Look Where You Want to Be

Light Bridge for Pisces and Pisces Rising

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There are two ways to travel: one where you know where you’re going (or you think you do); and the other where you set out on a journey and discover where you go as you get there.

If you plan a trip carefully and nothing unexpected happens, things are likely to go smoother, but there’s less in the way of adventure. With the second method, every day is a discovery; each is noticeably different. You’re likely to face challenges you won’t run into on the monorail passing through Epcot Center. You might learn something and change your plans on an hour’s notice. If you do, you’ll experience unusual adventures, the rewards of exploring the unknown, and the potential for authentic growth. It may in fact take you some time to discover that you’re even on a journey, and the question of a destination — so vital to travel agents — remains a mystery or an abstraction.

It turns out that this second method of travel is one you’ve been involved with for quite some time. It’s about being where you are, noticing who is around you and encountering the world as it is now. Looking back, it turns out that you’ve crossed some vast distances through unusual places and times.

At this juncture — early 2011 — you are ending one such journey and beginning another. The demarcation point involves astrology that is active and developing right now, which is a visionary moment for you. I know that I speak to a weary world when I say those words, and I would encourage you to perk up and take notice, no matter what your circumstances, no matter what your desires. The fields of potential are unfolding for you one after the next. All you need is to bring a little willingness, healthy curiosity and most of all, a vision.

Visions can take many forms. They can come from inside; they can be something we look toward in the distance. You may not be able to plot your way toward that vision, but there is another way to get there. Two summers ago I was visiting the Maine coast and a guy on the beach was wearing a tee shirt that said, Look where you want to be. I asked him about it and he said that it was something his surfing instructor told him. Don’t aim the surfboard when you’re riding the waves; rather, aim your intention with your vision.

Literally look in the direction or toward the place you want to go to. Because astrology involves the inner as well as the outer worlds, that direction or place can also be an idea for what you want to do, or who you want to become. Hold your vision for yourself in your mind and you are very likely to become what you’re envisioning.

The many shifts in your astrology at the current moment emphasize this visioning process, and suggest that it will proceed more rapidly than you think possible. There has been so much high-intensity astrology influencing your sign the past several years that what you are working on now are refinements on processes that are well underway, though this particular moment — the late winter and spring of 2011 — brings palpable shifts of both subject and background.

I will give an example that is illustrated several times in more detail in the rest of this essay, just so you have the concept to work with. For the past seven years, an outer planet has dominated your experience of existence — Uranus in Pisces. This transit has run all of reality through one dominant filter with a particular set of feeling tones. All at once that energy is going to shift, and be replaced by Chiron in Pisces, which has another set of feeling tones and calls for adoption of entirely new methods of processing experience. This is one of those experiences that you might not have had words for, but once you know what’s happening it will be impossible to miss.

Two Conjunctions Involving Pisces

The calendar year 2011 began with a conjunction in your birth sign — the meeting of Jupiter (the traditional ruler of Pisces) and Uranus. This is actually the third conjunction in a series of three that began in 2010, but it has a special distinction in that it’s the only one of the three meetings in Pisces, in direct motion. To emphasize the point, it happened within hours of a solar eclipse — giving the aspect deep roots in space, time and experience.

For the past year there has been another conjunction — Chiron and Neptune (the modern planet associated with Pisces). It’s incredible that these two conjunctions happened simultaneously, in a process that spanned many months. This fact implies that the changes that have come into your life come with deep grounding, full awareness and authentic intentions with which you are very likely to follow through.

Uranus is the planet of revolution, invention, science and foresight. It’s been in your sign for seven years, which has been the source, in one dimension, of all the movement in your life during that time. It’s also about to change signs to Aries, marking the end of a particular background energy that you’ve lived with so long it seemed like it would never be different. Jupiter, the bright golden star of the night sky, has been in your sign on and off for the past year — that is what you might think of as a homecoming. Together, the combination is visionary. It’s the most magnificent astrological ace that anyone could hand you.

There’s freedom in this aspect, as in liberation, and this is not merely freedom from. It is freedom to. Jupiter conjunct Uranus, which happens once every 14 years and rarely ever in Pisces, describes the full activation of your potential. It is about auspicious meetings, the creation of new ideas, and the movement of your plans. If any aspect says breakthrough, this is the one. But it’s not a random thing; this is a culmination point, many years in preparation.

