Jupiter, new moon Mar 16, 2026 (radiantastrology.com)

Pisces New Moon
28 degrees Pisces
March 18, 2026
6:23 PM PDT | 9:23 PM EDT

The New Moon in Pisces arrives on March 18 at 28 degrees Pisces, near the final degree of the zodiac, and with it comes a profound invitation: to release what has been, and to dream of a new future filled with expanded purpose and self-belief.

Pisces is a sign of mystery, magic and the divine. Archetypally it is associated with the mystic, the dreamer, transformation and dissolution. 

Dreams become vivid and imagination becomes epic. When we enter Pisces energy, we are called inward — into the dream space, the sacred quiet where intuition speaks most clearly and we’re transformed by the numinous.

A New Moon is an opportunity to set intentions for the month ahead, and as this one is ruled by Jupiter, it offers expansion, hope and glorious opportunity for the long-term future.

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After the Storm: Eclipse Season Closes

Eclipse season has a way of accelerating destiny — rearranging the furniture of our lives in ways we didn’t always ask for. Eclipses shake loose what no longer belongs, reveal what was hidden. They are cosmic surgery — necessary, but rarely gentle.

That season is now behind us.

This New Moon is a true reset — a cleansing breath after the storm. At 28 degrees, just two degrees from the final moment of the zodiac, we stand at the end of one great cycle and the edge of another. This is a liminal space. Sacred and ripe with possibility.

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Uranus in Taurus: Liberating Boost

If you have been feeling stuck, stagnant, or quietly complacent — this New Moon can shake things loose.

The lunation forms a sextile to Uranus at 28° Taurus, and this is an activating, liberating influence. Uranus is the great awakener — the planet of breakthroughs, sudden shifts, and inspired disruption. A sextile is an aspect of opportunity: it doesn’t force change upon you, but it opens a door and offers you a gentle but unmistakable nudge to walk through it.

In earthy Taurus, Uranus has been slowly revolutionizing our relationship to stability, resources, and what we truly value. At this New Moon, it sends a current of electric possibility into the Piscean dreamscape — bridging vision with tangible movement. What has felt immovable may suddenly loosen. What has felt too risky may suddenly feel worth the leap. This is the cosmos offering you a way out of the holding pattern — not through force, but through inspired, courageous action taken at exactly the right moment.

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Mars in Pisces: Motivated by the Soul

Mars is currently transiting Pisces, adding meaningful depth to this lunation. In most signs, Mars moves with clarity and force. In Pisces, the warrior learns to feel his way forward — action becomes intuitive, motivation flows from spiritual purpose rather than ambition alone. Mars in Pisces asks: What is worth sacrificing my ego? Who needs defending? What higher purpose is worth fighting for?

This placement invites us to pursue our dreams from a place of deep inner calling rather than ego or urgency. At this New Moon, Mars infuses your intentions with quiet but powerful devotion. When you act from the soul, you act with a force that no obstacle can easily extinguish.

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Jupiter’s Blessing: Abundance, Belonging, and New Horizons

This New Moon is blessed by its ruler, and Jupiter’s presence is nothing short of luminous. Exalted in Cancer, Jupiter pours forth abundance in its most nourishing form — a sense of being held, supported, and cared for. The warmth of coming home to yourself.

Jupiter recently stationed direct after a retrograde that began last November — a period when many of us experienced dimmed confidence, plans on hold, hope that flickered rather than blazed. That pause is now over. Jupiter moves forward again, forming a powerful current of encouragement with this New Moon: believe in yourself again, reclaim the dreams you set aside, say yes to the larger life that has been quietly waiting.

Mars in Pisces and Jupiter in Cancer form a beautiful harmony here — both water signs, both oriented toward depth and soul-led living. Mars provides the devotional courage to begin; Jupiter provides the faith to keep going. 

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The Sabian Symbol: Light Through the Prism

The Sabian Symbol for 28° Pisces: “Light Breaking Into Many Colors As It Passes Through A Prism.”

