would eat out of the pot and I would have to add more. Celebrated chefs at the party commented that “everything was great, but you didn’t have enough” — which is a great fear of mine — a fear of regretting that I am not doing my best at this point in my life. Talk about being on stage naked dreams…

  26. Wow, this comment string answers the title of the blog very well. Many thanks to everyone who contributed. Brendan, my heart goes out to you, your father and the rest of your family.

  27. Carrie, you’re not the only person with the values you have — though due to where you live, it may seem like you are. I suggest you find your voice and focus your message, and do what articulate, fired up people often do — become a writer and as Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world.

  28. ::::warning, rant mode ON:::::

    I am also fed up with being treated like some kind of bragging elitist because I am a smart female and I know it. Or being treated like a whore because I talk openly about sex and that I like it. I am tired of being marginalized over those things that I value about myself such as my smarts, my open and accepting sexuality, my being a traditional stay-at-home mother in a long-term, happily monogamous marriage while also being pro-choice, pro-gay rights and marriage, pro-polyamory, pro-equality for ALL people. I don’t fit in anywhere; not with the feminists or the traditionalists, the spiritual or the anything-goes-feel-good crowd. It sucks being different and it is lonely too.

    :::rant mode OFF:::::

  29. for the most part, yesterday’s new moon felt a bit like a “non-event,” in the sense that i did not feel like i had time to “make art” or set intentions — or that the intentions i’ve been trying to set were impossible to grasp/implement. mostly those have to do with how i use my time, esp with regard to good work habits.

    oh, and did i mention that the new moon was just a couple degrees or so from my MC? so i was feeling a little frustrated by how the day was playing out, esp w/ regard to time and work. but then i was reminded that hey — i had written an original article, and i was working someplace that encourages creativity.

    late in the afternoon, my legs got *very* antsy. had it been daylight and a little warmer, i would have given in to the urge to run, run, run. instead, i jumped around my apartment, did some yoga, and then made one of my attempts at meditation. which, i have to say, seemed to go better than usual… i’ve been working with a healer on calling back parts of myself that i’d given up to others, taking my own full space with clearer boundaries, recognizing ways in which i have a hard time being honest with myself. and i have to say, at one point in the meditation, i did feel like i was able to tap in to something greater… kind of like i had all of myself there, and was really filling the space around me. so…. that was cool.

    but i am slowly working out how to separate from some hopes/attachments/illusions, and not entirely sure i’m always doing so. not sure i’m actually releasing them, rather than simply burrowing in deeper. we’ll see.

    but then i woke up this morning (*quite* late) and realized i had finally had a complete dream again, with a narrative i could remember and follow, and i took the luxury of writing it down. haven’t fully sussed it out, but it was affectionate and relaxed in its sexual energy, despite the inability in the dream for my (surprising choice of) friend and i to get anywhere where we could really follow through with it. hmmm…

    really appreciating hearing everyone’s various experiences today… many hugs to all for your openness and honesty and insights.

    brendan — thinking of you and your father!

  30. I was the family scapegoat. My mom is NPD (Narcississtic Personaity Disorder) and my dad has N tendencies (if not full blown N) so I was at once his princess and her scapegoat. My brother was at first the favored one and then the younger brother became the favored one of our mother. Our dad was absent a lot due to the divorce. It took me YEARS to figure out this stuff. I am still dealing with some of the pain of it.

    Couple that with the rage (yes RAGE) I have been feeling about the attacks on women’s rights. I have been seeing the whole world full of “males who hate women” and their harm, the harm their threat causes, and the patriarchy they have choked all of us with. The good males who are not a threat are also often targets.

    It fills me with a rage because I have three daughters who, because they were born with a vagina instead of a penis, are also under threat ALL. THE. TIME. Women FEEL that threat every moment of every day even if it is only subconsciously. Males, even the decent ones, really have no idea how that feels.

    I am in a rage because what kind of example does my young son have to aspire to? How will his Piscean sensitivity be treated as he grows up into a man? Will he be ridiculed and picked on for not being “man enough” like his sensitive and caring Scorpio father has been?

    Just for being what I am I am threatened with violence by so many and by the whole set-up. My body is the tool so many use to take out their anger, their frustrations, their insecurities, their failures on. I feel hated, feared, abused, dominated, and demoralized all at once. These feelings make me angry because I don’t like being the “victim,” I prefer being the autonomous.