You will be drawing on this combination of events for years. I recognize you’re reading this a few weeks or longer after these events happened; that does not matter. Their gifts are available to you now, though you bring the most significant ingredient — your own vision for what you want; your own concept of your life. Trust that you’re working with an amplifier, a source of supporting energy, a dissolver of obstacles and the authentic promise of fulfillment. Remember that you are the composer, the painter, the dreamer. Therefore, look where you want to be.

The conjunction of Chiron and Neptune is a bit subtler but just as beautiful. This is, among other things, about the refinement of your intuition and the integration of intuition with intellect. You have less reason to doubt yourself, and more reason to trust yourself, than ever.

The movement from idea to action is something that will reward you greatly now, even if you have no concept of the logistics of how to follow through; even if you really don’t know your actual destination. It’s okay to feel a desire, go with it, and see where it leads you. As one born under the most mutable sign of the zodiac, you understand that reality is a work in progress. You have every reason to believe this will work for you.

Healing and Awareness

As Jupiter and Uranus leave Pisces, another planet enters for the long haul: that would be Chiron. You would think that a planet the size of a small state or large county (about 160 to 180 km across) might be less influential than one of the big boys like Saturn or the Sun. Actually, it can have a more potent effect, focusing energy like a laser, setting the theme of life and providing a profound impetus to wake up to the beauty of existence.

Chiron has two key themes: healing and awareness. And in this new phase of your life, those represent the new background; the place you never leave because it follows you everywhere. Chiron in Pisces is so powerful it will be a wake-up call for our entire society, for the whole world. In your individual life, the energy of awakening will range from subtle to blinding, though it will never go away for a moment.

Some may regard this as inconvenient. We are part of a culture that likes to go back to sleep. But there are always those rare few individuals who wake up and face the day. Chiron in your sign is inviting you to become one of them, to live each day as if you’re certain how precious and unlikely life is, and with the full devotion to your process of growth and learning about yourself.

The first keyword for Chiron, bestowed by the astronomer who discovered it, is maverick. This is someone who is not afraid to be different, indeed, who recognizes that he or she is different and acts accordingly (rather than trying to pretend, blend in or be normal).

As Chiron resonates with Pisces in particular, it has a way of making what is usually ineffable or invisible subject to being noticed and documented. If your sign is reputed to possess a quality of denial as a way of life, Chiron is about to counter that with a degree of focus that may take some getting accustomed to. I have much more to say about Chiron in Pisces, but first I would like to review what you’ve been through the past seven years, so that you have some sense of how it has changed you.

A Bit of History

When a powerful outer planet such as Uranus (or Chiron or Pluto) moves into a sign, it has a way of taking over. What you’ve been through during the years that Uranus has been in your sign is worth considering carefully, and I suggest that you take the time to claim what you have learned, acknowledge what you’ve unlearned and fully own what you have accomplished during this extended phase of your life. Granted, seven years isn’t what it used to be, but this has been quite a spell.

Uranus, the first planet discovered by science, has an 84-year orbit. It first touched the shores of Pisces on March 12, 2003. Associated with revolutionary changes, upheavals, progress and inventions, Uranus is one of the most dependable agents of change known to astrology.

Discovered by science, it is indeed the planet of applied science, which calls for, and cultivates, ingenuity and awareness. The journey of Uranus toward the future is often a process of long trial and error often with sudden and unexpected results. There is a sense with Uranus that everything is an experiment, which I like to think of as an experi-o-ment — a journey through direct experience, and in the case of Uranus, that can be relentless and is usually really interesting. Yes, it’s fun, but it has times when it feels like it’ll never end, like the pace will never slow down.

Does any of this sound familiar?

I asked a friend with a lot of Pisces in her chart (about twice as much as I have, which is saying something) what this has been like for her. She replied:

Uranus in Pisces was a bit like being constantly frazzled or fried. It’s a challenging energy, as you once wrote about fish learning to breathe out of water. It’s a bit like being ping-ponged from one end of the room to the other. You are never allowed to get complacent, or relax into a set structure. There is a yearning for quieter moments, but an inability to stop. It keeps you on your toes all the time (I’m personally looking forward to some respite).

