Cosmophilia: You Belong Here for Pisces

By Eric Francis

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Pisces Part One

Pisces Part Two

Download mp3 archive.

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Cosmophilia prologue

Cosmophilia houses

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Profound, compelling forces are at work in your life. I know this from your astrology, and you know it from experience. Cosmic symbols that appear in astrology charts are merely messengers and representatives for what is brewing in your psyche, or more appropriately, in the ocean of your soul.

Currently those messengers are speaking clearly about your rapidly developing abilities and your emergence as someone destined to make your mark on the world. That mark is destined to have the feeling of an improvement, practical rather than glamorous in nature. It is fair to say you’re coming into an unusual experience of self-presence, and that this is connected to the motivation to accomplish something solid, something unusual even, mostly in its usefulness. Yet this is not about outer accomplishment as much as it is you demonstrating your own strength and potential to yourself. Then that gets a result.

This has been developing for a while; one could say, your whole life. We can trace the mainline of this process back as far as 20 years ago, when you began to take up a mantle of determination, of responsibility and of the intentional use of your creative power. This journey has had many different phases, many ups and downs, and has come with both lessons and teachable moments. At this stage of your life, you are consolidating everything you’ve learned in the past and focusing it into something you may feel as tangible and solid for the first time.

You’ve had moments where you felt pieces or aspects of this potential, and even expressed them boldly. But now is the moment when you’re able to gather the best attributes of who you are and connect them with your most significant goals, the most significant of which is inner development. Let this be as conscious a process as you can muster. I suggest you not waste one day of this astrology, and that you set your patterns as early in the experience of certain new developments as possible.

If there is one transit I wish would last forever, it would be Chiron in Pisces. Chiron is to Pisces what the Beatles were to the 1960s. This nine-year transit is now half over. During this time, Neptune, the modern ruler of Pisces, will be in your sign. And for the next three years, Saturn will spend most of its time in Sagittarius, lending the quality of tangibility, pragmatism and self-mastery to what might otherwise be only inward in nature.

To this mix of influences, there is one ingredient you must bring, and which at the moment you have in abundance: full commitment. While this may (and surely does) wax and wane over time, and while the world can intervene on your plans here and there and a bit of everywhere, it’s necessary to set a bottom line. That includes knowing your priorities and making conscious use of prioritization as a tool. This is a special skill that some people are fortunate to have, others are fortunate to learn and others miss out on; I suggest you master it, for such would be taking full command of your resources. The most precious of these is time.

Prioritization means knowing and acting on what comes first. To do that, you have to decide what that thing that comes first is, and where it fits into the rest of your plans. Prioritization is something that happens from day to day and even from hour to hour. It’s necessary to see what is happening in the immediate moment in the context of your much longer-term desires and intentions. Really, prioritization means having a basis for deciding what matters at any given time, and what does not. This calls for having a larger template and also a sense of what counts for the most, right now.

Mars in Pisces: The Message of This Moment

I have plenty to say about your long-range transits, though while we’re talking about immediacy, a reading of the current sky is in order, because it has such a strong message for Pisces. What is interesting is how your current, faster-moving transits highlight your longer-term ones.

As you may know, your sign is hosting a collection of slow-moving outer planets. Currently they include Neptune, the modern ruling planet of Pisces; as well as Chiron, a planet in the centaur class named for the mentor and master healer of Greek mythology. Chiron is not just a healer; he was the person who taught the art of medicine to Asclepius, the god of medicine. Having planets in your sign or in your ascendant means you are embodying them in a direct way, or at least that you have the option to.

Neptune is the energy of “more Pisces than Pisces,” plunged right into your personal ocean. Chiron offers the quality of ultra focus, purpose, meaning, commitment and awareness. In a sense it’s the opposite energy of that wide, deep inspiration of Pisces, considered by some a representative of Virgo. Yet Chiron does very well in Pisces, giving it just what it needs.

