poem-scopes for pisces–virgo
a third-quarter Moon offering
method:
whenever you find yourself
notice yourself
I ask you:
move two times slower.
I ask you: ask a question.
the question: how oldmaterials:1 snail shell, snail ooze, turtle shell, turtle beak, sloth (virtue), sleep
The Sun is in Pisces. We’re in the last days of winter, the last days of the wheel of the year; the Moon is waning, and the sensations of change, of difference, of death and rebirth, are potent. We find ourselves in the spaces between, between old and new, between full Moon and new, between worn and renewed.
You may be afraid. Are you afraid?
You may be afraid because you find yourself somewhere uncharted. You may be afraid because you find yourself confused. You may be afraid because you may have noticed that so much is unknown, unknowable. You may be afraid and feeling like a small rabbit in the woods, with eyes on the sides of your head and very big and sensitive ears and feet, unable to discern what it is that is moving its large body toward you, but feeling, deeply, immediately, that you must run.2
It is very reasonable to be afraid because something is coming. But something comes every day.
It is very reasonable to be afraid because something is changing. But something changes every day.
It is very reasonable to be afraid because we are walking into the expanse of the future. But we are always, endlessly falling into the abyss of the past.
Pisces season, the vernal equinox, the thaw and the buds and the births—all of these are annuals, beings that return to the place where they’re planted year after year after year. Wise astrologers can tell you why Pisces season (at least in the tropical system) does what it does, and what happens under that sky. Wise farmers and wild crafters can tell you the same in their own way. Wise people can recollect why mid-March always feels so full (llena de sentimiento, y de sangre, de viento). Every year, similar and resonant. Saturn was in Pisces once, within many of our lifetimes. Every orbit, similar and resonant.
Everything that is new is old. Older than everything we’ve ever held.
What is ancient can be frightening, until we remember. What we remember is stored in our bones. The soft marrow.3 Feel into that rich, dark enclosure. The crux. The core. Rest there.
Today, Thursday, March 16, 2023, at 4:34 pm Mountain Daylight Time, Venus returned to one of its homes, Taurus.
Because Venus loves (which I define here as: is exalted in) Pisces, and because Pisces contends so rigorously with love (which I define here as: to understand the blur between that which we perceive to be distinct, to witness the sameness between the disparate and to then desire to close that gap);
and because Venus loves (which I define here as: is in fall in) Pisces, and because Virgo contends so rigorously with love (which I define here as, after bell hooks:4 to embody the work of care and tending, to witness each part of the whole as distinct with distinct needs and desires, to meet each need in an effort to cohere the disparate into an ecosystem);
and because so many of us feel afraid when we encounter the rigor of love (and its luminous eyes shining hungrily and without expectation, through the forest and into our small, scared bodies)
I am going to talk about love.
When we are scared—and we are not about to be devoured nor mauled nor kidnapped—it is good to be slow. To be slow is to stick around long enough to see that we’re not really in danger.5 When we are scared and slow, we are able to meet the dark body of love and see in it our own reflection, as if looking into a black and cloudy scrying bowl.
For those of us who leave before love may ever leave us, for those of us who flee when love shows its face, for those of us who refuse to listen long enough to even recognize its song, it is useful and vulnerable and beautiful to stay. To wait. To allow ourselves disorientation, awash in the sensation of softheartedness. To panic, perhaps, and allow the panic to fade into calm. Shallow breaths becoming full-belly.
To be slow is to access the breadth of spacetime. We create spaciousness every time we choose to say goodbye to our beloveds and reorient within the caves of our own making, to nap in a patch of sun and dream in ways that tell us about ourselves, to breathe and breathe deeply. Spaciousness allows us to return to the terror of love, the rigor of love, resourced and brave.
I am deliberate and afraid of many things.6 I am afraid, and I am okay with that.
And sometimes, what is not dangerous is still devastating. And heartbreak scorches and spreads. How terrible. How useful and vulnerable and beautiful. How old.
Love is ancient. Love lives in the soft part of our bones. It is worth it to witness. To see and be seen. To stay. Where you are. For a while.
The following poem-scopes are invitations from the Pisces–Virgo axis, as illuminated by the Moon. They are written as scientific experiments (method, materials) for reflection on the month and year past, and reception of the month and year ahead, as we approach the vernal equinox and a new solar season. They are illustrated alongside the evocative work of Louise Bourgeois, from the series À l'Infini (set 1), a collection of fragmentary, bloody etchings.
pisces
method:
what if time were not a line
nor a spiral
but a cloud
I don’t mean to tell you what you already know
materials: 9 of swords, surrender (as in trust), iridescent wings, vultures’ wings
aries
method:
the embrace must end
and yet it reverberates
to touch is to remember touch
materials: whole nutmeg, Band-Aids, the memory of a kiss
taurus
method:
why grip grasp for?
why not whisper want whimsy?
what use is mooring
without the buoyant blessing of the boat?7
materials: goose down, hanging upside down, orange Play-Doh, surrender (as in abandon)
gemini
method:
the research was vital and you took glorious notes in the shape of your own heart
but the body must also do its work must be allowed
must apply must apprentice
materials: wide open spaces,8 a field journal, a vat of indigo, mulberry silk
cancer
method:
it may have felt you almost lost everything it may have felt there was no reason
invitations may appear
making meaning fleeting freeing from
materials: a feather, a fight, a candle floating, french fries
leo
method:
impulse is a vital gift hot hot haste close tease at the edge
then decide
materials: a holy book, a blindfold, 6 sets of 30-second sprints
virgo
method:
the shape of you is fountain found and filling
be a container for blur but
retain your water and your rhythm
materials: a small djembe, a room of one’s own,9 opal, anchovies
libra
method:
traversing the underbelly
pestilent and sacred what do you pack? what is the task? what is the trap?
materials: the body, its scales & its wet
scorpio
method:
touch the soft opening between
something focal and shared
something feral in formto be empty unknown
is to know something else to be full
materials: graft (skin), graft (branch), blanket forts, abyss kisses10
sagittarius
method:
kin is a kind of multiplicity
which is to say: it can be made of most matter
which is to say: neither rare nor far
materials: feasts, fears, black currants, bourbon on a grave
capricorn
method:
the lesson cannot be bought
nor earned
the classroom is a river the river, an intensive
materials: scratch paper, a fairy house, bolt cutters, a frog-shaped güiro
aquarius
method:
almost is enough.
to be at the threshold is to near the tender and ancient
materials: a bindle of full of salt, surrender (as in relinquishment), cowrie shells, honey
After Sarah Gottesdiener and The Moon Studio’s monthly tarotscopes, which list “suggested spell ingredients.”
You may be afraid like an opossum and fall to the ground. You may be afraid like a mama bear and charge. You may be afraid like a baby human and grasp your teeny hands up toward the object of your fear.
“A Tidal Wave of Care: Saturn in Pisces with Sherri Taylor,” Embodied Astrology with Renee Sills, March 2, 2023.
“Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” M. Scott Peck as quoted by bell hooks, all about love: new visions, 2000.
Of course, there are times when we are truly in danger and yet, survivalists attest that the S.T.O.P. protocol can be life-saving.
After Audre Lorde, “New Year’s Day,” From a Land Where Other People Live, 1973.
After Lucille Clifton, “blessing the boats,” Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000, 2000.
“Wide Open Spaces,” The Chicks, 1998.
A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf, 1929.
abysskiss, Adrianne Lenker, 2018.
ohhhhh SO dang beautiful 🥹 🐢😮💨💗 thank you for this magical offering friend