It’s like receiving electric shocks underwater. Yes it’s definitely about being forced to the surface, initially gasping for breath then, as you said, learning to breathe out of water and then being plunged back into water and having to learn how to breathe underwater again.

Things that I thought of as impossible became possible, things I thought of as definitely possible were impossible. There’s been lots of comings and goings, ins and outs, ducking and diving. Learning about many different things simultaneously. There were sudden and quick shocking and irrevocable endings, and just as sudden beginnings. Speeding up of mental processes — too quick sometimes, mixed with impatience and a feeling of not moving fast enough. No time to process events.

It’s almost been like living life inverted with a constant adrenaline rush and buzz, speedy movements, running around, relentless ongoing forward movement with shocking results. Hard to carry and work with the energy because the energy flings you around, no room or time to stop and take stock.

In short, however it may have felt, or whatever may have happened, you’ve been through an experience of radical personal reinvention. You have transformed yourself many times, perhaps into someone new, perhaps into someone you already were deep inside. I suggest you look back to the beginning of those seven years in 2003, note where you were and what you were doing — and ask yourself what you thought was possible.

It may take some hindsight to see the effects of this — but if you look, you will see them now. Consider what you were doing, and how you were doing it, when this transit began. Consider who you have become and how different your state of existence is now than it was all those years ago. It can be extremely different for Pisces to stand out and be an individual, and Uranus in your sign has assured that you do just that.

One last bit. Let’s consider your relationship to groups. Uranus active in one’s chart almost always bestows an affinity for groups at the same time it propagates a desire for radical individualism. We don’t need to speculate about this; consider how your relationship to groups has changed during this time, and how you’ve learned to express yourself within those situations, gradually liberating yourself of any concern about what other people think of you. It’s not that you’ve become antisocial; rather, it’s that you’ve become social in the way that absolutely works for you. (Note, this has been excellent practice for the forthcoming decade in which Chiron will be with you.)

Now, of course during this time you’ve had a lot more than Uranus in your sign. There are two other factors that deserve significant mention, which will lay the groundwork for my discussion of Chiron in Pisces.

Neptune in Aquarius: Deep Background

During the whole of Uranus in Pisces (2003-2011), Neptune was in Aquarius, your 12th solar house (1998-2011/2012). The 12th is the house that lurks beyond the veil, but which is constantly peeking out and trying to make itself known in waking life. The 12th is where day-to-day consciousness verges on being a kind of living, dynamic dream, or alternately a weird trance.

Neptune is considered the ‘modern ruling planet’ of Pisces; I use quotes because the ancient system of rulership actually ends with Saturn and includes none of the discoveries of science. But some traditional ideas apply to the newer discoveries. Traveling through your solar 12th house, Neptune has made a very, very long journey across strange inner territory. My images of fish learning how to breathe air have their source with this transit. Neptune in the 12th can be edgy in a subtle way, like living with something you cannot see and cannot quite feel that is enveloping or closing in around you. This has gone on so long you’ve learned to take it for granted.

Other times, you have been set free within the world of your own imagination and fantasies. Neptune can allow us to see in the dark, and the 12th can surely qualify as a place inaccessible to normal forms of light. It contains our deepest secrets about ourselves, our deepest fears and our most profound desires. The 12th contains our actual relationship to our sexual desires and to death. Neptune has moved excruciatingly slowly through these misty shadows, soaking its strange light into every corner of your psyche.

For the last five of those 12 years, Chiron has also been in Aquarius, in a sense amplifying the effects of Neptune and giving you additional perception in the dark. If you feel like you’ve been on some wildly exaggerated tour of your own inner world, examining your psychology under a microscope, this will tell you something about how that has worked. I’m going to propose that you’ve done some of the most significant peace-making with yourself of your entire life in these recent years, with the process of self-awareness escalating exponentially with each passing one. If this has involved a psychological crisis, that was about confronting your insecurities and making sure you know that you’re the boss — not them.

This transit also highlighted your need to overcome the background anxiety that is so often associated with your sign. This has been a long process, and involves a lot — and I do mean constant — mindfulness of the sources of anxiety, its lack of basis in reality and the extent to which it consumes psychic and creative energy.

