Hello, beautiful souls! As I write these words, the Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, and Neptune, are all in the sign of the mystic-dreamer, Pisces. Yes, there is a pile-up of planetary energies in the sign of the fish-two fish to be exact: one swims upstream engaging the mundane world and one swims downstream towards The Source. In one way or another, for all of us, the March patterns and insights are inviting us to surrender to forces larger than ourselves and to that ultimate force of love and well-being that lives inside us.
Pisces and surrender
Of all the astrological signs, Pisces is the sign that most symbolizes the process of opening to the direct awareness of being a part of something much greater than the ordinary self we normally know ourselves to be. Call this force God/Goddess, Source, Higher Self, Love, Life, Universal Mind, The Unconscious or the Soul. No matter what you choose to call it, it makes itself felt and known through unusual experiences that often can’t be explained logically or scientifically (not yet, anyway!). These experiences seem to gently “tug” at us and beckon us into surrendering to a greater force of perspective, love, and beauty that gives deeper meaning and purpose to our lives.
Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces
The sign of Pisces represents that deep desire in all of us to know union rather than separation. It is the part of us that intuitively knows we belong to something more…something “greater”. The March patterns and insights are emphasizing this part of us in a big way because the two planets that “co-rule” the sign of Pisces, Jupiter and Neptune, are both traveling through this sign and will meet at a “conjunction” in April. In plain English, this means that Jupiter and Neptune are quite powerful in our hearts and minds right now. *Steven Forrest has written a lovely piece about the coming April conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces. His article will give you even more insight into this watery cycle in which we currently find ourselves.
On the positive end of the spectrum, Jupiter represents expansion, growth, opportunity, fortune (even “luck”), confidence, wealth, abundance, and generosity of spirit. Jupiter at its best is the part of us that can always access trust in the benevolence of life. It is the best part of what we might call “faith”. On the negative end of the spectrum, it can mean arrogance, righteousness, unhealthy pride, an over-inflated ego, narcissism, irresponsibility, over-extension, and recklessness.
For the positive side of Neptune, we see visionary dreams, healthy use of imagination, creativity, inspiration, gentleness, clear intuitive and psychic awareness, compassion, and a sense of communion with The Divine. Neptune can awaken the “inner mystic” in all of us, bringing us closer to Nature and to God/Goddess. But on the other end of the spectrum, Neptune can show up as all manner of illusion and delusion. In its most extreme cases, Neptune can represent clinical insanity and “madness”.
Inspiration or illusion?
How do all of these qualities add up? Well, let’s just say that some of us are likely to be experiencing the heights of surrender to Great Mystery, including heightened sensitivity to the suffering all around us, compassion, inspiration, and trust in the ultimate embrace of The Source. This could be seen in a new level of surrender to creative, artistic and/or visionary “flow,” as well as deepened and heightened spiritual awareness and practice. But for some, there might be great confusion, anxiety, and panic. Deception, illusion, and delusion could be kicking up all kinds of fear and paranoia or alternately, euphoric fantasies far removed from “reality”. And of course, some of us might be experiencing a bit of both.
Russia and Ukraine; shadows and light
I can’t help but think of Russia invading Ukraine during this time and how Putin is a good example of the darker expression of these energies. He is obviously hypnotized by a very harmful deception and illusion that has lead him to war against the Ukrainians. And as for the Ukraine and the response to this Russian invasion from many around the world, we can see the higher expression of these energies. The compassion and solidarity being expressed with the Ukrainians seems to reflect the deeper truth that we are all a part of something “greater” and a part of each other.
Living outrageous openness with help from Tosha Silver
On a more personal note, these planetary reflections in my life seem to be all about surrender. Yesterday, I joined Tosha Silver’s Living Outrageous Openness Forum. I have been so moved by Tosha’s simple and humorous way of shining light on ancient spiritual teachings. Her practical guidance about how to cultivate a tangible relationship with The Divine is just what my soul needs at this time.
For all of my adult life (I’m an eternally youthful 44yo!) I have toggled back and forth between pushing and striving with my will and letting go of the reigns and surrendering to “divine will”. All the while, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to “figure everything out” and “make things happen”. It’s been a hella’ stressful, exhausting, and disheartening ride, and it has simply never worked to get me where I thought I wanted to go.
