Pisces Forecasts
August 27, 2004
http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/aug27.html
Hi Eric!
For many months, Pisces forecasts
have been largely positive. But my life has not reflected that at all. My mom
died in November, my grandmother died in December, my mom’s sister died
in February, and last week my dad had a heart attack (he is recovering). All
the while, my brother has been not-so-successfully struggling with addiction,
and my husband has made it clear he'd rather be with anyone than me. There have
been two strange and unexpected sparks of electricity with other men - once in
February and once in May. Nothing has come of them (I am married, after all),
but it reminds me that I do have some compelling qualities and the capacity for
passion. This is my question: why is my life not following the Pisces path? Am
I that unusual? I know I have Scorpio rising, and sometimes I read both scopes
and try to blend the two to figure out my path. What do you think? I was born
on March 15th, 1970 at 9:20 pm in
Kate
Dear Kate,
I am sorry to hear of your struggles, and those of the people around you. This
is obviously a time of big change in your life.
There are many questions I receive where the most
appropriate way to handle them is in a series of astrological sessions, with
the full compliment of charts and much time to listen to what the clients has
to say. It is not merely the astrological factors that must be considered -
that is usually the easiest part of the work; there are the inner challenges
you face, the issues, the quest for growth and dealing with the necessity of
change. In astrology there must be a human factor; we are not mechanical
objects, and while the planets can be reduced down to calculated movements, the
information must be processed mentally and emotionally.
Sun sign horoscopes are intuitive, and sometimes they can
work very well to provide insight. But they do not respond to the specific
circumstances of an individual's life. Despite having devoted much of my
writing career to writing horoscopes, I have to acknowledge their limits. What
they have is the gift of that moment of contact when we need it, and hopefully
enticing us to go deeper into some form of self-development, be it astrology or
another. But as you are describing, they can miss the point where certain major
factors are involved.
Now, prepared chart reports such as Jonathan offers can add
many layers of depth, and they are a relatively small investment. Jonathan's
and those of a few other writers are worth that investment. Yet I consider
these a viewpoint to consider, and a tool to help you explore. Where astrology
is concerned, they are the beginning, not the end! You are not actually in
process with an astrologer or a therapist who takes the journey with you.
Given the depth of changes you have experienced, I highly
suggest working with a therapist who can assist you in the process of going
through so much at once. Whether we have help or not, when these changes come,
we will be attempting to process them, and grow and adapt. There are people in
the world who have devoted their lives to assisting others in just this kind of
process. Their entire energy field is tuned to the work.
Finding a good therapist can be challenging, but sometimes
we get lucky.
The challenge is finding a person who is actually healthy or
well on the road to being so. You need someone who will encourage you to live
your life your way. A therapist must be honest; he or she must have a diverse
background and exposure to the world outside his or her own culture; he or she
must be truly self-educated, as well as trained. Most of all they must be
compassionate with good boundaries. This is a tall order. Therapy is only as
good as the therapist; the same holds for astrology. But I encourage you and
others in times of deep upheaval or change to have a person in your life who is
devoted to helping you to ground out, balance out, and face the changes you are
going through honestly. This person must have no personal interest in you
except your weekly fee.
Yet there is a pitfall in seeking any form of help in a time
of deep vulnerability, which is that we are showing up vulnerable! We come to
the work in a compromised position, and this gives anyone, therapist,
astrologer, even concerned friend, a lot of power. So you need someone who is
able to hold onto your power in a clear, gentle way and have it for you when
you're ready to claim it back.
Without even looking at your chart, it sounds like you are
experiencing Pluto transits. And it sounds like you are in the aftershocks of
your Saturn Return from 2000, a subject which will be developed in this column
over the next few weeks, and about which I've posted additional material above.
So now as for your chart. Pluto transits indeed. You have
the Sun and four other important points in Pisces; Pluto has been making a long
square to these points since around 1997. But why the big changes now? I would
propose that you've been getting messages for a while. But also, Pluto is
approaching a square to your natal Sun, the core of your being. Squares,
particularly to the Sun, are about real changes; they often emerge as events
such as you are experiencing. But as we go through them, we grow, we change, we
evolve. We become the person we really are.
Pluto is an influence in astrology that represents the
bottom line. Pluto is the clean sweep, and the force to which we are ultimately
compelled to respond, no matter what. Clients often ask me, "When will
this Pluto transit end?" The answer is that they do not end; when they
work, they work as thresholds. We begin the transit as one person, and come out
on the other end as a different person, somehow more truly ourselves. That is
not an ending, it is a beginning. And you are in the very midst of this change
right now - though you are becoming accustomed to the energy of this compelling
force, and you are getting the message.
A little bit of history is worth recounting, and I go into
it more deeply in my article on the history of Pluto.
Pluto was discovered in 1930 and was not accepted by mainstream astrology until
some 40 years later, when Isabel Hickey published a little pamphlet that is now
included in Astrology: A Cosmic Science.
Pluto is a new influence in astrology, and one that is
reluctantly embraced and poorly understood by much of the community. Many
astrologers are still scared of Pluto, and many therapists will not go there
(that is, into the territory Pluto points to). Pluto could be seen as the
depths of our soul reaching up to the surface of our life and saying: this is
who you are; these are the ways your outer life and your inner life are not in
alignment; you must go through these changes in order to be a whole, clear
person.
There are other forces that have been at work; you have a
Cancer Moon, and Saturn has recently made a long conjunction. This is a
reminder of the emotional level of what you are going through; there is
something here about a deep maturing process, and that process can be painful,
and it can involve other people in your life.
But you are strong. You are creative. You are daring. And
you came into this life with some very specific intentions - consider what they
are, and make your best moves. For now, you're on your own, but that's not such
a bad place to be.
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