Neptune in Aquarius has provided you with the opportunity to learn many skills, including refining your intuition and merging it with your intellect. Once these two things are taken out of competition and allowed to express their natural harmony, the resulting talent is quite potent and truly useful. Everything you have learned from the transits of Chiron and Neptune through Aquarius, you will embody and put to excellent use as these planets take up residence in Pisces this year and next.

Saturn From Virgo to Libra

While you’ve been exploring your inner world, there has been significant movement in your two relationship houses. Between late 2007 and through much of 2010, Saturn was in Virgo, your 7th solar house — the house of partnerships. This may have been a frustrating time in relationships, though the net effect was to make room for you to be yourself. No relationship that did not belong in your life survived. Any relationship that passed the test of time is likely to be something that is mutually beneficial.

Saturn in the 7th gives significant support in the process of establishing boundaries. This can be a painful process for a Pisces because you don’t want to feel like you’re rejecting anyone, and because you prefer to live in a boundless world. However, on this plane of reality we need boundaries to survive.

While Saturn moved through Virgo, it made a series of oppositions to Uranus in your sign. This may have felt like a clash of the cultures between you and everyone else, with yourself in the role of innovator/creative person and people around you trying to prove how conservative, inflexible and proper they are. There were a total of four of these oppositions in less than two years, and these almost certainly characterized your relationships during that time. The thing to remember now is that it’s over.

You’re likely to be a little less hyper-energized with Uranus moving out of your sign, though no less individualistic. People are likely to seem more open-minded now that Saturn has left Virgo, and more amenable to discussion and compromise now that Saturn has entered Libra. One thing I suggest is that you not take personally how people were responding to you. Their own responses were under the influence of some inner conflicts that exaggerated the personality traits that you found the most challenging. You may have appeared as a symbol of what they would not face in themselves, and you’re certainly going to keep playing this role — but I am sure you’ll take it a lot less personally.

Now that Saturn is in Libra, you’re much more likely to meet people with whom you can establish an egalitarian bond and have a true basis for communication and sharing. I suggest you remember that the Saturn in Virgo / Saturn opposite Uranus phase is over — and give the people you meet, and the holdovers from the last phase, an opportunity to encounter you in this new field of reality. Relationships are not built on picking apart the details; they are built on common ground, shared purpose and a sense of equanimity.

You have done considerable personal work to be a free person within your relationships. Now you will have many opportunities to put what you’ve learned into action. As I have suggested, your focus on individuality as the path to integrity only increases from here, with Chiron entering your sign for a long transit. You cannot compromise who you are, and this is the basis of authenticity in every level of your existence, including in your relationships.

For the rest of this discussion, let’s focus on Chiron in your sign — and then conclude with a few thoughts about Neptune, which will make a four-month visit to Pisces in 2011 and return to stay in 2012.

Chiron in Theory and in Practice

Chiron was the discovery that marked the transition out of the astrological revival that spanned from the late 19th century through most of the 20th century. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, astrology fell under the shadow of rationality, industrialism and science. In the late 19th century it came back along with a spiritualist movement; this included the early New Age, Theosophy and a good bit of table thumping. Yet there were some astrologers who saw the connections between astrology and psychology, and then the human potential movement starting in the 1960s and 1970s.

Discovered in 1977, Chiron is the addition — among many asteroids and minor planets — that has offered astrology the potential to rise to the occasion of a healing art. Even if you don’t practice astrology as a healing art, when Chiron is present in your sign, it is an indication of deep healing work and a deeply focused state in your process of development. It’s an initiation to a new phase of your life. Unlike the previous phase of Uranus in Pisces, which was a huge experiment, Chiron in Pisces calls for more focus, willingness to make important changes, and daily commitment to growth

When you have time, I suggest you investigate three articles for background: When Astrology Listens, In Canada, They Call it Therapy, and The Inconvenient Benefic.

What is interesting about Chiron is that its energy can have the feeling of blending Saturn and Uranus — the planet of tradition and structure and the planet of revolution and energy, respectively. You are now intimately familiar with these two energies. You’ve lived through Uranus in your sign and Saturn in your opposite sign, with the two planets facing off directly — and have been doing this blending of archetypes in-body. You’ve had additional preparation in that Chiron is just finishing a long conjunction with Neptune and is charged up with watery energy, ready to go.

