March New Moon in Pisces

This Month’s New Moon in Pisces beckons you toward the limitless ocean beyond your thinking, worrying, and obsessing mind—to the fabled dwelling place of the “serpent of the deep.”

Legends abound concerning this mythological sea creature. He’s the Rainbow Serpent of the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime. He’s the Leviathan heralded in the first chapter of Genesis, so immense in size the sea boils over when he surfaces. In the Vedas, he’s the “Serpent of the Deep”—the early prototype of the kundalini energy at the base of the spine—who spreads his 80 million luminous tridents through the waters to rescue humankind. And in our most recent mythic imagination, he’s the Lochness monster—shy, elusive, and magical.

Because no one knows for sure if he’s real or not, there’s a word all cultures use to describe him: ambiguous.

 When something is ambiguous it frustrates your intellect.  One thing can have multiple meanings. All of them may be true. All of them may be false. Some may be correct, while others may not be. The majority may be wrong, but there’s a possibility that one might be right. It’s not quite red, nor blue, but purplish blue.

To accept ambiguity requires you suspend your judgment, like a child. You have to submit to your sense of wonder that you’ve neglected since you were eight. Feel how it arises when you contemplate—and not resist—what can’t be known for certain.

To avoid suffering, this month’s New Moon requires you expand past your doubt into wonder. This requires you to be fearless about diving into the deep end. You have to take long full breaths. You have to let go and push beyond the surface.  You have to learn how to breathe under water. In other words, you have to be okay with something that could cause you to panic and drown, but you learn to trust instead.

The Moon also conjoins Mercury, which is not only retrograde but also debilitated and combust. In Vedic astrology, “retrograde” means the planet appears to slow down and move “backward” across the zodiac. “Combust” means its influence is “burned up” by too close proximity to the Sun. “Debilitated” means that the planet is not free to express its full indications. So from now until March 29^th, Mercury is stumbling backward, burning up, and suffering from malnourishment.

Mercury influences your mind—the intellect that dissects, orders, and decides for certain.

When it turns retrograde, things defy your mind’s logic. Your computer files get deleted. You thought you communicated your point clearly, but instead a big fight ensues over semantics. Your contract ends up in spam and you miss the deadline.

That’s why astrologers caution against making any kind of formal decision during times when Mercury turns retrograde. Especially at this moment when Mercury is not only retrograde, but debilitated and combust, few things may work out as they should.

But I’m not asserting that kind of caution. I’m the sort of Vedic astrologer who always believes in following your common sense.  Yet when common sense leads you to a feeling of ambiguity in the face of life’s uncertainties, I advise you to develop a sense of wonder.

The truth is: We can never know anything for sure. There’s limitlessness within the most rigid of limits. Total contraction allows for infinite expansion. Discipline is required of freedom. Even scientists haven’t yet discovered the bottom of the ocean, nor the boundary of outer space.

So why do you think you need to have it all figured out?

The joy in the present moment is found not in the attempt at achieving a definitive in your life, but in the embrace of the ambiguous.

~

Editor: Kate Bartolotta.