    I guess that’s the feelings I am feeling and they are almost overwhelming. The attacks on women have triggered these feelings and I am PISSED OFF. I am fed up with the shit guys pull on me because this attack on women feels PERSONAL. I am fed up with the plays on words, the transferrence, the subtle put downs, the unwillingness of guys to own up to their own games and insecurities even as they accuse all woman-kind of games and inferiority. I feel like the Mother Goddess raging to protect her young. I feel like smashing something or screaming in that rage.

    Wow. That was unexpected.

  31. (((((Carrie))))) I’m sure the not being able to breathe feels a bit like drowning. It’s very nasty, this respiratory bug that seems to be going round. Sending warm vibes your way.

  32. I felt sick yesterday a bit; had diarrhea in the Am but felt extremely tired in the PM. My feelings have been welling up again (being weepy AGAIN!). The day seemed to be against any of my intentions.

    My natal Chiron is 27 deg Aqu. and my natal Sun is 3 deg Pisces in the 6th house so right now, transiting Neptune, Sun, Moon, and Chiron are sitting in my house of personal health and on my Sun and near my Chiron. I am getting the nasty respiratory cough my husband has despite getting lots of sleep and taking extra C, elderberry, and vitamins. I am feeling dragged down energy-wise, too. My breathing feels heavy. Merc is in Pisces in my 7th house, approaching my natal Merc.

    Feelings are close to the surface but I haven’t any place to release them, nor do I know what they are about (and I am usually really good at knowing that). Today is my birthday and I feel the respiratory thing is getting worse; despite getting 10 hrs of sleep.

  33. Maeve – I, too, dealt with anger. I’m sensitised to rage – I can pick it up like a tuning fork. I’m not scared of it – but it doesn’t mean I need to take it on either. I most definitely feel the OPS bodily: as soon as I’m holding on to something needlessly, my fibromyalgia symptoms flare up. Thanks for the head’s-up about that.

    karena – I had a dream a couple of days ago, where I was standing in my laundry – which was clean for once. On the other side of the door, a beautiful female leopard prowled back and forth. I woke up startled, and then smiled. I have always identified myself with a leopard, but never felt powerful enough or up to the task. She’s waiting for me to open the door.

    (((((((Everyone)))))))

  34. (((((Sarah))))).

    Just to add to the mix, as a watery natal Scorpio this transition has thrown up some interesting things for me (and some of what I write here refers to this post but also to Eric’s podcast elsewhere on the site). Out of the blue I was asked to write about the state of modern birth – the culture of fear around it and the way increasing numbers of women are wiling to dismiss birth as no big deal and submit to the macho technocratic imperative of modern hospitals (ie caesareans) – and of course the decline of the midwife. By the the way all you Virginia/vagina watchers, the scalpel is just as much a penetrative act of male dominance and an attack on the uterus as the ultrasound dildo; it’s legend amongst midwives how common it is for surgeons get erections as they cut into women… Birth is an area I was involved with for many years as a campaigner/counsellor and writer. I left the arena exhausted and fed up, because while individual women can and do stand up and demand a more meaningful, safer, more authentically female experience than major abdominal surgery, women as a collective seem to be increasingly unable or unwilling to acknowledge this momentous occasion in their lives and make it count. And feminism I think has mostly let women down in this regard. A woman’s birth experience is something that can empower or disempower her for the rest of her life and how women chose to give birth, how confident they are that this is what their bodies are built for, is directly related to how confident and whole they feel in their own sexuality and ‘femaleness’ (why is birth so often left out of the sexual conversation – even here on PW?) – and how supported they feel in exploring those issues. It’s not just women who want abortions that have tough times; the woman who wants to keep her baby has a pretty difficult road ahead if she also wants to keep the experience real…

    Anyhooo… just to say my dreams, maybe not surprisingly, over this transition have all been watery and graphically (positively) birth themed and it’s actually been kind of a nice refuge from lots of external wierdness happening around me at the moment in my work life. Oh and it’s raining here in London today, so a good day to sit quietly and reflect…

  35. exact at New Moon on my Sun I could barely contain a 2-year-old-style tantrum when a friend neglected to get back to me on something at a prescribed time. Well then. THAT was unusual! Contained i was, but perhaps whatever “it” was was asking to come out from under – be released from – the parachute.
    Light to you Sarah, Brendan, All.
    xo

  36. As for me, yesterday was… not what I would have expected from all of the “woo new shiny moon” input I was getting. My ravens came to visit me at work (we have a couple very large ravens that hang out around work, and I’d missed them for a few days), and I was mostly chipper until early afternoon and my body said “uh, something’s not right”. Luckily I had acupuncture and discovered I’m brewing a bit of a bladder infection (kind of) and that some of my digestive issues have resurfaced and I have to refine my diet again and take a bunch of pills/herbs. I suppose the digestive thing could be the healing that I need, because I may have been playing a little too fast and loose with my diet for the last year, and I probably would have continued to without something like this.

