March zodiac sign: Pisces, then Aries at the equinox

March: where the zodiac ends and begins

March holds the hinge of the whole zodiac. Its first three weeks are Pisces, the twelfth sign, mutable water, the sign of endings, dreams and dissolving. Then the Sun crosses the celestial equator at the March equinox, which is zero degrees of Aries by definition, and the cycle starts over with the first sign, cardinal fire, the sign of beginnings.

No other month swings from one end of the wheel to the other. A March 10 birthday and a March 30 birthday sit only twenty days apart and are, in astrology, as far apart as the start and the end of a story.

The equinox and the start of Aries

Because Aries starts at the equinox, the change day is an astronomical event you can look up anywhere: the moment the Sun crosses the equator heading north, when day and night are roughly equal. It drifts by about six hours a year, so in US time it has landed on March 19 in some recent years, March 20 in most and March 21 in a few older ones. The full list for every year from 1970 to 2035 is in the table below.

March zodiac signs, day by day

On the US Eastern clock, March 1 to 18 is always Pisces and March 22 onward is always Aries. In between is the change: from 1970 to 2035 the Sun entered Aries on March 20 in 59 of the 66 years, March 19 in 4 and March 21 in 3. On the change day itself, a birth before the moment in the year table below is Pisces and a birth after it is Aries.

When Aries begins each year, in Eastern time

The Sun's entry into Aries slides about six hours later each year and jumps back after a leap day. The next two are March 20, 2027 at 4:20 pm Eastern, then March 19, 2028 at 10:10 pm Eastern. Times are good to within 15 minutes. For Central time take one hour off, for Mountain two and for Pacific three, which can move the change to the day before; the sign page lists the same moments in UTC.

March birthdays at a glance

The two March signs share almost nothing except the month, which is part of their charm:

• ✦Pisces, March 1 to 20: empathic, imaginative, gentle, intuitive, ruled by Neptune and Jupiter.
• ✦Aries, March 21 to 31: bold, direct, competitive, energetic, ruled by Mars.
• ✦St. Patrick's Day, March 17: always Pisces.
• ✦Birthstones: aquamarine, a sea blue stone that suits Pisces, and bloodstone, a green stone flecked with red that suits Aries.

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