It might be March already, but it's still Pisces season as far as I'm concerned—at least until all these planets shift into Aries next week and we have a little more fire under our feet to do the things that need doing, instead of feeling everything ever that did and did not need to be felt! Breathe in, stargazers, and breathe out. Do it three times, do it when your plans fall through and when your heart gets bruised. Once March gets going, we'll feel a bit of emotional release, though it's sure to throw us some curveballs, what with Mercury and Jupiter in retrograde. Still, there will be space and a standard month's worth of time to get our houses in order, our spring ducks in a row, and perhaps a warm night to revel in, so we can properly welcome spring and all the generative promise it holds.
For now, here is an excerpt from an Emily Dickinson poem about March. She was a Sagittarius, and since Mars will be in Sagittarius until mid-month, I figure she can guide the way we greet this next few days.
Dear March - Come in -
How glad I am -
I hoped for you before -
Put down your Hat -
You must have walked -
How out of Breath you are -
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest -
Did you leave Nature well -
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me -
I have so much to tell -
ARIES
Winter can be hard on a spring baby like you, Aires, I know, but it’s good at giving you lots of visions about your future and kicking your ass into gear so that you might get yourself there in a manner that suits you—ahem as quickly as possible. In fact, spring is here early to serve as kind of model for you. There is immediate work to be done and there are rewards to be had, but one does not reveal itself right after the other. Global warming or not, the garden calls to you, so now it’s on you to figure out what seeds will sprout into the future you’ve envisioned for yourself.
Let your impulses give you information, dear heart, but don’t let them lead you. I know you were made to start fires, but this month you might want to consider if you’re equipped to put those fires out lest they get larger than you intended. The urge to rush your little ram head against any and all limitations will be a powerful one for you, but believe me when I tell you that this month diplomacy will get you a lot further than discord. Harness whatever tact and restraint you can muster and watch how you speak about yourself and about others. The way you frame your world is the way your world will look to you.
The whole world is in front of you, so it’s easy to get distracted, but what the world needs from you, is your talent and your attention. Listen for the call of lightness (the one that’s hard to hear) and answer it with your unwavering devotion to the present moment. Don’t waste your time doubting your efforts and the work you do, not in your creative life, not in your personal life. Life doesn’t have a script, and it won’t abide one.
TAURUS
Back before I knew how to question the man behind the music, we were teenage girls dragging their combat boots and glittering silver skirts along high school halls, imagining ourselves babygirl Bowies, space invaders, and rock ’n’ rollin' bitches for you. There was urgency behind the eros of the self-becoming, a drive to aim our laser beam precisely on the space cutie of our choosing and a pleasure in feeling the fraction of that light bouncing back over us.
What and who have you got your sights on now, Taurus? Now that we are grown, what teenage feeling stirs in you, tempered by wisdom and the knowledge that if you had to do it all over again (and isn’t that what our lives are—an endless cycle?), you would stay in your body this time, you would take up space this time, you would not dare to be ashamed to want something for yourself?
Don’t fake it, baby, not when the world has been sitting on the edge of its seat waiting for you to come busting on in with the real thing, the realest thing. Give yourself room to play this month, to feel the alchemical joy of communion. Ask for what you want as well as what you need, ask others and ask yourself. When the first offer feels low, counter it and ask for more. We’re only teenagers once but, in moon age, we’re rock ’n’ rollin' bitches forever.
GEMINI
What’s lovely about you, Gemini, is your light touch. When left to your own devices, you flitter from spot to spot gathering the nectar you need. Sweet hummingbird, it’s not hard for you to stay busy. Your body likes to be occupied and your mind even more so.
This month, I’m not so much wondering what you’ll do with the resources you’ve got, I’m wondering where they come from and how it is you plan to keep your busy life sustainable. After all, while a hummingbird flying from feeder to feeder, bush to bush, has the instinct to make time for building her nest and collecting what she needs to welcome spring, a human girl might get distracted by all that sugar and the violent bursting of flowers.
Worry about your own self, Gemini, or better yet—stop worrying and start paying attention. Where does your energy go? Where does your money go? Remember that while it’s gorgeous to lavish your friends and sweethearts with your animate love, it’s imperative that you save some for yourself—not where you are abundant in your life, but where it might serve you to shore up. Sometimes you’ve got to step back to see the bigger patterns and sometimes what you know now isn’t what’s going to be true tomorrow. Other times, you’ve got to get closer to the heart of things before you can understand how they affect you. You have the skills to do both parts of this dance, but be wary of moments when the best option sounds like the most trouble. Sometimes something that looks like light will burn you—even with your light as air touch.
CANCER
Oh, turbulent moon baby, what have the stars to say to you? This month begins with a full moon in Virgo, and you’re gonna need all that light filtering right through your windows while you get your house in order. If you set out now with the intention to ground yourself in the present moment, even if you wish some things were different—things are not different, the full moon will give you the clarity you need to move forward. But, you’ve got to do it with your whole heart, this reclaiming, no excuses, no avoidance, no puttering around doing everything except what you know you’ve got to do.
