AN AQUARIAN ERA FOR PISCES | BY ERIC FRANCIS
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This is a vitally important step in maturity, and a challenging one for a Pisces. You must cultivate and maintain a discipline of refusing to take on the projections of others. The more visible in public you are, the more critical this is. The more what you do is considered meaningful, the more critical it is.
With Neptune in your sign, it’s impressive that you have such a realistic perspective on life. Though you would be wise to keep testing that out. Under the influence of Neptune, the original foggy mirror, it’s difficult to evaluate.
Neptune is one source of all the bubble thinking of our society. This planet is about belief rather than about factual validation. That leads to all kinds of problems in a world where people are running dishonest agendas, which come at us from a thousand directions.
Your challenge is staying honest with yourself, which means focusing the project. The modes of self-deception, in the style of Neptune, can be so sly that you must be vigilant and, most likely, have the help of someone older and wiser.
Neptune has been in Pisces for a while, and I’ve never quite focused its message this way. But we are watching important facets of society dissolve before our eyes. The human level of this, the on-the-ground, work-a-day level of this, is about people fooling themselves. You need some spiritual insurance against that, and fortunately you have it.
Centaurs in Pisces: First Chiron, now Nessus
Between 2010 and 2019, Chiron was in your sign. Way back at the beginning, through many of these annual readings, I reminded my Pisces readers to learn what Chiron had to teach, as it would eventually move on to Aries (which it has done). Chiron, with its no-bullshit power of focus and discernment, is the antithesis of Neptune. Both can serve as spiritualizing forces; Neptune depends on Chiron for it to have any focus at all.
Fortunately, another centaur is in Pisces for the long haul (through March 2033, long past Neptune’s exit), and it can provide much of the benefit of Chiron. That is Nessus, the third-discovered object in the centaur class. All centaurs have the goal of healing and of raising awareness. The focus of Nessus, though, is in many ways much darker than that of Chiron.
While Chiron helps heal all kinds of injuries, Nessus is usually more focused on issues such as guilt, victimization, transgression and revenge. Nessus comes much closer to addressing the matters of trust that are so close to the core of our contemporary emotional drama.
It’s important to identify why you might want or need to believe something, and therefore to deny something; or why you might need to deny something, and therefore believe something. Notice these transactions as they run through your mind. Constantly ask yourself how you know something, when you think you know it. That is crucial these days when everyone is an expert and nobody seems to know anything.
It’s true Nessus teaches taking responsibility for one’s actions and one’s feelings. It also insists we fully embrace the whole question of trust that is so central to sanity. Nessus is not the relatively kind and polite teacher that Chiron is. In mythology, he’s a criminal, though in astrology we are working with the ‘ascended’ version of the mythological figure, a much more well-rounded entity. Still, you must remember the origins of Nessus.
We cannot doubt that the teaching of personal responsibility by Nessus is a radical intervention. With any centaur energy, though, it’s necessary to take up the work before you encounter it in some unexpected, unplanned or seemingly inadvertent way.
Neptune, and another slow-moving point, Borasisi, however, call the tune, and that is being vigilant about denial. Denial enters via the same channel as belief. They are functions of one another. The greater the denial factor, the more likely it is that belief will rule one’s mind, as opposed to discernment.
It’s important to identify why you might want or need to believe something, and therefore to deny something; or why you might need to deny something, and therefore believe something. Notice these transactions as they run through your mind. Constantly ask yourself how you know something, when you think you know it. That is crucial these days when everyone is an expert and nobody seems to know anything.
Think of it this way: your central task is to know when you don’t know. Then, you can seek additional information, which will make you brilliant. But you must monitor yourself constantly. It will be worth it. You have some important goals, and services to perform for whatever you consider your society to be. That calls for being an alert and impeccable person.
A Short Summary of 2017-2020
While the backstory leading to 2021 and beyond is mostly told in the INTELLIGENCE written reading, here is a succinct summary. Most of the astrology influencing both individuals and the wider society has been taking place in Capricorn. Since 2008 that has included Pluto, and since late 2017, Saturn, which is when the most noticeable recent shift occurred.
Capricorn is your 11th solar house (11th whole sign, if you are Pisces rising). The 11th is your house of public contact, including with your circle of friends, your clients and any organizational contacts you may have, outside of your formal work setting. It also represents your “social mission,” which may equally be associated with your professional life.
Saturn’s presence invoked the biggest changes since the 2008-2009 era. Any slow-moving points in Capricorn are going to help you build associations and carve out your place in society. This is much more important today, with the notion of a job gradually eroding, and people trying to monetize their creative efforts or at least make their way in the gig economy.
