As I sit down to write about the upcoming Full Moon in Pisces, occurring on September 2, 2020 (05:22 AM UTC) at 10°12 of the sign, I find myself pondering the difference between desire paths and escape routes. Between being soft and yielding in the midst of this — this astrology, this societal and personal turmoil, the state of the world at large — and giving up on ourselves. Between dreams that show us ways to survive, and impractical fantasies that prevent us from doing what we need to do in order to improve the reality we live in.

To say that 2020 is not being the easiest year is a ridiculous understatement. It has taken a lot — mostly without asking. It punctured the bubble of our perfect illusions, shaking us out of our comfortable numbness. And it’s far from over.

Too, the chart for the upcoming Full Moon, which happens in conjunction with the cosmic illusionist Neptune, reflects the inescapable collision between our grip on reality and the mirages we’re leaving behind. The Moon growing full in the sign of the Fishes, in conjunction with Neptune, might be soft and unyielding, but the rest of the chart is an asperous mountainscape. Retrograde Jupiter, ruler of this Full Moon, sits in conjunction with Retrograde Pluto; the Virgo Sun forms an awkward, messy quincunx to Chiron in Aries, also Retrograde; Venus in Cancer opposes Saturn Retrograde in Capricorn and squares Mars in Aries, with the three planets forming a Cardinal T-Square (which becomes an actual Cardinal Grand Cross if you count in Juno in Libra).

And yet, Neptune can hardly be contained or constrained. Fluid, ethereal Neptune possesses that iridescent quality of changing colors and hues depending on angles and lightning. It can be anything we desire, reflecting the image of our deepest and secret yearnings back at us. And right now, perhaps, what we yearn for the most is solace. Soft, safe nooks and crannies in a world that feels made of edges and sharp corners. Dreams that do not desert us when we’re at our most vulnerable.

So how do we bend without breaking? How do we rest without giving up on ourselves? How do we keep engaging with something so essential and affirming as dreaming justice and beauty into existence without disengaging from a world that is in desperate need of both? How do we hold space for all levels of reality — supernal and tangible — without losing our grip on either?

Neptune says: let go. Release. Surrender.  Let your dreams themselves change shape and color — let yourself deliberately drift with the tide.

Mars is stationing Retrograde in less than two weeks and is currently involved in a strenuous square with planet of restraint, Saturn, so whether we go with the flow or struggle against it, we’re very likely to end up in the same place. This Full Moon will make it easier to relax into a state of acceptance; in spite of people and experiences being flushed away, in spite of things being replaced, in spite of our very surroundings changing before our very eyes, or maybe precisely because of it all.

The erosion of our certainties can be distressing. But to find ourselves chained to the present moment, with no choice but to re-live it ceaselessly, would be agony and most definitely the worst case scenario. With the Full Moon in Pisces receiving support from Uranus Retrograde in Taurus via an exact sextile,surrender becomes synonymous with liberation.  

The message of this Full Moon is: acknowledge where you are, and find your natural line of drift, your path of least resistance. Just make sure you don’t leave yourself behind.

Painting: August Kopisch (1799–1853), “Feuerspeiender Vesuv bei Mondschein” (“Fire-spitting Vesuvius in the moonlight”), 1844