March brings the most potent astrological activations of the year including Saturn’s shift into Pisces, a fiery meetup between Jupiter and Chiron in Aries, a ‘Super’ New Moon and Pluto’s initial ingress into Aquarius after more than a decade in the sign of Capricorn.
As the Sun moves through Pisces over the next 3 weeks, we’re invited to open ourselves an expanded sense of spiritual and self-awareness but we may also need to ride some intense waves of change, emotional breakthrough, and awakening to our darker shadows as we begin the next epic chapter in our collective evolution.
Some themes coming forward now, which are core to the astrology of 2023 overall are tenderheartedness, courageous action, newfound freedom and owning your power.
As the sun shifts into Aries on March 20th, the Northern Hemisphere awakens from its winter slumber and we celebrate the Spring Equinox, also known as Ostara. It’s the dawn of the spring season. This energy brings excitement, vision and passion, but also a growing awareness that, as we move forward, the world is entering a revolutionary new paradigm, which we will need to develop new skills to navigate.
March Astrology Highlights
3/1 – Venus conjunct Jupiter in Aries
This once-a-year alignment between the two benefics brings passion, bold confidence and serendipitous opportunities. Venus and Jupiter in Aries represents spontaneity, truth-telling, and a boost to your sense of vitality. This energy carries a fierce impulse towards freedom and expansion. Where do you need more independence in your life? You may feel the need to shake things up over the next few days – don’t be afraid to take a leap of faith.
3/3 – Venus conjunct Chiron
Venus brings an opportunity for valuable inner work over the next few days, especially around feelings of vulnerability or lack of deserving. The goddess of abundance is softening the effects of Chiron now, which may allow you to step back and gain perspective. This activation can help you find a greater sense of self-assurance in making bold moves, going after your dreams, breaking free of a dead end situation, or sharing your ideas to influence others for the greater good. Chiron teaches us to move forward in our hero’s journey despite the fact that we may always feel a certain level of self-doubt.
3/7 Virgo Full Moon
The Virgo Full Moon supports you to lean into a greater sense of self-sufficiency, discernment, and perseverance so that you can tackle your most daunting challenges.
Have you been neglecting certain responsibilities, to yourself or others? What ‘messes’ need to be cleaned up now? This is an important time to review your wellness habits and routines, including diet, exercise and sleep. How are you handling stress? Are you burned out and running on an empty tank? What needs to be rebalanced now?
At the same time, the strong oppositional energy between Virgo and Pisces is also calling you to acknowledge when you need to surrender. Although Virgo loves precision and order, this Full Moon may be showing you where it’s time to let go of perfectionism, or a desire to control every detail, so you can finally move forward in some area of your life.
Use this Full Moon to soften anxious overthinking or the need to have all the answers. Let go of attachment to how things ought to be.
This Full Moon’s trine to Uranus brings support for refreshing and perhaps unexpected change. Stay open – these shifts are meant to tickle your imagination and show you new possibilities.
3/7 – Saturn enters Pisces
Saturn represents your ‘growing pains’ – the epic struggles you must move through as you mature and evolve. As the archetype of the Strict Professor, Saturn tends to bring up frustration or constraint, as a way of nudging you to learn your most important life lessons. Under his influence, you will come to set healthier boundaries, cultivate self-mastery, and prune away what no longer serves your highest good.
Saturn in Pisces dares you to open the heart to a new, more profound depth of emotional awareness, as well as hidden layers of suppressed or denied emotions – these parts of you long to reveal knowledge, healing and other hidden gifts. Something may happen that forces you to turn your attention inward and bravely confront certain feelings of you’ve been avoiding.
Over the next 3 years, Saturn, lover of order and practicality, will be learning to trust the emotional liberation and feminine fluidity of Pisces. He will teach you to surf the waves of feeling to a new level of understanding about your true nature, and place in the cosmos. You’re being invited to allow life to be more wonderous and spontaneous, less rigid and fearful.
Collectively, there will be a greater focus on free-expression, tolerance, compassion, peace over war and recognition of what unites us beyond superficial identifiers such as gender, race, nationality and religion.
3/12 – Jupiter conjunct Chiron
Jupiter serves to amplify and bring the awareness needed for a healing breakthrough to take place. While Jupiter in Aries represents the opportunity for a boost in confidence, clarity and greater independence, Jupiter’s meetup with Chiron is also bringing up a painful awareness of your deepest wounds, feelings of insecurity or the ways in which you may be making yourself small in order to play it safe.
This activation is connected to your experience of Root chakra energy, representing feelings around the right to have, the right to be, or the right to to pursue your heart’s true calling.
Chiron represents a primal wound: a source of suffering that often traces back to early childhood. This energy represents integrating the pain and wisdom of your most sensitive wounds so that you may come to share your greatest gifts with the world.
While this activation may feel very tender, Jupiter conjunct Chiron creates the potential for a rebirth that allows you to break free of the past and move forward with newfound purpose, courage and strength.
