ESOTERIC ASTROLOGY

PISCES 2010

Labor of Hercules
Capture of the Red Cattle of Geryon

Go to dark (island) Erytheia where Great Illusion is enthroned, King Geryon monster of 3 heads, 3 bodies, 6 hands who unlawfully holds Herd of Red Cattle; [ saving all] return them to Sacred City; invokes Helios fire in the Sun and Golden Chalice appears; kills 2-headed dog Orthrus, spares shepherd Eurytion, kills Geryon arriving in dust with Flaming Arrow; drives cattle from island in Chalice (or over Alps to Italy), pins Eryx, kills Alcyoneus w. his own rock; arrives, offers Red Cattle to Athena.

Motto: I leave my Father's home and turning back, I save.
(Pisces takes from all the signs)

Esoteric Pisces II
TRAUMA ("Wound")
Anna Vissi, 1997 CD & song

If the thread of life of one is cut, the both of us will die.
Neither for an instant or a minute am I able to think, to hope, to exist, to breathe – without you.
Hold me tight, kiss me again, tell me that we will always be together, in Death as in Life.

Τραύμα είσαι ανοιχτό, Τραύμα που το αγαπώ, κι αν θα κλείσει
θα χαθώ. Τραύμα, που χώρια του, εγώ δε ζώ...

The Wound is open, the wound that I love. And if it closes,
I will be lost. For apart from you, Wound, I do not live.

I like these modern Greek renditions of classical neoplatonic philosophy because they are so philosophically and metaphorically expressive of the deep and broad human condition. This song expresses the relation of Soul to Personality in Pisces and also in esoteric Pisces, as well as expressing its implications in the world. These words are found in love songs throughout the world. Expansive Jupiter and Pisces are said to foster romantic dreams.

As Saturn rules the ring-pass-not of any living and coherent system, Jupiter rules the extent of the entity’s magnetic aura and magnetic rapport. Its power comes from the ability to include and also to work through the heart approach (especially when heart and head work together!). It should be remembered that the ‘heart approach’ is also used by the undeveloped, unregenerate, self-willed and self-aggrandizing worldly types – as well as by con-men.

Commentary

All great love songs hide the reality that they are truly about the projection of one’s Soul on to the personality/Soul of the Other, the partner, without whose love one will die of endless sorrow, of hopelessness or loss, of remorse at inaction, of despair that all will not end well, and recognition that death lies at the end of the happy forever after.

But it is this practice of projecting and seeing the Soul in the other that trains us and humanity to see the Soul in all things, and provides a healing balm to the death experience.
It also trains us, or leads and entrains us rather, into continuity of consciousness though Love.

The Passion of Christ is perfectly hopeless on the personality level. Yet it gave hope and passion to humanity in relation to societies/nations for 2000 years by showing all and sundry who and what they are – mortal Spirits.

This theme must have been part of the Eleusinian Mysteries presided over by Hades and Persephone (open to citizens of Athens only), and at the Cumaean Temple to Hades at ancient (pre-Roman Orphic) Baiae. They were present in a grosser form in the Mysteries of Dionysos associated with the hills and forests surrounding the temple of Apollo at Delphi, as Nietzsche noted.

Pisces rules the Soul and Personality (or response Mechanism) bound together or in bondage.
Gemini rules Soul and Personality unbound, and unattached.
Pisces develops the ability to fluidly identify with humanity as a host.
In Gemini and Pisces this hyper-sensitivity accentuates the challenge of transcending the dualities.

The quality of ceaseless and almost chameleonic change in facial and body-language sensibility is found in many of the best actors and performers. It is an asset for subtle as well as dynamic projection of tone, interpretation, and the sense of truthfulness to the character, theme, peripheral action, and the moral or overall message of the work.

