Insights for Pisces
Image by Donna Dolson
February 18
Sun enters Pisces: 10:51 AM EST
If you look back over the last 15 years of Neptune in Pisces, or even just the last 2 ½ since Saturn arrived in Pisces, or maybe the last 2000 years of the age of Pisces how does it feel? Be subjective. Feelings are very personal. You decide the kind of nostalgic retrospective in which you are engaging.
Before we are done with Pisces this year, Mercury will be retrograde and spending longer than usual in this sign. We cannot yet seem to shake off the past, as if it were drops of water after a swim. We are still swimming in Piscean waters. It’s a bit of collective PTSD. Loud noises, sudden changes, grandiose power plays make us anxious. As they should.
Pisces can be complicated yet it seems to have two distinct ways of manifesting: One: the sensitive, psychic, compassionate, soulful and boundless quality we often connect with this sign. The other less known but quite commonly noticed: rooted in projection and the ability to deny and refuse our own feelings as we cause others to feel them for us; cruelty, lack of compassion and the desire to cause suffering in others is also a Pisces manifestation.
It’s a marvel how cruel, even sadistic behaviour gives rise to compassion in those who are capable of feeling it. Those two fish really pull in opposite directions, together. When I consider the Age of Pisces; the great waves of massive cruelty throughout the genocides of history, the plagues and massive eco shifts including droughts and all manner of climate changes in the light of the human potential for both cruelty and compassion I feel that I am glimpsing the lessons or teachings we have inherited from the Age of Pisces, the things we have to work out as we approach the elusive beginnings of the next Great Age.
Perhaps this is a good moment to consider the wisdom of The Bard in the following words:
Time’s glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right,
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours
And smear with dust their glittering golden towers.”
– William Shakespeare
As the Sun travels through Pisces this year it will conjunct the North node creating a couple of eclipses, conjunct Mercury retrograde in a cazimi moment, trine Jupiter and sextile Uranus. Stay tuned, below.
February 20
Saturn conjunct Neptune
A mighty conjunction of powerful energies, each having recently changed signs. Big Astrological News!! A reminder that the time has come to step up, step into and move on from the mess which has been tormenting us. If only we could just slam the door on the misuse of power, the runaway Golem of A.I. and the wars: The war for our attention as well as the ones with guns, bombs and drones.
The last time this conjunction happened was the Fall of the Wall. (November 9, 1989 in the sign of Capricorn). Saturn builds walls, Neptune dissolves them. Borders are definitely changing, rearranging in our times as well. The worst of Aries is war, the ‘Us and Them’ mentality which breeds heroes as well as arch villains. The best of Aries is ‘Live and Let Live’ which creates first responders, those who enable others to live, to survive. Neptune tells us we are awash in confusion about these things. Saturn demands we be responsible for how we live as individuals.
The message, if there is one, encoded in this conjunction is that your individual life matters. As do all the lives of all the individuals alive on our planet. Supremacy and domination are how some few lean into this. Diversity and protest for the many others. Most of us are unconscious (Neptune) of our privilege and want to accomplish meaningful tasks (Saturn) for ourselves and our beloveds.
It’s a moment in time. Saturn will move on and leave Neptune to dither or not. Pay attention to your dreams. Notice the life forms in your immediate environment. This is our time to be alive: Hell and high water as well as the rest.
February 22
Mars sextile Chiron
Venus trine Jupiter
Every action, each assertion is an opportunity for the getting or sharing of wisdom. Blessings are everywhere. No need to wait until they are gone to appreciate them. The human soul thrives on wisdom and beauty. Kindness and gratitude. It just does. It’s a mystery. Maybe it’s THE mystery.
February 26
Mercury stationery retrograde: Pisces
No need to cringe or hide under the bed in anticipation of one more Mercury retrograde. It is a gift, an offering, reminding us to take time to reflect and consider your life, all life, through the lens of feeling. How you feel about everything is meant to be illuminating. It can be hard to give attention to our feelings. To do so is to save your own life. Feelings are how we engage the soul. To live fully we need body and soul. To ignore how we feel feeds the algorithm, the insidious, relentless pull of attention toward cravings and the myriad of ways we subvert our wellbeing. To attend to our feelings, particularly over the next 3 weeks is to engage the soul of the world, not just your own. Possibly there is only one soul which we share with all that lives. We just think we are separate because we are in the habit of thinking as if we are alone inside our mind. Feelings underlie and infuse all of reality.
February 27
Mars square Uranus
Disruptions happen to all of us individually and to some of us collectively. We do our best to keep on solid ground, to live coherently and to keep some semblance of order. Even so, this world and its conditions are not ours to control. There is taunt in the planets today. Perhaps the best idea is to ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee’. (Muhammad Ali had Uranus in Taurus, very close to where it is today.)
