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A Return To Source
Where Is God?
It’s as if what is unbreakable – the very pulse of life –
waits for everything else to be torn away,
and then in the bareness that only silence and suffering
and great love can expose, it dares to speak through us and to us.
It seems to say, if you want to last, hold on to nothing.
If you want to know love, let in everything.
If you want to feel the presence of everything
stop counting the things that break along the way.
~ Mark Nepo
This poem by Mark Nepo strikes at the heart of the deeply Piscean flavor of now, which invites us to abide in not knowing, allowing the unraveling of old, solidified ways, “holding onto nothing,” so that we can come face to face with the Soul at our core, that part which cannot be lost, which connects us to all of life. For many, facing loss, grief, and breakage head-on are necessary initiations into this other-worldly archetypal process.
Treading in very Piscean waters now and through the end of the month, we are asked to move beyond identity, to unbind ourselves from familiar moorings, to allow ourselves to float or drift in the primal waters of life. For some, this may be a welcome dip into timeless, creative, or transcendent realms, while for others this may be deeply unsettling, requiring faith, and support of some sort (both inner and outer). Ultimately, though, PIsces, the sign that heralds a return to Source, is preparing us for a time of new life, with the coming of Spring, and the sign Aries, the sign of “I am.”
With transiting Saturn in Pisces until early 2026 (dipping into Aries for 3 months next year), we are called to the difficult task of weaving Pisces’ silent, ethereal realms with the energy of material practicality, of responsibilities and structures. To this end, I’ve been practicing taking regular brief pauses (5-10 minutes) throughout my days, whether in meditation, somatic attunement, or outside in the elements of air, wind, birdsong, and earth, so as to infuse a deeper level of conscious awareness and spaciousness in my ordinary round. As well, longer periods spent in and with nature are a great way to call in the realm of the unbounded and timeless.
Merely tuning in to the birds’ chatter and delight as I go about my day transports me to the realm beyond my small but focused preoccupations. And of course, noticing and tending to the shy, sometimes ornate buds on limbs and stalks is an invitation into faith in the steadfast miracle of life, which persists in the natural world despite the destructive actions of misguided humans.
Availing ourselves of the Piscean energy of unwinding and re-formation, perhaps we can create a new way of being, of toggling between modes of Doing and Being, as we approach the start of a new seasonal/zodiacal cycle. In so doing, we can better approach the work of harvesting the pure waters of wisdom and guidance that Pisces presides over, and which are so needed in these uncertain, turbulent times.
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Country of the Imagination
With Saturn in Pisces, the sign of flowing and dissolving, there is this paradox – we need to honor the planetary energy that demands our attention to the material plane, as it provides necessary guiderails and scaffolding to help us move through life—yet we are asked to allow a certain, oft uncomfortable work of letting go, not knowing what’s next. And this takes time. We might heed Emily Dickinson’s wise invocation to “dwell in possibility.” (Pretty radical to invoke Paradise at this point, as she does at the end of the poem, but why not? It’s Pisces’ domain.) It’s okay to be unclear and undefined in Piscean times – in fact, lack of clarity and confusion is a necessary precursor to accessing the imagination. Right on time, this morning I came upon an email announcing a webinar from author/dreamworker, Tokopa Turner, called Country of Nowhere: Voyage Into the Imaginal. Indeed, Pisces calls us, however dimly heard, to spend time with the realm of the Imagination. As philosopher/author John O’Donohue writes in his book, Beauty, The imagination awakens the wildness of heart, of human nature. We rarely break free and are never aware of how smoothly we slide along the rails of social ordering. The awakened imagination desists from this domestication, returns us to our native wildness. Other worlds come into view, and we’re invited to risk new ways of dwelling in the world…The imagination radically coaxes us into a new situation. As a scene unfolds, we become engaged in its questions and possibilities. Knowing is always emerging. The imaginative form of knowing is grace with gradualness. There are multiple ways to access this ‘country of the imagination’ whether through contemplative practices such as meditation, Tai Chi, or Qi Gong; participation in the creative arts (music, poetry, dance, writing); or spending time in or around water. All of these help us let go in to the right-brained, non-linear mode of being of the Piscean waters. Accordingly, brilliant iconoclast British philosopher Iaian McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emmissary and more recently, The Matter With Things, advocates the urgent need for a cultural shift towards a more holistic and inclusive, right-brained way of being, pointing to the disaster that the linear, driven left-brained mode has landed us in. To this end, of the PIscean theme, he suggests we consider the nail-biting phenomenon of glacial melting as not all bad, in that it exemplifies a process of becoming released from very old and solidified ways of being. Worth contemplating, as we see the dissolution of our political and societal structures, not to mention our ecosystems. Before we can rebuild a world worth inhabiting, the old one must go. Likewise, this melting process perhaps needs to take place inside ourselves. This is indeed important work, as true change on the outer always begin on the inner. I am not saying this is easy! |
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New Moon In Pisces
We will have four celestial bodies in Pisces seeding the March 10 New Moon at 20° Pisces – the Sun and the Moon (considered ‘luminaries’ as they are not planets), along with Saturn and Neptune. Mercury (communications) will have just slipped from Pisces into Aries, although at this writing it’s still in Pisces, conjunct Neptune, perhaps corresponding to the fact that everything that comes to my Inbox these days is of a distinctly Piscean flavor!
From poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (excerpted from It Comes Down to This), we have a beautiful rumination on the desire to ‘unself’ oneself, to open into Oneness with all life, which deep inner work calls us to.
I want to be less who I am and more what a tree is, what a star is […]
this is how I want to meet you, without a name, unemcumbered by a me.
I want to know myself as a collection of atoms and forces that rhyme with you
Linked as we are from the very beginning. How easy it is then to say hello
To fall in love with each other, the world.
Venus in late Aquarius will join the Pisces grouping two days after the Full Moon, which will lend a heightened sense of love and appreciation of beauty, with both Venus (Taurus-ruled) and Neptune (Pisces-ruled) being significators of profound artistic receptivity. Beauty is another one of Pisces’ realms, both in Art and in Nature offering an unpredictable hotline to ecstatic uplift or transcendence, such as on the breath of wind-swept pink cherry blossoms softly scattering sideways, or the pulsating of a mourning dove’s gentle song in the distance. Beauty, indeed, reaches right into our soul, dissolving all but the flash of knowing, or union, that it inspires in us.
Neptune, the natural ruler of Pisces, heightens the highs of this Piscean time, perhaps making us melt with tears over beautiful sights and compassion for and with others, but as well it can bring the lows of disappointment, loss, deception, confusion, and grief. We can’t just turn away from this energy, as with Saturn here, we need to ‘get serious about’ whatever is coming up for us in the house where we have Pisces, the fishes, in our charts.
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Anyone with planets or important chart points in mid- to-late Pisces, or in any of the other three mutable signs of Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius (thereby forming conjunctions, squares, or oppositions with this energy) will likely be feeling the Piscean theme more deeply, as will those with prominent Water signs energies that trine the Pisces signature. As always, an astrological consultation can help one better understand the forces working within, and help one align so as to best navigate the waters and lean into the supports available.
We also still have a strong Aquarian charge in the air these days, with Pluto there at 1°, supported by Mars and Venus in later degrees. At this writing, we have 8 of the 10 planets/luminaries in these last two transpersonal signs, which calls us to ‘get larger’ than our small selves, take the humanitarian, big picture perspective on life, and gently move off of the small self’s judgments, conflicts, fears and dramas.
Of course both Aquarius and Pisces have their shadows, which include isolation and attachment to orthodoxy (or black-and-white thinking), and self-deprecation and despair. If we feel any of these states creeping up on us, perhaps we can invoke the powers of Mercury, still in Pisces, to call in a state of mind that is easier to live inside, one of hope, of dwelling in the heart, of being a sentry for beauty.
Also important, in this sign that falls on the axis of Service (along with polarity partner Virgo) is to work with intention on our shadow issues, in order that we might thereby heal and be of better service to life.
Soon, Mercury will move into Aries, current ruler of the Moon’s North Node, which means we need to be on guard against being pulled impulsively into conflicts unintended—particularly so with Mars squaring Uranus, where it will be roughly until the Spring Equinox, on March 19. These Aries/Mars configurations suggest we should take care to slow down, to avoid the harms of rash action or speech. On March 22, Mars heads into Pisces, where impulses and desires can be waylaid in dreamy waters, but where we would do well to apply our will to creativity or inner work.
With the North Node in Aries for the remainder of 2024, we are called to learn how to assert our will and take action in centered, unreactive ways. Chiron is beginning to depart from its conjunction to this North Node, which may have been in some way highlighting any wound we may feel to our capacity for decisive doing. But as astrologer Jason Holley says, the North Node indicates what we are “hungry for.” So we benefit, during this Nodal phase, from gathering our courage to act skillfully (as good Buddhists do!) on behalf of the values and missions we stand for.
For a beautiful, somewhat provocative musical experience of the Piscean mists into which Saturn provokes out discipleship, I invite you to pause for 3 minutes, breathe, and drink in this piece, Lands of Permanent Mist, by Christina Vantzou.
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Further Meanderings
Emily Dickinson, I Dwell In Possibility – https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52197/i-dwell-in-possibility-466
Iain McGilchrist – https://channelmcgilchrist.com/home/
Iain McGilchrist Discusses, The Matter With Things – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U99dQrZdVTg&t=13s&ab_channel=RebelWisdom
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All photos copyright Diana Badger 2024 (unless otherwise indicated)