Astrology of Now: Organised Healing and the New Moon

Pisces arrives.
JW Waterhouse's Miranda

I felt some relief as the Sun slipped out of detriment in Aquarius and into Pisces yesterday. It was as if we'd suddenly remembered to take off the handbrake and now we're gliding gently down the lane with the engine turned off to the sounds of the birds in the hedgerows and the rustling of spring.

Phew.

Mars is retrograding, of course, which is bound to put the brakes on things. And so is Saturn, the traditional ruler of Aquarius. This favours calculated, organised action (not inaction), careful analysis and investigation of all possibilities. Depends where they are in your natal chart of course.

The Sun joined Neptune in Pisces at 0° yesterday. Tomorrow, the Moon will join the Sun and we will have our first New Moon of the Neptune in Pisces era. So it's significant.



This Pisces New Moon is actually trined (out of sign) by that retrograding Saturn and sextiled by Jupiter, which also, traditionally, rules Pisces. So it's supported by the two traditional kings of the Zodiac: open-handed, glorious Jupiter, and disciplined, practical Saturn. You can get stuff done now – Pisces stuff, that is art, music, altruism, sacrifice for a cause. You can literally make your dreams manifest.

So why aren't we all building heaven on earth? You may be thinking of the escalating tension between Israel and Iran, or the bloodshed in Syria. Venus, the planet of peace, is in Aries, the sign of war; and Mars the planet of War is going backwards. Mars in in Virgo, of course, the sign of "cleansing" – a nasty image when you put that in the context of Syria, or indeed of the Israeli's "cleaning up" Iran's nuclear capabilities.

That's just one facet of the bigger picture though.

Poster for the Rotary Club campaign
that has helped eradicate polio in India

170 million Indian children were immunised against polio over the weekend. Not only does this involve drugs on a huge scale (Neptune) but it requires the strategic planning and timing (Saturn) of a huge army of volunteers and medical workers (Mars in Virgo). And yes, they this weekend's mass immunisation is part of repeated action plan (retrograde).

When you read the word strategic, your mind may have strayed to that asteroid of military genius, Pallas Athena, currently conjunct the Sun also in Pisces, the sign that imagines big. Chiron, the healer, is also conjunct the Sun. We are on the threshold of eliminating polio. India, the country that used to be the most afflicted by the disease, has now gone a record 12 months without a case.

Pop the major asteroids into the chart for the New Moon and you see a massive build up of power and energy in Pisces and into Aries, the end and the beginning, reflection and initiative. There are really two stelliums, which will start to blend into each other as Mercury, the communicator, moves across the sky. When Mercury goes retrograde in mid-March, it will stitch the stelliums together some more as it bounces back and forth between the two signs.

The stellia start with Neptune and end with Venus in Aries, so the planets involved are in a sandwich between the higher and lowers octaves of art and love. Interestingly, lonely Mars in Virgo opposes the gap in the middle right now. We'll see what happens when Mercury, which rules flight as well as words, reaches the opposition.

To find out more about eliminating polio, click here.
For other Oxford Astrologer pieces about India click here.