    Hmm.

    I didn’t get any creative sauce, but I had good thoughts about a group of friends I’ve reconnected with and lovely ideas about the events I’ll see them at (a few states away, but still).

  37. Oh, Sarah, my heart aches for you. I hope you are finding the keys to the doors you bang your head against.

    The last two years (about) have been about not taking on other people’s shit (as JannKinz eloquently puts it) and letting go of old stuff I had no idea I was holding. It’s still a work in progress. I was also my family’s emotional food processor, but I expect it was more of a defense mechanism in my case. Emotions were so volatile when I was young, I discovered if I could step in and process, things would be easier for me (on the surface). Even when I was young, I was known as the only person who could calm my father down. I’ve talked him down from violent rages and suicidal episodes more times than I can count. Compounding all of that is health issues that have cropped up in the last few years. It’s hard to defy habits when people are in the hospital and one is naturally a healer.

    But you can and should. This feels a lot about me, but it seems like there’s something in it that you need to hear, so I hope I’m saying the right stuff. 🙂

    I bet you get muscle cramps or nasty knots, yeah? I discovered a new mantra to help with those (courtesy of Louise Hay, I think). “I release, I relax, I let go. I am safe within life.” After various injuries from my car accident, my neck and shoulder seemed to be weak spots, but thinking about it, they were just instant barometers. Whenever I would get upset, my shoulder would seize up most painfully. Which left me physically unable to reach out, lift things…

  38. Sarah, thank you for putting into words the “emotional food processing” dynamic…I found myself enacting what I have come to see as “emotional laundering” …feeling the rage and the pain and the confusion. I am closer than ever to getting out of the laundromat. This Pisces new moon in my 12th house really helped pop the soap bubbles of illusion and gain some clarity. I was able to process with my trusty box of pastels, some blank paper and an openess to whatever bubbled up. Own your shit and do art, I followed that directive. I did it and cut through resistance and made some real headway into sorting the laundry and seeing what is mine. Ready to leave this psychic laundromat, the magazines are old, the rinse cycle doesn’t work and nothing ever gets clean… At least now I know where the exit is. I just have to get to the door and not collect the heaps of dirty laundry being flung my way on the way out.

  39. Huffy: glad you enjoyed it! Yes, it was an amazing weekend. Thanks for helping with my question I posted the other week, you were right! 😉

  40. Sarah, Thank you for words about taking on “OPS” (Other People’s Shit). A week or so ago I had been pondering various relationships with men in my life (spannin fifty years), and in too many instances I took on their pain and hurt thinking I was “helping” to ease that pain and hurt for them. Ah, not so. Fortunately, in 2006 I had an excruciating experience when a close friend/soul companion/anamcara abruptly quit speaking to me. My reactive pain and anguish ultimately did lead to an incredible journey of learning and spirituality, and healing. Still working on it. So, kudos to you for the acknowledgement that we don’t have to take on anything that isn’t ours, that we can look at the pictures held up to us by others, and realize they aren’t always mirrors, but rather projections. And dumping by others.

    This Piscean New Moon with its crowded stellium, hovering in my 6th and 7th houses (12th for Whole House) is playing out in waves and I’m riding them, which surprises me. Then again, maybe I’m just delusional, but feel more so that I am at the pinnacle of the teeter-totter as aword noted, trying to stay balanced. Dreams are also lucid but elusive. It’s all these conjunctions with their blind spots as Len has reminded us.

    Thanks as always to PW for the grounding.

    JannKinz

    PS: Thanks to Eric for posting the Andrew Smith piece. Quite uplifting.

  41. My thoughts are with you, Brendan. I lived through the same experience a couple of years ago. My dad had 4 bypasses – but he’s better than ever since he had the op. And sounds like your dad is already experiencing a new lease of life. Lots of luck and love.

  42. It has been a passage not so much for me but for my Pisces dad: heart attack on Saturday, recovery and tests Sunday and Monday, with five stents being implanted yesterday. His progress is excellent, and he may go home today. He was cracking wise after the procedure, and Maman reports he seems very alert, and better than before the attack.

    Vicariously following this story from a thousand miles away has not been easy…

  43. Ah, thank you, dear Huffy! The “so far away” at the end was a beautiful, if unintended, touch. And I started to write your name as “Huggy”! Which feels entirely appropriate too. 🙂

  44. “The small child alone in the room no longer needs to deal with what wasn’t hers”. Good for you, Sarah – think I’m getting there too….

