Early Saturday, we reach the New Moon in Aries which is also a partial Solar Eclipse. This eclipse will be visible across the North Atlantic, in the Maritime provinces of Canada and across the western edge of Africa and Europe up into the Arctic Ocean.
The New Moon itself is in early Aries, close to the Nodes of the Moon in late Pisces and Virgo.
I cannot take my eyes off this boundary between the mystical dissolutions of Pisces and the sharp arrivals of Aries. This year, 2025, we’re not meant to. This boundary is where the action is.
We’re caught in the nets of four retrogrades traversing this threshold: Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Neptune.
Venus and Mercury are deep into their retrograde journeys. Neptune has reached the beginning of their preview period, which Saturn will enter in early April. The Saturn and Neptune retrogrades will not finish until March of next year.
This year’s eclipses hold us in the same between-space. This New Moon Solar Eclipse in Aries is the last in the Aries–Libra series that began with the New Moon Solar Eclipse of April 20, 2023.
While the first eclipse in the Pisces–Virgo series began last September with a Pisces Full Moon Lunar Eclipse, the first Virgo eclipse in this new series was the Full Moon we just had on March 14.
Right now, we’re in an eclipse season that includes a beginning and an ending across that same Aries–Pisces border.
Retrogrades weave back and forth, like backstitching that makes a seam stronger, or dance patterns in square dancing, country dances, or formal baroque dances in which dancers create complex patterns as they leave and return to their partners.
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Our attention is focused on the degrees of the zodiac where the recursion takes place. These degrees are emphasized in world charts and in birth charts, by conjunctions, oppositions, and squares primarily, and also by trines, sextiles, and other aspect patterns when the charts are sensitive to them.
Venus, Mercury, Saturn, and Neptune are dancing back and forth across the end of Pisces and the beginning of Aries.
The Nodes of the Moon, which always move backwards through the zodiac, have shifted from Aries and Libra, into Pisces and Virgo. The eclipses appear to bounce back and forth across this boundary because we name New and Full Moons according to where the Sun and Moon are, not where the Nodes are.
Since eclipses occur whenever the Sun and Moon are within 18º degrees of the Nodes, we get bouncing each time the Nodes change signs.
If Pisces is where everything dissolves into the vastness of space, whether we speak of the outer space of the cosmos or the deep inner spaces of the psyche, then Virgo represents the borders of the infinitesimally small and the very, very close.
We tend to think of Virgo as one of the thoroughly grounded Earth signs. Yet, as a mutable, changeable sign, Virgo rests at the boundary of what is too small or too close for us to grasp.
This is where we currently find the South Node, the place of letting go. Part of what we’re challenged to let go of is the Virgoan goal of enumerating everything and sorting it all into tidy categories. It turns out that the smaller, or closer, we focus, the more uncertain the territory becomes.
There are particles too tiny for us to see, not only with the unaided eye, but with any form of measurement device we have. These are virtual particles, the quantum foam, that we know exist only because of their impact on large particles. We see their effects, but cannot detect them directly.
Here in this up-close Virgoan space we also encounter Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, in which we are so integrated into the system we’re trying to observe, that objectivity becomes impossible. As part of the system, our observations themselves affect the outcome.
The chaotic field created by eclipses reflects and embodies this Virgo–Pisces paradox. We can’t always perceive what we know is there. We are not independent of the system. Our perceptual systems have limits. Yet we’re always pushing for more, longing to somehow take that next step farther out or closer in, to reach for what is vast or very, very small.
Pisces is the place where things become very, very large and far away. As the edges of our cosmos move farther and farther away from us, there are galaxies we will never see, because their light will never be able to reach us.
At the end of Pisces, as light stretches out, its wavelengths extending, we experience what’s called the redshift. The longest wavelengths of visible light are at the red end of the spectrum, that which is farthest away.
It’s intriguing to realize that light at its greatest visible extension is the color of Aries, the color of blood and (for mammals anyway) the color of birth.
This is a New Moon in the first decan of Aries, ruled by Mars. It’s the start of the zodiacal year. Austin Coppock names this decan, “The Axe,” noting that while the battle axe is clearly a weapon of war, the axe itself is a tool used for separation.
The axe carves the wilderness into homes, fields, and pathways, separating the tame from the wild. On a much smaller scale, we find the blade that cuts the umbilical cord, separating newborn from mother, decisively marking the arrival of a new human into the world.
The Sun is exalted here. New hearts find their courage and begin to chart their progress through a world that is, at this moment of beginning, completely unknown.
Think of heroes and heroines who survive storms and shipwrecks, rising from shifting tides to enter new worlds. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Viola lands on an unknown shore to ask, “What country, friend, is this?” And how many different islands did Odysseus find himself wrecked upon before finally reaching his home?
Aries, especially in its first decan, has a bright, fierce energy that is undaunted by challenge. There is an outward focus, a readiness to take on the world.
The Moon is less suited to the light and heat of Aries. This is an independent Moon, ready to face challenges but wary of being vulnerable.
This Moon gains strength, though, from her ongoing mutual reception with Mars who remains out of bounds in Cancer. The New Moon struggles to find an independent path forward in Aries, as Mars in Cancer struggles to balance emotion with his own need for action. They do their best to support each other.
Mercury, retrograde at the beginning of Aries, struggles with communication. Have we seen examples lately of “secret” communications suddenly becoming public? Have we then been told those communications are fake, not real? Are we all struggling to keep up with chaotic and conflicting news? Mercury is about to reenter Pisces, which is not likely to help with clarity.
Venus, still retrograde and back in Pisces, revels in her sign of exaltation. She is tightly conjunct Neptune and the North Node. While there’s plenty going on to create confusion, Venus in her strength can be a beacon. She can help us channel these swirling energies into creative work, deeper insights into relationship dynamics, new clarity and commitments to core values, or anything else in the Venusian sphere.
Saturn moves closer to the North Node, Venus, and Neptune, while sextiling Uranus. This mixture of planets representing stability and boundaries, an amorphous absence of boundaries, deep quests for enlightenment and creative expression, and sudden change, comprehensively represent the confusing times we’re living in.
Where does all of this leave us?
As I always say, check your birth chart. How these patterns intersect with your planets and points will tell you a lot about how and where you’re likely to be affected.
Some things are true for all of us.
We’re all in an eclipse time. This calls us to pay attention to signs and symbols without drawing hard and fast conclusions. We’re in a space of change and of omens. It’s not the time to make decisions or commit to outcomes.
We’re all in a time of complex and interacting retrogrades. This is similar to eclipse season in that things will feel uncertain. Yet the retrograde vibe is different. Here we can encounter people or patterns from our past. While it’s possible we might choose to rekindle past relationships, it’s more likely that past connections will trigger processing, perhaps on deeper levels, that bring greater clarity and potentially closure.
Keep in mind these retrogrades will maneuver us back and forth over this liminal boundary between Pisces and Aries, between completion and new beginnings, dissolution into a vast space and the bright specificity of new birth. There’s something, possibly multiple somethings, we’re being asked to look at and experience here.
This is a complicated year, astrologically, and March is one of its most complex months.
It’s OK if we’re uncertain, or even downright confused. Don’t lose heart. Also, don’t doomscroll.
Watch for signs and omens. Record these without committing to fixed meanings.
Write in journals. Record your dreams. Talk to friends. Be kind to yourself and others.
We’re all going through something. It’s a wild ride, so hang on.
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