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Life Imitates Art: Pisces Birthdays, part 2

IMAGINE your life is a fiction story. There is a plot, there is a theme, and you don't know the outcome of this particular volume. Indeed, if you scan back over the last few books of your life, you will see they all ended up in surprising places you never could have predicted.

Many strange factors seem to be at play; some you can see and some you cannot. And for reasons you don't quite have sorted out, there's a vast amount of energy in the background: influences, circumstances much larger than your life, and many things you don't quite understand. Perhaps the story doesn't seem to be coming together.

All you can do is live each day with just enough confidence to experience what is available, do the work you need to do, and make the decisions that present themselves.

But who is the author? Well it would seem that you are! But if you're the author, how come there is so much you don't know? Perhaps it's because life really is here to imitate art.

I had one occasion to talk to the novelist Robert Rimmer in the last years of his life. He was about 80 years old and I'm not even sure how I got him on the phone. He said to me, I'll tell you one thing. If you want to write fiction, don't plot out the story. Just write the story.

The wisdom of this took some years, and some experiments, to dawn on me: the story is alive, and if you don't attempt to push things in one direction, you leave open the gateways to much more interesting possibilities than you might have thought of anyway.

If this takes a leap of faith with words on the page, imagine the faith that it takes to live our lives this way. The world dictates anything but the message that we are safe -- particularly today, when nearly every signal we receive from the outer world screams of insecurity and danger.

But you know something in your heart, which is that there is a bigger plan and that you are in some way integrated with that plan.

In recent weeks I've been covering the outer planets, and this discussion mainly involves them. At the moment, the planet Uranus -- the sky god, who possesses the energy of forward-thinking Prometheus -- is in your sign. About three of the seven years of this journey are complete and it reaches a peak this year, affecting particularly birthdays in the first week of March (who will experience this planet directly on their Sun).

One of the games we can play with the outer planets is to assign them the role of things too far-out to understand. We do get clues and some people are quite good at reading them and some others are excellent at grounding their energies -- thank the Gods, or life would be exceedingly boring. At the moment, you are getting the energy of Uranus at just about full throttle. Toilet humor aside -- there is nothing anal about Uranus (it more resembles female orgasm) -- this means that the Cosmic Master of change and progress is now visiting you.

What I've seen over and over again is that where Uranus is involved, these are the unforeseen turns in the plot, and often the brilliant ones. If you're an astrologer and you see a client has a big Uranian transit coming up that year, you can safely say, "On the approximate theme of [state house theme] and in the part of your life where you seek or identify with [state planet theme/s], when we talk at this time next year, you will not recognize your own life." But you have to be ready to jump, to embrace the more intense vibrations, and to give your own negative expectations a chance to be wrong.

It is true that CNN is broadcasting the planet's seeming descent into hell 24 hours a day. What nobody is saying besides maybe me (there must be somebody else) is that, regardless of how close to the brink of various apocalypses the world gets, times of intense chaos and change are the very moments when we get to take new roles, express ourselves more boldly, and completely go past all the old definitions. And that is the kind of historical phase we are in now.

Along with Uranus visiting Pisces, Neptune, the ruler of Pisces, is visiting Aquarius. These two planets are associated with one another's signs. This doubles the effect and essentially places both planets in both signs, and that, cousins and critters, is a buttload of outer planet energy storming through both signs. Indeed, it might be helpful to read through my comments to Aquarius and take those as a kind of 'hidden dimension' of your life because these are the circumstances and energies at play in your hidden 12th house.

This is extra meaningful to you because Pisces is the 12th sign, and Aquarius is the 12th sign relative to Pisces. You experience the mystical 12th house energy in a tangible, concrete way, and are actually able to express it in ideas (Aquarius) much of the time. British astrologer Sally Brompton once commented years ago that this had to be putting Pisces people a little on edge, to have your planet immersed in the mysterious 12th sector of the chart, dissolving all those Aquarian concepts and getting you to rethink everything. But more lately, Chiron's arrival in Aquarius has been the herald of a new phase of awareness; and has with any luck or grace saved you from your fears of the unknown. In truth, the unknown is calling you louder than ever.

This new addition is reminding you of your focusing power. And remember that as Chiron slowly approaches a conjunction to Uranus and Jupiter in some few years, that you really can be sure your life is leading to, well, something.

Now what, you may ask, does this all add up to? I'll tell you.

I don't know. And that is very much the point. But one thing you don't have to worry about is having no power, influence or options. And that is much closer to the point, actually. You are working with tremendous energy. True, this may be a somewhat chaotic time in your life, but the outer planets are not exactly haphazard in their effects. This is fertile chaos and something is being born from it.

For Pisces right now, particularly those in the Zone where Uranus is going over the Sun -- the current first week of March, out as far as the 7th or 8th and further, depending on your chart -- all you need to do is follow your instincts, feel your sense of restlessness, and go with the energy. The often necessary "direct the energy" or take charge factor can be addressed by CONSCIOUSNESS, which is to say, being aware of awareness, and staying close to that point where you can make the decisions you need to make as you need to make them.

Indeed, you could sum your whole life up as feeling the energy and making the decisions that need to be made. To the extent that you must apply foresight (a truly Uranian factor), do so in the way of looking for the most inventive solution to every situation, the most creative thing to do each day, and keeping loose contingency plans handy. Preserve options when you can. Particularly your options for who you are, where you are and what you want to do in life, because I reckon that there is something pretty amazing in the stars.

