Astrology Report: March 2023

While the Spring Equinox in March always signals the astrological new year, this month is surely 2023’s energetic new year as well. Big planetary movements (including some generational shifts) and some important minor transits will usher in a flurry of fresh air to all those stale corners. A focus of activity in Pisces (particularly) will have us all dreaming big and feeling deeply before the Equinox, after which Aries energies will claim the spotlight in the latter period of the month. This month will also touch upon the Taurus and Cancer areas of your chart.

1-6 March: The last word from Aquarius

The first few days of March will feature Saturn in the final throes of Aquarius (and Pluto in the final degree of Saturn-ruled Capricorn, no less). Collectively this will feel like one last big reality check in this area before Saturn departs for Pisces. Some of us have likely already been feeling the pull of this messaging.

When Jupiter and Venus conjoin in Aries on 1 March at 22:35 (chart) we will really be immediately thrust into the tumult. Venus and Jupiter are both benefic planets that like to affirm but in different ways. Together in Aries, they’ll be bringing a sense of fun, pleasure, and expansive thinking to the area of your chart governed by Aries.

The last word will come on 2 March at 8:34 when Saturn conjoins Mercury in Aquarius (chart). Whatever core tension has been lighting up the Aquarius piece of your chart will make itself known one last time in this moment. Later this day, on 2 March at 16:52 Mercury enters Pisces (chart) serving as a herald for the coming Piscean wave of energy. With the Sun, Mercury, Neptune (and soon, Saturn) in Pisces, we will be feeling quite dreamy.

Watch for delusional thinking at this time and try to glean what you can from the last word on 2 March and those final pragmatic dispatches coming from Saturn in Aquarius. These are likely for the greater good of oneself and the collective, but will be easy to ignore.

7 March: Full Moon & Saturn ingress

The Full Moon in Virgo on 7 March at 6:40 (chart) will usher in the start of March's energetic shakeup (as Saturn will ingress less than an hour later!). With Mars squaring both the Sun and the Moon this lunation looks like it could be a little brash. Mars also rules Aries—the current domain of both benefic planets, Venus and Jupiter. This looks like an assertive, daring lunation that will favor the bold.

Just one hour later on 7 March at 7:35, Saturn will enter Pisces (chart) where it will essentially remain until 13 February 2026 (aside from a retrograde that will have it dipping in and out of Aries from 1 September 2025 to 13 February 2026). Pisces is a mutable water sign and a space of deep-feeling, intuition, and adapting to changing circumstances. Saturn, on the other hand, is a planet of restriction, exclusion, and slow-moving things that last against the test of time. Saturn says no to things and creates restrictions that, though they may inspire isolation or melancholy in the short term, are largely constructive in the long run. 

This is a big transit that is going to impact everyone in very different ways. For some (particularly those who were born during the day or who have a dignified Saturn) this will be overall quite constructive and beneficial to the long term. Look to where Pisces falls in your chart and check the chart below for clues. This area was recently illuminated by the Pisces New Moon on February 20th and will be a place of focus for the next 3 years:

• Pisces risings: Pisces rules your 1st house and indicates the self, the body, the personality, and the character. This transit will bring issues relating to who you are to the forefront between now and February 2026.

• Aquarius risings: Pisces rules your 2nd house and indicates finances, income, your earthly/material possessions. This transit will bring issues relating to what you own and your income to the forefront between now and February 2026.

• Capricorn risings: Pisces rules your 3rd house and can indicate daily travel, schooling, our relationships with our siblings, and our communication in general (but also communication specifically about 9th house topics like spirituality, higher education, and travel). This transit will bring issues relating to how you communicate your big ideas as well as potentially your relationship with siblings or events happening in your siblings’ lives or daily activities to the forefront between now and February 2026.

• Sagittarius risings: Pisces rules your 4th house and indicates your domicile and your private life as experienced inside the home. This house also carries significations for our relationship with our parents or what may be going on in their lives. This transit will bring issues relating to your home and private life or, perhaps, big changes in your parents lives to the forefront between now and February 2026..

• Scorpio risings: Pisces rules your 5th house and indicates creativity, pleasure, hobbies, and sexuality. This house can also speak to children of our own or our interactions with others' children. This transit will bring issues relating to your creative passions, your sex life, or, potentially your relationship to children to the forefront between now and February 2026.

• Libra risings: Pisces rules your 6th house and indicates illness, injury, and hard labor. This transit will bring issues related to illness or sickness or the grind of work and hard labor to the forefront between now and February 2026.

