First blossoms and buds surround us. New life is sprouting from the soil and budding from the tips of trees. In my own home in Pittsburgh, crocuses, aconites, and snowdrops are blossoming everywhere, announcing the inevitable coming of spring.

Winter’s power isn’t broken yet, but it won’t be dominant much longer. There is hope for more life and another season of light as the length of daylight begins to overtake the length of nighttime. Something greater and better is coming; as the last season of winter and herald of spring, Pisces teaches us to surrender and welcome this new, bright future that is just around the corner.

The hope, faith, and spiritual surrender of Pisces season are about to reach their climax. On Tuesday, March 7th, at 7:40 am the Moon will stand in opposition to the Sun and become full of its light.

Whenever a Full moon occurs, a flood of energy comes to a head in the skies. The themes, lessons, and emotional timbre reaches a climax. At the same time, a great tension arises between our needs and our wants, our desires and our circumstances, and our conscious and our unconscious.

Because the full Moon starts the waning season, her placement indicates circumstances and behaviors in our lives that we often need to release. As she wanes and separates from the opposition to the Sun, so too should we wane and separate from the things in our lives that do not serve us.

The placement of the Sun indicates what our current focus should be, and the placement of the Moon indicates what we should release. This full moon is occurring in the grounded, practical, earth sign of Virgo in opposition to the Sun in the sensitive, hopeful, intuitive sign of Pisces.

Virgo is ruled by Mercury, the vizier, advisor, and mathematician of the 7 planets. As the lord of speech, communication, and the mind, both of Mercury’s signs of rulership indicate strong ratiocinative, reasoning impulses.

In Virgo, we see Mercury’s mentalistic focus turned toward material matters: assessing all the details of any situation, checking our work, dotting our I’s, and crossing our T’s. All the minutiae and particulars of material circumstances are assessed, organized, and codified into functional laws and norms.

This rational, thorough quality shows up clearly in natives with strong Virgo placements. Virgos check your work. Virgos keep the cast iron skillet clean and seasoned at all times. Virgos always have “minor suggestions” to offer. They don’t build, they polish to perfection. Virgo gets it done just right, and they get it done right the first time.

This full moon stands in celestial opposition to the placement of the Sun in Pisces. Throughout this Pisces season, the feelings of hope and trust in something new and better coming down the road have colored the celestial timbre. The excitement at the breaking of winter is palpable, even if it hasn’t broken yet. There is a feeling of surrender, and greater faith in one’s intuitive processes and instincts. Perhaps your dreams have been stronger, or your preferred divinatory channels have been speaking more clearly.

So as the Moon reaches her apex in opposition and discord with the Sun, we reach a complete antithesis between feelings of having to “get things right,” figure out all the details of our life and get our ducks in a row…

…and a pull to just trust, settle in and allow the Dao to take its course.

It’s easier for unconscious anxieties and nerves to come to the surface during Pisces season as the call to trust and surrender becomes explicit. We fear losing control and can overburden ourselves with responsibilities and obligations that get in the way of simple trust and surrender.

The full moon in this placement can illuminate our need for control and our desire to have everything “just so.” To be sure, order and organization have their place, but this full moon will show us how our desire for mastery descends into anxiety-ridden, white-knuckled fear of things not going our way.

Use this full moon period to release the need for control and open up to more relaxed feelings of surrender and acceptance. What aspects of your life are you holding onto with an iron grip? How much more joy could you experience if you let go of having things your way? Are there areas of your life in which you could settle into more trust and surrender?

The strongest aspect happening here is a superior square from Mars in Gemini - the other sign ruled by Mercury. This creates more stress, anxiety, and aggravation - especially in regards to the realm of the mind and its thoughts, and oftentimes over petty trivialities. The mind can spin out of control over not gettings its way and can become easily agitated and aggravated over overthinking and worrying.

Red Jasper and Amazonite are both good stones for anxiety and fear. You may find working with stones to be especially helpful during this period while the Moon’s ruler - Mercury - is in detriment and fall in Pisces.

Allow the universe to hold you. Don’t worry about having everything together. If you surrender and let the universe take you where you need to go, you’ll end up somewhere far better than where your overthinking, the fretting mind can take you.