You’ve got to investigate the dusty corners, Cancer, get your hands dirty and grease your elbows. Molting, after all, isn’t just for the sake of slipping off an old shell and retreating into safety. You molt so you can grow a new shell and step into the world wearing it. What about you has changed in the past 10 years, Cancer? What about you has refused to change? What about that has served you? What changes might serve you now?
Zoom out if you need to, and focus a little less on what’s not working and a lot more on what is, especially in your home life. You might have to stretch your pinchy claws until they feel the soft push and comfort of your kindred creatures—your support system. Reach out, Cancer, reach out so that you can come home to yourself and what inspires you to stay soulfully engaged with your personal world.
LEO
I know you hear it, Leo, a sacred call. Doesn’t it make your Lion’s mane fluff up, your roar turn softly in the cavern of your mouth? It’s not enough anymore, is it? Not the endless list of tasks you check off, the meetings you run to, the late-night hours consoling a wet brush or a fickle typewriter. Your work and your loved ones carry you along the path, but your spirit is hungry. Your life wants more from you than your resigned sense of duty and haphazard performance of devotion.
What art, what creation, what love, have you bowed your head before that did not spring from a fount of passion? Aren’t you ready yet to feed what feeds you, Leo, to prowl fearlessly in the expanse and gather the tribe? If there are shadows in your landscape, honor your shadows. They are a sign of light and an indicator of life that is moving and embodied. If there are punctures of pain running through you, then it is your pain, and it’ll do you no good to sit beside it like a battlefield nurse. Waiting to heal while checking out won’t work, you’ve got to live in it to live through it.
Find time for yourself, Leo, and don’t lie down idle in it. The call you hear has been going longer than you have heard it, longer than you have known to listen. Don’t be afraid to answer it, my love, you can’t lose yourself to yourself.
VIRGO
Are you a dreamer, Virgo, or are you a “man of action”? Your heart might say one thing but your days say quite another. Every morning the to-do list grows longer, the errands pile up, and you rise to meet the day. When will you put yourself on your own list, Virgo? When will you make time to tend to your dreamer heart and your inventive spirit? Imagine what it would take for you to give this to yourself, imagine that it’s time.
It’s not true that your dreams can wait, and it’s not true that everyone needs you more than you need yourself. It’s not true that the best use of your creative energy is spent fixing other people’s messes when you could just as easily fix your own. Finally, and this is counter to my point, it’s not true that the best way to fix your own mess is by going over your life with a fine-toothed comb over the sandy terrain, looking for garbage when you could be looking for seashells.
It’s not bad to devote yourself to cleaning the beach but, Goddess, don’t you know that you are the beach and all the seashells your pockets can keep? Your presence is more valuable than anything the shore washes up. Press your ear to the place where your shell curves and opens. Listen to yourself as reverently as you listen to everybody else.
LIBRA
There are some plants that take a long time to show us who they are. The maidenhair fern my best friend brought me all but dried up in my apartment, despite my attention and care. I deadheaded all the stems and then what was left, I’ve tended to for months. Yet, the fern bits stay the same size, alive and spare. The lithops (living stones) I tend to dropped their first flowers a year ago, and now they sit on my windowsill with their cheeks parted. I pant over them, waiting for the new buds to burst through, sing to them, and touch them softly.
Some plants ask for a lot more than they are willing to offer, and they do so unselfconsciously, knowing that they can only be themselves and let their environment take care of the rest.
Have you, Libra, found yourself becoming possessive of your plant environment long before you were ready to offer yourself up to it? In what part of yourself does that possessive instinct take root? You want the truth of things, to stand in the direct flow of light, but you are not the only plant that needs that light on them. If you feel more than you show, you might find that you start expecting people to read your mind and interpret signals they have no manual for. We can’t tend to each other’s needs until we know what those needs are. Make no mistake, you’re good with your words, but what’s needed is your stem leaning toward the light you want, your leaves turning colors. Now imagine the plants around you, will you tell them your hopes? Will you pour water down their backs?
SCORPIO
When Jupiter slid into Scorpio last fall, did you fall on your knees with rapture? Did you sing a song of praise for all the benefic light it let into your darkest days? Did you feel the charmed planet sitting on the edge of your bed like an archangel that only meant to guard your sleep and turn your dreams into crystalized possibilities? Well, maybe you did, and maybe you didn’t, but you must have known that something good came into your world because the muddy waters of 2017 sure did part and the road ahead was all of a sudden traceable, something you could distinguish on a map.
It was a road you got on surely and slowly but with determination, and it’s been good to you so far. Still, no road can stay clear for long, not in the fallible world with its fallible human behavior, animal mayhem, and natural disasters. Where there’s a will, there’s a roadblock, a detour, a shortcut you just shouldn’t take. That’s the nature of getting anywhere I’m afraid.
This month it’s on you to know when to speed up and when to slow down and not ride yourself too hard when you make the wrong choice since putting yourself down serves you in no identifiable way. It’s on you to work with the terrain you’ve got and adjust your vehicle accordingly while refusing to turn around or back down. There will be temptations, yes, and some of them will recharge your lust for life while others will remind you all the ways a snack can ruin a meal, especially when that snack wastes your time. You’ve gotten a sense of what your boundaries are now and what you think is irresistible is not irresistible.