• Virgo risings: Pisces rules your 7th house and indicates romantic partnerships, long term relationships, business partners and, to some extent, enemies that are openly known to you. This transit will bring issues related to your romantic relationship or business partnership or perhaps a new chapter with a long-term rival to the forefront between now and February 2026.

• Leo risings: Pisces rules your 8th house and indicates death, inheritance, legal matters, and the assets of others. This transit will bring issues related to a legal matter, your debts or investments, an inheritance to the forefront between now and February 2026 or may activate the topic of death in your life.

• Cancer risings: Pisces rules your 9th house and indicates travel abroad, higher education of any kind, and our spiritual or religious beliefs. This transit will bring issues related to spiritual beliefs (an initiation, perhaps?) or travel abroad to the forefront or may kick up some dreams of higher education between now and February 2026.

• Gemini risings: Pisces rules your 10th house and indicates your career and public reputation. This transit will bring issues relating to your career or public actions to the forefront between now and February 2026.

• Taurus risings: Pisces rules your 11th house and indicates your social circles, friends, groups you're a part of and is called a place of "good spirit". This transit will bring issues relating to your relationship and standing in social groups, among friends, and a general tide of good spirits to the forefront between now and February 2026.

• Aries risings: Pisces rules your 12th house and indicates sickness, seclusion, isolation, loss, and enemies that are not yet known to us. This transit will bring issues related to feelings of loneliness and isolation as well as your self-destructive habits to the forefront between now and February 2026.

15-16 March: Mars just can’t let us go…

While there are some notably positive transits happening during this period, each seems to be underscored by a transit involving (an often difficult) Mars. It’s almost as if the planet is agitating and digging and trying to make damn sure it’s made its point in Gemini. After months of this, you won’t be surprised by which area of your chart is governed by Gemini and where you've been experiencing agitation, delays, chaotic outbursts, changes, or general frustration.

This choppy period begins on 11 March at 9:04 with Venus in Aries sextiling Mars in Gemini (chart). Venus is overcoming here, so this may look like a few days of feeling optimistic and potential alleviations of stress, especially once the Sun conjoins Neptune on 15 March at 19:01 (chart). This conjunction will bring a flash of big dreams to the surface and would be well used for spiritual workings that are self and life affirming. But when Mars in Gemini squares the Sun, Mercury, and Neptune (all conjunct in Pisces) on 16 March at 13:09 (chart), those big dreams and that optimism will be checked. This day's astrology is tough with aggressive or eruptive disruptions to our big dream thinking.

When Venus enters Taurus on 16 March at 17:35 (chart) it will luxuriate in it's domicile until April 10 (Taureans rejoice!). This is a lovely transit which—along with all the planets in Pisces—will have us feeling the light at the end of the tunnel. Venus is a planet of sensuality, romance, pleasure, and inter-personal relationships and Taurus (as a Venus-ruled sign) brings significations of much the same. Look to where Taurus falls in your chart to see where you'll be experiencing these good vibes. They won't undo the Gemini-rooted Martian disruptions, but it'll be a welcome breeze.

Finally, on 16 March at 23:48 Mars in Gemini will square Mercury in Pisces (chart), a tough little transit that will see some of us on one end or another of some cutting words or difficult news.

17 March: An opportunity

The middle of the month contains a spiritual opportunity when on 17 March at 5:44 Mercury conjoins the Sun in Pisces (chart). Moments when Mercury and the Sun station conjunct (or, appear right on top of each other in the chart and in the sky) are called "cazimis" and are powerful transits for spiritual workings. Because Mercury is a planet of intellectual pursuits and communication (and the planet's namesake god was a herald and messenger of the other deities) any kind of receiving work like channeled writing, intuitive readings, channeled dancing or singing, creative work, etc. will be super well-favored at this time. This will be happening in the Pisces area of your chart which will be flooded with energy and transits by this point of the month. Later this evening on 17 March at 17:25, Saturn in Pisces will sextile Venus in Taurus (chart), which may bring some staying powers to our activities on this day.

18-21 March: The Astrological New Year

Look to where Aries falls in your chart to see where you’ll be getting a fresh new start and a reinvigoration of energy during the astrological new year. This is a great period to say the thing, start the thing, feel and embody the thing we've been wanting to strike out and do. Workings during the day will be well suited for constructive, expansive, long-term projects that are strong out of the gate but also have staying power.