Have you experienced this, too? I’m sure some of you have. This unhealthy way of being is the “normal” way in our American culture. “Strive, do it, make it happen, and make it happen, now!” has been drilled into us starting at our first breath. Living in this hurried, anxious and tunnel-visioned way seems to work pretty well for some people. Or at least it can appear that way on the surface until those same people who appear to “have it together” experience the various “breakdowns” (of which we’re all too familiar: illness, divorce, accidents, drug addictions, depression, etc.) that inevitably occur after many years of living this way.
Surrender moment-to-moment, day-by-day
I think I’ve taken this way of being as far as I can, and it’s time to drop it. In this beautiful moment of divine timing, I’m learning to surrender to my Divine Self in new ways and as a moment-to-moment, day-by-day practice and way of being. For the first time in my life I am praying “Not my will but thine” and “Show me, Great Spirit, what you would have me do with my day, my career, my relationships, my creativity, my life.”
The whole idea of this is only scary when I forget that Great Spirit is not separate from me. It is me! It is the wisest, most loving, most compassionate, most courageous, most curious, most far-sighted, most beautiful, and most awesome part of me. What I am truly surrendering is the whole idea that “I have to do this alone” and “figure it all out” on my own. I’m opening up to the truth that I am never truly alone. There is always tremendous insight, love, and support here for me. All I have to do is invite The Divine to help me and trust the help when it comes.
Baby-steps in surrendering
Even if you are not ready to take such a big leap onto the path of surrender, there are many ways to honor the call of your Inner Divine that you may be experiencing at this time. In order to hear this call, spend some quiet alone time with yourself. Let the longings of your heart and soul whisper to you.
Meditate. And by that, I mean do something that encourages you to become one with the moment, an activity that allows you to more easily let go of the limited version of yourself with which you’re familiar.
Dancing might do it for you. Playing with the kids might do it for others. And for some, it might mean sitting quietly alone on a mountain, breathing with the natural rhythms of Mother Nature.
Compassionate action is another way to honor the Jupiterian-Neptunian-Piscean, March patterns and insights. When you feel an impulse in your heart to be kind, to help, go give, to smile at someone who may need it, let yourself surrender to it. Let the Divine use you in some small way that might mean the world to someone.
Daydream, rest, get back to your dream journaling, paint, sing, look deeply into your loved ones’ eyes, invite inspiration! All of these are ways to surrender a bit more to the Great Mystery that lives within and all around us.
March patterns and insights from the Michael Entity’s perspective
The concept of surrender seems like such a powerful idea to explore this month, so I want to share with you the Michael Entity’s perspective on surrender and how this choice might help us navigate this month’s challenges and gifts. *If you are wondering “Who is the Michael Entity?” click here.
Surrender in our teaching is related to one of the 7 goals that we describe as the primary aims and motivations for a lifetime: re-evaluation, growth, discrimination, acceptance, submission, dominance, and relaxation/flow. Those who have a goal of relaxation/flow in any given lifetime are learning about surrender. Everyone is learning about surrender, but those with the goal of relaxation/flow are “specializing” in this particular education as the primary goal for the life.
Surrender is often misunderstood as “giving up” or resignation. It is often seen as giving in to unpleasant people or circumstances. Though sometimes surrender may indeed mean that you do not fight or resist and unpleasant person or situation, it never means resignation, at least not in the way we are using the term.
Surrender in this case means trusting forces and patterns of life that are more powerful than “you”. For example, it would be pointless to stand in the ocean and command it to do your bidding. If you did not yield to this force that is greater than you and seek to move with it, you would surely and quickly learn that resisting or resigning to the ocean can kill you.
Don’t resist the ocean; move with it. Don’t resign to being overcome by the ocean; relax and learn to use the movement of the ocean to help you swim, flow, and navigate.
This is a metaphor for life, of course.
There are many internal and external “forces” in life that cannot be controlled or overcome. An internal force that cannot be overcome is breathing, for example. You must breathe. You will breathe. You may be able to stop the breath for a brief duration of time, but it will always return. This is obviously a good thing.
Another internal force that cannot be overcome is the ebb and flow of your creative and focused cycles. Sometimes you are low energy, fuzzy-minded, “sleepy,” and though you can “push through it,” pushing through it often creates other unpleasant issues, like accidents, for example. The more you ignore, deny, and push through your ebbs in energy and focus, the more your body will become dis-eased. In essence, your body will eventually force you to slow down and embrace a period of stillness. You cannot overcome it. You will experience it one way or another.
