Did you know the story of Pisces is linked to the story of Aphrodite?
Always portrayed as young and beautiful, Aphrodite is actually older than any of the other Olympians, even Zeus. Born not of Cronos, but (in Greek myth) from the testes of Uranus, which Cronos severed and threw into the sea.
An older version of Aphrodite’s birth links her to the river Euphrates and the constellation Pisces. In this story, a large egg floating in the Euphrates is rescued and brought to shore by two fishes.
On shore, doves sit on the egg until it hatches, giving birth to Aphrodite.
But since one story is never enough for Pisces, there are more.
The deadly serpentine monster Typhon attacks Olympus, challenging Zeus for dominion. The gods and goddesses flee. Aphrodite and her young son Eros fly to ancient Syria, to the Euphrates.
From here, the story takes two paths. In one, Aphrodite and Eros become two fishes and swim to safety, their tails tied together so they’re never separated. In another, two fishes carry Aphrodite and Eros to safety, the fishes’ tails tied to keep them all together.
All versions lead to two fishes, tails tied together, placed as stars in the night sky.
The link to the Euphrates ties Aphrodite to ancient Mesopotamian goddesses like Innana and Astarte and the Syrian goddess Atargatis, often depicted with the tail of a fish.
That Pisces has a multiplicity of tales is not surprising. What’s intriguing is the association with monsters, water, rescue, fish, and goddesses.
In her book, The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption, Jungian astrologer Liz Greene argues that the archetypes the planet Neptune embodies are far more closely aligned with ocean and river goddesses than with the turbulent but not very mystical Poseidon.
Neptune is of course the modern ruler of Pisces.
As we swim into this New Moon with a chart awash in Pisces placements, imagine we are at sea, or riding river waves on the backs of large fishes, as we swim with goddesses who, if not always benevolent, are magically fluid and deeply transformative.
The Sun and Moon at 09º40’ Pisces are deep in a watery labyrinth. In Austin Coppock’s delineation of this first decan, we confront the boundaries not of the cosmos but of our own understanding. We explore, finding our way, beginning to realize that life, our lives, are more than they seem.
We remember the lines from T.S. Eliot:
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
Exodus
Yet this chart is about more than a Pisces New Moon. This chart has so much Pisces in it, it looks more like a mass exodus than a simple set of transits.
Only Pluto remains alone in Aquarius.
On the other side of Pisces, we begin a series of vitally important transitions into Aries.
What does it mean? How do we consider all these planets and points in Pisces?
Each sign of the zodiac has its own meanings. Its own strengths and challenges. There’s sequence, too, in which each sign seems to answer the challenges of its predecessor.
What Aquarian issues have we left behind to be healed in the Pisces labyrinth?
Back in December of 2020, when the Jupiter–Saturn Great Conjunction in Aquarius definitively ushered us into a new Age of Air, we focused on Aquarian values and promises.
Ready to leave behind Capricorn’s endgame which seemed linked to toxic patriarchy and late stage capitalism, we embraced the implied promises of a clean clear leap into crystalline currents of Air.
This would be time of innovation, new communication styles and modalities, space travel, new technologies to accomplish new goals. Sure, Pluto was nearby, but we felt ready to welcome Aquarian transformation.
Perhaps this New Moon in a chart thick with Piscean dreams and goals, allows us to look more critically at what Aquarius brings.
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Aquarius is fixed Air, clear thinking, highly principled, a visionary committed to deep change.
And every sign has its Shadow. I usually point to fanaticism as the Aquarian shadow. The fanatic being someone who is so wedded to an idea or principal, that anything else can go down before it. There is no humanity left. Only the goal.
I wonder now if that’s the Uranian shadow and I’ve neglected to consider what the Saturnian shadow looks like, these two being the modern and ancient rulers of Aquarius.
Perhaps the Saturnian shadow of Aquarius is creating boundaries based on a kind of ideological purity, a purity of commitment or understanding.
Such boundaries might lead to accusations of, say, virtue signaling, a way of criticizing others because we believe they’re fake. Their ideals are less pure than ours. They only want to be with the cool kids. They’re not really committed like we are.
I’m hearing these kinds of accusations coming from left-leaning social media right now. It’s something that feels Aquarian that Pisces would never countenance. Pisces loves everyone. Accepts everyone. Values everyone.
It’s perhaps worth remembering that virtue signaling started as a right wing move. Back before the Kennedy–Nixon face-off, before the Tea Party movement, conservative politics were elitist, associated with the wealthy (naturally) but also the highly educated and erudite, poking fun at things like earnestness, having values, or caring.
Is this a time for drawing ideological boundaries? Do we want to emphasize this kind of Aquarian purity? Or do we gain more by expanding to include those who are hurting, those looking for community, those in need, no matter their past affiliation.
Alchemical Union
There are two fishes in Pisces, tied together yet swimming in different directions. Pisces is impossible to pin down. Like a photograph that never becomes quite clear, leaving its interpretation open to each viewer.