Pisces is the sign of super-sensitivity, of romance, of dreams and dream-states, and of passion.
One positive note of delusional or illusory romance, love and Eros is that it expands our psyches and minds and makes us aware that we are seeking something much deeper within ourselves and from the world at large. Jupiter is naturally associated with aspiration on this probationary level in Pisces. It gets firmed up in striving Sagittarius, in the developed social and planetary service groups of Aquarius, and is meant to produce results of a planetary scope through the categorical imperatives of goodwill in rational, sustaining Virgo — the glorification of mother Earth. This relation of Pure Reason or buddhi to Virgo and by reflex action to Neptune/Pisces is quite interesting, no?

This ‘continuity of consciousness’ of love is accomplished by the above signs ruled by Jupiter — Virgo, Aquarius, Pisces, and Leo — the signs “basically concerned with the expression of consciousness on the outer external planes of expression or with the fusion of soul and form in order to demonstrate fully a state of awareness” of the Three Major Constellations (EA 468).

The Three Fates dwell in Hades — Spinner, Measurer, Cutter. The song above mentions cutting the thread binding personality to soul which frees both, but which also threatens to kill both in the sense of suspending the cause of dual manifestation. (This reflects in a moving way the relation of the singer with her husband/promoter and their well-known history [in Europe] in relation to their gazillionaire endeavors.)

“Tell me we will always be together in Death as in Life.” We are not the body. It is donated to us by the substance of Not-Self and is drawn from the Mother's pure/gross body. As individual souls and living personalities we only have bodies made of the four ethers. The rest is donated from ‘refuse’ and compost presided over by Artemis the Moon, mother of all forms in nature.

Soul and Personality will always be together in the Three and Five Worlds. Soul and Body (Ψύχε και Σώμα) always while in incarnation only.
The Soul must have a mechanism of response to participate in the Three Worlds; and Spirit in the Five Worlds.
This is the meaning of the Golden Chalice in the Labor of Hercules, as distinct from the causal lotus and jewel (and formless mayavirupa).

This is the essence of great Passion or Compassion — buddhi, unconditioned open love. Life is an open wound, an unremitting and self-healing trauma, from birth to death.
It is the Flame of Discontent. We burn ourselves to life and burn ourselves to death, as one Scandinavian poet put it.

The World finds an infinite variety of ways to dress this fact up, to distract our attention, to entertain and amuse ourselves to death.

One may think a Wound a poor example to dwell on spiritually regarding Pisces, in comparison with Healing, for instance. But to drag oneself out of the personality level it is necessary to see and feel the burial of the soul in the personality and planetary environment as the perpetual (and reliable) reality for spiritual students. Like tantric Buddhism, it may be a difficult and hazardous path to review the open Wound of Life (and keep it open?), but it is the most direct Path to realizing ultimate reality and truth. Comfort is a curse and obstacle to spiritual growth and realization. Of course, St. Paul’s theme of dying daily means one thing to soul and spirit, and another entirely to the personality. This is useful in assessing Pisces natives.

The perpetual Wound of Life opens us to the world of duality — to sensitivity to the world of Self and Other and to perpetual healing and reintegration. The Flame of Discontent illuminates space and ultimately dissolves any mistakes in the sense, understanding, and perception of subjective/objective, Self and Not-Self.

The perpetual motion and adjustments of sensibility and responsiveness open us up to esoteric recognition and “indefinable identifications.” Occult recognition enables guidance, direction, purpose and opens us to the Path and later to the Way of the Higher Evolution.

It is said that Pisces feels all the constraints and obstructions of the world that collide with their dreams and ideals and aspirations. They know they are swallowed up in the belly of Behemoth and imprisoned while in human society on earth. (Check out Thomas Hobbes on 'Behemoth' as well as 'Leviathan'.) As souls, they know they are buried in Earth while in incarnation. The only way out of a mudslide, burial plot, quicksand or tarpit is up — with mutual aid. This –the oversensitivity of Pisces – is meant to increase the possibilities of magnetic attraction and free unconditioned inclusiveness to enforce recognition and sustained awareness of mystical union and responsibility we all have to each other within a larger living whole.

