The Cosmic Story
Pisces New Moon, 2010
. . .I learned that thought of itself leads nowhere, but blows the perfume from the flower, and cuts the flower from every tree, and hews down every tree from the valley, and in the end goes to and fro in waste places – gnawing itself in a last hunger. I learned. . .we weave our own enchantment, and bind ourselves with our own imagination. To think of the True is beyond us for to love the symbol of being is to darken the path to wisdom and to debar us from eternal beauty. . . .I learned that the truest wisdom is to wait, to work, and to will in secret. Those who are voiceless today, tomorrow shall be eloquent, and the Earth shall hear them and her children salute them. Of these three truths the hardest to learn is the silent will. Let us seek for the highest truth.
AE, The Cave of Lilith
These three truths are very Piscean. Pisces knows you’ll never know anything if you try to logically think your way into it. Piscean wisdom reveals itself through the irrational parts of our psyche, because it is through feeling and spiritual intuition that we undergo the Pisces experience.
Pisces is the last sign of the Zodiac, symbolizing the completion of the human journey to wholeness. From Aries to Capricorn, there is a personal lesson to be learned. With Aquarius and Pisces, we are called to learn collective lessons of head and heart. With 6 out of 10 planets (+ Chiron, an asteroid) in these two signs, the cosmic story says it’s time for each of us to align our individual stories with the cosmic story. It’s time to let go of our patriarchal ego identities and become cosmic citizens. So let your ideals shine out and let your heart stay open to the suffering and pain we continue to create in our world.
One of Pisces lessons is that we have to let go of our individual sense of Self so that we can be reborn into the Higher Self. The search for your true Self is Leo’s lesson, which is highlighted for us this week on March 10th when Mars stops and turns to direct motion at 0*18’ Leo. Mars has been diving into the fires of your life since Winter Solstice, searching for the archetypal images that make you who you are. Are you warrior, lover, scholar, traveler, healer, seer, priestess, artist? It’s time to recognize which energies secretly move you, energetically call to you, and easily work through you.
Mars went retrograde at 20* Leo on December 20, 2009 and will return to 20* Leo on May 17, 2010. What lessons about ‘Being Your Self’ are you learning? Leo confronts us with the path of Individuation, and since Mars will end up being in Leo for about eight months (instead of its usual six weeks in a sign) we can be grateful for this opportunity to realize what our heart (Leo) desires (Mars). When we do, we’ll realize that what we desire most is also what Spirit desires for us.
Although the elements are different – Pisces water with Leo fire – Mars will form a wonderful angle to this new Moon, helping us focus our will and our desire on the needs of the collective heart. These are ‘the voiceless’ ones, the many needs of our culture that go unfulfilled.
Pisces shows us that we all share the same longings, the same fears, the same sorrows and pain. Pisces is the energy of union with Spirit, which in turn unites every one of us as part of the circle of life. We are all connected. Our patriarchal ego keeps us from this knowledge, making us live in the illusion that we are separate and therefore alone.
During this astrological month, we can let go of all the dualities that stop us from achieving that psychic unity, with Spirit and with each other. Like the Catholic season of Lent, which precedes Easter and Spring, we can use this time to recognize and release our old complexes and addictions, the old wounds we won’t let heal, as well as the wounds from our past lives (perhaps all our past lives during the 2000 years of the Piscean Age) that still haunt us. Lent is a time to either give something up (the sacrifice) or do something special (self-less service). We learn to give up our desires, or we change our behavior, for a bigger vision, a spiritual vision. The Pisces initiation teaches us that sacrifice and release from the pain of life come with surrender to Spirit.
In this way, Piscean energy demands that we sacrifice old separating habits that keep us imprisoned in the past and in our own wounds – the shame, the blame, the limiting beliefs that keep us in pain and darkness. Piscean energy helps us recognize our need to connect with others in an empathetic way – if you know any Pisces you know they are shape-shifters, mirroring back what you need in the moment. And Pisces is also the need to perform some form of service so that we experience our oneness with each other.
Pisces also knows about weaving enchantment and how we can get lost in our own imaginations. That’s why it is so important to learn the correct relationship with the Creative Imagination. Our cultural rejection of imagination as something childish has MADE it childish. It is our lack of imagination that has deepened the environmental and social stagnation we find ourselves in.
Pisces deals with illusions and delusions, which are the flip side of the creative imagination. We get lost in our projections, which are very like enchantments. The corporate media has taken control of our imaginations – we are a culture whose touchstones are movie quotes (and most are not very good stories at that). We have lost the use of our Piscean imagination, our mythic imagination, which adds meaning to our separate lives and shows us our destiny within the whole. This new Moon we can reclaim our creative imagination.
