“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” — Albert Einstein
So a bunch of my clients have asked me about Mercury turning retrograde this week (like, in a few minutes). Most were concerned about ‘spacing out’ or losing emotional control because Pisces is considered amorphic and undisciplined. I don’t understand these associations. Einstein was a Pisces, and he overturned our entire view of the universe. If that way of delineating reality is supposed to be unfocused or undisciplined, well—Jesus—bring it on. We need more of it. Especially now when all the fallout of the Pluto in Capricorn transit keeps breaking free and cluttering the cultural landscape.
Pisces is associated with Jupiter. Neptune has nothing to do with the sign. The outer planets are not aligned with the signs the way the inner planets are. The outer planets hang out in some other neighborhood, though we are able to detect them in our solar system. Dane Rudhyar called them ambassadors from some other galaxy, and I’ve always liked that notion. Why? Because the outer planets’ light does not reach us in the same way that light from our Sun and Moon—and the sunlight that is reflected back to us all the way out to Saturn—returns back to us. Ultimately astrology is all about light and its reception and how that infiltrates and impregnates and makes the world appear ‘here’—right before our eyes.
Jupiter is similar in some ways to Mercury, if Mercury weren’t so active assimilating data. Which is to say Jupiter works from a level of mind that is associated with wisdom, which is a kind of synthesized understanding of data. What Mercury gathers up and names Jupiter embues with vitality and juice, cooking it up to share with others. Which is what Pisces loves to do: share insights and wisdom—especially if those insights will change up the world around her. As the last sign of the zodiac Pisces is the wisest, the most artistic and the most abstract. Pisces seals the seeming split between the emotional or feeling realm and that of the mind. And shows us that feelings and thoughts are always intertwined and inter-related.
So anyway, Mercury will touch off all of the Pisces transits underway via its retrograde; this is like a mega-vitamin for the mind. All of the brainstorms you’ve had during the last couple of weeks will now get a chance to have the missing ingredients added to the mix to bring everything to consciousness—or not. Allow for messes and mistakes, or as musician Brian Eno once said: “Honor thy error as a hidden intention…” Have fun. Get some smart wisdom.
Frederick Woodruff is a Fourth Way astrologer. Trained by Ivy Goldstein-Jacobson, he’s practiced astrological inquiry for over 40 years. Mr. Woodruff offers private sessions by appointment.
I’m honored to share that my teacher was Ivy Goldstein-Jacobson, an Aries dynamo who convinced me when I was a teenager that astrology was a worthy subject to consider as my life’s vocation; and so I’ve worked professionally as a counseling astrologer for the past 45 years. I write regularly on the merger of astrology and popular culture on my WOODRUFF Substack. My two published books, Secrets of a Telephone Psychic
and Skywriter: Notes on Modern Astrology are are both available through my e-book publisher. You can arrange a session with me here.
Hi JJ
I did not author the article you referenced.
FW
This is from your post http://daykeeper.wpengine.com/2012/02/neptune-in-pisces/
“As of February 3, 2012, Neptune will commit to its transit of Pisces, the sign which it rules. In its home sign, Neptune’s vibration is at its peak; this amorphous, insidious energy permeates whatever it encounters, sometimes like a subtle drip-drip-drip, sometimes like a raging tsunami, but while at home its effects are most obvious to see. ”
So which is the ruling planet of Pisces- Neptune or Jupiter?