Though it’s often associated with Virgo, Chiron is a natural fit for Pisces. If it’s about opposites attracting, those opposites are the boat and the water.

To the extent that Pisces is about denial, Chiron is about awareness. To the extent that Pisces is an inspired influence, Chiron is about grounding that inspiration into tangible form, such as art, a therapy process or active discernment. This is a transit about manifesting your talent, creativity and moreover your chosen purpose as tangible experiences.

Chiron has two distinct facets: the healing attribute and the quest. They are like the inside and the outside of the same process. On the inside you may have some deeply urgent need to heal, or a growth priority that takes precedence over everything else in your life — that being a sign of maturity so closely connected with the healing attribute of Chiron. Then there is the questing aspect, which might be about actual travel, or embarking on a path of learning, or entering a conscious relationship.

The quest certainly implies a process of becoming something you have long envisioned. Yet the true quest is inward, of becoming your own teacher, and embracing the energy of mastery as daily practice rather than as a goal or level of attainment.

Chiron’s presence can reveal where we must do additional healing. In Pisces this is going to be about emotional healing on one level, and in your own sign about existential healing on a deeper level. By that I mean making peace with your existence in a deep and meaningful way.

Depending on how you have handled your transits over the last decade — which certainly have pushed you to deepen your relationship to existence — you will have more or less of this to do. The thing to remember is that Chiron will typically present its messages gently at first, waiting for you to get the clue. Then gradually its energy will ramp up the intensity. If you get the messages and ignore them, you may eventually face a full-scale crisis (which is how Chiron gets its undeserved bad reputation).

Part of the quest is likely to involve a mission or task that you’ve long been contemplating. Chiron and Neptune in your 12th have been feeding this vision, which is driven by your profound inner search. Uranus in your sign has been giving you permission to experiment with your ideas. Chiron in Pisces is about getting down to the business of manifestation, even if you don’t feel up to it.

In this process, there is something unusual that Chiron does that I have not quite seen true of any other planet. One of the most effective ways to work with Chiron is to use your weaknesses as sources of wisdom and power. When we think of Chiron as the ‘wounded healer’, what that really means is that the injuries we sustain in life, and the trials we have gone through, become sources of concentrated energy, wisdom and strength that we can use to heal ourselves and then to assist others — in that order. Getting the order right is crucial. A motto of those who would follow the quest of Chiron the healer is take care of yourself so you can take care of others.

Where Chiron is present, you would be surprised how little energy you may need to apply to get positive results. Most of that energy can be applied efficiently in the form of awareness, intention and focused action.

Mentorship: Teaching What You Want to Learn

One theme of Chiron is mentorship. As the world has changed in the short time I’ve been alive in this lifetime, this is a concept that’s been all but forgotten. Mentorship is direct teaching, often through experience, and usually one-to-one. It is a process wherein the teacher and the student are both part of the learning process, though there is still the understanding that the mentor is a little further along the path.

Many people wait or long for a mentor without recognizing that such a person is already in their life, or without knowing the best way to utilize this person’s presence. There is an element of tradition here, which goes against most of the concepts of instruction, teaching and learning that we have in the Western world (particularly the United States).

Chiron in your sign is going to draw people to you who will seek your knowledge. What they may not know, but what you must know, is that they are really seeking access to your learning process. You may indeed have ‘more’ knowledge, but it’s the process by which you consolidate that knowledge that matters more. In this regard, anyone who comes to you for teaching or learning is your teacher; your facilitator of awareness. They’re a probe into new territory, new perceptions and a different perspective.

In some of these relationships you may feel a craving for equality. I suggest that this would begin by recognizing differences in age, experience level, maturity and mission; once you can account for the differences and work with them consciously, then equality is possible.

Uranus (and Jupiter) in Aries: Adventures in Finance

Money, as in one’s available cash and resources, is indicated by the 2nd house, which for you is Aries. This is a great sign to have on your money angle, because it’s ruled by Mars and that grants initiative. While you have other values that tend to de-emphasize money as an end goal, which in turn can cause you to de-emphasize it overall, this is not for lack of ability.

You have two planets entering your 2nd house now — Jupiter (short term) and Uranus (long term). The combination is excellent but temporary. I suggest you take different lessons from each of them, and then put those lessons together. Jupiter is offering you a sense of your potential. The idea is to feel good enough about yourself to trust your abilities, and to act on them.

