Full Moon 17º Pisces conjunct Neptune opposite Sun in Virgo sextile Uranus in Taurus

Have you ever lost yourself in the minute detail of a tiny flower, the beauty of a the thinnest pistil; marveled at how nature spares no pains for perfection at even the most micro level? And have you, on another day (or night), been tossed aback by the grandness of a rural sky, the stars so plentiful like spilled salt on the table? Or the vastness of the ocean stretching out into the infinity of horizon?

In both the smallest detail and the greatest vistas, we are reminded of the grand design, the meaningfulness of everything, the way that nothing is superfluous in nature. We stand face to face with both our smallness and our significance.

This experience—of the sacred in both the vast and the minute—artfully captures the Virgo-Pisces axis of the zodiac.

Full moons are always times of opposition—where the sun sits opposite the moon, and the lunar being reflects the full light of its solar counterpart. And at each full moon, the two luminaries sit in opposite signs of the zodiac, marking two polarities of a single topic or theme.

Like the yin yang symbol, astrology captures the way that opposites also contain the essence of each other. At each new moon, the moon meets the sun in the sign of that season—this month, Virgo. And at the following full moon, the moon always crosses into the opposite sign—Pisces, currently—and reminds us of/to find the balance, the integration between the polarities.

As the sun moves through Virgo, we harvest, we sort the wheat from the chaff, we discern and discriminate what is useful, and nourishing, from that which does not serve. (See the new moon post for more on Virgo season.)

Virgo’s heart is in the devotion to details. But, while in modern times Virgo gets the reputation of being the OCD organizer—there is so much more to this sign and this season. Virgo is the Virgin, the priestess who chose to leave society (a deeply patriarchal society, which offered women very little in the way of agency, freedom or selfhood, btw) and devote her life, her time, her body, to the goddess. And in so doing, she retained an ownership over herself unavailable to her elsewhere in society.

And in so doing, she came to serve and worship something larger than what the mundane world could offer her, something greater than herself.

Virgo is about the small minutiae and also about acts of devotion and service—but it is all in dedication to the sacred, the larger wholeness, the macro which the micro reflects. It reminds us that it is in the small, mundane, day-to-day acts that we worship, that we honor and build our connection to the divine.

Pisces, on the other side, is that wholeness, the macro, the vast and sometimes overwhelming oneness—the sacred oceans—from which life crawled into being and to where we will all return. The sacred in its grandest, most unbound form.

And it is along this axis that we learn, again, to find integration between the cosmic and the microscopic, the grand and the granular.

This full moon, conjunct to Neptune, may find you pulled by the tides out into the dreamy, dissolving waters of Pisces. Your intuition will run high and you may find yourself wanting to sleep, daydream and float, or to create—surrender to this, for now, embrace the oceanic undercurrents and just allow yourself to feel, to cry, to follow the creative or spiritual pull.

And remember, trust, that within the white space of the yin yang, the black dot of Virgo hovers, calling us back to the small daily tasks that are our sacred acts of service—the sorting of the grain, the sweeping of the floor, the nourishing food we make ourselves and others, the ten minutes of meditation, the incremental progress on our creative project.

This full moon climaxes the energies and intentions we began at the new moon in Virgo two weeks ago, as well as the full moon in Pisces six months ago. Look back at what you were seeding then, and see what has found fruition or culmination. What needs to be celebrated and what is ready to be shed.

For me, the past six months have had a theme of deep healing and, in particular, healing very old wounds. (Perhaps all healing is the healing of very old wounds?) And a big theme of this healing has centered around forgiveness. (Perhaps all healing is a process of forgiveness.)

And specifically, practicing forgiveness while still retaining boundaries. Learning that real forgiveness—forgiveness that is not veiled co-dependency—requires resilient boundaries and a deep inner strength, and very often a loss, a letting go. And perhaps most of all, it has asked of me: self-forgiveness and self-acceptance.

The Virgo-Pisces polarity helps me to integrate and strike this balance, between the watery spiritual soup of Pisces, which can veer toward illusion, delusion and loss of self—and the grounded, boundaried discernment of Virgo, which left unchecked can lead to perfectionism and criticism.

Between the two, within the two, I float, a little bubble aware of both my utter connection to the all and the edges of this hyper-specific and unique little body and personality I’m inhabiting for this ride. May this moon remind you of both your one-ness and your own-ness too.

Full Moon in Pisces Ritual + Writing Prompt

Full Moon in Pisces Ritual

1. Light a white or purple candle.

2. Take an epsom salt bath (great for any full moon, but especially a Pisces full moon—make it super salty!).

3. Float, breathe, daydream, listen to the messages as they arise as thoughts, images, sensations.

4. Scrub yourself with salt and envision all the impurities, limiting beliefs and old stories leaving your pores and draining into the water.

5. Pull the plug and watch it all drain.

6. Dissolve some extra epsom salts in a small bowl and sprinkle the water around your room and home.

Full Moon Writing Prompt

Author, Ted Chiang said: “Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.”

Write about a time in your life—or a character’s life—in which these words rang true, resonated or were proven. Write for 10 minutes.