So if the question relates to business, Saturn has been asking: what about what you do is really, truly you, and what can be put to the direct use of others? What is the value to others, i.e. potential clients, of what you do?
You know there is such a thing as the human condition, and this has nothing to do with special interests or political viewpoints. You of all people have the gift for understanding what everyone, as in every person in the world, has in common, regardless of their seeming status.
The 11th also addresses matters of self-presentation and public relations. Saturn has been saying hold the line here, and take control over how you are described in public. There may have been one or more crises associated with this. Now, Saturn is on its way out and, for the rest of the year, Jupiter is on its way up. Jupiter is the classical ruler of Pisces. It spends a year in each sign, and its visit to Capricorn is pretty spectacular.
First, it is sextile (harmonious aspect of integrating energies) Neptune in Pisces. This was exact for the first time in February and happens two more times through 2020 (on July 27 and Oct. 12). You can look at these as events, or you can look at the whole pattern as Jupiter holding a long sextile to Neptune in your sign.
The modern ruler of Pisces, in its sign, is being helped by the classical ruler of Pisces, in Capricorn. This is about focusing your identity and self-presentation. There is considerable leverage in this pattern. It’s your opportunity to take hold of how you present yourself to the public, and also to make yourself available on your own terms. This is a workable aspect. You must work it, though. Whatever you’re doing, focus your efforts, focus your message, define yourself on your terms, and get the word out. Identify people to work with.
Speaking of slow-moving outer planets, for you the brilliant spot in 2020 astrology is Jupiter conjunct Pluto. The next of these is April 4 (in a conjunction with Pallas, the asteroid of strategy). Then there is one on June 30, again in a conjunction with asteroid Pallas. This whole pattern – counting Jupiter, and Pallas, and Pluto – is a brilliant opportunity for strategic business planning, public relations, and messaging.
Get busy. Remember, writing is 90% thinking, and for even the best professional writers, the true merit is added to the writing in the rewriting process. Remember the words of evil genius Frank Luntz — a Feb. 23 Pisces, by the way — it’s not what you say, it’s what people hear. So when you say something, test it out, and do your best to hear it before you say it to a lot of people.
Images are also involved; that is the purview of Neptune, and to some extent, Jupiter. Make sure you are visually portrayed as you want to be seen – in a good light, which works literally and metaphorically.
Remember everything you learned from late 2017 through today. It’s likely there were many lessons hard won. Do not squander them.
Seeking Common Ground
Here is something to keep in mind. The current aspects between elements in Capricorn and Pisces grant the ability to see and feel the common ground that nearly all people share. We live in a world full of divisions, which are exploited nearly all the time – and therefore made worse.
You know there is such a thing as the human condition, and this has nothing to do with special interests or political viewpoints. You of all people have the gift for understanding what everyone, as in every person in the world, has in common, regardless of their seeming status.
Peer through the static and the illusions. Use your human skill in developing and executing your business development plans. Use your finesse and integrate your social life with your professional life. For you, at least, they are inseparable.
One Last Thought: Public Values and Private Values
One last thought before we enter the future. You have finally come to the point where your perspective on yourself is far more meaningful than what anyone else might think or believe about you.
This is a vitally important step in maturity, and a challenging one for a Pisces. You must cultivate and maintain a discipline of refusing to take on the projections of others. The more visible in public you are, the more critical this is. The more what you do is considered meaningful, the more critical it is.
Your rudder in the spiritual water is Chiron in Aries. Aries is the next sign from Pisces, the 2nd house or 2nd place (same idea). This is about your priorities, your self-respect, and your personal assets (anything from your talent to your money to your computer to your pots and pans).
Chiron is here to teach you about your personal power, as an asset: a thing you have, work with, own and use. This is not power over anyone. It is not in any way unjust. Remember that most of the people you know are busy subverting their own power, and giving it away. Your job is to collect it. Ultimately this is the power to take care of yourself.
Chiron is saying stick to your principles. Make sure you have them, and make sure you know what they are – before you stick to them, or defend them. Principles are real. You will not have many, if they are true to what you live for. When in doubt, start with one, and test it out. Know when you’re making an exception and why. Exceptions should not be treated casually. They deserve a journal entry. It might begin (just giving an example), “It is my usual policy to tell the truth, but today I had to lie to someone.”
Chiron is the master teacher, and will constantly be teaching you that who you are is directly related to what is important to you and what you do, based on that knowledge. Your identity is not something you declare. It is something you discover through processes of trial and error, trial and discovery, and trial and correction.
Your single most important project on this topic is weeding out your family’s influence on your choices, and making contact with the essence of your own desires, intentions, and personal gifts. You must make your own evaluation of yourself, and cast off what others have tried to convince you of.