When we cannot see beyond ‘the symbol of being’ into our eternal Life, we suffer. We get lost in a dead world with a dead imagination that controls us through culturally-induced fear. We are ‘debarred’ from that eternal beauty of Life which we, along with Pisces, long for. If we insist on suffering, then why not make our suffering sacred: why not give it meaning, then release it and move on to a greater awareness of life. This is the Pisces task as well.
Finally, Pisces knows that the ‘truest wisdom is to wait, to work, and to will in secret.’ Pisces is the sign where we must go to the depths and ‘wait, work and will in secret’ for Spirit to come to us and tell us our destiny. It is long and lonely work, but absolutely necessary for our evolution. We must become psychological adults.
Pisces are known as the martyrs of the zodiac – especially when we’re doing it wrong. Pisces can ‘play the martyr’ with the best of them, but the real truth of the role of martyr is to give up the Self to a higher power to be used for the good of all. And to do this requires a lonely, quiet time, a secret time when you incubate your new life. Because, once you have surrendered to the Piscean energies, be sure that you will be re-born in service to Spirit.
Before we can change our world, we have to change ourselves. Pisces brings us back to the understanding that all the dualities in life – the 2 fish that swim in opposite directions – are tied together. We are a binary species and we learn from oppositions. But the greatest learning of all comes when we see that even opposition is an illusion and that it is all One.
All of the longings we have are tied together, and so we can see how we create our own realities by our interpretation of what we’re experiencing. We have a choice: we can live in fear which duality generates or we can live in hope which union inspires.
Pisces is the sign of the Collective Unconscious and engages us through the creative imagination. That’s why we associate Pisces with the Artist and the Mystic, the Visionary and the Martyr. While the collective unconscious is the repository of all human instinct and knowledge, it is up to us to find our unique way to express what we learn from it.
Until we can get past the barriers of our own misconceptions about life, especially concerning our life and our desires, we’ll never get to the pure vision that this new Moon in Pisces opens us to. With the Sun, Moon, Uranus and Mercury all within a degree of each other, there will be an opportunity to open the doors of our perception wider, to see deeper into the hidden realities of life.
This is a great time for people to be meditating and creating art out of what they see in their dreams and meditations. Art, whether as dance, music, writing or painting, is the best way to get your vision out into the world. We are all meant to be Artists of Life. So create Beauty all around you this new Moon.
With Uranus and Mercury so close to this new Moon, you’ll find messages coming to you in unexpected ways – your body or mind or feelings will be affected. Watch and ask – Is this me or is it not me? If not me, then who is it about? Then ask for healing, send out blessings and let it go. Let Spirit guide you.
Once we let go of our old stories of hurt and pain, who knows what stories are waiting to be told? Who knows what secret wisdom can come through? There can be tremendous breakthroughs now, major re-orientations of our beliefs. Oh, what amazing times we live in!
The Sabian Symbol for the new Moon at 26* Pisces is: Watching the very thin Moon crescent appearing at sunset, different people realize that the time has come to go ahead with their different projects. This is the degree of March 3rd Venus/Uranus conjunction, which is re-emphasized by the new Moon. We each have a unique vision of life, and we are called now to start to manifest it in the world.
The Sabian Symbol for the Mercury/Uranus conjunction at 27* Pisces is: The harvest Moon illuminates a clear autumnal sky. It is time to reap what we have sown and cultivated. And we will find out what we have failed to cultivate. Use this Piscean energy to see clearly who you are in the eyes of Spirit. The world needs each and every one of us.
We are still working within the energies of the Pluto in Capricorn, Saturn in Libra square – the challenge to recreate a just society and fair and creative relationships. For this new Moon, Venus in Aries enters the equation, forming a T-square to Pluto. This energy is good in crisis situations, so watch how you deal with your relationships. What do you really value? Once you know, you’ll know how to act. You can be bold and innovative in your solutions just as long as you are fair.
Love is work, as my favorite poet Rilke says. Now is the time to get to work and learn to love freely and without expectations. If we want to create a world of peace and compassion for all, we have to start in our own lives.
“So whoever loves must try to act as if he had a great work: he must be much alone and go into himself and collect himself and hold fast to himself; he must work; he must become something!
For believe me, the more one is, the richer is all that one experiences. And whoever wants to have a deep love in his life must collect and save for it and gather honey.” Rainer Marie Rilke, On Love and Other Difficulties
It is time to stop thinking and start imagining. Spend time this week meditating and ask for a big dream. Keep your mind and heart open to new possibilities. And they will surely come!
Bright Blessings as we move into Spring (March 20)!
Cathy Pagano, M.A.
www.imaginecoachingservices.com