An external force would be the weather, for example. You can yell at the clouds all you want for pouring rain on your day, and it will get you nowhere other than frustration and possibly pneumonia. Surrendering to the rain can mean you get to participate with the rain and choose how you wish to “move with it,” swim, flow, and navigate it during your day.
Another example of an external force which is particularly relevant to consider this month is the force and “tides” of humanity’s evolution. You have reached a place in your collective evolution where you can no longer deny that sharing, caring, and helping each other is the only way to move forward into greater peace, harmony, and fulfillment. You cannot overcome this “ocean,” though there are those who will try. They will not succeed. It may appear that they will at times succeed, but this will be a temporary appearance.
Your world is quickly moving towards greater and greater awareness of wholeness and what this means in terms of how you live together on the planet. You are each a part of the whole. What any of you do has great impact on all of you. This awareness cannot be undone. You are a Mature Soul planet, now.
This is a month of heightened personal and collective sensitivity. You will all be feeling more sensitive and emotional than usual. You will all be more open to feeling the suffering around you, locally and globally. You may be tempted to “shut down” and numb your feelings with various distractions, but we encourage you to surrender to whatever you are feeling at this time. Accept it, move with it, flow with it, let it help you navigate, and let it help you learn something new about yourself and about how you choose to bring that self into the world.
We also wish to say that if you are angry, surrendering to the anger does not mean that you hurt yourself or someone else. That would be more of a denial of the anger or a resigning to the anger. Surrendering to the anger means owning your anger and letting it move you in healthy ways that help you come to terms with how you have been feeling powerless and helpless. Surrendering to it may mean that you forgive yourself for even feeling anger at all, if you have adopted the lie that it is “bad” to feel anger. It can mean that owning the anger moves you to being honest and expressing your anger to a trusted friend or loved one. Surrendering could move you into therapy, to admitting you have been depressed, or any other number of healing paths. Maybe you simply need to punch some pillows.
We share all of this to remind you that we are not suggesting you “collapse” into potentially destructive states where you lose yourself in anger, grief, fear, etc. This is not surrender. Surrender has a “gentle strength” to it, a softness, a trust in being able to ride whatever the powerful force is and let it take you to a more insightful and loving place. Surrender understands that whatever the “greater force,” this greater force is a part of you, and you are being asked to move with it and get to know it for your greater awareness and evolution.
And this is what the month of March is all about. On multiple levels, you are all learning how to own parts of yourselves for the expansion of your awareness and the furthering of your evolution. If you can surrender to these parts that are “tugging at” your attention, you can heal and learn something new. You can bring “missing” fragments of yourself back home to your wholeness. And as with the aim of the goal of relaxation/flow, you can relax more and more into trusting your “greater self” and the river of life.
Russia and Ukraine are a part of you. The choice for war is a part of you. All of the suffering in the world is a part of you. Caring about it all is a part of you. It does you no good to deny parts of yourself. Your world is changing and how you surrender to this evolution determines how much of your wholeness you will bring to participate in this world.
Remember, while you are surrendering to the uncomfortable and challenging forces of life (if you so choose to do so), to also surrender to the truth, love, and beauty of life. It is all around you, even as “the darkness seems to be closing in”. Look for it. Savor it. Share it. Create it. Your path forward in evolution is more about the truth of your wholeness than it could ever be about the “mess” and ugliness of life.
Good day to you all. Goodbye for now.
