The sun moves into Pisces on February 18, 2025
Welcome to Pisces season!
February 18 - March 20
The sun moves into the emotionally expansive and spiritual world of mutable water on February 18th at 2:06 am, and Pisces season ends on March 20th at 2:01 am with our first equinox of the year, when the sun moves into Aries.
Overview:
Pisces season welcomes us into a busy corner of the year with a lot of twists and turns, unexpected edges, and tone shifts; because along with ushering in the start of eclipse season, Pisces season offers us a particularly retrograde moment. So while the planets are busy, one of the best things we can do is take it as easy as possible. This Pisces season is here to help us course correct—ebb and flow with the changes, the unexpected outcomes, and any discomfort that might come along with them.
Mars stations direct on February 23rd:
Mars retrograde: December 6, 2024 - February 23, 2025 (6° Leo - 17° Cancer)
Shadow period: October 4, 2024 - May 1, 2025
When the sun moves into Pisces, Mars the planet of action, motivation, energy, and aggression is slowing down as it prepares to station direct. Mars has been retrograde since early December helping us to review and reconsider conflict, passion, and momentum, with a specific focus on the Leo and Cancer parts of our charts, but it finally stations direct on February 23rd. Mars is slow to pick up speed and will spend the majority of Pisces season stationing (it spends almost all of Pisces season at the same degree of Cancer) so we may not begin to feel the action-oriented energy we’ve been missing, until well into March. Even if it’s slow though, Mars’ direction movement is paving the way for us to integrate some of what we’ve learned during the retrograde about how we can better meet our energetic needs. Mars retrogrades can be difficult moments, they can intensify feelings of frustration, overwhelm, and restlessness, and correlate with a lack of motivation and an inability to move with the speed and dexterity we're accustomed to. If you have found yourself feeling particularly agitated, inflamed, or disrespected, take some time to think about what those feelings are teaching you about yourself, your needs, and what is and isn’t working for you in your life.
Venus stations retrograde on March 1st:
Venus retrograde: March 1 - April 12 (10° Aries - 24° Pisces)
Shadow period: January 28 - May 15
Mars stations direct just in time for Venus to station retrograde (in a Mars-ruled sign, no less) on the 1st of March. Venus will spend the next 6 weeks retrograde., making its way back through the early degrees of Aries and into the late degrees of Pisces. Venus retrogrades offer us a chance to revise, reconnect to, and re-envision our relationships with creativity, beauty, money, our values, and other people. Venus retrogrades are moments where the Venusian aspects of life don’t typically go as expected, this might mean we hear from someone random out of the blue, that the cut and color we do every month just doesn’t look the same, or that our art practices and creative rituals need to be shaken up. Take the invitation to explore how you’re feeling in your relationship dynamics, in your values and how they manifest in your life, and in your approach to beauty and joy. Take the inspiration, and try to find new ways of appreciating things, new reflections to ponder, and new things to find beauty and value in. This Venus retrograde may even have soothing balms for the burns Mars’ retrograde left behind.
Mercury stations retrograde on March 14th:
Mercury retrograde: March 14 - April 7 (9° Aries - 26° Pisces)
Shadow period: February 28 - April 26
Finally, to complete the trifecta of personal planet retrogrades, Mercury stations retrograde on March 14th, bringing yet another area of review to the surface. As Mercury retrogrades back through the early degree of Aries and into the late degrees of Pisces (where have we heard that before?) we will get the chance to rethink and rewrite some of the narratives, conversations, thinking patterns, and ways of navigating the world that have been dominant over the last few weeks.
* A note on the retrogrades: Pay attention to the things that come up during the Venus and Mercury retrogrades and their shadow periods that harken back to experiences, feelings, and conflicts from the 3 months of Mars’ retrograde (particularly while Venus and Mercury are moving through Aries).
Virgo lunar eclipse near the south node:
Right before Mercury stations retrograde in the final moment of the day on March 13th, we will have our first eclipse of the year, a lunar eclipse in Virgo. This eclipse is all about release, cleansing, purifying, and purging. Something has come to an end it is exiting your life with some intention and maybe some disruption. This change is for the best and while the Virgo part of our charts may be undergoing this release, it may be making space in the Pisces parts of our charts for something that’s emerging, even if we can’t quite see that yet.
