Insights for Pisces

Thanks to A. Darling for the photo

February 18
Sun enters Pisces 11:13 PM EST
We give a lot of attention to the Age of Aquarius. We have dreams or perhaps nightmares of the future. What about the Age that is ending? The oceanic Age of Pisces which has brought us, among other things, to awareness of the collective unconscious. Even as we work hard to reveal the mysteries of outer, inner and local space we must accept that the unconscious is bottomless: unfathomable. There is always one more fish to catch or an unlikely encounter with a mermaid or two. On a personal level we have a dream or synchronistic experience, an eruption of feelings we didn’t know we had. We see a movie or a work of art and it carries us off inside to a place we didn’t know was there.
The same is true collectively. The collective unconscious shows itself through fads and trends, memes and collective actions including war and protest movements.
The Age of Pisces has been an age of extremes: Extreme cruelty and torture at one end and deep compassion at the other. Passion at its best and worst. You could say that the greatest god or symbol of the age was a man, tortured and murdered for his wisdom and compassion: an age of PTSD. No wonder the end of it is so chaotic. The human imagination is a great and unpredictable sea. The more rational and reasonable we have tried to become the more wild and uncontrollable is the shadow land of the unconscious.
Here in the death throes of the end of one Great Age and the birth pangs of the beginning of another we see and experience the holding on, the unwillingness to face the inevitable change. We struggle with the notion that we are all connected; everyone’s gonna get wet.
The wisdom of Pisces reminds us that we are not at the mercy of conditions when we are centered within; when we can tolerate our thoughts with equanimity. No time better than this time to practice.
As the Sun travels through Pisces it will conjunct Saturn, Neptune and Mercury reminding us to pay attention to our dreams and practice radical self-acceptance. It will also sextile Jupiter and Uranus as they move closer to each other. These are images of deep devotion to nature and acceptance of what we can’t control, all of which leads to right action: A great time to look for ways to Enjoy the End of the World.

February 22
Venus conjunct Mars
As Chiron hovers near the North Node give some consideration to how your greatest difficulties have been the things that have made you wiser, that have taught you the truth of what it means to be human.
Venus and Mars remind us that our ability to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ is bred in the bone of human nature. About once a year they conjoin. This year’s meeting of the passionate pair in Aquarius points to our desire for knowledge. At best it reminds us that knowledge is a collective endeavor. As we struggle with our collective denial we might question our intellectual community. In a couple of days our knowledge will be tested by real life. What value does knowledge have if you can’t apply it?

February 23
Mercury enters Pisces
More Pisces! Astrologers say that Mercury is in its fall and its detriment in this sign. The mind is Mercury’s domain. The mind which, as the poet said, “is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven…”. Mercury in Pisces is considered unable to deal with the overwhelming tidal waves of thoughts that crash on the shores of our longings. In Pisces Mercury struggles to make sense of the world and the cosmos in which it resides. Perhaps the best strategy when we are overwhelmed is to dive under the crashing tumult of the world in favor of the still, small and mighty mind that lives within each of us. Even a nap will do the trick.  

February 24   
Full Moon: 05 degrees Virgo: 07:30 AM EST
Venus square Jupiter    
What service do you offer your world? Whom do you serve? Why does it matter? And what obstructs your ability to know that it matters? What could it possibly mean for you to be a good enough human?

February 27
Mars square Jupiter
When the sky falls, when our ideals shatter or our ideas are not applicable to the lives we live, we are frustrated, even stunned. If “the master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house”, if “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” then the sky or what we think of as the sky which is to say nothing less than our assumptions about the way it is, will fall. Everything we think and believe and take for granted will hit a wall. We get the concept. More amazing would be to allow ourselves to live it. Some days there is no ground.

