Mercury in Pisces / Juno Direct

Harbour City Ocean Terminal, Hong Kong

(photo credit: OTnig17, June 2009)

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With asteroid Lilith having just gone retrograde and the Sun still in Pisces, to have Mercury entering Pisces could seem a bit ... redundant. After all, Lilith refers to not wanting to know (or see, or hear, or ...) and Mercury in Pisces, while very sensitive and often representative of artistic (or just arty) instincts can also speak to lack of clarity driven by a softened mental underbelly.

Of course Mercury in Pisces can also be about understanding our own feelings and why we feel as we do about things. Pisces is a sign all about emotions, be they the thing which prompts us to feel and thus teaches us through what we learn about through ‘feeling it’ ... or that which prompts us to run away from something or someone - or even our feelings, despite the fact that we know the choice is to face those feelings or pay the price for not having done so.

People talk about the ‘deliciousness’ of emotional threats under Scorpio, Scorpio being a sign about interactive emotional tussles and struggles, be they in the bedroom, the boardroom, with the bank or on the battlefield. With Scorpio, that drive to get what you want from something or some situation spurs us on and gets us to tolerate risk ... sometimes to our own detriment, yes. But we tolerate it anyway.

But with Pisces, no one talks about any deliciousness, as Pisces (and 12th house matters in your personal chart) are where we have no one to look to but our Self - and in the emotional realm, that means being left to deal with our own emotions, which whether those emotions are elation or grief isn’t our favorite human way to live. It is educational and informative? Do we learn a lot about ourselves? Absolutely. But do we enjoy learning it?

That probably depends on how you feel about having been put in a position to learn those lessons - which is merely another way of saying the lesson itself is about feeling.

As a symbol, Mercury is about sorting, finding, assembling, organizing, deciding, interpreting, understanding, communicating the designing. We think of these ‘Mercury processes’ as defining, as clarifying, as all those things which assist us in the comprehending of life and the operating of our life in this daily lifestyle world. So to have this mercurial energy put into a Pisces realm means putting Mercury’s mental orientation (mental faculties being the means through which Mercury functions are initiated) into an emotional mode which isn’t as crispy clear as it would be if it wasn’t as emotional. Or which excels through the expressing of emotionality, whether in a conversation or in the forming of, or creating of something expressive of emotions and emotionality.

Mercury in Pisces can mean a focus on things which are emotional, which promote or provoke our feelings - or on the whole subject of emotions, plus and minus, as a whole. And because that emotionality (or the subject of emotions) tends to cause other things to stop until those emotions are either enjoyed, worked through or tended to, Mercury is said to be less ‘efficient’ in Pisces than at other times. It’s not that Mercury in Pisces can’t be artistic and wonderful - it’s just that those moments tend to sidetrack us from what we otherwise might want to be doing, which as a whole speaks to our tendency as human beings to prioritize accomplishment over feelings, and perhaps our human need to do just that, lest we not accomplish or take care of what needs to get done.

Part of Pisces’ formidable reputation in fact has to do with just this: the fact that we know ... how as humans we understand on some instinctual level that though we are, from birth to death, emotional beings under every circumstance.

Without those emotions (or properly functional emotions) life is nothing but the stuff of nightmares.

And yet, those feelings can so easily overwhelm us.

We know this is the nature of mortality, this helplessness which at moments leads us into and then leaves us at the mercy of our most unbridled nature. So we fall ‘helplessly’ into love and we spiral haplessly into despair.

And when that happens - when anything Piscean overwhelms us, we have to have faith that we’ll come through it all intact. We think our way through these times by having faith - which in essence is our mental Mercury model operating in an egoless modality.