So in a sense you’re embodying your affirmative self (Neptune) and your opposite self (Chiron) in a perfect balance. That is to say, you have access to the full polarity of the Virgo-Pisces axis. This is another way of saying you are in an especially strong position, since you can see multiple viewpoints and have direct access to energy that might usually seem outside yourself.

Now, today as I write, Mars is in Pisces. This is adding the one quality your otherwise full-spectrum sign might be lacking — drive. Pisces has a receptive quality, the ability to absorb and consider and to serve as a kind of brewing pond. Mars turns that inside out and gives you the ability to express yourself, to assert yourself and to BE yourself in a bold and direct way.

Mars is in a conjunction to Neptune, which will be exact Monday, Jan. 19. Then it’s approaching a conjunction to Chiron, which will be exact Saturday, Jan. 31.

These transits set the tone for this era of your life, and are showing you what is possible when you focus your drive and determination. They are an opportunity to experience the feeling of confidence and boundless creative energy that may usually seem to reside only in potential.

Mars in Pisces is not about the rapid developments usually associated with this planet. It’s about persistent, dedicated, creative movement, most powerful in its willingness to make some progress every day — and for its honoring of an applied idea over labor as a force for change.

Mars adds one of the ingredients that Pisces needs the most. I am sure you have noticed the frustration of holding back when you really want to push forward. I am sure you’ve had those moments of regret when you did not say something when it mattered, but could have; moments when you did not walk up to someone and introduce yourself. Let Mars infuse into your emotional body the confidence to assert yourself whenever you need to. Allow Mars to bless you with the right to exist, which means the right to take up space, and to speak when you have something to say. Most of all, absorb that Martian energy with the full receptivity of Pisces and let it fill you up, and inspire you to express yourself in all your creative vision.

This Mars transit will be relatively quick, but it highlights much longer-term transits, making you aware of them. Mars will still be in your sign on the day of the Pisces New Moon for when your reading is set. And it will be in one of my favorite degrees of the zodiac — the very last one, 30 Pisces. This degree is outstanding for being the end of the 360-degree story of the zodiac, and also for the message it bears, which is about the ability to envision your future self.

The message of Mars is to do this boldly. Do not hold back your visioning, especially of yourself. Pour it on. Turn it up. When in doubt, turn it up some more. You want to err on the side of expressing yourself rather than your usual tendency, which is toward understatement or subtlety. There are many reasons for this, including exercising your capacity to allow yourself out of your container. But you also need to conduct active tests of your environment to see what actually happens when you crank up the energy.

A lot of the hesitation people feel about doing the bold, creative expressive thing is based on the theoretical fear of what might happen when they do. What will people think? How will they respond? Will I offend anyone? I am suggesting you experiment boldly enough to find out what actually happens when you pour on your creative energy. This more than anything will displace your largely hypothetical concerns and provide you with direct experience and feedback from your environment. I’m not saying everything will be a breeze — there are always practical challenges in any project. It’s just that meeting real challenges is productive, whereas worrying about what you might encounter is not.

The message of Mars is to actively, assertively visualize and describe to yourself what you want to become. What do you see yourself being (which includes doing, but mostly I mean being) in five, 10, 20 years? Adjust that picture until you like it — and then keep it in mind, revising it as necessary.

Chiron in Pisces: The Quest for Conscious Existence

Chiron, when prominently placed in one’s chart, can focus a quest for existence — or a struggle with existence. Being in your sign or ascendant qualifies as ‘prominent’. Chiron’s action can range from quest to crisis. Usually it’s some morph of the two, with the feeling of passing through a series of initiations. As you meet the necessities of these initiations, and learn what you know you’re being offered to learn, you will gradually focus your strength.

When Chiron is in Pisces, this quest can reach the level of answering a Divine calling. There is the sensation of making contact with the cosmos when Chiron is in Pisces, or the deep desire to do so. The cosmos or universal intelligence or God can take many forms. For you it’s most likely to take the form of active creative expression. You might say that is the practical aspect of Divinity — to be like the Creator and to create.

