Sun in Pisces

As previously noted, the Sun is moving into Pisces on the same day that Saturn goes retrograde. The date in question is February 18th and the Sun enters Pisces at 12:03 in the afternoon (UT/+0), scant hours before Saturn goes retrograde at 5:04 p.m.

Any time we see this sort of confluence, we know this is not just a moment in time, but a ‘moment in time.’ In other words, we shouldn’t expect this to be just another set of days which goes by with this and that happening which we take note of but don’t think much about.

On the other hand, Piscean effects can be mysterious. Even difficult to understand – or if you prefer scientific parlance, diagnose. Pisces is all that which causes us to feel to a degree that just how we feel and why we feel and how we react to having those feelings…all that comes to the fore.

In this particular case, we have the Sun at 0 Pisces and Saturn at 11 Scorpio. Right away we know we have a (Sun) life (Saturn) lesson in progress.

But that lesson has two different versions. Or perhaps we will be tempted to take one of two paths, or to try and avoid something. What do I mean?

From Pisces TO Scorpio is nine signs. By the implied ‘9th harmonic’ (which sounds very grand but is pretty simple), the Sun’s metaphysical ‘connection’ to Saturn is one about furthering our education.

On the other side, from Saturn in Scorpio TO the Sun in Pisces is five signs – a 5th harmonic, if you please.

In astrology, nine is not a sign of ‘culmination’ as those of you who know numerology might think of it. That’s probably because astrology doesn’t work in base ten, as our everyday system of counting does. No, at it’s most simplistic, astrology works in base twelve – twelve signs. And yes, it also works in base thirty (thirty degrees to every sign) and base three-hundred-sixty (degrees in a circle).

And if you want to get really fancy about it, there’s also that ‘sixty seconds in a degree’ thing – which sounds really fussy but which is where our concept of time (sixty seconds to the minute and sixty minutes to the house) and astrology intersect.

And that concept – working in base sixty – comes from Babylon, the place all western astrology originally comes from. The ancient Babylonians worked in base sixty…which is good cause to wonder what they used after their fingers and toes.

In any case, nine – in modern astrology – is the ‘astro-vibe’ of learning. So daily life (the Sun) is going to be all about learning what this month?

Answer: Saturn in Scorpio stuff.

Meanwhile, five (and the 5th harmonic) is about ‘creativity and development.’ Many like to think of the 5th harmonic as being ‘the child’ as in ‘having children.’ But if you think about it, children are – in human terms – a primary ‘human creation’: we create more humans.

But then you have to raise them. You know…as a parent your job is to creatively develop a child’s sense of being a human being in this world?

Yet the 5th harmonic isn’t about children. It’s about the creating something from what we have. So whether that’s your physicality or that’s your talents, abilities or resources, the effort which goes into creating and developing those abilities are the 5th harmonic concept.

In fact, one of the reasons why parenting is such a tough job is because as a parent you’re not only in charge of creating and developing the life of the child, your primary job is to develop your Self so that you ARE a good parent who shows that child how to make (develop) something of your life, your abilities, your humanity, your talents – all that stuff.

And the reason all that is so important now is because what is ‘creatively developed’ through the 5th sign vibe is the Taurean or 2nd house sense of self worth, personal resources and self respect (or self worth), all of which is tested through…

Through what sign? SCORPIO.

A stained glass image of Scorpio as depicted in the

Cathedral of Lausanne in Switzerland

 
And that’s where Saturn – the symbol of reality, limits, loss, testing and slow, substantial growth through effort – is.

So this 9th house (trine) harmonic from the Sun TO Saturn is all about learning where and how our values work, and where and how our values, our self development, our efforts just aren’t up to par. Maybe with ourselves…maybe with others.

This is to be a testing month and a month of testing. And when it comes to the astro-crux of how tests work and taking them to heart, hardly anything gets to us like the combination of Pisces and Scorpio. Where Scorpio tests our values and ability or willingness to risk (or how smart or dumb we are to take on a given risk), Pisces is that boundless sense of emotionality which is not just feelings, but feeling our feelings, and feeling how we feel about our feelings.

This is pure water sign theory. As the first water sign in the zodiac, Cancer’s metaphysical image is the surf zone. Scorpio’s image is the swamp or the ice floe. But Pisces is the wide, open ocean, replete with ‘unfathomable’ oceanic depths.

On balance, we are going to see a lot of people trying to ‘control’ (Saturn in Scorpio) what happens now so that it comes out to their (5th sign harmonic liking). And that’s okay, particularly if you are learning something in the process or are achieving what you’re achieving through applying something you have learned.