Pisces demands a lack of ego. That which we tackle under Pisces benefits us only when we employ it in a manner which initially benefits many, or which is ‘in tune with’ accepted and established human experience. Any planet in Pisces (or your natal 12th house) is going to function this way and ‘pick up on’ this sort of notion - which means that whenever Mercury transits Pisces, the whole of our world shifts, or is made to shift (though things which arise at that time) into a mode where we either recognize the importance of broad-based, feeling thinking and proceed on that basis, or when we face situations which in ‘raising the stakes’ get us to stop thinking in such temporal and ego-driven (“how I prefer to think of it”) sorts of terms.

Mercury will enter Pisces on March 13th at 3:53 in the morning (UT/+0) - one day before Saturn, astrology’s symbol of time, responsibility, facts, achievement, commitment and consequences goes into retrograde at 4 Sagittarius. This being Mercury entering Pisces in metaphysical square to Saturn’s position, some sort of ‘conflict’ is being cited (in general, if not in specific) - which may turn out very productively ,as this is a combination known for ‘holding the line’ and discipline. With the Mercury side of this in feeling Pisces, there may be an ‘emotional penalty’ for something, making this a time which could be filled with regret, but which holds equal promise (providing there’s sufficient Saturn reality in the mix) and which may also become one where apologies get made as someone comes to realize something is wrong, missing - or maybe just not working out the way they thought it would.

With both of these emblems being in mutable signs (signs which learn as they go) this is a good time for discussions, especially discussions which are by their nature ‘touchy’ and which will benefit from a ‘laying out the facts’ providing there is no condemnation or finger-pointing as part of the process. High rhetoric and dramatic statements can be made providing they’re merely an expression of how we feel (or how we don’t like feeling) but accusations and ‘blame-laying’ should be avoided in any situation where we really want to make headway or accomplish anything, as poking (Pisces) feelings under this sort of influence will result in defensive stonewalling (some of it quite fierce) more often than we’d like it to - which would be a Mercury in Pisces tender-versus-tenderized ego issue, don’t you know...!

The height (or greatest intensity) of this Mercury-Saturn square happens as Mercury conjuncts Saturn on Sunday, March 15th. And as Mercury won’t be out of Saturn’s range (the five degree orb of aspect)  to Saturn until Thursday, March 19th, considering Saturn’s March 14th station (which formally extends through the 16th and for some will be felt beyond that) these middle weeks of March are likely to be ‘a moment’ to be sure - with many of us carrying ideas into or forward from this time as the means or motivation through which we will operate pretty much for the balance of the month.

(Or at least until Mercury moves on into Aries as of March 31st, that is.)

And it’s also probably worth noting - for the record, if nothing else - that as Mercury and Saturn come into full and exact square, that will mean Mercury is at 4 Pisces ... the position of fixed and royal star Fomalhaut.

Fixed star Fomalhaut amidst its cloud of interstellar dust

(photo credit: NASA-JPL)

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Astrology’s ‘fixed stars’ (named ‘fixed’ by ancients to differentiate them from the ‘wandering stars’ we now call planets) function greatly as ‘backdrops’ against which other things happen (or seem important or unimportant, depending) or are perceived in life. There is an obvious exception to this ‘rule,’ and that’s about the fixed stars which may be conjunct your natal planets - those tend to be, become or manifest as part-and-parcel of how that planetary symbol functions.

But in this instance? If Mercury just wandered into Pisces (which it does on a yearly basis) and conjuncted Fomalhaut, we would be talking about the ‘purity’ or integrity of our thinking, our ideas and whatever we’re telling others - and ourselves (don’t forget that part!). But here we have Mercury transiting Pisces on a “mundane” or global basis ... (and yes, whoever decided on ‘mundane’ as an astrological term pertaining to daily life was either seriously into understatement or not thinking about Pisces at the time). On the universal level, Mercury conjunct Fomalhaut is all about how our thoughts, our plans and our positions measure up with those of society, history, and general humanity. So wherever we’re out of sync with any of those ‘measures’ we will experience negatives or negativity - and wherever we’re in sync, we’ll feel hopeful and like we’re headed in the right direction.