The question, “Who am I?” in relation to this journey is self-creative. It’s as if you answer the question as you have the experiences of situations that make you conscious of the question in the first place.

Though Chiron has been in Pisces for about four years, there are several reasons this is a peak year for this transit. First, Chiron is about to reach the midpoint of its journey across Pisces. That is a crest of energy and a reminder that this once-or-twice-in-a-lifetime transit is half over. Chiron is also in a close aspect to the Uranus-Pluto square.

Second, Chiron will be making a conjunction to a newer point called Borasisi. This point has not been mapped out extensively, though to the extent that it has I have done much of the research. What we get is a slow-moving outer planet that emphasizes the power of belief as a distinct factor. Borasisi raises questions on topics such as, what happens if you really, really believe something that is not true? That makes it true for you, though what is the effect? What if you refuse to believe something that is objectively true?

There is another dimension of Borasisi that is related to the issue of planetary wellbeing and species survival. Readers of Kurt Vonnegut can apply the basic themes of his book Cat’s Cradle to this small, meaningful planet — that is where the name Borasisi comes from; it is the fictional Sun god in the novel. This may seem like a ridiculously literal application of a name to the meaning of a planet, but if you’re curious how literal it can be, note that I wrote this article just one week before the Fukushima disaster — summarizing Vonnegut’s concerns about the nuclear issue, based on a New Moon conjunct Borasisi in Pisces. The nuclear theme comes up, in all its twisted morality. So too does the “true believer” theme, perhaps the most important shadow side of Borasisi to watch carefully.

With Chiron conjunct Borasisi in your sign, you may start to take these matters of global survival, and the turning point that our planet is at, much more seriously than you have in the past. You may feel the environmental crisis and its associated moral dilemmas more poignantly than ever. That is the effect of Chiron doing what it does — raise things to full awareness — on Borasisi, which has been doing its best to get our attention for a long time.

How do you respond to this? In your own way, of course. You can ask yourself whether any response is necessary, whether it should be a strictly personal response or whether it should be some form of joining forces with a larger collective.

Remember that you can trust your intuition on this. You can trust your inner guidance. A conjunction this rare in your birth sign, which by the way will last for about two more years (but has its real peak in 2015 — the first two of three exact conjunctions, with the third in 2016) — is a blessing, if only because it will not happen again in your lifetime. It describes the one-of-a-kind quality of this moment.

Nessus in Pisces: The Gift of Integrity

While I am on the subject of centaurs, a second one arrives in your sign this year — Nessus. The third-discovered centaur made a brief appearance in Pisces last year, and returns to your sign to stay for nearly 20 years in late February. Long after Chiron, Neptune and Borasisi have made their way into Aries and beyond, Nessus will remain in Pisces. I suggest you do something bold and adopt Nessus as a mentor early in this process. While his myth is rife with dark emotion and betrayal, Nessus as we experience him in astrology is an ascended master, and like fellow centaur Chiron, transcends his myth.

The first thing to keep in mind about Nessus is that it’s a centaur — a type of object whose orbit covers the space between Saturn and Neptune, which is a very wide distance. Centaurs of whatever species intensify experience. They are potent calls for healing unresolved issues and for bringing hidden aspects of your psyche to the light.

Nessus seems to focus the theme of the results of one’s karma. Then it insists on taking action. This often manifests as the opportunity to heal what was done to you in the past. For that to happen, you have to be honest about discovering and admitting what was done to you. Nessus will help. Information, memories and the ability to connect the dots will likely make themselves available. It’s up to you to use that information when it comes to you. Thanks to Chiron’s presence in your sign, you have all the healing resources you need.