Uranus (which is about to show up here) can, in the opinion of some astrologers, come with wild swings of fortune. Perhaps. I see this as being an image of financial innovation, and of activating your potential for new and useful ideas that you then test out. When Uranus is involved it’s a good idea to invoke some prudence. Start with a small experiment or a small investment. Test it out and see how it goes.

With your particular configuration, Pisces as Sun/1st house and Aries as 2nd house, this is not about ‘making money’ as much as it is about embodying your own value. You become the wealth you seek. You regard money as a symbol of something else, be it authenticity, energy flow or contact with yourself.

Forgive me if I sound a little New Agey here, though I can think of few better illustrations of embodying the concept of resources and of wealth as yourself. Think of it this way: Abundance is not something you seek; it’s something you become. Hence, I’m not talking about ‘getting a job’ or ‘getting a better job’ or ‘increasing your business’ but rather shifting your energy in a positive direction and tapping into your innate personal resources. That means your talents, which are your natural gifts and the most basic expression of the 2nd house.

You are fortunate to have Aries there; because you have the sign of identity in your house of personal wealth, you’re ideally suited to make the most money by being the most authentically you.

I know that most creative types think the financial issue is about managing the business end of things. That is a matter of form and willingness. It’s relatively simple, and there are professionals such as accountants and tax preparers who can help greatly with that.

I believe the real quest involves projecting yourself fully into what you do, without hesitation or doubt, and embodying your own gift. While it’s almost always necessary to promote yourself in some way, that comes naturally when you own your talent and are willing to share it with the world — and when you get out of the way of the money coming in. That would involve giving up all doubts about whether you’re ‘worth it’, or ‘deserve to be doing this’, or are ‘good enough’. Notably, most of these doubts are not your original creation. They were given to you, and you can see them for what they are, then toss them or give them back.

The Quest for Existence

Chiron in the 1st house natally or by transit can represent a quest for existence. If you think I’m implying that many people don’t quite exist, you’re correct. Chiron in Pisces will give you many experiences to determine the extent to which you’re actually living as if you’re alive.

It’s worth acknowledging what a struggle existence is for so many people today. What Chiron teaches is that we need to be willing to give up the struggle in order for that struggle to go away. You cannot do this for other people and they cannot do this for you. But what we can do is be examples to one another, and Chiron is calling on you both to be that example and to seek it in others who you take as mentors. Mentorship (also described in more detail in the Gemini chapter of Light Bridge) is about teaching and learning through example and experience. It is often the most effective way to teach — indeed, it may be the only way to actually teach and have the information stick. It helps to allow our process of teaching/learning to change us every day, every time we engage with it.

In this sense, the real quest with Chiron is for awareness. The typical method of awareness in the upside-down and backwards world is to become aware of something and then stuff it down or paper it over with denial. Chiron in your sign will challenge this. With Chiron, awareness translates into understanding, knowledge and action. It is easier than it sounds, particularly if you see the results in the form of authentic progress, which might come in the form of feeling better and being more productive.

Chiron in your sign or ascendant is a direct invitation to become a master of your health. This amounts to working closely with the mind-body connection for holistic health, and its influence spans from your physical condition and diet to how you use your mind to guide your actions. It requires taking the step from theory to practice, which is really a series of steps that amounts to getting lots of practice.

Yet with Chiron in Pisces, what I will call the spiritual aspect of the equation is the one to focus on the most carefully. For Pisces this does not mean getting the gold medal for yoga. What it means is honoring the fact that you live in many different worlds or spheres of consciousness at once. Your perception of reality is different from that of the people around you. This offers you some worldly gifts and a few unworldly ones as well, and both are at the price of heightened sensitivity to your environment.

The ingress of Chiron into your sign is an invitation and a reminder to clear and maintain your physical environment — and to do the same for your emotional and mental environments as well. The ocean may refuse no river, but you can refuse to put into your body that which makes it unwell, and choose instead to put in what nourishes you. You have the choice who to invite into your home. You choose what to do with your time. And you decide who you are. But it’s more like surfing than taking a scheduled flight, or plotting a detailed trip. To get where you’re going, look where you want to be.