A single beam of white light passes through a prism — and the full spectrum is revealed. Nothing was added. The colors were always there.

This symbol speaks to revelation and wholeness. What you carry within you is multifaceted, prismatic, radiant in ways you may not yet fully see. At this New Moon, allow the light of this moment to illuminate your inner spectrum.

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Mercury Stations Direct: Messages and Destiny

On March 20th, Mercury stations direct conjunct the North Node at 8° Pisces — and this is significant. The North Node is our collective point of destiny, and when Mercury aligns with it as it turns direct, significant information is on its way. Conversations delayed, revelations obscured, clarity withheld during the retrograde — these now begin to surface. With Mars also in Pisces amplifying the charge, you may feel moved to act on what you hear or realize. Trust that impulse. When destiny speaks, it is worth answering.

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The Aries Equinox: The Astrological New Year

March 20th is also the Spring Equinox and the Aries Ingress — the beginning of the astrological new year. The Sun moves into bold, fiery Aries and the zodiacal wheel begins again. Where Pisces asked us to dream, Aries asks us to begin. The devotional, soul-led energy cultivated by Mars in Pisces doesn’t vanish — it becomes the fuel that fires the season ahead, giving your new beginnings real meaning and staying power.

Dream it. Meditate on the message. Then set it into motion.

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Working With This Cycle

• Release the eclipse season residue. Rest, journal, move your body, spend time in nature. Let what was stirred settle before planting new seeds.
• Explore the images in your dreams. Dreams are intended to alert you to important messages and help guide your path through coded symbols. What are they telling you now?
• Revive stalled project in your Pisces-ruled house. With Jupiter direct, something set aside since November may now be ready to breathe again.
• Set intentions for the astrological new year. What are of life is your soul calling for expansion this year?

The threshold is open. Step through it with reverence, devotion, and hope.

(Courtesy of John Atwater, H.W.)

Ayșe Coskun | TEDAI San Francisco

• October 2025

(Image from Goodreads.com)

“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing Light of your own Being.”

~ Hafiz

Khājeh Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī (Persian: خواجه شمس‌‌الدین محمد حافظ شیرازی), known by his pen name Hafez (حافظ Ḥāfeẓ lit. ’the memorizer’ or ‘the keeper’; 1325–1390) or Hafiz,^[1] also known by his nickname lesān-al-ḡayb (‘the tongue of the unseen’),^[2] was a Persianlyric poet^[3][4] whose collected works are regarded by many Iranians as one of the highest pinnacles of Persian literature. His works are often found in the homes of Persian speakers, who learn his poems by heart and use them as everyday proverbs and sayings. His life and poems have become the subjects of much analysis, commentary, and interpretation, influencing post-14th century Persian writing more than any other Persian author.^[5][6] (Wikipedia.org)

on Mar 16, 2026 02:20 am

Amy Kazmin,  Reporter  –  Financial Times (U.K.)

Stephan: Here you see what the AI billionaires intend: unregulated AI development. Billionaire Thiel argues against the regulation of AI in religious terms, saying it is the manifestation of the antichrist. Pope Leo in contrast, passionately argues AI must be regulated by humans. Synchronistically, last night I finished watching a Netflix series, Travelers, about a desperate failing future in which humanity is ruled by AI, and a villainous ( from AI’s perspective) group, the Faction, wants humanity to be governed by humans. My personal view is that if there is not strong regulation of AI very soon, it won’t be possible, and humanity will become like the Traveler series.

Peter Thiel’s lecture series is shrouded in secrecy, with both the guest list and venue not made public. Credit: Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg

US tech billionaire and Maga donor Peter Thiel is starting a series of closed-door lectures about the antichrist in Rome on Sunday, putting him on collision course with Pope Leo XIV, the Catholic Church’s first American pontiff.