From about 15 years of observing Nessus, I have noticed it has the theme of accountability more than any other planet. Accountability is about being the one who takes responsibility; that means the one who takes up the ability to respond. You have accountability to yourself, and to others, and they have accountability to you. With Nessus it’s critical to keep all three of these in mind and be the keeper of this dimension in your own life. Even if you delegate some aspects of accountability (say, to a professional) you must hold them accountable to you and not give away your power.

The second thing to keep in mind is to be conscious of what karma you create. This involves being as responsible as humanly possible in your relationships, particularly where sex is concerned. You may feel like you’re walking a razor’s edge here, especially compared to the reckless way that so many people live.

You cannot afford to fall for their reckless ways, nor can you afford to lead them into being less responsible than they might. I am aware of the little problem of “the more integrity you have, the less sex is available.” Look at the proliferation of people who cheat on their partners as a way of life. Yet is it really possible to cheat on a partner? Really, the first and most significant person people cheat on is themselves.

In order to have integrity around sex, you will need to make peace with your sexual nature. You can only be responsible if you are real with yourself. You can only be real with someone else if you are real with yourself. There are great advantages to doing so, including the gift of integrity. Nessus may keep you alert to your own transgressions and to aspects of yourself that you need to heal.

If there is a shadow side to integrity, it is the guilty conscience. I suspect Nessus may be involved in the sensation of having done something wrong even when you have not. No doubt this is a relic of childhood oppression, of the concept of ‘fault and blame’ applied to you. Guilt is resentment turned on itself. If you are having the experience of a guilty conscience, go deeper and look for who or what you might be resenting.

Neptune Concentrates the Influence of Pisces

The next slow-mover in your sign is the modern ruler of Pisces, Neptune. Jupiter is still the classical ruling planet of Pisces, though Neptune represents the concentrated expression of Pisces in some of its most interesting ways. Usually, astrologers assign descriptive terms like “foggy” or “diffuse” to Neptune. In Pisces, the effect is opposite — Neptune concentrates the influence of Pisces.

For many years, Neptune worked its way through your 12th house, Aquarius. This really felt like the journey without end — though you finally did arrive. Do you remember the feeling of those years, between 1999 and 2012? Do you remember that sensation of struggling to focus your presence? Everyone experienced this differently, though it’s fair to say Neptune in Aquarius had some feeling of having gone missing, and Neptune arriving in your sign had the feeling of finding yourself — even if you hadn’t noticed you had lost yourself.

The way to tune into this is to get a sense of how much you have. You can pump your creative well a lot longer than you could in the past. You can bring yourself into a situation more fully than you could previously. Your invisible influence on your environment is stronger than it was. These developments may be subtle — you have to try them on, and also remember how you felt in prior years when you attempted similar things.

Now would be the time to go the full distance on your creative plans. You may have to refine and develop your talent, but you have all the basic material that you need. And you have it in some incredible abundance. But you won’t know that unless you give yourself a push — which is likely due to the presence of Saturn crossing your 10th house.

There is an aspect coming that many people will speak about with a great deal more concern than I have. True this aspect, like any other, has its seemingly easy side and its challenging side. However, it’s positioned in a way that seems custom-designed to help you focus how you live out your vocation.

I say vocation and not career because you tend to follow actual callings more than most people, who tend to follow ambitions. You could use being more ambitious, which you can trust because you know with some certainty that you don’t do anything that does not come from an actual calling. That’s the whole Pisces thing about wanting to do what you want to do whether or not it brings in money.

However, a variety of factors are suggesting you can leave that behind. Pisces is one of the most well-suited signs to take initiative and turn creativity into the money you need to support yourself, but you must learn and master those skills. There is a weird rumor about some people being good with money and some not being good with money. I think this is more about values than anything else.

Your chart strongly suggests that developing your ability to support yourself financially would be excellent for both your self-esteem and your sense of identity; that is, the feeling of discovering who you are, and building your confidence.

