Aries season; compassion in action

I’m late, of course, for the beginning of Aries season. The Spring Equinox here in the northern hemisphere was a couple of days ago, the Sun’s entry into Aries and the beginning of a new astrological year. I am caught up in preparations for Faculty Open Day and lots of Faculty events this weekend. It’s exciting to be meeting in person again but also needs care and attention of course. And it’s definitely a new beginning - many of the people I will spend time with this weekend I have only met on Zoom. Last time there was an in person Faculty Day I was only just getting my astrology diploma. Now I’m well established as a Faculty tutor and looking forward to meeting some of my students in person for the first time as well.

So in amongst all this, I’ve been pondering Aries season and this particular Aries season, defined as it is by war and pandemic and climate chaos. Mars, the ruler of Aries, is in Aquarius right now, so our Aries action needs to be rooted in our ideals, our duty to the collective, in taking action to do the right thing rather than action for its own sake. And the Sun may have moved into Aries but Pisces energy is still strong, with Mercury and Jupiter meeting there on March 21st and Mercury and Neptune on March 23rd. We are Aries individuals, yes, but we are also part of something greater. Western society holds the individual in higher esteem than practically anything else but the last two years have been nothing if not a lesson in, a reminder of, our collective reality, the influence our collective reality has on us as individuals, and our limited capacity as individuals to control that collective reality. That strong Pisces energy won’t let us forget that we are all one, that the actions of one affect the many - and oh the painful ways that is playing out right now. And of course, our actions don’t just affect other people on a literal or material level, the energy we bring into the world and the way we use it affects all our levels of being, all of the beings around us. Actions have inner as well as outer consequences.

So an Aries lesson this season is that we can’t disconnect from the great web of life - but we can be a spark within it, a divine spark taking the lead and acting on our Mars in Aquarius principles, always with the greater good in mind. The Pisces Aries dynamic is action sparked from love, from empathy, from kindness. And not forgetting the possibility of Pisces illusions and delusions, perhaps around how much power we have, how powerless we feel, how we best use the power we do have.

The planets are so concentrated right now, all but the Moon positioned between Pluto at the very end of Capricorn and Uranus in Taurus. This speaks to the liminal times we are living through of course, with all of the planets either in the collective signs of Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces or reaching for a new beginning with Chiron in Aries and Uranus in Taurus. In a few weeks, Jupiter and Neptune will meet in Pisces, and before too long Jupiter will move into Aries. Compassion and meaningful action become more important than ever as we move through 2022.