It is a cliché (“Serve or Suffer”) that if Pisces does not work with large institutions or humanity at large in some way, it often finds itself ‘institutionalized’ in the unpleasant sense (hospitalization, asylum, detention, lousy job and boss...). But this is only to be expected (esoterically) since Pisces is the sign of the Work of the Christ, or Resurrecting principle of the Logos and the World at large. Pisces feels and finally knows that it lives in the belly of the beast and must come to its own terms with that. The arts and music are great opportunities for work and sorting out one’s options, but also help with healing and when one is working on one’s backstroke to stay psychologically afloat.

It has been said that for a Pisces there is no escape — no escape but up, upwards and on.
This makes it one of the great testing signs of the zodiac and is why it can offer great consolation for Pisces to serve humanity in large groups and institutions as well as spiritually and in invisible solitude. Of course for disciples this is a platitude. Pisces stands close by the Open Wound that will not heal until all have found solace and salvation — living, loving and working together as One.

Slowly over time, that is to say over lifetimes, the individual increasingly becomes able to take a stance in his soul body, associated with the seven head centers, and conditions his mechanism of response, the personality, through the cyclic opportunities to substitute the lower with the higher ethers (See AAB, Telepathy & the Etheric Vehicle). This is the slow process of building the strong and resilient vajra and rainbow bodies of Tibetan tantric Buddhism. This is the higher or esoteric significance of the two fishes being bound together by the dual thread of the sutratma/sushumna.

This only becomes possible with the much higher degrees of energetic tolerance demanded by continuous usage and stabilization of the process and method of Identification in all relationships and circumstances in the Three and Five Worlds. Even in ordinary life, those who relate directly to others and accomplish their work through identification with their ‘field of work’ (at whatever level) leave their entire threefold personality mechanism open to sensitivity and insight through greater receptivity – but also to invasion. We are all familiar with the Pisces/Virgo selflessly serving or service-ethic types who are treated as peripherals and doormats by their (generally speaking) inferiors. Belittled until they are needed (to maintain appearances) by their less conscious and compassionate, and generally dysfunctional associates (self-interested ‘superiors’) who have little interest or understanding of the values of reflection, self-examination and self-improvement, or the working principles of the Great Service, or Life itself. (These latter beasts can look forward to ‘interesting’ karmic adventures in future!) The approach of identification leaves one open and not necessarily protected (except by colleagues, group, lineage, or master), as symbolized by the unrevealed symbol of Aries-Capricorn in comparison to Venus’ pentagon of the Soul.

We will quickly pass over the common and obvious temptations of Escapism from perceived or recognized imprisonment, bondage, and being “cornered by the life processes,” leaving this to orthodox personality astrology whose responsibility lies in helping the masses (Pisces) understand the nature, causation and costs of addiction in the modern 'consumer/waster' Addiction Society. These common unpleasant phenomena are more associated (planetarily vs. zodiacally) with Neptune and Mars and the enabling lower Venus, than with Pisces per se. It is helpful to look at the zodiacal signs (and Three Crosses) as being conditioned and distorted by the planets found within them (rather than vice versa), since the power and influence of the signs (veiling constellations) trumps that of the planets in the chart, just as planets overpower the house placements.

Pisces is ruled by Neptune only on the collective level. It is relevant to those (few in number but increasing) aware of and investigating the collective Unconscious and the Mysteries of humanity, the planetary and solar Lives and the necessities of responsibility, assumption of duty and submission to the tests and demands of initiation. Neptune is found strong in the great higher mystical exponents when accompanied by a strong Mercury (heliocentrically and heliocosmically), and in those who work to introduce and reestablish the Mystery Schools on Earth. In Pisces and in the Mysteries, Neptune is found working in the depths and with Pluto’s helmet of invisibility. As regards the impact of Neptune on the personality or response mechanism, it enforces the realization that what one is seeking outside oneself can only be found within. It is this often painful realization that drives the personality into relation and coordination with the buddhic (bodhicitta) plane, and organizes the individualized buddhic vehicles.