Or at least a better direction.

And if we aren’t in sync, well ... we may not like having to change our mind or change how we’re acting or who we’re associating with or what our aims or attitudes are, but perhaps we see we should. That’s where Fomalhaut comes in. Fomalhaut is that hidden ‘quirk’ in our brain, in our soul, in our times which guarantees that which isn’t whole, that which is corrupted or corruptive, that which isn’t true or good ... Fomalhaut comes into our life as that which we do unconsciously, or in how we aren’t received by others or by our world which causes us to see or experience that downfall, that comeuppance, that failure or feeling of loss which is really about having not done the right thing, trading honest opportunity for some fantasy which wasn’t ever going to pan out, maybe not because it couldn’t be ... but in the end because despite all that we have done, even we knew that it wouldn’t be.

Or even perhaps shouldn’t be.

Then there’s a little plot-thickening additive guaranteed to make this all a little more interesting (and for some, considering Mercury’s position in Pisces, somewhat more dramatic) called Juno direct. And while this isn’t necessarily the guarantee that we’ll all be in for an astrological soap opera, that Juno is going direct at 3 Leo puts its station in trine to that of Saturn and inconjunct to Mercury does inject some inconvenience into the mix.

Some of that we will experience as that ‘touchiness’ mentioned above: Juno operates as a ‘managing’ force and once Mercury gets into early Pisces degrees just the shifting into ‘emotional mode’ is going to catch a few off us off-guard. Or for you something may happen which causes you to throw up your hands and say ‘why me?’ ... or ‘why now?’ ... or ‘could something just not go right today?’

(Yes, we all have those seriously annoying moments, days and times in life - and some of them are probably associated with Mercury/Saturn squares, since combinations of our great ideas with life’s realities doesn’t always end up in glee.)

To be more exact here, during the period when Mercury is between 1 and 5 Pisces it will be in an inconjunct to Juno, pointing to making things work and (of course, as part of that) encountering that which doesn’t work ... even that which because of what we say or do in the moment gets worse or better as we encounter the ‘adjusting’ energy of the inconjunct. That period of time begins late on March 13th and ends during the latter part of March 15th (in the UT/+0 zone), embracing the whole of the 14th when Saturn goes retrograde - another sign of ‘pulling in’ or ‘putting the brakes on’ something, whether that’s about truly pulling back or ending (i.e., stopping, limiting) your willingness or ability to not do something.

Despite that, this isn’t necessarily an end to anything. In going direct at 3 Leo Juno warns us not to go too far, but warns with equal ... maybe even greater fervor that it is our ability to connect to others and the being accepted by them for who we are and what we have to give and gift life - and our Self - with the ability to do which ultimately spells success ... that in our individual life, and that of the society or world around us. All sides of all conversations will be tested now - as much for their willingness to listen and hear as anything else. Saturn being in the equations of both objects which are “making their move” on this date speaks to the fact that nothing is ‘over and done’ unless we prevent it from evolving - in real time or in our minds as necessary. There will no doubt be some attempts to narrow discussions and block out anything “inconvenient” (read: emotionally inconvenient) during these weeks, and some such efforts may be successful - at least in the short run.

Yet where we find Saturn ... whenever we find Saturn in an astrological ‘equation’ we also know that growth is not in the moment, but over time - and how when we see Saturn as part something which does get narrowed beyond full usefulness there is some sort of (ego driven) fear which will ultimately be set aside or grown through.

It just takes time ... which with Mercury transiting Pisces may not be our favorite piece of news, but which we will like as not deal with and manage - if for no other reason than with a solar eclipse closing in and Juno’s turn to direct at 3 Leo we are closing in a better glimpse of a truer image of Self.

And that image is probably not entirely consistent with where we are in life right now ... which as Mercury moves through Pisces we will probably find worth thinking about because for whatever reason we find ourselves at a place where we know we will feel better simply for the doing so.
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