Thiel, the founder of data intelligence company Palantir Technologies — the Pentagon contractor whose AI systems are being used in the US and Israeli attack on Iran — is preoccupied with the risk of a “one-world, totalitarian state” obstructing scientific and technological progress. He depicts those who lobby for tech regulation as harbingers of the antichrist.

“The way the antichrist would take over the world is, you talk about Armageddon nonstop,” Thiel told the New York Times last year. “You talk about existential risk nonstop, and this is what you need to regulate . . . The thing that has political resonance is: we need to stop science, we need to just say ‘stop’ to this.”

Thiel’s views […]

Read the Full Article »

“Who is a wise man? He who studies all the time. Who is strong? He who can limit himself. Who is rich? He who is happy with what he has.”   The Talmud – Central Text of Rabbinic Judaism

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DAILY REFLECTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY

On the anniversary of the publication of The Scarlet Letter

Emily Temple March 16, 2017 (LitHub.com)

167 years ago today, Ticknor, Reed & Fields published The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel of repentance and slut-shaming. But actually, this isn’t about The Scarlet Letter—it’s about one of the most fascinating friendships in literature. Because whenever I think of Nathaniel Hawthorne, I can’t help but think of Herman Melville.

Hawthorne and Melville met in 1850, and though Hawthorne was fifteen years older, and the two very different (Melville bombastic and highly emotional, Hawthorne much more reserved) the two hit it off right away. Soon afterwards, Melville published a very complimentary review of Hawthorne’s Mosses from an Old Manse, and the writers began an intense friendship that would last about two years before unexpectedly dissolving. There has been much speculation about this friendship, of course, and whether it may have been something more. As Jordan Alexander Stein put in in LARB, “All we are left with are representations of Melville’s feelings, tantalizingly expressed without being particularly easy to pinpoint. Melville wrote of Hawthorne with undeniably sexy language. What proves more elusive are the feelings to which, with any precision, this language can be said to refer.”

For instance, in that aforementioned review, Melville writes: “[A]lready I feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further, and further, shoots his strong New England roots into the hot soil of my Southern soul.” Which sounds like, well, you know.

But one of the best examples of this is the wildly flirtatious, possibly scandalous (magnets indeed), letter below. After Hawthorne read Moby-Dick—which was dedicated to him—he sent Melville a letter. That letter has not survived (nor any of Hawthorne’s letters to Melville—which begs the question: why did Melville destroy these?, but anyway), but Melville’s response, written in November of 1851, suggests that his friend rather liked his novel. So is it a love letter? Even if they were never more than friends, I’d have to say yes. I mean, “Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality,” and “I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces”? Damn. Romantic or not, that’s some passionate correspondence.

Pittsfield, Monday afternoon.

My Dear Hawthorne: People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward; but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day’s work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably—why, then I don’t think I deserve any reward for my hard day’s work—for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good? My peace and my supper are my reward, my dear Hawthorne. So your joy-giving and exultation-breeding letter is not my reward for my ditcher’s work with that book, but is the good goddess’s bonus over and above what was stipulated—for for not one man in five cycles, who is wise, will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows, or any one of them. Appreciation! Recognition! Is love appreciated? Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of this great allegory—the world? Then we pygmies must be content to have our paper allegories but ill comprehended. I say your appreciation is my glorious gratuity. In my proud, humble way,—a shepherd-king,—I was lord of a little vale in the solitary Crimea; but you have now given me the crown of India. But on trying it on my head, I found it fell down on my ears, notwithstanding their asinine length—for it’s only such ears that sustain such crowns.

Your letter was handed me last night on the road going to Mr. Morewood’s, and I read it there. Had I been at home, I would have sat down at once and answered it. In me divine maganimities are spontaneous and instantaneous—catch them while you can. The world goes round, and the other side comes up. So now I can’t write what I felt. But I felt pantheistic then—your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God’s. A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome’s Pantheon. It is a strange feeling—no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content—that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling.