February 28
Venus conjunct Mercury (Rx)
If you missed Valentine’s Day, here is a chance to use your most romantic inclination for wooing or writing or both. You might sit for a while and attune yourself to the soul that lives within you as well as the one that ensouls the world.
· How do you feel?
· How do you feel?
· How do you feel?
· How do you feel?
March 2
Mars enters Pisces
Our inner, collective warrior is at the ready to sacrifice all. To sacrifice means to make sacred. It’s only a hop, skip and a jump from sacred to martyrdom. Each and every life is ultimately a sacrifice to Life Itself. And many are the martyrs who didn’t choose their martyrdom. Renee Good, Alex Pretti and George Floyd for example. When Mars shows up for us in Pisces we need to ask what we hold sacred and fight for that if fighting is required. Sometimes it’s enough to show up. Sometimes the ‘fight’ is to bring healing for the moment: As best we know how.
March 3
Full Moon: 12* Virgo: 06:37 AM EST Eclipse
Maybe it’s hard to believe in the cruelty of this world. Faith is supported by the service we offer to others. Honoring the sacred in our day-to-day, immediate experience opens us to life’s goodness, helps us to keep the faith.
March 4
Venus sextile Uranus
What makes you happy? Satisfied? Where do you find opportunities to spread good feelings to others? Beauty and function are complements. Here at the end of a difficult season it’s time to shake out the blankets, mend the rips and tears, look forward to change. It’s an adventure.
March 5
Sun trine Jupiter
Blessed Be! All things are possible with a kind intention and deep respect and compassion for the suffering of others. It’s One World. It’s our world. Caring about it makes a heaven of hell every time.
March 6
Venus enters Aries
Uppity Women United! Only you can do what you do, the way you do it and for the right reasons. Now is the time. Tomorrow is too late or never comes. Something like that. “Once again”, says the story, “the world was on the brink of destruction…
“Once before there was war everywhere, rivers had dried up, plants wouldn’t grow, people were starving. The world was being destroyed by demons—symbols of our own hatred, greed and delusion—so powerful that they had defeated every one of the male gods. The gods abandoned the world in their defeat and withdrew to the heights of the Himalayas, where one of the gods finally remembered an ancient prophecy that said that demons would rise up who were so powerful that no one could defeat them but the goddess. Only the feminine could save the world. It’s important to note that the goddess didn’t appear until she was remembered and requested. Called upon by all the defeated male gods, Durga appeared out of a stream of divine fire. Riding her lion, her face blazing like a thousand suns, each of her ten hands holding a weapon of the gods, she defeated the demons.”
China Galland
March 7
Mercury retrograde, conjunct the Sun (cazimi)
At times we are overtaken with longings that we cannot ever hope to assuage. Allowing ourselves to feel this makes us stronger even as it fulfills the mission of the soul, that mysterious part of us that some deny even exists.
Here at the exact midpoint of Mercury’s retrograde journey we are encouraged to ponder life’s mysteries as well as to listen for clues or messages that might clarify our own small part.
March 8
DST begins (again…) - having nothing to do with astrology…
Venus conjunct Saturn
Our values, the things that matter for survival as well as for identity, these things are to be taken seriously. Maybe we have to fight or protest for what we value. Surely we need to stand up and be counted. What inspires you?
March 9
Mercury trine Jupiter
We are so much more than we can ever understand. We ‘get’ that life is a mystery. For some, if it’s a mystery then it is only waiting to be solved. Others understand that a mystery can never be fully fathomed. To live in the world, in a way that allows for this is to touch joy, to be a conduit for love and even laughter. Starting of course, with the greatest mystery, the one that lives inside our own self.
March 10
Venus sextile Pluto
Jupiter stationery direct
It’s possible that every choice matters, what we buy, and don’t buy; what we listen to and tune out; what we watch. Then again, who cares if one little person in one little time and place does this or that? You decide. You’re the One.
March 15
Mars conjunct Mercury retrograde
Mars is moving faster than Mercury because Mercury is closing in on its station about to go direct. Something to marvel at when the hand is quicker than the eye, the action speaks louder than the word. Our impulse is generated from the depths of the collective unconscious. As individuals, born with a will and the ability to think before taking action, today is a real zinger. Honor the impulse. Feel it but don’t necessarily follow it. The collective unconscious doesn’t give a hoot for the well-being of any particular individual.
March 18
New Moon: 28* Pisces: 09:23 PM EDT
Venus square Jupiter
Sun sextile Uranus
Adrift on the tides of time and events we look on the past with the perspective of our earned wisdom. Likely the future we see looming ahead isn’t the one we think we would choose and yet we set our intentions with the sticks and stones of possibility as they show up.
Best not to bite off more than you can chew. Which isn’t to say you should scorn exuberance. Just temper it a bit with what you know to be true.