Not in Kansas Anymore

By Len Wallick | More astrology by Eric at Cosmic Confidential Diary

Today, in most locations, the Sun slip-slides into Pisces. This last Tuesday we touched on the complex nature of Pisces in relation to the Venus-Jupiter conjunction. Sun in Pisces is, to quote The Wizard of Oz, a horse of a different color. In Pisces, the sun is not the ruler nor is it exalted. Neither is it in detriment, opposite sign from ruling sign, or fall, opposite the exalted sign. In other words, Sol just does not know what to make of Pisces. Rumor is the Sun has some company in that respect. Ambivalence rules.

When in Rome therefore, the Sun does as Pisces does, surrendering its dominant fire for a toga one minute, a tunic the next and a stola for festive occasions. The key to a Sun’s transit of Pisces seems to be the context of the aspects it makes between its ingress and the Vernal Equinox. This year’s journey therefore, will most likely be very different from last year’s or next.

Today finds supportive and sympathetic Venus and Jupiter already well ensconced in the final sign. This augurs well for a graceful beginning of the solar journey. At the beginning of March, however, the entrance of Mercury and the exit of Venus could make for some awkward moments before Spring. The main thing to remember is that Pisces may sometimes get old but it never gets boring. Especially the last seven years with Uranus behind the curtain.

The Moon is speeding up as it blazes ahead in Aries, heading for an “oh my goodness, so soon?” first quarter this coming Monday. Today it forms its monthly conjunction with Eris. This is always provocative, previously referred to here as “the fertile point of identity chaos”. This time around it forms a trine with another conjunction in Sagittarius, the big asteroid Ceres and Quaoar, a somewhat smaller object that crosses the orbit of Neptune.

Taken together this aspect may bring up some strong feelings around the subject of care-taking and just taking care. Coinciding as it does with the Sun appearing in Pisces, we could find ourselves going both ways regarding service to others, maintenance of ourselves and what we get in return. It may be apathy, it may be something a lot more volatile. Because this has to do with the Moon, the emotional part will at least have spent or transformed itself by tomorrow. Chaos always leads to a new order, however unstable.

Neptune and Chiron are slowly separating but still functional in their conjunction in Aquarius. The fact that both are approaching a sextile with the Galactic Center indicates their combined show is far from over. Indeed, this revelatory aspect is only beginning to awaken us. Granted, some people are ahead of the curve. The collective however, has a way to go. Because this concurrent separation and application will go on for a while, let’s keep tabs and add up what comes out as we go along.

Which takes us back to the man behind the curtain next door in Oz, er, Pisces. We have had two previous installments in our continuing review of the long-term mutual reception between Neptune in Aquarius and Uranus in Pisces. The first was a summary of how astrology evolved up to a few centuries ago. The second was a quick run through of the events that propelled and paralleled the development of the telescope and the subsequent discovery of Uranus. Today, let’s start a look at what mutual reception means in the first place.

Like Pisces, it starts of simple and gets complicated as we look deeper. The basic definition of mutual reception is when two planets are in each other’s sign of rulership. Whoa! Right away we have a problem. For a couple thousand years at least, Saturn had rulership of Aquarius and Jupiter had rulership of Pisces. That’s a long time. Long enough to mean something. You don’t go steady with someone for a couple millennium then, phish, call it off just like that. There’s a lot of attachments and connections that build up over that period of time. Can’t just forget those.

So, even for the most modern astrologers, Pisces and Aquarius are granted a sort of dual custody. Ruled by the old rulers when that works, by the newer planets when that seems to work better. This, of course is bound to be messy and invites fudging. On the bright side, it forces astrologers to integrate anew, thus serving as both a test and a verification of their integrity. In that, there is an odd kid of hope for the future of astrology. There’s a lot to come back from.

That is, there are even more problems. Not everybody agrees with what planet rules what sign. This even goes back to way before the discovery of Uranus with the Thema Mundi (‘chart of the world”) when the zodiac began with the middle degree of Cancer instead of the first degree of Pisces. Even if you disregard that, the discoveries of Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and so on took place when when events were speeding up into a dither that has never settled down. There was no time for things to develop organically. There was no convention, no committee, no consensus and most of all astrology was in the process of being diminished and despised in the culture that was spreading out from Western Europe. There was a battle for hegemony over the western mind between the church and science. One of the few things those combatants had in common was they wanted nothing to do with astrology.

And that, boys and girls, is where we once again will leave things to be continued.

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