List of Astrological shenanigans to help illuminate March patterns and insights
Here are what seem to be the most influential astrological aspects that illuminate March patterns and insights:
March 2 ~ New Moon in Pisces (closely conjunct Jupiter, widely conjunct Neptune and sextile Uranus) ~ completion/endings and new beginnings, divine discontent, inspiration, heightened sensitivity, ocean of consciousness and feelings, emphasis on stillness, dreams, and meditation, be wary of deception, illusion, and escapism
March 2 ~ Venus/Mars/Pluto conjunct in Capricorn ~ the dust is beginning to settle from last month’s radical honesty and deep healing work in the realm of intimacy and relationships; maturity in love and relating
March 5 ~ Sun conjuncts Jupiter in Pisces ~ dreaming, feeling, “seeing,” spiritual confidence (or self-deception), spiritual breakthrough and “victory,” time for compassion to shine, trusting our intuitive insight
March 6 ~ Venus and Mars enter Aquarius ~ continued growth and maturation in relationships with an emphasis on creativity, experimentation, freedom, and individuality; a fresh, airy breeze begins to blow through our relationships bringing opportunity for new experiences and ways or relating
March 9 ~ Mercury enters Pisces ~ strange perceptions, witnessing miracles and synchronicities, heightened imagination, inspired and compassionate thinking, “conversations with God,” fuzzy-mind, confusion, deceptive communications
March 13 ~ Sun conjuncts Neptune (still widely conjunct Jupiter) ~ grace, forgiveness, compassion, surrender, rest, quiet, dreams, inspiration, creativity, vision, heightened sensitivity, “magic,” Consciousness Itself, confusion, illusion, deception
March 17 ~ Full Moon in Virgo (with Jupiter/Neptune/Sun still within orb of conjunction in Pisces) ~ balancing the intangible and tangible, grounding dreams and inspiration, learning to be practical visionaries and mystics, bringing structure and order to chaos, compassionate service, acts of kindness, learning to receive unconditional love, “walking our spiritual talk”
March 20 ~ Sun enters Aries (Spring Equinox) ~ the astrological New Year begins, some forward motion into clarity and the “light of Spring,” inspired action, courage to move forward, enthusiasm, impatience, impulsiveness, passion (it may not be time for 100% action and forward motion, as we still may be receiving more dreams and visions…the entire picture may still be “downloading”)
March 20 ~ Mercury conjuncts Jupiter in Pisces ~ magical and enthusiastic conversation with many tangents, inspiration, hope, optimism, confidence, more dreams and visions, generosity of spirit, idealism, details may be lost-clarify and “check the fine print”
March 23 ~ Mercury conjuncts Neptune in Pisces ~ subtle perceptions, heightened sensitivity, imagination, illusion, inspiration, intuitive and psychic impressions, the strange, unusual, and miraculous, compassion, great for meditation and creative flow
March 27 ~ Mercury enters Aries ~ clarity, enthusiasm, passion, competition, impatience, “clearing the air,” straightforward communications, potential for petty arguments and fighting the “wrong” battles
March 28 ~ Venus conjuncts Saturn in Aquarius (with Moon still within orb of conjunction to both planets) ~ idealism in intimacy and relationships could stand some sobering “reality checks,” evaluation, definition, hard work, the discipline of supporting honesty, freedom, and individuality in relationships
March 30th ~ Moon conjuncts Jupiter in Pisces (with Neptune still within orb of conjunction-similar to the way we started out the month with the Pisces New Moon!) ~ opportunity for healing in relation to trust, surrender, and confidence, the need for optimism and healthy risk on our spiritual paths, trusting our feelings, dreams, and visions, compassion and kindness, divine discontent
Oracle card guidance for the month of March
The oracle card that showed up for this month is Intimacy.
This beautiful card makes me think of how surrender brings us closer to who we truly are as unique, multi-dimensional beings on an eternal journey of becoming. We are more than who we know ourselves to be in any given moment. Great Mystery lies within us and all around us, and the more we surrender to and embrace all of our parts, the more intimate we become with ourselves and with Great Mystery. God/Goddess can then reveal more and more of its truth, beauty, and wisdom to us.
Shut down or surrender and open to more…
I think this card also showed up to remind us that during times of heightened sensitivity such as the time we are in, now, we might have a tendency to “shut down” and numb ourselves, as Michael mentioned. I’m sure we all have our own personal favorite numbing activities. Too much alcohol and other substances? Too much tv and/or gaming? Eating too much junk food? Too much sex? But shutting down takes us away from intimacy with ourselves, with one another, and with The Divine. Surrendering to our sensitivity this month is our pathway to deeper intimacy and closeness with this miracle of life.
Loving yourself-a most intimate act
The color I’m drawn too most in this card is the beautiful green towards the center of the sphere. This green color resonates with the heart chakra and our ability to follow our hearts and to give and receive love. Loving is intimate. Surrendering to love is an intimate act. So, this month, love yourself. Love all your parts as they arise within and all around you. Let yourself become more intimate with the mysterious beauty of you and of this precious life.
Surrender…
surrender…
surrender…
I wish you all a wondrously healing and miraculous month. A big soul hug to everyone!
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