  45. So touched by your post, dear Sarah. I too was the family sponge and ‘food processor’ (brilliant!) – and think that’s why I ended up living in another country. The only way I could survive was by putting distance between me and them -though at the time it was an unconscious, instinctive move. And I too am having to come to terms with this:”I’ve done that in my relationships. I have taken on things that are not mine and held them, thinking that I was fully responsible for them. It is at once a surrender to others’ unacknowledged feelings and a form of control: The childish belief in its omnipotence and ability to heal everything, to solve everything. You have expressed it so beautifully, the unacknowledged feelings and the need to contro. Thank you so much. xx
    so far away.

  46. This has been a tough new moon for me – tough with the realisations of what I do, what I have been doing to a large extent. Where to start? I’m just going to write.

    I have been my family’s emotional ‘food-processor’, and it has not been an easy role, and it was one that I took on unconsciously and reluctantly. All that was disowned and unspoken I sat with as a kid. I held it, until it got too much, and then I would throw a tantrum. The difficult child who seemed undisciplined and threatening was sent upstairs and locked in to a room until she could contain herself. I remember raging, and then realising that my rage was in no way cathartic (I was raging on behalf of others as well as myself, and there’s nothing to be done with those feelings that is in any way fully resolvable). Then I would absorb, like a sea-sponge, and sit there in pain, full of crap, and cowed by it. The release back in to the home was a small solace, but significant enough to eclipse the rage for a while.

    I’ve done that in my relationships. I have taken on things that are not mine and held them, thinking that I was fully responsible for them. It is at once a surrender to others’ unacknowledged feelings and a form of control: The childish belief in its omnipotence and ability to heal everything, to solve everything.

    I read here over the last week or so the sensation of having something right in front of you, but of not being able to see it. This echoed someone’s very accurate observation several weeks ago that I had been “hiding in plain sight”. It was a relief to have that echoed to me. What remained hidden, however, was their own propensity to hide in plain sight. This moment of the Pisces New Moon has been about that truth-telling to myself. The small child alone in the room no longer needs to deal with what wasn’t hers.

  47. As a Sun and Moon Aquarian, this whole transition into Pisces has been like throwing a bucket of water into the electrical mains, so my computer went down for the first time in two-and-a-half years and I was off-air for a week. The New Moon resolved all that – the engineer delicately wafted some magic incantation and all was well again.
    OK, I know it’s all very Pisces right now, but is that any reason to dis- Aquarius quite so dismissively? Despite all the conjunctions and midways, nobody seems to have noticed the New Moon was exactly semi-sextile Uranus in Aries, already one-twelfth of the world away and quietly reinvigorating foment while the rest of the world luxuriates in love and pain.
    As for me, my sexual energies haven’t been this intense for a long time. No wonder the cat’s gone missing.
    Perfect time for that beautiful video, Green-Star-gazer. Neptune’s children return to the sea!

  48. Prompted to write by the underwater sculptures. w o w ! Very much a Saturn and Pisces mix. Thanks!

    Being a natal Pisces (sun 0°45) I was wondering how this new moon would play out. Surprisingly, I felt great, smooth, connected. Unexpectedly, I moved forward on several creative projects, was able to focus, concentrate and did so with an inner lightness. Hmmm. If this is a sign of Neptune in Pisces, I’m liking it!

  49. Gorgeous post, Greenstar! Was definitely the theme song from jaws for me yesterday. Physically sick, emotionally fraught, I crawled my way through the last few days. And today my harsh self-judgement and judgement of others is melting into a sense that we are all one on this earth. That all of us are trying to be happy, to make it though as best as we can. Thanks for lovely blog – and posting the comments – reinforced this sense I had today. That it’s necessary to give space to everything. xxx

  50. Rediscovering my muscles as I removed brush, debris and unhealthy trees from around my frozen pond. Using the clear cold days to fell the unwanted trees onto the ice. Soooooo much easier to clean up this way! We’ve never had a snow-free winter so this is all a revelation. Paused for a few moments of reflection at the moment of the new moon…gazed at the milky sun swaddled in soft grey clouds, low on the horizon…feeling deep, deep gratitude for it ALL.

    Back at home in the evening, someone introduced me to some amazing sculpture work by an artist named Jason deCairs Taylor… spell-bindingly magical!! A perfect end to this working-with the-watery-realm-in-new-ways day. Check it out :
    http://www.underwatersculpture.com/index.asp

  51. the worst day/night of my life…i felt something building 2 days before, but kept positive and tried to get through it. Then when the moment happened every illusion that had existed (not known to me at the time of course !) was stripped away with the sensitivity of an AK47…

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