Whence come you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips—lo, they are yours and not mine. I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling. Now, sympathizing with the paper, my angel turns over another page. you did not care a penny for the book. But, now and then as you read, you understood the pervading thought that impelled the book—and that you praised. Was it not so? You were archangel enough to despise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul. Once you hugged the ugly Socrates because you saw the flame in the mouth, and heard the rushing of the demon,—the familiar,—and recognized the sound; for you have heard it in your own solitudes.

My dear Hawthorne, the atmospheric skepticisms steal into me now, and make me doubtful of my sanity in writing you thus. But, believe me, I am not mad, most noble Festus! But truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning. Farewell. Don’t write a word about the book. That would be robbing me of my miserly delight. I am heartily sorry I ever wrote anything about you—it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So,now, let us add Moby Dick to our blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish;—I have heard if Krakens.

This is a long letter, but you are not at all bound to answer it. Possibly, if you do answer it, and direct it to Herman Melville, you will missend it—for the very fingers that now guide this pen are not precisely the same that just took it up and put it on this paper. Lord, when shall we be done changing? Ah! it’s a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a passenger, I am content and can be happy. I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality.

What a pity, that, for your plain, bluff letter, you should get such gibberish! Mention me to Mrs. Hawthorne and to the children, and so, good-by to you, with my blessing.

Herman.

P.S. I can’t stop yet. If the world was entirely made up of Magians, I’ll tell you what I should do. I should have a paper-mill established at one end of the house, and so have an endless riband of foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I should write a thousand—a million—billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you. The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which is the biggest? A foolish question—they are One.

H.

P.P.S. Don’t think that by writing me a letter, you shall always be bored with an immediate reply to it—and so keep both of us delving over a writing-desk eternally. No such thing! I sh’n’t always answer your letters, and you may do just as you please.

Correspondence flirting friendship Herman Melville Moby-Dick Nathaniel Hawthorne

Emily Temple

Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020. You can buy it here.

Published: March 16, 2026 (TheOnion.com)

WASHINGTON—Alarmed at the shocking lapse in protocol that nearly resulted in disaster, a shaken President Donald Trump ordered his security presence beefed up Monday following a frighteningly close brush with JD Vance. “How’s a guy like that even allowed to enter the same building as me, let alone get within handshaking distance?” said Trump, adding that there was no excuse for him being subjected to nearly half a minute of mind-numbing small talk before Secret Service finally tackled the vice president. “From now on, we’re not only gonna have multiple agents at every door of every room I enter, but also position snipers on the roof, so they can take him out the second he’s spotted on White House grounds. I got lucky this time, but a deranged person like that won’t stop until we’re having a full-blown conversation.” At press time, Trump reportedly decided he’d never truly feel safe as long as Vance remained alive, and he immediately ordered Air Force Two shot out of the sky.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907 Art: Gustav Klimt

(Image from MentorShow.com)

Aspects of compassion in healing:
■ Gabor sees forgiveness not as something you do, but as something that happens. When someone says,
‘I forgive you’ they usually mean that they don’t.
■ To understand is to forgive.’ If you truly understand something, forgiveness follows almost automatically.
When you heal, there’s less hurt, and when you fully heal, you realize there’s no damage. And if there’s no
damage, there’s nothing to forgive.

“George Mason was one of three Founding Fathers who refused to sign the Constitution — because the convention rejected his proposal for a “constitutional council,” essentially a multi-headed executive.

Instead, the other Founders created a one-person presidency with so much power that, as Mason predicted more than 200 years ago, it would inevitably turn into a “monarchy or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy.”

–Joe Matthews

I’m praying Gavin Newsom never becomes president. Not because I think there’s someone better. Because no one should be president anymore

By Joe Mathews, Contributor March 15, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)

Gift Article

Gov. Gavin Newsom could focus his attention on reforming the Constitution instead of running for president.Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle

Dear Gavin,

Nothing personal. But I’m praying you’ll never be president.