However! This combination can also be one where people will try and avoid reality at all costs. This is a combination which is a fear-monger’s dream. (With two water signs involved, maybe their wet dream!) So we are going to see people fall into two very different camps – the ‘this can’t be done’ group and ‘this could work’ tribe.

Is there any sense to knowing which is which and which represents prudence and which represents a valid road forward? Probably yes, though not in the absolute. The big indicators to the ‘turn of (Saturn) events’ now are Deucalion on the Scorpio side and Kalypso, Fomalhaut and Neptune on the Sun side of things.

The pairing of Deucalion-Saturn, though it may take many forms, is fairly direct: is XYZ being done in a moral and ethical manner?

Or maybe this, as an alternate…is everyone involved in any given situation, dynamic or question being given equal personal, ethical and moral consideration?

Sun-Kalypso-Fomalhaut-Neptune is a bit more squishy. But then, any time we see Neptune, things are a bit more nebulous – that’s the point! Fortunately, we do have two pretty obvious indicators in this quartet: Fomalhaut says ‘success depends on a lack of corrosion’ which means that we only succeed where our aims are not corrupt or corruptive.

Variations on the Fomalhaut theme: coercion, corruption, deception, obfuscation, lying.

We also have Kalypso in this mix, and Kalypso is about as Piscean a symbol as there is. (And hence, probably exalted in Pisces, though nobody that I know of is very big into signs of asteroid rulership as yet.) Kalypso is one of those beauteous babes Ulysses (aka Odysseus) encounters on his way back from the collective events known as Homer’s Iliad. His ship gets stranded on this foreign shore and the lovely Kalypso shows up to help the hero and (oh yes) his crew, too.

Predictably (this being Greek myth and all) Kalypso falls in love with Ulysses. But the thing is, he’s a married man. He’s got a wife and kidlets back home and he’s pining to get back to them.

Does Kalypso help him? Yes, she does. Why? Because she realizes that loving someone (in this case Ulysses) is about caring for them and caring about their happiness, however THEY define that.

It’s a romantic notion, yes. But it’s also a very Piscean base-line emotional truth. What we want from others is our fantasy. Our longing. Our version of hopes, dreams and fondest yearnings. But if we love them, then we want them to have a life which will make them happy – which may mean they walk away from us and we never see them again.

Ouch? Yes. But very Piscean in the sense that all the yearnings and the despair of Pisces, all the idyllic dreams and believing and spirituality…that’s all fine and good as our emotional dream…but that’s not necessarily reality.

Some of us even get to have or achieve our dreams and then we find out the reality of them really sucks! And that’s another form of Pisces – the reality of understanding that some things are better left as fantasies.

Pisces…the two fish which swim in two different directions…is about the reality of life. That life is about the dream and yet also about the reality. Accepting how different they are and how they sometimes do and often don’t mix, that is our Pisces life challenge.

 Pisces...the two fish going in different

directions connected by a golden cord.

Pisces is also a sign which has two rulers. We’ve talked about the ‘outcome’ ruler – Neptune – in its confluence with the Sun. But the ‘in door’ with Pisces, that’s Jupiter. And as the Sun reaches Pisces, Jupiter is still sitting at 6 Gemini, the degree it went direct at back on January 30th.

It seems worth mentioning that 6 Gemini was also the degree Jupiter was in when the Lance Armstrong bubble burst on Oprah Winfrey’s very public television stage…and after that, throughout the media world. The disillusionment, the fact that people were so unhappy with Lance’s having deceived them (never mind himself) that people have sued Lance Armstrong for simply not being the shining hero they wanted to think of him as? That’s so very Piscean!

What, we want life to come with a guarantee that we’ll never get lied to? Life doesn’t come with any permission slips which say ‘you get to be eternally naïve’ And that’s what Pisces is about as a sign…teaching us how to love innocence, but be careful of our naiveté. Naiveté as the ‘blank slate’ which empowers us to learn is a powerful thing. But naiveté which has us wanting to be blind is destructive.

That combination, that coming to grips with what life is and isn’t is the essence of the moment. Your experience of it may be large or small. It may be costly or merely inconvenient. It may be disappointing. Then again, you may feel empowered to know you are as good as the next guy and better than many.

Given the 9-5 harmonic swing (by sign) from Saturn’s station to the Sun, this could be the moment when you take a next step in the effort to build or develop your life. It may be when you stop feeling your own very human weaknesses in favor of valuing your vulnerabilities as the very sort of human strength which allows caring and compassion to exist.

They say only the very strong can afford to be vulnerable.

That may be why some consider Pisces not the strongest sign in the zodiac, but the most enduring, eternal and powerful in its potential.

And every chart includes Pisces.

It’s to think about.
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