Be ready to let the chaos factor work in your favor. Make sure your passport is up to date, and make sure you know a couple of people you trust to take care of your cat for a while. In case you need to be reminded, try driving or walking everyplace a different way each time, and come home taking a slightly different route. And don't plot out your novel, because the future is unwritten.

Last year's Pisces birthday reports are at this link:
http://www.lemonade.planetwaves.net/bdreports/pisces.html


Relationship Yoga: Pisces Birthdays 3

SOME THINGS in astrology and the universe we simply need to trust, and the Galactic Core is one of them.

One of the major developing stories for Pisces over the next four seasons is relationships. Using conventional points such as Mercury, Pluto and an eclipse of the Moon, the imagery is of focus, commitment, and what amounts to a total inner reorientation on the concept of relating to others.

On one level it may seem impossible to discern cause from effect, that is, to state clearly whether you are changing and that is changing your environment; whether people are changing and that is affecting you; or whether some process you cannot identify is shifting all of reality.

It does appear true that when we change and grow internally, this can have a profound effect on our experience. Sometimes we seem to decide; and at others, there seems to be nothing we can possibly do to shift reality, or worse, as Trey Anastasio wrote, "A week is a month and an hour a day / when your reaching just pushes it further away."

Yet if astrology means anything at all, there can be no doubt that where your life is concerned, something is rearranging itself in a big way. Follow along with a description of the aspects, which is sometimes helpful.

Presently, Mercury is retrograde in your birth sign. That tells us a few concrete things: one, it is spending a couple of months there instead of the usual couple of weeks; two, there is a Sun-Mercury conjunction in your sign; three, you are now taking both seriously and personally the matters represented by the houses that Mercury rules in your chart, and internalizing those matters as the top priority on your agenda.

Mercury is a significant planet for Pisces on at least two accounts: it's the co-ruler of your opposite sign, also known as the 7th solar house, Virgo (Chiron being the other planet deeply connected to Virgo); Mercury is the ruler of your 4th solar house, Gemini, which is the angle in your solar chart we look to for information about your home base, security, your emotional state and something to do with the peculiar birds known as your parents.

If you are a Pisces, your parents are not much like you, except for the fact that they too were left out of the Audubon Society wildlife guide. You are a bit nervous; they are very nervous. You are a bit dualistic; there is something about them that could require treatment for split personality disorder. You are emotional; they are the original Electric Brain. They are pretty smart; you blend sensitivity and intelligence in a way that they may actually appreciate, but could never rival. You are introverted and they live most of their life in the world.

All of this might have contributed to your alienation complex, except for the fact that they did teach you to talk; and also made you highly adaptable. Having Gemini on this house suggests strongly you need two different security bases, and the current transit of Mars through this house is stirring up your interest in making your world safe enough that you can dare to live a little. Indeed, Mars square Uranus so close to your solar return is suggesting that it's time to live a lot, and on short order.

But back to my main point. Mercury, the ruler of these two supremely important houses -- the 7th, relationships, and the 4th, your security base -- has been doing some very impressive maneuvers lately. When he/she/it stationed retrograde last week, it did so forming an exact square to Pluto in Sagittarius. Squares create the internal pressure to change, grow and to build personal integrity. I don't care how challenging they are -- the result of a square, by natal, transit or progression, sooner or later, is integrity.

The feeling of Mercury reaching to this square was precise, and the pressure was enormous. It seems to have been deliberately designed to break through some ego structure or mental pattern that has been holding you back: from feeling safe, from relating to others; from rearranging your security base so that it works for you; and most of all, from being able to feel your feelings and articulate them clearly with those who matter most.

Mercury square Pluto is fiercely independent; it can be lonely; but it lacks all ambiguity: it's possible to feel your needs and then to begin articulating them. There is something here about getting off the mental level. There's a lot of that in the sky right now, the other great example being the forthcoming eclipse of the Moon in Virgo. Eclipses represent shifts in continuity. A penumbral eclipse (very beautiful to see, because the Moon glows in the half-shadow of the Earth) in Virgo is like slipping out of mental patterns rather than ripping oneself loose. They don't exactly disappear but they can be seen for what they are, and that is a way you can look at your life right now.

But this eclipse occurs exactly opposite where Mercury stationed retrograde, demonstrating its connection to that scenario; and both the Sun and the Moon are square Pluto. So we have a lot of square+Pluto energy in the charts these days (remember the Pluto square article from a few weeks ago). Change is inevitable, and it is happening.

Then there is the Galactic Core. Pluto is now conjunct the Core, so the two are for the moment inseparable, and this is an event that is unprecedented in modern history; the previous one dates back to the mid 1700s -- at the time of something called The Enlightenment. Pluto brings the compelling energy of one's soul mission to your life, indeed, to your 10th house of your life mission.

What we learn from this is that everything in your life is shifting and rearranging to meet your greater life purpose, the mission you have been on for a long time but which you may have taken for granted, or presumed was too big and too good to be true. Pluto conjunct the GC in your 10th house is an organizing principle; a guiding beacon; an absolutely irresistible force. Your work is involved, yes, but really, this is about your overall mission and the way in which the entirety of your life, including the people in it, your living space, the circumstances that affect your state of mind, the food you eat, the thoughts you think, and just about anything you can name, must support that mission in order to make expressing that mission possible, indeed, inevitable.

And it is happening. It's going to be an interesting ride from here, but tolerating boredom is no virtue, and your Purpose is calling you, guiding you and drawing you near.


Last year's Pisces birthday reports are at this link:
http://www.lemonade.planetwaves.net/bdreports/pisces.html

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