On a more common level, the negative ‘Neptunian’ traits in Pisces are more genuinely associated with Jupiter’s ego expansion, overindulgence, indiscriminate inclusiveness and determination to optimize (for the willful ends of the lower personality) by any means necessary, or more properly speaking, by those means at one’s disposal. It is involved more with unselfconscious self-aggrandizement and the allure of power, advantage, prestige insignia, and stultifying sensual indulgence. In lower types this draws in the lower (underworld) nature of Pluto until that planet imposes the healing process when the worldly ‘aspirant’ (addict) hits rock bottom. Then the Twelve (zodiacal) Steps appear in a new light. William Griffith Wilson, (co-)founder of AA and the Twelve-Step programs, had heliocentric Mercury on his Venus-Chiron Libra conjunction, trine Neptune. Mars heliocosms are found on his Venus-Chiron, Sun and Jupiter; a Venus-D heliocosm on his Sun; and Mercury heliocosms exactly on his Sun as well as on Mars, Neptune, both Nodes and Venus. The major orthodox astrological signature was Neptune-Pluto opposite his Sagittarius Sun.

Pisces and its tendency to withdrawal from the world (as well as common ‘retirement’ in later life) can be an exceptional positive – all now becomes possible, depending on the lifetime’s accumulation of karma, wealth and health, or skill in meeting or rejecting real versus spurious responsibilities. The major obstacle is misperception of one’s present situation and attachment to the perceived and conceptualized past, which is a mere construction (admittedly confused with lots of feeling). Death might be the answer, but as William Blake noted on his epitaph, “William Blake, who delighted in good company, born and died many times since.” Letting go of attachment to any preconceptions can be quite refreshing. If there is intolerable pain, that’s what meditation and alternative medicine or additional nutrition are for. Where there is a will, there is a way – and that is where Pluto comes in. Clear the decks, please....

While Virgo provides discrimination and discernment in terms of what is to be assimilated and what is not, Pisces provides the final impetus and decision to drop, throw out, to say NO. Pisces can be driven to draw boundaries, out of clarity, self-protection, or outright fear. It is important to be clear.
Pisces with the help of Virgo draws boundaries and methodical lines of action for a fresh start. It may throw out excess or simplify life in terms of psychological accumulations or inevitable/dysfunctional ‘hoarding’ over a lifetime. Pisces brings the appropriate time to throw out old patterns, behaviors, gutbrain attitudes or outworn mental formulations. Frustration, exasperation, rage, and determined housecleaning can be useful at this time. Anger in essence, no matter what the perceived ‘cause’ (interdepenent causation?) is unused and un-redirected energy. Depression is often un-faced and unused anger and grief, compounded by an un-mastered emotional mind.

The spiritual student does not attach to anger or depression, but recognizes these states as a trigger or alarm to spontaneously generate the Will-to-Use proactively all negative states and perceived phenomena. It takes a strong Mind to assert Spirit over emotional will and mental will. Spiritual Will is invincible, though there may be inevitable challenging phases when one despairs. Use anger, exasperation and despair to walk out the front door, let go, stay open, allow yourself to feel energetic, and see what you find and what you might not have expected. Openness and simple forward movement allows the powerful principle of Recognition to operate – recognition of positives that were always there or that are beckoning.

With regard to others, sorrows, memories, all that did not occur so far – just STOP everything and plunge into reflection of all one lost, desired, loved, attempted – and turn all that feeling energy into a positive energetic attitude to send out and radiate love, power and light in those very directions. Intense psychic and physical pain actually help focus and facilitate this process. Just focus. Just sob as long as it takes. After all, Love (and desire) were what you thought made you happy/unhappy. It was actually attachment, lack of resilience and still-to-be-developed straight or direct knowledge. This is where unconditioned joy and bliss begin to draw one's attention, figuratively knocking at one's door. Step up and out and be strong. Sit still and reflect for as many minutes or hours as it takes for one’s system to feel the flow of the warm, forgiving and positive energy you have just generated. Pisces is FLOW. This is a time (at any age) to “Go with the flow.” A path of miracles emerges when one “Lets go and lets God” (Tao?) and allows one’s magnetic field (Jupiter) to expand, include, and accumulate richness. The Wound opens when one has this type and degree of strength and courage (Courage = warmth of Heart – Agni Yoga) and attracts others who perceive something quite different from one’s latent angst and pain — one’s constantly shifting magnetic openness and natural richness. Self-possession is a very beautiful human trait, and it tends to be quickly (if unconsiously) recognized by the world. The Open Wound of Life sensitizes one to Infinity and heals all in a world governed by Time (Saturn). Christians would recognize this as the Sacred Heart of Christ, the true broken and inconsolable heart of deity whilst in incarnation.

