March is the riverbank where we move from the waters of Pisces into the wide green pasture of Aries. It’s the month that marks the end of one astrological year and the beginning of the next. This new year isn’t a milestone most of us celebrate–it’s a transition that happens outside of our modern calendar. It’s a chance to experience time differently, to step into a current that moves a little slower than the one we usually swim in.

February’s astrological energy is sombre and ethereal, like stepping into an ancient forest or over the threshold of a medieval stone abbey. This month brings whispers on the wind and rumblings of change in the deep. All the planets stack up across Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, and Taurus, giving the transits a serious, authoritative tone. Like January, this month demands maturity and, with Aquarian and Piscean influence, it’s spiritual maturity that’s in focus. We’re invited to practise greater reverence towards life, ourselves, and one another. The energy is monastic and wise–it asks us to move with intention and attention. It invites us to explore what is sacred to us and to practise greater devotion to the sacred in our everyday lives.

The New Year begins in Capricorn – the sign that governs time, structure, and ritual. One of Capricorn’s central themes is discipline, which you could think of as a latticework of habits and routines that provide the structure for life as you want to live it. When the Sun, the giver of life, shines through the Capricorn, it’s an excellent time to explore your relationship to discipline and redefine it in a way that’s truly supportive. As Annie Dillard puts it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Discipline can be a form of devotion to the way you want to experience life. Ruling both space and time, Capricorn reminds us of our emotional and physical limits and gifts us boundaries. The discipline Capricorn inspires in us helps us to be loving parents to ourselves, who can compassionately recognize how much rest we need, how to make our physical environments safe and comfortable, and what decisions we need to make so that we feel held by our lives (rather than struggling to survive).