The Sun enters Pisces II The Net (according to Austin Coppock's naming system) at 9:44 pm EST on February 28, 2024. T. Susan Chang called the 9 of cups, the Tarot card associated with this decan, Fishes and Wishes — while the Golden Dawn called the card, the Lord of Happiness.
The Greeks of the Hellenistic era marked it as the festival time of Dolos, the god of trickery and falsehood. As an apprentice daemon in the workshop of Prometheus, Dolos was tasked with copying his master's work exactly while the Titan was away — a clay figure of Truth, into which Zeus would breathe the breath of life. However, Dolos completed the work (either too hurriedly, or too well, is left as an exercise to the reader) and made a creature that resembled Truth in all ways — only excepting that one of the two figures had bad feet. Returning to the workshop, Prometheus was about to destroy the apprentice's work, but stayed his hand at the last moment — and put both figures into the kiln as twins: Truth and Falsehood, as alike as any twins can be, and the only way to tell them apart is by the crippled feet of one of the sisters. Does Falsehood run swiftly on perfect feet while Truth struggles to make progress? Does Truth stride confidently into a room, but then hugs the walls while Falsehood sidles in and takes a seat where she commands attention but doesn't have to dance too much to make herself known? Uncertainty exists here, and it's worth acknowledging which of these framings helps you make sense of the world.
Pisces II is ruled and administered by Jupiter, in the same way that a king surveys and administers his private and personal seaside hunting lodge. Other palaces and fortresses may belong to the state, and the king merely has the charge of handing them over to loyalists and servants to manage in his name. But Pisces II belongs to Jupiter himself, his private fishing preserve and retreat from the duties of the realm — and also the state bedroom, where he offers, and receives, more intimate entertainments. Pisces is the night house of Jupiter after all.
The Sun, Mercury, and Saturn are all at 9° and 10° of Pisces, coming off the hangover of a marathon budget meeting in Saturn's labyrinth. With the Lot of Fortune close at hand and the cazimi of earlier on the 28th only lately completed, it's hard not to imagine this meeting sounding a whole like like, "it's your choice how to run the company (or kingdom), but without some belt-tightening and austerity, it's likely to end in bankruptcy." Some decisions are going to be set in motion, to be sure — but Mercury's next meeting is with Neptune, promising a fluid and changing situation where it will be hard to believe everything you know, and it will be more difficult to know for sure if what you believe is real.
The dodeks, or twelfth-parts of the Zodiac, point to this problem, as they recapitulate Cancer, Leo, Virgo, and Libra. We may feel as though we're on the right course, and so come charging out to perform the role we believe we should be playing right now. But a more careful analysis reveals that a much more balanced and nuanced performance should have been given, one which isn't so top-heavy on feelings and which has room for retreat and re-consolidation. It's a week for small bets rather than grand gestures.
Planetary Placements
The start of the new decan is a Night Chart with almost all the planets below the horizon on the day side with the Sun. The Moon's light — but not her body — is visible on the eastern horizon. As the ruling luminary of the chart, she's in a complicated position — waning relative to the Sun and yet in conjunct him, in the Seventeenth Mansion The Crown (for the protection of resources and promoting guardedness against predatory powers), and also void of course — making no aspects with other planets until she enters a new sign. In Libra III The Gyroscope, she invites us to keep our existing projects and plans going — but not to take on new programs, and certainly not to reveal our intentions to others. The Moon invites us to "wait and see," rather than to rush into new things.
The Moon is also in an odd position relative to the other planets, which are all on the occidental or reactive side of the chart in the fifth house of fun, the sixth house of daily routines, and the eighth house of odium. Not to put too fine a point on it, we're going to face a need to make choices — either to hang back, or to rush in — when it comes to what we want to do, what we generally do (our routines), and what we must do despite not wanting to. Let's think about that a moment: The Moon, representing our psychic and emotional selves, is in a place where we're invited to question and second-guess our attachments and relationships to hobbies, routines, and obligations — and two of those relationships are in conjunct, suggesting "regret after the fact." That looks a lot like going to the hardware store or the pharmacy on a standard errand, and finding yourself waiting in line behind a coughing, sick person — whose illness you later contract. Or showing up at the office after months or years of remote work, only to get fired. Or discovering that you've done something screwy with your taxes, and now you need to pay fines and fees — you can probably afford them, you just don't want to have to pay. One way or another, though, you're going to have to trust your gut more than usual in the coming two weeks.
Of course, the Moon is the fastest of our astrological indicators. So by the time Pisces III starts on March 9, she is also going to pass through the cluster of planets in Aquarius, and the first half of the cluster of planets in Pisces. So what is currently a dim matter on the horizon will gradually turn into being in the thick of things. Write a reminder or two in your calendar — emotional baggage likely, March 4-9; trust your gut. I joke that I want a tattoo on my forearm that says "forewarned" — but it's not inappropriate this week.
