March is a tale of two seasons — the end of Winter and the advent of Spring. In astrological terms, this shift of seasons also ends one year and beckons a new astrological year. We start this month of March with a heavy emphasis upon the last Sign of the Zodiac, Pisces.
There could be a tendency at the beginning of March for us to tune out what is going on, far preferring the imaginative and the fantasies we can devise. Such escapism might be enjoyable or it could be a hellish nightmare. The way we see things is dependent upon our perspective, our attitude and our disposition. For many of us, we may have felt that we have gone through a winter of discontent and a winter that was not merely this passing season but rather a twenty month gulag since August of 2008 when our worlds began to turn upside down, turnings in and to our lives that have continued even to this present day. The energies of dramatic change, transformations and shapeshiftings continue on through this year, through next year and into 2012.
We start March with one planet in a Fire Sign, two planets in Earth Signs, three planets in Air Signs and four planets in a Water Sign. Two planets are in Cardinal Signs, three planets are in Fixed Signs and five planets are in Mutable Signs. Four planets are in Positive Signs and six planets are in Receptive Signs. There is a Stellium of three or more planets in Pisces with the Sun, Venus, Jupiter and Uranus transiting the Mutable Water Sign. The one planet in a Fire Sign is Mars retrograde in Leo. Mercury is conjunct Neptune by orb as we begin the month, with Mercury moving into Pisces on the 1st.
There is a great deal of emotion at the beginning of the month and we are still feeling the influence of the Virgo Full Moon on the 28th of February with the Moon in Virgo opposing by Sign the Stellium in Pisces.
Our imaginations can run rampant in early March. We may not have enough fire in our belly, lacking a sense of self-affirmation or self-assertiveness to offset the heavy emotional blanket we could feel dampening our spirits, lying heavy on our soul. We have to be cautious regarding anything we hear or say. Now is not a time to buy into first impressions, especially in light of the fact that judgments could easily be skewed by wondrous presentations and assertive proclamations. There may be increased concern about issues not resolved, and these can range from the details of our own lives to governmental matters and even the financial well-being of our global society.
While it may be important for us to suspend judgment before acting, we also need to exercise due diligence in anything we might engage or any decisions we choose to make. Things may not be as they appear. And the potential for wild swings of emotion, indicative of the volatility of these times, cannot be discounted and with a tendency towards continual displays of manic-depressive behavior.
We have lived on the earth plane in a world of duality, of positive and negative and a caroming between extremes. We have lived in coordinates of time space, where a sequential progression occurred and we expected a linear approach from beginning through middle to the end, all with understandable parameters through which life unfolded. Familiar and conditioned into this four dimensional world, it may be hard for us to let go and accept the reality that life is going through a major transitional phase, leaving behind the safety and security of time space and moving into the collapse of such coordinates into the NOW. For each one of us, we may feel as though we are living out the visions of Dickens’ Scrooge, whereby the ghosts of our past, our present and our future are all interacting for us in the here and now.
Although we might want to have control over situations, we might truly feel as though things are beyond our control, as if things were spinning out of control.
And what to do? We might ask ourselves. One of the most important characteristics of these times is to suspend judgment, let go of our opinions and adopt a disposition of flexibility and adaptability. We might also want to repeat, mantram-like, the affirmation that things work out for the best, no matter how we might perceive the situation or how we might want things to be.
With a heavy emphasis upon Pisces at the beginning of March, we can either embrace our spiritual nature, letting go of our egocentric perspective and engaging our soulful qualities. Or we might feel ourselves victim to the world, under assault and prey to the vagaries of change.
As in all of life, we always can exercise free will. We have the choice regarding how we choose to see things and how we choose to act in varied situations. And during these times, it is essential that we maintain awareness and mindfulness regarding the shifting sands and how we choose to interact with the backdrop of the larger world around us.
One of the beauties of these times is the increasing realization of synchronicity, serendipity, the magic and miracles whereby we sometimes find ourselves in the right place at the right time, with things developing for us that we may not have directly initiated.
This sense of magic and mini-miracles can be evident this month around the 3rd when the Venus conjunct Uranus could be concurrent with interesting contacts, unexpected connections. A sense of fated relationships could enter our lives, and we might find ourselves attracted to people who are marching to their own drummer, those people who are seeking to take the steps in their own individual journey through this life experience.
The mid-part of March could heighten the sense of things happening with little effort on our part. The Pisces New Moon on the 15th triggers a fascinating fortnight, which may seem Fellini-like, Daliesque surreal, and may force us to look at life through the prisms of a kaleidoscope. This New Moon on the 15th has a power pack in the latter part of Pisces with the Sun Moon conjunction also conjunct both Mercury and Uranus. As the New Moon imprints its signature upon the fortnight following, we may experience startling revelations, the ability to be increasingly resourceful and new technological advances in both communications and biotechnology. Change is in the air, and we might both experience changes to the world around us and also changes to how we choose to operate in our world, all the while looking to expedite our process, streamline our methods and be far more effective with less expenditure of energy.
We do have to be aware that during much of this month atmospheric storm systems can be severe with intense precipitation, lightning strikes and cyclonic winds. Flash floods are possible during stalled storm fronts with damage both from the precipitation and the winds.
We also have our square between Saturn and Pluto operational this month with this square being also triggered as a T-Square as the personal planets move into Aries, a prelude to the T-Square between Saturn, Pluto and Uranus when Uranus enters Aries briefly this late Spring through mid-Summer and before entering Aries next year for its seven year transit of the Cardinal Fire Sign.
