My teacher once told me that Pisces ruled both the sacred and the profane. While I wholeheartedly tried to grasp this concept at the time, I never fully understood his meaning until more recently during the South Node’s transit through Pisces. Since the fall of 2015, the energy has been ripe with escapism, addictions, martyrdom, playing the victim, deception and disillusionment. Each of these themes became especially apparent during the time of the election when the South Node came into conjunction with Neptune. People were melting down and emoting all over the place! As cathartic as that may have been, it gave us all a major taste of the shadowy underbelly of Pisces, where lack of discernment and disconnection with reality can lead to major periods of disillusionment and emotional breakdown.
On a mundane level, Pisces rules the places that are hidden away from the outside world— from monasteries to brothels, peaceful retreats to insane asylums, the full spectrum of these types of establishments, which allow their inhabitants to retreat from interaction with the outside world, fall under the rulership of the deep and mysterious sign of Pisces. Governed by Neptune, Pisces is the sign of the mystic and the addict, the martyr and the saint. It is the sign of compassion, love, and connectedness as well as falsity, illusion and deception. Pisces is the sign most associated with the archetypal depths of the subconscious mind where truly anything goes. Pisces is the shape-shifter, lacking in boundary and form, encompassing the energies of all eleven preceding Zodiac signs, and then some.
When there is a lot of Pisces/Neptune energy abound, such as there is right now, it causes our waking lives to become foggy, confusing and unclear. This effect, combined with the Piscean tendency to want to see the best in people, often causes us to become much more vulnerable to deception. Being the most compassionate of the Zodiac signs, Pisces tends to view the world through rose-colored glasses. Beginning in the fall of 2015 with the South Node’s transit through Pisces, we’ve been collectively working to let go of that which no longer serves us in terms of confusion, delusion, self-deception, martyrdom or playing the victim. With Neptune and the karmic and otherworldly South Node in close alignment with Sunday’s eclipse, we’re moving into the final Pisces purge. It’s time to let go of loose boundaries and escapist tendencies that are holding us back from reaching our full potential. Within the space that’s been created through the clearing out of our Pisces shadow, we’re finally able to see the potential for the beauty and connectedness that can be created out of the rubble. Moving forward, we all have the ability to connect more deeply with spirit and to create our lives from a space of greater love and compassion. Having let go of so many unsavory emotional connections and escapist habits, we now have the potential to move through practical reality with greater understanding and ease all the while rooting our actions in something that is beautiful, pure and true— transcending the boundaries of our physical reality and lacking the need for explanation.
Eclipses always mark periods of major endings and new beginnings (for some more than others depending on the placement of the eclipse in relationship to the natal points and planets). This eclipse in particular can bring about an emotional crisis of loss, deception, disillusionment, or change. With an overabundance of Piscean energy, with the Sun, Moon, Mercury, South Node, Neptune and Chiron are all transiting Pisces, this eclipse can bring about an overload of emotional, intuitive or psychic energy that can weigh heavily on those who are already quite sensitive. For some of us, it will feel as if we are drowning or in over our heads. With Mars conjunct Uranus in Aries in opposition to retrograde Jupiter in Libra, we may pressure ourselves to stick it out, push through, and make all the necessary changes to bring us back into equilibrium all at once. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by the energy this weekend, it can be helpful to disconnect and seek solitude or to channel your energy into something both active and spiritually fulfilling, such as a hike in nature.
I wish you all the best of luck in navigating the energy this weekend! Feel free to comment below with questions, insights or feedback! :)