A Brief Comment on Uranus Square Pluto

As you may be aware, Uranus and Pluto, two mighty slow-moving planets, are in a long 90-degree pattern. The heart of this pattern is 2012-2015, though its influence really spans from about 2008-2020. We are now in the peak of its influence.

This aspect intersects with your chart in two places, both of which involve resources and money. The first is Uranus in Aries, with Aries being your house of personal resources. Uranus is the revolutionary and the inventor. The implication is that your most potent personal resource is your ability to reinvent yourself, and to come up with ideas, seemingly out of thin air.

With this transit, you must be cautious of sudden rises and falls of fortune. Leave yourself a cushion. Be clear that maintaining consistency with money is a critical part of your journey right now. Included in your financial plans need to be some risks, and some experimentation with ideas. This is a skill in itself. The most significant part of that skill is knowing some limits, and also trusting that you have the ability to create income and other resources, and the ability to solve problems.

Then there is Pluto, which is working in concert with Uranus. Pluto is clearing space in the segment of your chart where you offer your gifts to the community, and where you take advantage of the financial rewards of the work you do. Pluto is a mighty force here, and among its messages is one about taking advantage of change as a means of supporting yourself. Tune into the ways in which society is changing, and keep an eye out for how you might use them to your advantage.

Both Uranus and Pluto, along with other transits, are encouraging you to be bold about what you do and how you offer it. The first way to have impact is not to be afraid to have impact. Use your perception, apply what you know, and you will come up with a synthesis for how to both design and present what you have to offer the world, in a way that works for everyone.

Saturn in Sagittarius: Manifesting Your Potential

All of this leads to the standout transit of the year: Saturn through Sagittarius, your 10th house. Saturn joins many other planets in the fire signs — Uranus and Eris in Aries, Jupiter (your traditional ruling planet) in Leo, and Pholus and many other points in Sagittarius. Without elaborating too much on those, let’s just say they give you momentum. Fire offers water one of the things it needs the most, which is outwardly expressed passion. Every last fire sign placement is supporting you, particularly now that Saturn is in the picture.

Before I describe Saturn in Sagittarius, let’s briefly consider what it says about Pisces to have Sagittarius in the 10th house. The 10th house is the one of achievement, reputation and authority. Some would say it’s about ‘career’; I would say it’s about devotion to your dharma. Sagittarius is driven by a cosmic quality, by something that transcends this world. In its direction is the Galactic Core, the center of our galaxy. This indicates a calling to have a wide influence, yet one that is driven by what I can only describe as a spiritual homing signal. This is an unusual combination of factors, and the numinous yet bold quality of Sagittarius in many ways trumps the usual ambition associated with the 10th. Yet you have them working together. If there is a ‘career’ message that says ‘follow your calling’, this is it.

Now add Saturn to the picture. Saturn loves the 10th house, because Saturn loves to get things done. In this transit, Saturn is giving form to what might otherwise lack substance. It’s instructing you in how to give structure and tangibility to your ideas and your ideals.

In all ways, Saturn’s message is to internalize authority. Take over that whole aspect of life where others, be they people or organizations, have authority over you, and take that influence on board for yourself.

Saturn is also granting the practical side to your experience. Plan your growth decisions in terms of necessity, usefulness, establishing dependable services, and the actual delivery of knowledge. As I suggested earlier, learn to use time as your ally, much of which happens through a process of conscious prioritization.

If you practice respect, self-respect and a modicum of humility, you will find these few years of Saturn in Sagittarius to be productive beyond what you believed possible. Yet what is more significant is that you seem destined to discover not just that you are productive, but also that your work has meaning in a world hungry for that above all else. Meaning is the one factor you don’t need to add. Your being vibrates with it. Maintain your vision and focus on the bolts and beams, and you will establish yourself as a master builder.

Signing off from Cosmophilia written readings — 3:06 pm on Jan. 17, 2015, Kingston, NY — Cancer 06:34 rising

Charts

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