Full Moon in Pisces: Octopian Realms

Nevertheless, we surrender.

The moon reached its fullness in Pisces on August 30, 2023 at 9:35pm Eastern Time—and my friends, I hope you were able to take a moment to go gaze at this beauty. August brings us a Supermoon, meaning that that our lovely lunar friend is in its closest orbit to the Earth, prime for basking in some evening light.

Sitting close to Saturn in Pisces, this Full Moon encourages us to surrender—as a way to persist.¹

The two energies can at first seem at odds—one that yields and one that carries on. Saturn wants to make things real, wants to conserve energy, wants to restrict and set boundaries—all so that it may endure. Pisces does Pisces by dreaming up the ideal, bathing in the realm of feeling, extending compassion, and taking bliss in our universal connectedness. In ancient astrology, Pisces is ruled by Jupiter, who wants to expand—while Saturn wants to contract. In modern astrology, Pisces is ruled by Neptune, known for dissolving, while Saturn is known for creating order and structure.

If we look to the tarot, we can find some threads that help us on our way to integrating these ideas. The Eight of Cups, associated with Saturn in Pisces, speaks to us about emotional transformation.

Eight of Cups, Sharman Caselli-Deck

In the Sharman-Caselli Deck, the Eight of Cups depicts the Hermit steadily making his way up a peak, passing through an arch of cups while the river flows in the opposite direction. Sometimes, emotional maturity means trusting that you have developed the skills that will help you move through uncomfortable situations. In many depictions, the Hermit is facing away from the cups, focused on the road ahead. It is the wisdom that Orpheus learns—the especially hard way—when he turns back too soon to face his beloved Eurydice—and she passes back into the veil of the underworld.

In many decks, the cups are arranged such that it appears as though one is missing. But alas, the cups are there. They are just not aligning in the way they used to.

Eight of Cups, Fat Folks Tarot

In the Fat Folks Tarot, the Eight of Cups² card shows a young femme emptying her cup into a nearby pond. The other cups, already unburdened, drift in the watery moonlight. It’s a beautiful reminder that letting go is also a way of taking ownership of what we are holding. Sometimes what’s in our cup no longer serves us in the way it used to. Sometimes taking responsibility means making room for new things to grow.

Eight of Cups, Tarot de Marseilles

The Eight of Cups in the Tarot de Marseilles³ is fairly simple, but I was struck by how much the flowering vines wrapped their way around the cups like the tenacles of an octopus. And the more I learned about octopuses⁴, the more I was fascinated with how well they embody Saturn in Pisces.

I had already gathered that octopuses were intelligent creatures from literary depictions such as Remarkably Bright Creatures⁵; but it was the documentary My Octopus Teacher that showed me the depths of the octopus’s sensitivity and endurance, through the story of an octopus that devised clever disguises to evade encroaching predators. As a member of the squishy cephalopod family, early evolutionary drafts of the octopus included a hard protective shell, but by the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, the octopus left its shell behind.

Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash

What the octopus lacks in skeleton or shell, it makes up for in its complex nervous system, with over 500 million neuron cells—as many as a dog. Two thirds of an octopus’s neuron cells are spread throughout its body; meaning yes, each of its legs is so sensitive and intelligent, it literally has a mind of its own. These independent, intelligent appendages take in loads of sensory information from each tender tentacle. The octopus also wields an intricate web of skin tissues, muscles and pigment cells that allow them to adapt to their environment in a matter of milliseconds, making them masters of camouflage and expression. They can turn white when they are frightened. They can turn red when they are stressed or angry. They can shift and calibrate their appearance over 160 times in an hour, besting probably most of the X-Men changelings⁶. Not only can they change their color, but they can also contort themselves as small as the width of their eye, allowing them to squeeze in and out of tight spaces. It’s how Inky the octopus escaped the New Zealand Aquarium.⁷ Thinking of Saturn in Pisces, it is very fitting that the way the vulnerable octopus survives is by blurring the boundary where octopus ends and surrounding environment begins—through camouflage and through contortion.

We can think of this Full Moon as a culmination point of something we’ve been experiencing over the past six months related to emotional transformation and surrender. You might look back at old journals, text messages, emails, and think back to what was happening in your life around the time of the New Moon in Pisces of this year (February 19-20, 2023). Then you can check to see how this energy might landing for you by finding the house in which Pisces resides in your birth chart. ⁸ Take note of any other mutable placements (Pisces, Virgo, Sagittarius, or Gemini) close to 7 degrees, which may show other areas of your life involved in this story.

The Moon remembers what feels safe, and Saturn remembers what is realistic. In this moment, I encourage you to take a moment to pause and take stock of your emotional backpack⁹:

• What kind of tools and supplies have you packed?

• How have those tools gotten you to where you are now and how might you offer gratitude?

• Do those tools still work well for you and the person you’ve become? Have some tools lost their shine?

• Do you rely on one tool too much? Are you carrying tools you don’t use anymore?

• How might leaving some of those tools behind create space for the tools for the next leg of the journey?

• What are you shedding? What is ready to grow?

Some of this may be landing for you, and some of this may not at all. Take what is useful or resonating, and leave behind the rest. And as always, I welcome your thoughts, experiences, and favorite octopus facts. Thank you very much for reading! Until next time.

1. I am realizing one of my other posts also talked about Pisces and surrender. Where then, blessed by Jupiter in Pisces, the new moon in Sagittarius encouraged us to surrender and go big or go home; now, the moon says, let go, and make room for that which will last.

2. Each card in the Fat Folks Tarot is created by a different artist. Darby Dugan created the beautiful artwork for the Eight of Cups. Her work can be found here.

3. My conspirator in woo,

Maribel

, delivered a new tarot friend to me, the Tarot de Marseilles, and the two of us have been bonding. It’s old, wise, and so far bearing potent meaning behind its simple imagery.

4. Octopus is Greek, not Latin, as much as I love saying Octopi.

5. This book crafted a first-person octopus narrator akin to Frasier Crane, and the casting for the audiobook was the perfect balance of condescending.

6. Will someone more learned please tell me there is an Octopus-like mutant/X-Men?

7. In another amusing story, an octopus at the New England Aquarium lifted the lid off of its tank and proceeded to visit another tank nearby to go fishing for a late night snack.

8. To determine which house Pisces lives in (and your Ascendant and house set-up in general), you’re going to need your birth time and input that information into a program like this one. It’s unfortunate because not everyone has access to this information, but it’s necessary because the sign on the ascendant changes every two hours or so.

9. Emotional work! Yum yum yum yum yum!