Last Quarter Moon in Sagittarius ☾ Mar 5, 2021

Friday, Mar 5 at 5.32pm PDT

The Waning Last Quarter Moon rises at midnight, peaks at dawn, and sets at noon all over the world, no matter your time zone. At this station, the jolly moon in Sagittarius squares the wavy Sun in Pisces. The moon initially moves into Sagittarius on Mar 4. She will then transition to Capricorn on Mar 6.

Last quarter moons are turning points. They clear the way for the new moon / new lunar cycle. This phase prepares us for the sleepy New Moon in Pisces on Mar 13.

Both Sagittarius and Pisces belong to the mutable modality. To be mutable is to be fluid and adaptable. We need it more than ever. Last year this moon phase coincided with the beginning of the lockdown and quarantine period here in the US. Everything felt chaotic and uncertain. This moon phase brings active change in direction. Restlessness inspires forward motion, or at least a change of scenery. Dreams, wishes, and fantasies take form. However, Pisces is the queen of wishful thinking, and Sagittarius the starry-eyed hunter of the cosmos. When these two embrace in the sky, illusions mount and crack.

On this quarter moon a few years ago, I spontaneously drove from my wintry midwestern homeland to my old neighborhood in Boston. I stayed with my old roommate and was so excited to be there, I felt manic. I saw an old lover. We wandered in sweet silence through an art museum. One installation was a tiny room where Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” played and intermittent lights illuminated our surroundings, at times plunging us into total darkness.

I thought of Ram Dass, how he started out in Boston, so cold and mechanical like the others, then was led away, so far away, only to come back completely changed. I felt this way too, like the coldness of the city clamped my heart until a spark, then a flame, then a raging fire took hold of my soul and flung me out, and in these other places I was cracked open. Now that I was back, I sang and danced in the street, in the train, on the bus, in the cafes and book shops and narrow alleys. I felt joy, endless joy, warm all over, brimming. I remembered what it was like to be asleep, and how long I slept, and how deeply.

It’s a shallow breath and a faint heartbeat but it is there, between the sirens and the music of one thousand languages, between the eyelid and the eye, in the softness of your lips, a kernel of light, a smile, a shy ache. Bodies wrapped in coats, bags pressed together like absent-minded lovers, riding the train in silence, thinking of home and dinner and bed.

I wish you enough strength to shoot the archer’s bow and enough sensitivity to care for the fishes swimming in your heart, forever chasing tails. This year I’m spending this moon phase on the Oregon coast with a view of the ocean <3

Good news first: this moon phase will form a harmonious sextile to the Jupiter/Mercury conjunction in Aquarius, which ensures that this is a great day for travel. However the moon will also *lightly* square both Venus and Neptune in Pisces, which means that we need to watch for interpersonal tension. Fake it ’til you make it.

In meditation, focus on the sacral chakra. Keep your spirit burning with Sagittarius Yoga. To find your personal moon sign, click here.