February 28
Mercury conjunct Sun and Saturn
Sun conjunct Saturn
A confluence of influences, where rivers meet the sea. Mercury and Saturn have arrived at the heart of the Sun. They have travelled far and are in need of rest and renewal. The wild storms of the world have exhausted them. They want new mandates, new instructions, and they need it to arise from connectedness and compassion. And you? Can you rest for a moment in your heart and let wisdom and strength born of compassion renew your purpose here in this one precious life you are living? Today we should all take a break when the Sun is at its zenith (noon). Consider the length of days, the cycles within cycles that create time. Receive instruction from the heart of the Great Mystery.

February 29
LEAP YEAR
Mercury sextile Jupiter
Leap year adds an extra day to the calendar and has nothing to do with astrology. It helps us to keep our calendar in line with the seasons and it is loaded with superstition. It teases the mind. A day to ask someone to dance, to put your clothes on inside out, to celebrate the incongruities of human perception, existence and will.

March 1
Sun sextile Jupiter
Venus sextile Chiron
If we are here to learn, who is the teacher? Sometimes it is you. Teachable moments are everywhere in the nursery school of life.

March 3
Venus square Uranus 
Whatever upsets the applecart, yours or the other guy’s, it’s best to work together to get those apples back where they belong. Second best is to salvage what you can and move on.

March 4 
Mercury sextile Uranus
Someone tries hard to understand why. Others sit in silence and wait for revelation. Still others sit but aren’t waiting. They are sitting and they simply want to know that they are.

March 8
Mercury conjunct Neptune
Whatever you’re awash in, whatever feels like too much probably is. Best option might be to sit with it. Dive under it. Feel it ripple out and fill the world. Just don’t try to make sense of it just now. The genius of the unconscious is at work. The best way to greet the fruits of this labor is with equanimity.

March 9
Mars square Uranus
Sun sextile Uranus
Mercury enters Aries
Heading toward a New Moon we take care to move slowly enough through the spinning world. We know that we feel the effects of violence and mismanagement wherever it occurs. If we feel the urge to DO SOMETHING. Today is well spent in preparation, even a bit of stealth as you approach an action. Denial doesn’t help. It’s hard to know how to fight against such enormous forces. Be aware of feeling. No matter what arises, wrap it in compassion. Right action will make itself known after tomorrow. If you are in a crisis of course, you must take action. From stillness.

March 10
New Moon: 20 degrees Pisces: 05:00 AM EDT
Mercury sextile Pluto
Daylight Savings Time begins
Let’s just agree that Daylight Savings Time is ANATHAMA to astrologers…
New Moons on the other hand are endless encouragement to start again; the promise inherent in cycles rather than lines of time. This one asks us to use our imagination, our creative intelligence to find ever new ways to handle our resources individually as well as collectively. Sharing requires taking as well as giving, being born as well as dying. The darkness around us may be deep but perhaps this sense of darkness is a warning not to ‘follow the wrong god home, not to miss our star.’ Poets know everything.  

March 11
Venus enters Pisces 
Venus is exalted in Pisces. Certainly some of that exaltation is because nothing makes patriarchy happier than putting women on pedestals and keeping them out of the game. But we’re onto that. Maybe the exultation of Venus is about the plain-as-day idea that beauty and truth are one in the same. Beauty is a necessity not a frill. The soul knows this even when the bottom line doesn’t.  

March 17
Sun conjunct Neptune
A perfect way to leave the sign of Pisces, with the Sun conjunct one of Pisces’ powerful rulers. If we allow that a conjunction with the Sun is a moment of renewal, in this case for Neptune, we might imagine a soul exhausted from a year’s journeying has come to drink from the sacred well and nourish both its sweet and salty nature. As the Moon waxes toward fullness we aren’t inclined to hide out or retreat from our tasks. Better to go about them with a willingness to infuse your life with the kind of feeling that nourishes the soul of the world. Com-passion means to feel with. Maybe it’s less about infusing than radiating. Might it be possible to allow compassion to flow however it needs? Within you and without you.

These insights, are meant as contemplations. Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects. Thank you for being here.