Mercury the messenger will enter Aries on 18 March at 23:24 (chart) heralding the beginning of "spring" and the start of a new cycle. When the Sun enters Aries on 20 March at 16:25 (chart) it will bring the official start of the astrological new year. Not only is this time the start of a new tour through the wheel of the zodiac, but this time features the Sun in its exaltation: Aries. Aries is a bold, assertive, confident cardinal fire sign. Aries is the flame of pride in onesself and the flicker of a spark needed to speak out loudly in service of your needs and those of your loved ones.

Additionally, this period is the Spring Equinox—the only time when, in both the Southern and Northern hemispheres, night and day are equal in length. So many spiritual heritages have lovely equinox traditions, I encourage everyone to look into this and do something lovely that feels authentic and right for their practice. The Aries energies will be in their fullest swing with the New Moon in Aries on 21 March at 12:22 (chart). With the Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Jupiter all in Aries and Venus in her domain of Taurus, this lunation will be a powerful one for a bold, brash, and purposeful new undertaking.

In general, New Moons are times of new beginnings, the starting point of a new cycle, and times for nocturnal or dark moon workings. This lunation would be well suited for baneful workings, setting strong boundaries, bold new goals, and audacious speech in service of ones' self. It would also be well suited for speaking up and out for what you need. Just make sure your workings are during the day to make the most of the action in the stars.

23-25 March: Winds of Change

When on 23 March at 7:14. Pluto enters Aquarius (chart) it will begin a two-decade-long cycle that will see it dipping into and out of Aquarius before stationing directly in the sign through 2043.

• 23 March 2023 - Pluto enters Aquarius

• 11 June 2023 - Pluto(Rx) leaves Aquarius for Capricorn

• 21 January 2024 - Pluto enters Aquarius

• 2 September 2024 - Pluto leaves Aquarius

• 19 November 2024 - Pluto enters Aquarius (where it stays until 2043)

Pluto is a planet of revelation, exposing and bringing things to light. It is associated commonly with transformation, the death and rebirth cycle, power, control, manipulation, intensity, and scale that has us zooming in and out of things. Pluto can also reveal our fears to us. But slow-moving Pluto is not, in traditional astrology, considered a "personal planet" like the seven traditional planets which are visible to the naked eye in the evening sky. Instead, the slower movers like Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus are considered "transpersonal" or "generational" planets which refer more to cultural shifts in the populace and events happening around us.

Eric and I discussed the effects of Pluto in Aquarius extensively in the 2023 Year Ahead podcast, so if this topic interests you, check that out. For now, know that it will be bringing a shift in our collective consciousness on a generational scale.

On 25 March at 6:46, Mars enters Cancer (chart) where it will stay for roughly two months, until 20 May. There's good news and bad news. For Gemini placements of any kind, the good news is that Mars will release the stranglehold he's had over your houses and planets since August 2022. Rejoice! The bad news for the rest of us is that Mars hates being in Cancer, the sign of its depression. After several months of stagnation, frustration, and disruption in the chaos-happy Gemini area of our lives, Mars will bring sullen, defensive, snappy, passive-aggressive energy that will have the sharpest edges of Cancer's crab claws glinting.

Those who tend toward repression (particularly Mars-ruled fixed signs like Scorpio or Tauruses who've been going through it!) may find deep emotions bubbling up and coming out. Cardinal signs might find yourselves shouting something you planned on waiting to say more elegantly. As with all things Mars, things may get a little raw and explosive, but hopefully bring long term emotional release.

28-30 March: Leave it better than you found it

Finally, the end of the month seems to go out on a nicer note than it began when on 28 March at 1:50, Jupiter will conjoin Mercury in Aries (chart) Jupiter is the planet of expansive thinking and here it is conjunct Mercury planet of communication, thought, and intellect in Aries a sign of passion, initiative, and self-worth. This is a great time for projects that seek to expand our knowledge and understanding or an announcement of something big and new. When Saturn in Pisces trines Mars in Cancer on 30 March at 14:03 (chart) we find ourselves being begrudgingly stabilized by Saturnian energy which may dampen the effects of Mars in its fall.

Feedback? Questions? Comments?

Did I say something that was spot on for you? Curious why some big even in your life happened on the day it did? Have no idea what the heck sect light or a malefic or a cardinal sign is???

As always, questions, comments, feedback, or fun astrology anecdotes of any kind are warmly welcomed. You can find me and my social links (including Discord) at my website or via email 9livesastrology@gmail.com. Until April!