This week, I had a day that devolved into an energetic reaction against putting too much of my focus outside of myself. For the last many months, thanks to a tough Saturn-Mars square, I’d honed my capacity and newly discovered ability, for managing the details of mundane life with far more efficacy and far less anxiety than ever before. Which may’ve also had the side effect of increasing my confidence, ambition and output to irrational levels.

Pulling all the paperwork together for car and license registration in our new location, and getting it all done was big step. We are redecorating, too. A big furniture purchase last weekend, which I’m really excited about, also means there are subsequent items to be listed and sold to make space for the new.

In the midst of moving furniture and parts, John’s girls are coming for a visit next week. This is why we had spent the night prior buying a bed then putting together the frame and box spring in the spare room. It’s sparse in there — hardly welcoming yet, with furniture pieced together like a patchwork quilt (although soon to be remedied), and mismatched sheets, blankets, leftovers from our former life. Tiredly, I noticed, there is little I love less than putting together a piecemeal house and not feeling a sense of satisfaction in work completed.

No wonder I was now curled in the fetal position with aching body. Over-extension, joylessly overdoing it, causes Pisces to cry “foul”. I took to bed, that Pisces sanctuary of surrender that allows the Soul to still, listen inward.

From bed, I reflected on how easy it is to lose footing in pleasure-less tasks of energetic output for completion’s sake instead of soul satisfaction. I love what poet and diarist May Sarton, who documented her struggles to find a balance between mundane and creative life, said: “In the end what kills is not agony (for agony at least asks something of the soul) but everyday life.”

Some days, the clutter and duties of everyday life feels so beside the point (can you hear my sixth house Pisces talking?). But when I ask myself “Well, what is the point?” the question prompts reassurance in the way an existential truth can. Well, what is my point? How do I want to hold this experience? With ease and grace. With presence. Ahhh, Pisces. We each make our own meaning out of even the most meaningless of acts. All is fodder for kindness toward our self.

Pain, limitation and suffering, of any form, is always an invitation to gentleness and kindness (Or love. Or compassion. Whatever you wish). The way we hold our self is infinitely more important than what is happening to us. Pisces, the soul-stealing thief, will tell us the opposite is true. It will tell us to believe that the material reality of a situation is the truth -that three-dimensional “reality” of our limitations define and restrict us- yet that is furthest from it.

As Chiron conjoins this New Moon, we are invited to remember this. Here’s some inspiration. The extremely brilliant Stephen Hawking, surely a Chironian figure, died this past week. He once said, “Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free.” His miraculous life, and work, is an example that we are only as free as our perceptions allow us to be. We may not be chess master, but we are at least masters of our self, of our inner universe. We can at least be that.

To that end, whether we feel plagued by the grind of difficult emotions, energies or circumstances, there is only one choice to make: Decide how we want to hold the experience. Do we resist and struggle against? Or do we offer acceptance? Can we see that there is a choice – a kinder, gentler one?

To get a sense of this, ask the Divine Goddess to hold you. Feel her warm arms around you, unquestioningly accepting every uncomfortable feeling, physical discomfort, every single thing you don’t want to be experiencing or know what to do about.  This is a palpable and real energy field. Just as the sea refuses no one, Pisces Moon generously accepts everything you are, as you are, without needing to know why. Ask her to absorb and accept what you cannot; she will relieve you.

The astrological new year, the Sun’s precession into Aries on March 20, is upon us. As Aries planets assert their desire for increased activity and energy output, we may need to be more intentional and vigilant about going gentle and easy on ourselves. With Mercury’s impending retrograde in Aries (3/22), we might rethink how our thoughts create a quality of energy in our body and being. Just as getting caught up in busyness can cause us to go into unconscious habits we don’t like, pushing and pressure create aggressive energy.

Happy astrological new year! How will you hold your self? A suggestion: Gently.