In our personal lives and in the world at large, the question of whether we have built upon sand or built upon rock may be answered with more things falling apart, crashing and burning and other things being stripped down to their bare bones but solid in their essence, and then being rebuilt to be relevant to these upcoming times.
Despite the sense of serendipity, synchronicity and change in the air, we also have to be mindful and aware that we are being challenged and tested regarding our modus operandi, how we do things, the things we are doing and how we are doing our lives.
We might feel, at times, as though we are in the grip of an ever-tightening vise. Other times, we might feel as though we have slipped through the noose, freed from trying conditions and released from situations that no longer are productive for us.
Although there may be times when we might wonder whether we are coming or going, our perception can be strong, especially around the 4th when Mercury sextiles Pluto, when our laser-like ability to focus on the core issues and get to the heart of any matter can be heightened.
Our intuitive insight can be spot on during this March, especially the second half of the month under the influence of the Mercury Uranus conjunction at the time of the Pisces New Moon on the 15th. We shall have the opportunity of thinking outside the box. Answers can come easily, so long as we do not get fixed in our opinions, attached to our beliefs or prone to making judgments. The more we can be open to unanticipated variables that might significantly impact our choices and our decisions, the more we shall engage the multi-faceted factors which may influence the course of action and the more we can be productive in negotiating the twists and turns of these times.
As we move through the month, Winter gives way to Spring and the astrological year comes to a close. We enter the rebirth in nature, a renaissance within ourselves.
Mars turns direct on the 10th ending its retrograde cycle through Leo begun back in December of 2009. If we have felt somewhat lethargic with little energy, as though the wind has been knocked out of our sails, we can peg some of our fatigue and depleted energy to the Mars retrograde cycle. With Mars direct in Leo we can feel a great deal more forceful, more energetic and more interested in expressing our creativity.
During this March we also have the movement of personal planets into Aries, exiting Pisces to enter the Cardinal Fire Sign. Venus enters Aries on the 7th, followed by Mercury on the 17th and the Sun creating a Stellium of three or more planets in the Cardinal Fire Sign as the Sun enters Aries at the time of the Vernal Equinox, the advent of Spring.
We are looking at initiating our new projects and quite possibly doing so in ways that are not familiar as much as experimental. We want to do things differently, and we want to be able to be more effective with less expenditure of energy. We are also looking to make changes to our lives, to be more resourceful and less impacted by the volatility we witness and experience in the world at large.
But the movement of the personal planets into Aries also creates a T-Square as the Aries planets oppose Saturn and square Pluto. This T-Square will be something with which we, as individuals and as a society, will have to contend into 2012 as Saturn continues its transit of Libra [except for a brief return to Virgo this Spring into mid-Summer], Pluto transits Capricorn and Uranus transits Aries [briefly this late Spring through mid-Summer before fully entering Aries in 2011].
For those who assume that the worst of times are behind us, I hate to be the one who gives the lateral lobotomy or whack on the side of the head. But I would suggest that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg regarding the transformations and shapeshiftings likely to occur during this phase of paradigm shift. Therefore, I suggest keeping our eyes wide open, our ear to the railroad track and not wholly buying into the ‘feelgood’ scenarios spun by politicians, economists and other commentators who want us to believe that we are fully on the road to recovery.
March has often been a difficult time for the equity markets, as evidenced with last March of 2009, which saw a bottom to the US Stock markets. Corrections, downturns often occur during the March-April period. And this March offers unexpected situations that could dent the polished image of being on the road to recovery.
Needless to say, there is an array of liabilities about which investors need be concerned. The economic downturn and its effects upon various governmental agencies, corporations and the general populace may not have totally played out. The sovereign debt of various countries has been highlighted recently by Greece. But the acronym of PIIGS indicates there may be other countries in line for difficulty in servicing their debt — PIIGS = Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain.
The economic recovery touted in various media fails to highlight the impact of governmental stimulus programs some of which are scheduled to run out or the rebuilding of depleted inventories by business entities.
And I have suggested before the possibility that any US recovery might be a jobless recovery, a matter supported and well chronicled in the March 2010 issue of The Atlantic. Even more mind-boggling is a report in the January 16th issue of The Economist, which claims that the US has long failed at job creation:
“Only about 400,000 more Americans were employed in December
2009 than in December 1999, while the population grew by nearly
30m. This dismal rate of job creation raises the possibility that
America’s recovery may also be jobless. The economy almost
certainly expanded during the second half of 2009, but 800,000
additional jobs were lost all the same.”
With an economy whose GDP has been 70% consumer driven, the lack of employment raises various economic, social and political issues. No matter how things progress, the times they are a’changing.
Adverse weather conditions not only costs governmental agencies in addressing the weather impacts but also can lead to a diminishment in tax revenue as a result of lost business on those storm-crossed days. States, counties and municipalities continue to struggle with diminished revenue and increased costs. Cost cutting can assist the bottom-line on the short term but may have greater negative implications over the long-term.
Inflation seems tame with a possible greater concern for a Japan-style long cycle of deflation, but food costs and energy costs may tick up and create even greater compression on the disposable income of people, all the while that labor pay stagnates and underemployment increases.
I don’t want to be accused of being a ‘chicken little’, or a little chicken, but these times do call for continual vigilance and being alert for unexpected situations arising. These times may also demand that we no longer rely on old solutions to present problems. We may have to think outside the box, consider our options and alternatives, and embrace the concept that we can be co-creators of our destiny but must lose the belief that we can be in total control of all facets of our lives. Things happen and it will be important that we be aware, vigilant and mindful; that we be flexible and adaptable; that we be nimble and quick; and that we let go of our judgments and opinions and be open to the magic of it all.
March may roar in as a lion and could roar out as a ram…