This eclipse season like the last one offers us a transition from a focus on the Aries-Libra axis of the last year and a half to a focus on the pisces-virgo axis for the next year and half, with one eclipse happening along each of those axes. But while the Pisces-Virgo eclipses began at the end of last year, this is our first eclipse since the nodes shifted back in January, its our first eclipse in Virgo in almost a decade, and our first eclipse in Virgo near the south node, in almost two. Eclipse can bring dramatic new beginnings and fated endings, but whatever comes up is paving the way for us, even if that path is extending out into an unexpected direction. We can look back to the Lunar Eclipse in Pisces from last September (September 17, 2024) for some clues about what might come up this time around.
This eclipse season, and its passing of the torch, introduces new themes for us to grapple with, as we say goodbye to the old (read: Aries and Libra) ones—but we’ll have to wait until Aries season to talk about that!
This Pisces season is not the moment to force your will or run yourself into the ground trying to make something happen. It’s a time to take a step back and reflect. We may feel a natural pull inward, to spend more time with ourselves and to explore our perspectives more intentionally. Personal planet retrogrades and Eclipses both shake things up and it's important to let yourself be shaken up, at least to a certain extent. With all three of these major events springing up this Pisces season, we will have to wait until Aries season to see how they end—sewing these two seasons together in a dramatic and juxtaposing fashion. Pisces season really only offers us part 1, of eclipse season, of these two retrogrades, and of this chaotic corner of the year more generally.
The season of mutable water ends with the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere and the fall equinox in the southern hemisphere—change is in the air…
Lunations:
New moon in Pisces (9°) on February 27th at 4:44 pm
This new moon offers us a potentially serious new beginning, where we may need to speak, sing, or chant our new intentions in existence. This is our last lunation before eclipse season, and while we may feel enthusiastic and encouraged to go big, we may need to check ourselves so we don’t go too big to sustain.
Total lunar eclipse in Virgo (24°) on March 13th at 11:54 pm
This lunar eclipse offers us big and possibly unexpected release in the Virgo part of our chart, helping us to purge something that maybe inhibiting our growth, and changing our relationships to the virgo archetype in the process. This release may come from feelings of constriction, and an inability to keep moving in the direction we’ve been moving in, but it’s also helping to us break free in someways and this change may have unexpected reverberations to come as we integrate the changes we’re making, undergoing, and embracing.
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all times in Pacific time
February 18th (2:06a) The sun moves into Pisces (0°)
February 20th (9:32a) Last quarter moon in Sagittarius (2°)
February 20th (12:13p) Mercury in Pisces squares Jupiter in Gemini (11°)
February 23rd (8:57a) Mercury in Pisces trines Mars in Cancer (17°)
February 23rd (5:59p) Mars stations direct in Cancer (17°)
February 25th (4:02a) Mercury in Pisces conjoins Saturn in Pisces (20°)
February 27th (1:37a) Mercury in Pisces sextiles Uranus in Taurus (23°)
February 27th (4:44p) New moon in Pisces (9°)
March 1st (8:35a) Mercury in Pisces conjoins the north node in Pisces (27°)
March 1st (4:36p) Venus in Aries stations retrograde (10°)
March 2nd (8:21a) Mercury in Pisces conjoins Neptune in Pisces (28°)
March 2nd (10:18a) The sun in Pisces squares Jupiter in Gemini (12°)
March 3rd (1:03a) Mercury moves into Aries (0°)
March 5th (5:12a) Mercury in Aries sextiles Pluto in Aquarius (3°)
March 6th (8:31a) First quarter moon in Gemini (16°)
March 7th (9:12p) The Sun in Pisces trines Mars in Cancer (17°)
March 11th (3:54p) Mercury in Aries conjoins Venus in Aries (8°)
March 12th (3:28a) The sun in Pisces conjoins Saturn in Pisces (22°)
March 13th (11:54p) Full moon total lunar eclipse in Virgo (23°)
March 14th (2:16a) The sun in Pisces sextiles Uranus in Taurus (24°)
March 14th (11:46p) Mercury stations retrograde in Aries (9°)
March 17th (11:03a) The sun in Pisces conjoins the north node in Pisces (27°)
March 19th (4:25p) The sun in Pisces conjoins Neptune in Pisces (29°)
March 20th (2:01a) The sun moves into Aries (0°)—Happy equinox!
Happy Pisces season!
The sun moves into Pisces on February 18th at 2:06 am Pacific time