SAGITTARIUS
For a long time, I thought your restlessness was a phase. I thought that, eventually, you’d find something that gave you relief and a sense of finally having arrived. I thought you’d figure out that wherever you ended up was just where you had to be. Now I know better. Now I understand that your restlessness and incurable hunger is both a curse and a gift. These qualities in you saddle your spirit with insatiable desires, but they also push you forward. Your restlessness allows you to rewrite your own story so that it is always nuanced, never stagnant, and impossibly free.
Though the pony in your heart stays wild, Sagittarius, your human self likes a stable and dependable source of sustenance. You thrive in good company and enjoy the inscrutable challenge that deep intimacy can provide. These are the days, then, that you’ve taken to reining in your restless force and enduring its strain on you. It’s a part of your nature but not the only part, not anymore.
Now that you’ve taken to routine and worldly commitments like a whirling peg in a square hole, you find that you can fit so long as you stand still. But, what do you get from standing still? I’ll tell you what, expansion. Not the kind of expansion earned by globe-trotting and not the kind found after taking mushrooms and discovering a new dimension. No, this is the kind of expansion that occurs when your days grow roots and your home becomes a haven. You ground your body so you can be more vulnerable with your heart. So the pony of it can whiny and be petted and adored.
CAPRICORN
February was too damn short, we all know it, and I’m sure you felt the speed of time whoosh past you as your deadlines and commitments pressed down from up high like giant thumbtacks. I’m sorry the pressure gets to be so much for you, Capricorn, it’s not easy having so many people depend on you when you’re also the only one that you depend on. The pressure that you place on yourself feels real, and feelings do matter, but I encourage you to remember in moments of intense stress that what it feels like isn’t always what it is. Not in the long run anyway. Is your home a place of respite? Can you make your home a place of respite?
If you’ve had to juggle some disappointments recently, remind yourself that it’s okay to lay them down on the table and take a closer look, rather than treating your pain like a performance for someone else. Your pain affects you first and foremost, and it is indicative of the places in you that feel the most—that offer the most to the world. Don’t be in such a rush to call yourself a failure or berate yourself for what you could have done differently. You have magic, and your self-beliefs are powerful.
Don’t let fear of rejection get in the way of honoring yourself. Fear of rejection is a form of self-rejection, and it won’t offer you the control you want. Remind yourself that you have made more progress than you can know, that some roots spread but take a long time to sprout. When you’re ready to put yourself out there again, you’ll be ready. In the meantime, it’s valuable to acknowledge that what your heart wants is important and what your grief tells you is wise.
AQUARIUS
It’s hard to be so tuned in all the time, isn’t it, Aquarius? Hard to have so much coming in through your airwaves without wanting to tune out occasionally so that you can tune in on yourself. The impulse to turn back toward yourself is a good one, and I applaud your work. Few people on this planet know how to tend to the windy space oddity cradled in your human body, and so it’s on you to do that work so that we might enjoy your company.
What does self-care look like for you nowadays? Does it nurture your child self? Does it give you a place in the family of things? So much self-care mantra preaches acts of aloneness, but we both know that sometimes what you need is the canopy of friendship and a shared evening of beautiful words.
These days promise to bring changes to your resources, where they rise out of, who you share them with, and how. I advise you to examine your emotions around these changes before you leap right into them. You might find that you have a lot of feelings about what you are and aren’t willing to share with others. Conversely, this month will call you toward working a little more with whatever traumas you carry—which might require a deeper and more honest approach to how you advertise your state of being. When you offer yourself up to friends and loved ones, are you working with surface water or deep water? Don’t lose your own identity in a rush to heal. Time is not something you can walk around and true kinship takes work. Some relationships need time to show you what they mean to you.
PISCES
It’s a shame that people can’t just live into what we see in them or be for us the thing that we most need from them. People are hilariously unpredictable and subject to change their whole approach to life at whim, even if we’ve invested years and years in hoping they’d go another way. The truth is that people can only be for you the way they are at this very moment, not the way they’ve been or the way they most likely could be with a little reminding.
That’s why it’s so important to listen to the great Maya Angelou who died with grace but not before leaving us with this very important gem of advice: When people tell you who they are, believe them.
Ah, this is a lesson you’re slated to learn again and again, Pisces, committed as you are to keep seeking out the good in others and sticking to that good part no matter how painful the rest of the relationship becomes. And, since there’s no reason to break a record and keep playing it, I’ll give you a converse angle from which to view Angelou’s wise words: When you tell yourself who you are, there’s a part of yourself inclined to believe you. This works in myriad ways. For one, if you expect people to hurt you, they will inevitably hurt you. After all, how can you set boundaries when you live into your expectations? What you see in yourself shapes the structure of your connections with others. If you tell yourself you are meant for more, you will learn to believe yourself. If you tell yourself you are worthy of love, you won’t stand in the way of it.