Let's talk about the two and a half stelliums that will be affecting our houses over the next ten days. The Pluto - Mars - Venus cluster in Aquarius is starting this decan activating the fifth house — which is likely to result in significant issues in the lives of your children if you have them; or promote a series of arguments and reconciliations over small matters blowing up. At the same time, your hobbies, pastimes and exercise routines are likely to come up against commercial exploitations of various sorts — the cost of materials for your hobby keeps rising, or your gym membership fee increases; I'd also be on the watch for new hidden fees from the various streaming services eager to take more of your money. By and large, believe what workers tell you about corporate malfeasance this week... but use it to make decisions about what you will and will not buy. The recent Mars-Venus conjunction on February 22 is starting to break up, and your ... sensual relationships?... may have suffered from their union in Aquarius I (which has a reputation for being overly critical and too attuned to the faults and flaws in others). Both planets' recent squares to Jupiter and upcoming squares to Uranus will exacerbate this emphasis on unmet responsibilities in relationships; no matter how good things are, there's a tendency to accelerate the negative right now.
In the sixth house, the quartet of Saturn - Sun - Mercury - Neptune in Pisces casts a watery, emotional tangle of complex riptides over our daily routines. Marshlands are an extraordinarily diverse ecosystem -- fresh water running off the landscape mingles with twice-daily influxes of salt water in accordance with the tide, resulting in a mix of birds, fish, plant, and microscopic life all competing and cooperating. What happens when the Sun turns its golden eye too closely on this sort of landscape? What happens when Mercury, in their expertise, puts up a dam, and Saturn doesn't come through with the ecological study in a timely fashion? That's right — the landscape starts to dry out, and the water starts to get dirty, and the creatures that depend on the right mix of salt, fresh, and brine start to die out. Be aware of the ways in which your daily routines are being subtly altered by patterns over which you have little control — new traffic patterns caused by construction, new expectations from bosses and supervisors, new regulations straining your rights, new prices straining your bank account. You may not be able to change any of these forces — but you must be aware of them in order to adjust your own directions and objectives.
In the eighth house, in Taurus, we have Jupiter and Uranus. I think of these two as being opposites in many ways, and yet on the same side. Jupiter stands for traditional rulership, in many ways: children obeying their parents, workers deferring to their employers, apprentices following their masters and teachers in the craft, subjects giving homage to their sovereign, and so on. Uranus is often an upset of these sorts of frameworks — revolutionaries dragging the king from the palace, journeymen quitting and setting out on their own, and children deciding they prefer couch-surfing to abusive situations in the only home they've ever known.
And yet — both planets (when acting as their best selves), stand on the side of humaneness. A 'good' Jupiter delivers joviality, while a 'bad' Jupiter promises tyranny: one is triumphant ticker-tape pageant with laughing citizenry — and the other is a sullen populace forced to watch the victory parade of their conquerors. Uranus is the "kid" grown up and leaving for college, graduate school, or their first apartment with the full support of their family, when expressing itself in a good way — a sudden departure that's been a long time coming. But in a 'bad' way, it's the queer kid climbing down the drainpipe and heading to the shelter because there's no point in staying 'here' any longer.
As Jupiter and Uranus move closer together (meeting on April 20-21, 2024) — I think that we'll see more and more of these kinds of decisions: politicians fighting injustice with deep humanity, an increase of whole families packing up and leaving one state for another that they think has a more favorable regulatory environment for their needs and desires, populations resisting oppression with visible displays of humanity (which can be both outpourings of emotion and resistance in the streets). The conquerors cannot make a subject people feel joy in the presence of suppression; and neither can a person live long in a framework where there are only obligations but no rights. Are you in this picture? Maybe it's time to consider another background for your next photograph.
Although not shown in the chart, the Nodal Axis has its North Node in Aries and its South Node in Libra. Accordingly, we'll see a Lunar Eclipse on March 25 in Aries, and a Solar Eclipse in Aries on April 8 — both will be visible across large stretches of North America. We'll look at them in more detail in the columns for Pisces III and the Aries Ingress. For now, recognize that your subjective experience will be to notice so many ways in which you need others in your life so much right now — and how much misery you experience by so generously letting other people in your life! That dichotomy isn't going to go away just yet, so try to adopt a nuanced position of letting a few people in, but not everyone and not just one. If you're single right now, take this as a reminder that you don't have to grab onto this one person as your exclusive life-mate today; at least open the dating app, and see who else might be available.
Horoscopes by Rising Sign
Decan I of any sign (usually covering the 21st of the month to the first of the following month) is free to all visitors; Decan II is only available to Patreon and Ko-Fi.com subscribers; and Decan III is available to Patreon, Ko-Fi, and MailChimp subscribers.
Libra:
Scorpio:
Sagittarius:
Capricorn:
Aquarius:
Pisces:
Aries:
Taurus:
Gemini:
Cancer:
Leo:
Virgo:
Colophon
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I use Christopher Warnock's The Mansions of the Moon as the basis of my Moon placement delineations, and Austin Coppock's 36 Faces for much of my planetary delineations. Neither gentleman endorses me.
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