3/14-3/16 – Sun conjunct Neptune + square Mars + Waning Quarter Moon in Sagittarius
As we move through this third (and final) square between Neptune and Mars over the last 6 months, a story that’s been unfolding will advance to its final chapter.
The Sun conjunct Neptune and Selena exactly to the degree at 25’ Pisces triple activates the archetype of the dreamer, heightening our emotional sensitivity and ability to feel the divine truths of the world on a vibrational level, deep in the heart. Your spirit guides are leaning close to you – will you slow down and give them your attention?
Meanwhile, Mars in Gemini amplifies the urge to make sense of our surroundings on an intellectual level, through observation and analysis.
Over the last several months, you may have been developing the ability to communicate more articulately, or express your inner beauty more authentically and creatively. You may have been developing the ability to navigate feelings of overwhelm by tapping into new expressions of curiosity and resourcefulness.
This passage also represents a moment of cathartic release. You may need to let go of old expectations for how things should be in order to really perceive what’s true in the here and now. This is a moment of reconciliation and acceptance – although you may need to grieve certain losses or disappointments, there’s also an invitation to trust in the miracle of divine design. All is not lost.
Can you allow yourself to feel held by spirit in every cell of your body, in every layer of your awareness? Can you exhale, and rest in knowing that the universe has your back?
3/20 – Spring Equinox / Aries Cardinal Ingress
The Sun’s shift into Aries marks the solar gate of Ostara and represents the ‘dawn’ of the new Zodiac year. This is the moment of awakening from the slumber of the long winter months to emerge renewed into a new light. This is also the Spring Equinox – from now until late September in the Northern Hemisphere, our days will be longer than our nights.
Aries brings us the gifts of vitality, bravery and instinctive wisdom. There’s an exciting thirst for freedom and new experiences. This is also International Astrology Day!
3/21 – Aries ‘Super’ New Moon
Although we won’t be able to see it, this New Moon is going to be closer than usual to Earth, amplifying your manifesting power! The New Moon represents clarity, rebirth, freedom and joyful creativity and can be a powerful time for reconnecting with your personal vision and intentions. This New Moon also marks the beginning of our journey through the Spring Eclipse Portal.
This New Moon occurs at 0’ Aries, the very first degree of the zodiac and carries the sabian symbol of “a woman just risen from the sea; a seal embracing her”. In mythology, goddesses of love, fertility and abundance, such as Lakshmi, Venus, Aphrodite, are all described as spontaneously emerging from the depths of the sea. This is a time of authentic creation.
Aries describes where you seek to express yourself purely and unapologetically, with raw matter-of-fact honesty. This New Moon supports you to tap into the truth of who you are so you can speak and act from a place of greater personal integrity. Over the next 4 weeks, be very intentional in how you spend your time and energy. You will have a difficult time keeping secrets now.
3/23 – Pluto enters Aquarius
This is the first ingress of Pluto into Aquarius in a two-year transition that concludes this planet’s passage through the sign of Capricorn since 2008. In June, Pluto will retrograde back into Capricorn where it will stay until it makes its second ingress in January 2024; (the final crossing will be in January 2025).
Pluto is a planet (or dwarf planet) which is one of the most powerful forces in modern astrology. Pluto transits are lengthy cycles, associated with generational trends. The archetypal ‘Lord of the Underworld’, takes over 240 years to move around the entire zodiac.
Pluto energy is associated with radical transformation; the cycle of death and rebirth. In Aquarius, this innovative and rebellious energy will bring forward radical advances to artificial intelligence, the metaverse, bio-engineering, governing bodies, cryptocurrency, space travel and more. Through this transit, society will redefine the ways we connect with each other, and possibly even with other worlds.
As Pluto amplifies the struggle between good and evil, we will also be faced with the responsibility of using our power to create, heal and unify rather than destroy. Aquarius also represents our connection with ancient wisdom, and the elevation of feminine sciences including astrology.
3/25 – Mars (finally!) enters Cancer after 6½ months in Gemini + trine Saturn + quincunx Pluto
Mars (finally!) ends its extended journey through the sign of Gemini which began last August. As the God of War shifts from airy Gemini into watery Cancer, we become more motivated by our needs for emotional fulfillment – longings for meaningful connection, validation and security in our relationships. You may become aware of unhealthy, co-dependent or manipulative patterns now, and need to cultivate greater self-reliance. Make sure that your expectations of loved ones are fair and realistic.
As the month winds down, we’ll be moving through an intense Grand Trine in Water, involving Saturn, Mars and the South Node. Powerful emotions are moving through you and may need to be given voice. You will be highly sensitive to the emotions of others, needing more time alone to ground and reset as a result. It’s also an important time for dealing with unresolved grievances or resentments from your past. Artists, creatives, healers and anyone speaking the language of the heart will find new inspiration and insights now.