There is a much deeper layer to Chiron in Aries, though. Aries, your 2nd, is about your assets, which in Aries style means you, yourself. Not what you look like, what you call yourself, how you dress or how you identify (in any sense of the word) but you.
Aries is the sign of the warrior – ruled by the god Mars, also called Ares. Chiron is another form of the warrior: you might say the sacred warrior, in the spirit of Chogyam Trungpa, whose book on the topic is worth memorizing.
Chiron is here to teach you about your personal power, as an asset: a thing you have, work with, own and use. This is not power over anyone. It is not in any way unjust. Remember that most of the people you know are busy subverting their own power, and giving it away. Your job is to collect it. Ultimately this is the power to take care of yourself.
Don Juan Matus, central in Castaneda’s series of books, talks about hunting power. This is what Chiron is teaching you how to do. This begins with treating yourself with the utmost respect, and never squandering your creativity.
The Direction of the Curriculum: Inward
Much of what I’ve been describing – particularly the Capricorn stuff – describes your outer life and social relationships. The direction of movement starting in late 2020 will be distinctly inward.
You may have read some of my articles on the problems society and many individuals are experiencing, related to drowning in digital. Usually people talk about things like attention span, or microwave radiation and blue light making it difficult to sleep. The problem as I have documented it is much more serious. I am grateful to Eric McLuhan and his father Marshall (via his books) for helping me deduce the issue.
What digital media destroy is inner awareness. The inner life is projected outward, as an externally experienced dream. After a while, people can lose track of their inner existence. With electrical media, there is no privacy. This was like a mild cold with early telephones (party lines) and electric light. It grew more serious with radio and television. With digital media, the world has been blown inside out into the full-on global village where people broadcast their most private thoughts, and therefore, have none.
It is very important that you treat the first Saturn into Aquarius ingress of 2020 as an experiment, not as anything in its final form. You will get information about changes that you need to make. You will also get the feeling of tapping into a different reality than you’ve known in the past. It’s been quite a long while since any slow-moving planets passed through Aquarius – the most recent was Neptune (1998-2012).
This has an impact on one’s sense of being, which for many people is to erase it. As a Pisces, you have a more cultivated sense of your inner self. You know you’re “in there.” For Pisces, the sign that represents interior reality is Aquarius. That is your 12th solar house, or if you are rising, your 12th house by whole sign houses – the oldest and most useful classical house system.
The 12th house is rather “Piscean” in nature. The correspondence is not exact, though there are many similarities between Pisces and the 12th house, no matter what sign occupies it. The 12th has the feeling of a parallel dimension. The internet is a 12th house entity. It’s so vast as to be incomprehensible. But it’s also leaving electronic trails everywhere – various footprints and fingerprints and timestamps and an ocean of other data.
To have Aquarius here is an odd sort of metaphor because usually, human interior reality is thought of as a territory without a map. Yet Aquarius is structured and stable. Its features can be mapped out. It lends itself to organization and to structured patterns.
Beginning in March, all those planets in Capricorn begin a gradual exodus into Aquarius. This shifts their reality for you from exterior to interior. The transition begins with Saturn dipping into Aquarius between late March and early July. This is the beginning of a great experiment for you. Saturn is extremely well placed both in Aquarius and the 12th house. There is a reclaiming of yourself here, and this is about something big. You are going to be reclaiming your interior being, and your inner space: all you may have lost under digital conditions, and a great deal more.
It is very important that you treat the first Saturn into Aquarius ingress of 2020 as an experiment, not as anything in its final form. You will get information about changes that you need to make. You will also get the feeling of tapping into a different reality than you’ve known in the past. It’s been quite a long while since any slow-moving planets passed through Aquarius – the most recent was Neptune (1998-2012).
On Dec. 17, Saturn re-enters Aquarius, your 12th house, to stay. On Dec. 19, Jupiter enters Aquarius, your 12th house, for approximately one year. On Dec. 21, the two form a conjunction, and invoke a new era of your life. Saturn remains until mid-2023.
Your reality turns inward, where you find yourself. A doorway into your consciousness opens, and you will be invited to enter. You then have a limited but generous amount of time to stretch your inner awareness, and in a sense, to fully occupy yourself. What you do in the world will certainly matter, and this will be a deeply meaningful time for you in the outer sense of your life.
Yet really, you will be learning to live from within – learning to be from within. Then, in 2023, comes Pluto. That is another volume in the Science Fiction trilogy. For now, focus on the beginning. Follow this lesson in self-mastery and you will learn the art of inner awareness, or take it to a new level.
It is time.