I say this not because I think there’s someone better, or because you should spend more time with your family (as your son suggested). And I don’t dislike the idea of being represented in the White House by a fellow, hyper-loquacious Gen-X Californian of Irish heritage.

Rather, I don’t want you to be president because I don’t want anyone to be president.

The United States shouldn’t have presidents anymore.

The one public service Donald Trump has provided is demonstrating that the American presidency has become unacceptably dangerous — and must be ended, permanently.

Look at what Trump has done to our beloved California: establishing concentration camps, illegally holding back aid, seeking to strip our children of citizenship, causing a water emergency, backing anti-health propaganda that could sicken millions and disappearing our neighbors.

Beyond California, Trump has ended the U.S. republic, ruling as a dictator by defying laws, Congress and the courts. He is unconstitutionally imposing tariffs,  working to steal elections, attacking our closest allies, stoking a nuclear weapons race, accelerating climate change and corruptly making billions off his official power.

Since the office holds the power to blow up the world, we earthlings face a stark reality: We must destroy the presidency before it destroys us.

While urging you, Gavin, not to run for president, I want to distinguish myself from other political and media critics of your undeclared campaign. My fellow California writers seem to be suggesting you should stop thinking big. These other commentators complain that your trips across the country and around the world are campaign-style distractions from your job as governor, which they say you aren’t doing.

“Gov. Gavin Newsom is merely the top elected official of one state, even if he can boast that it’s the fourth- or fifth-largest economy in the world,” Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton wrote, perfectly channeling the state’s clueless establishment. “Contrary to hackneyed bragging points, California is not a ‘nation state.’ We’re a state — highly populated, but one of 50.”

Skelton and other critics are doubly wrong — because they fail to recognize the unprecedented situation California faces.

First, our state has effectively been kicked out of the union by Trump and turned into an occupied colony of an extractive regime. Californians now live in a post-republic, post-constitution purgatory, outside the country but legally just enough inside it to justify state violence against us.

In this context, California needs alliances with other countries and provinces and global cities to defend our economy and to provide essential government services. As post-republic America descends further into dictatorship, such alliances offer Californians their best chance to build a new democratic republic on the Pacific.

Second, you are not neglecting your job as governor. To the contrary, you are continuing your practice of doing too much, with some big swings in your last year, including launching a new water plan and leading the most ambitious education reform this century, despite resistance from the powerful California Teachers Association.

The fact that you are doing so much right, that you are reading the moment correctly, makes your desire to run for president even more troubling.

Why are you pursuing a job that no one, not even you, should have?

Do you want to be a dictator? Because that’s the job you’d be running for if you make your campaign official. As someone who admires you, I find it scary that you — however satirically — are posting like a dictator on social media, and it’s even scarier that your party is rewarding your caudillo cosplay with a big bump in the polls.

Your rhetoric suggests you think you can renew the presidency and the country. While I appreciate that politicians must be self-assured, such confidence goes beyond arrogance into madness. As Lord Acton warned, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and, as you acknowledge in your beautiful and best-selling memoir, you reveal plenty of character flaws. Getting elected dictator could well be an act of self-destruction.

Much better to stand down and build on your proposal for a constitutional amendment enshrining gun control by starting a movement to rewrite the defunct American Constitution.

If you must run for president, please organize your campaign around a promise to be the last president. Use the office to end the world’s most dangerous presidency.

To prepare for such a campaign, I suggest you devote your prodigious memory to capturing all the details of the life of George Mason.

He was one of three Founding Fathers who refused to sign the Constitution — because the convention rejected his proposal for a “constitutional council,” essentially a multi-headed executive.

Instead, the other Founders created a one-person presidency with so much power that, as Mason predicted more than 200 years ago, it would inevitably turn into a “monarchy or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy.”

About Opinion

Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership.

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Democratically yours,

Joe

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.

March 15, 2026

Joe Mathews

Syndicated columnist

Joe Mathews is Connecting California columnist and California editor at Zócalo Public Square, an Ideas Exchange that is a project of New America and Arizona State University.