Pisces is endlessly giving. Yet this can feel sometimes like victimhood and sometimes like martyrdom. Are we choosing to give to others? Or do we feel we have to, because others demand it, even though we don’t really want to?
Pisces is highly sensitive. This too can become divided between a gift that strengthens empathy by connecting us to the feelings of others, or a curse that leaves us so finely attuned we hardly know which feelings are ours, and which belong to others.
Pisces is all encompassing, which opens us to feelings of deep communion and oneness, but can also leave us wondering who we are. Is there any individual, personal person left?
The union of Piscean opposites appears in the next sign, Aries, the greatest transition in the zodiac.
In Aries, we begin a new year when the Sun enters the sign of cardinal Fire, with the Spring Equinox. The beginning of Aries, 0º, is called the Aries point and in a chart indicates where new things come in.
In Aries, we are reborn, reentering life new and shiny, knowing who we are and what we want.
Back and Forth
This year’s transition from the dissolving omega of Pisces into the bright alpha of Aries is not a simple one. In true Piscean fashion, we are entering a time of backing and forthing, of rising up from the waters to peer onto new land, only to turn back and dive deep again.
This year, we have four retrograde periods that traverse the end of Pisces and the beginning of Aries: Venus, Mercury, Neptune, and Saturn, between January 28 and March 31, 2026.
We’ve already entered the Venus preview period. On January 28, she reached 25º Pisces, the degree she’ll return to when she stations direct. In four days, on March 2, Venus stations retrograde at 11º Aries, embarking on her descent journey.
Venus stations direct April 12 and leaves her review period when she reaches 11º Aries again on May 16.
Between now and then, we’re invited on a journey to explore this boundary between Pisces and Aries, endings and beginnings, dissolving into the cosmos to be reborn as new fire.
The first Mercury retrograde of 2025 will travel between 27º Pisces and 10º Aries, the same map that Venus follows.
Mercury enters their preview March 1, the day before Venus turns retrograde. Mercury stations March 15 in the midst of Venus’ retrograde time, turning direct on March 7, 5 days before Venus does. Mercury leaves their review period April 26.
If you trace out those degrees and dates, you see that Mercury completes their retrograde journey inside the Venus retrograde.
Will Mercury’s mind help us make sense of what we experience on our Venus journey? Or will we feel pulled in different directions. distracted in the crosscurrents of the Piscean ocean?
The Neptune and Saturn retrogrades will of course last much longer while focusing on a narrower band of the Pisces–Aries boundary. Neptune will travel between 29º Pisces and 02º Aries, while Saturn moves between 25º Pisces and 02º Aries.
Neptune enters her preview period in the middle of Venus’ retrograde, while Saturn enters his when Venus is in her review period.
All these numbers and dates point to a fascinating pattern. It’s as if we’re drawn into the Pisces–Aries boundary in a concentrated, focused way with Venus and Mercury so we can prepare for the longer Neptune and Saturn transitions.
Neptune and Saturn completing their cycles through the zodiac, a 30 year journey for Saturn and 165 years for Neptune, are two of the important changes making 2025 so–what word do we want here? exciting? transitional? unpredictable?
Venus and Mercury retrogrades are worth paying attention to on their own. To have them arriving together is brings extra focus. To have them, together, ushering us into the larger Saturn and Neptune transitions is really notable.
Retrogrades bring us into processes like remember, review, reconsider, revise. In this time of great change, we might remember other re- words like reject, resist, and rebel, and also reclaim and refuge.
The Luminous Sea
And here we are back in this deeply Piscean New Moon.
As always, how this New Moon affects each of us depends on where Pisces is in our birth charts and what planets and points in our charts will be aspected by any and all of the planets in the New Moon chart.
Yet the sense that this New Moon opens into more than a single lunar cycle is inescapable.
This New Moon also opens the doors to the Spring eclipse season. And yes, the Nodes of the Moon are now in Pisces and Virgo, which means the eclipses will happen across this axis as well.
The upcoming Full Moon on March 12 is a Total Lunar Eclipse at 24º Virgo (with the Sun at 24º Pisces). The following New Moon in Aries is a Partial Solar Eclipse, close enough to the Pisces–Virgo Nodal axis to obscure part of the Sun.
It’s natural to feel a bit at sea, trying to keep our balance as these shifting tides turn us around and we feel the movement of great fishes beneath us.
As we’re carried back and forth from connection to individual agency, from deep empathy to focused desire, from misty confusion to clear goals, from a sense of all that is to a focus on what we can create in the this time and space, we remember we are born in water.
We were sea creatures before we found our way to solid ground.
We are made of water, the stuff of life that carries everything we are.
In this fluid element, we can direct our course and also allow ourselves to be directed. We can dive, explore, touch our deepest fears and desires, and find treasures to bring back into the light.
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