Today’s new moon at seven degrees Libra promises to mark a significant turning point and adjustment for each of us. Although it is a new moon, it involves the old battle between light and dark forces — or better said, the forces of evolution and regression. Occuring in Libra, the dichotomy involves movement towards relating consciously or a recoiling towards isolation and self-defense.

The Sabian symbol for the new moon reads: “A woman feeding chickens and protecting them from hawks.” A new moon always initiates a kind of spiritual nourishment for the earth, but this particular lunation involves the disruption of growth by destructive influences.

Dane Rudhyar writes about the symbol this way: “The most basic “Law”…is that every release of new potentialities brings about a polarization of effects– that is, the new potentiality will be used both for construction and deconstruction. It will arouse individuals to take a series of steps which will lead some to greater success, others to deeper failure.”

The keynote is guardianship, which means: attention and management implying responsibility for well-being and safety. The chickens are getting new food, but at what price to the entire bird kingdom? You can apply this however you like — especially unnerving is what this implies for the United State’s economy right now. What exactly will 700 billion dollars worth of chicken feed wrought?

On a more personal level you can see this operating in your relationships — either with others or with yourself. You bring yourself (or your partner) a new level of truth and then you pay the price for disturbing the status quo. Understand that if one is working to awaken latent powers, talents, aspirations there will be a counter movement within the unconscious to block, thwart or distort one’s process of growth. As Rudhyar notes, it’s the “Law” of the psyche.

Libra is the odd sign out of the zodiac (a word that means “circle of animals”), being an inanimate object there’s nothing “alive” about the symbol — and it acts accordingly: assesing, judging and weighing — void of emotion, sensation or intuition. Libra represents a chilly kind of objectivity in the universe, the sort that addresses balance and adjustment without emotional coloring or tempering. Libra represents a quality of truth most of us would rather avoid; namely seeing objectively, without unconscious blinders.

Libra marks a major turning point in the zodiac. Where the six proceeding signs represent the development of personalization and individuation — Libra is the first sign of the zodiac to awaken the impulse to relate, to connect with others and step out of one’s bubble into the human community. Where Virgo, the proceeding sign, represents a kind of isolation and self-cocooning, Libra challenges us to emerge and connect and relate from truth.

Today’s new moon marks a period of struggle and the opportunity to establish balance and objectivity into our lives — but there will be a price. As Gurdjieff noted: “Humankind is third force blind.” We only see life in terms of duality; good/bad, night/day, pain/suffering. Somewhere in the middle is a reconcilling, balancing, uniting function that will neutralize the duality and bring forth a creative, vital third force. Something mysterious and unconsidered as of yet. Something new that can either uplift or, as the Sabian symbol warns, pull down and dissipate. Again, the keyword for today’s new moon is guradianship.

As the Sufis say: “Trust in Allah — but tether your camel.”

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don’t know what’s really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don’t know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don’t know. We never know if we’re going to fall or sit up tall. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure.”

— Pema Chödrön

Pisces offers two modes of expression: victim or redeemer.

As the last sign of the zodiac Pisces has all the residue, all the trials and tribulations of the other eleven signs pressing down upon it. This can make natives of this sign feel beleaguered, spent and used. A victim.

Those aligned with the redemptive qualities of the sign, Pisces’ role as saviour, have found a way to skip the drama and catch glints of the new that are inherent within the sign. Pisces is the threshold for an entirely new cycle about to unfurl around the zodiac, being the sign that proceeds Aries — the sign initiating spring.

So there’s a seeming choice, although with the fish — with their tails forever tied together — there’s always a little bit of the victimizing victim about the archetype — a kind of spiritual S&M, the way Pisceans learn to appreciate power and how to wield it, that’s hard to escape. Healthy Pisceans learn to live with this dichotomy and shift the victim role into a victorious countervailing beam of light. Pointing the way for the befuddled masses who seem to think that life is anything but the poetic mixture that it is; neither all good or all bad, but always a mixture. Pisces is about learning to live and be complete with the mixture. They do this with art, music, poetry, beauty and their biggest gift: compassion. Or by completely rearranging our view of the universe, ala Albert Einstein, a famous Piscean.

Today’s full moon in Pisces is almost Shakespearean on the drama meter. The lunation is conjunct Uranus and square Pluto. I read it like this: the shock of the new illuminates everything that is stagnant, stuck or resistant within our psychic field — light the pyre. It’s the sort of amalgam of forces that wrought Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein. There’s no way towards the light but in through the dark. One must fully animate and see all the aspects, the entire mixture of qualities that compose what is dead and spent; acknowledge it, honor it — and then…well we’ll see. That’s the Pluto angle. There is the opportunity, via the Uranian conjunction, to explode out the entire life form — allowing it to die completely. Pisces is about end days. We need to get with that program during this full moon.

So, best advice: Scan. Tune in. Where’s the self-deception (a big Piscean theme), the avoidance, the defense that plays out via helplessness. Where’s the jam-up? Where are we cheating? In other words, how are we lying to ourselves and what are those lies attempting to shore up? That’s what Uranus will zero in on during this lunation and what Pluto will kill off. We can flip this, too, and say: where is the hidden talent, the missed opportunity that needs a second chance, the unfulfilled promise? Gifts waiting to be galvanized.

Self-deluded victim or self-illuminated redeemer?

The emotional intensity of the full moon (high Piscean pathos — be that epiphanies or betrayals) aligned with Uranian acceleration and agitation means we’ve got to clean the channels and prepare to open up to the finer, higher, spiritualized Piscean frequencies. What are those? Namely acknowledging that we are not only of this world but of higher worlds as well. This world is a stage; and what animates the players, that hidden spirit is what Pisces can reveal. Ask yourself if you feel like your life is evolving or devolving. Remember one fish is moving upward toward the Apollonian heights, the other downward, to the Dionysian depths. But be honest. No wishy-washy maybes will do with Uranus and Pluto pressing in on the lunation. Their tails are tied: the rational mind must meet the chaotic, unredeemed ghosts of the past and undertake an active process of discharging. This will allow for a new creature/vision to be born. A new thought-form to take shape. A new, springtime fresh impetus to be revealed.

Hinderances might be: being two-faced, martyrdom, unrealistic hopes and futile machinations — any deluded psychic spinning that is acting as a form of resistance to truth will be challenged, checked and chucked. Opposition to this cosmic clean-out can manifest in defensive grandiosity, agitated paranoia or psychosomatic maladies. The body never lies and if the gods can’t find a way in through our consciousness they wreck havoc with the body.

It’s fascinating to consider the Sabian symbol for this degree of Pisces, it reads: A materializing medium giving a séance, with the keyword being substantiation. One must verify, prove their alegance to truth, making them worthy of channeling this high octane quality of inspiration — a kind of inspiration that will act as a support and ally for the new cycle ahead. A medium is someone who makes herself available to currents, impressions, powers that are not of this ‘ordinary’ world. But the channel must be cleared of impediments. This full moon will do that.

Tune in — blow out.