Pisces strong (natal, aspect, or just present - sin transit) indicates it is a good time to remain silent and go with the New Flow – without attachment. Attachment and desperation repel both persons and opportunities in the long run. Pisces presents the test of anchoring sustained compassion for self and others in the ocean of life.

Without the understanding and insight that comes from gazing into the Primordial Wound, the passive servitude/imprisonment axis cannot evolve into a dynamic service/work rhythm, nor can the theme of salvage/liberation arrive at the At-One-ment that brings the body of deity or Christ into relation with God’s Own Psyche and Nous (Mind) so the lesser Heavenly Man can achieve the true Heavenly Man’s purpose on His Own cosmic buddhic and mental planes, in turn vitalizing the solar Logoic and Sirian Purpose through non-sacred planets such as our Earth, Pluto and Mars.

In others (ray) types it compels a periodic self-immolation and self-resurrection in order to feel the continuity of healing power in Stillness, Reflection and in the Voice of the Silence. Wherever the mind and heart are opened by facing the overwhelming vastnesses of the Universe, of the Sea, of the Sky, of the Death of Forms and of Pralaya — here we will find Pisces and the challenge of ‘continuity of consciousness.’

This ‘continuity of consciousness’ is accomplished by the signs ruled by Jupiter — Virgo, Aquarius, Pisces, and Leo — the signs “basically concerned with the expression of consciousness on the outer external planes of expression or with the fusion of soul and form in order to demonstrate fully a state of awareness” of the Three Major Constellations (EA 468). 'Continuity of consciousness' is spurred and anchored by Pluto — the deep 'unconscious' sleep state associated with Shiva in Yoga Philosophy, and alignment with Shambhala. All spiritual students are members of the 5th kingdom in nature and help compose the planetary antahkarana — but unconsciously so... by virtue of our collective nature as Mercury and IVth creative hierarchic monads, however latent in consciousness.

Pisces is well expressed by Giordano Bruno, who propounded an infinite universe of numberless worlds ensouled by an immanent God, and especially by his de gli Eroici Furori [1585] (“Heroic Frenzies/Divine Furors”). Of course he had to be burnt at the stake in 1600 after seven years of imprisonment and interrogation by the Italian Catholic mafia, if only for them to keep face. Talk about a nasty boss! [Emperor Constantine figuratively to the Church, 300s AD: "you take the money and work from their souls; I'll take it from their bodies..."] The sense of frustration, imprisonment, hopelessness and loneliness can cause some types to feel compelled to figuratively rip open their chests and hearts on a regular basis to neutralize and bear the pain of awareness, and allow unconditioned healing Flow. In 1889, a monument to Bruno was finally erected in Rome despite the clerical party, during the same Neptune-Pluto Gemini conjunction as the AA founder. Annie Besant gave her Bruno lectures in Rome near the Campo dei Fiori monument in February of 1898.

Pisces governs the rending processes akin to those of death — as they are passively experienced or actively used in Life. Without the rending and reintegration (healing) processes, the discrimination and assimilation of Virgo could experience no effect nor bear a result; and Pisces could not actualize its resurrecting power without the pure reason of the developed Virgo. This dynamic is true of social and group organisms as well as of individuals.

Bruno’s 'Renaissance theory of Love' distinguished four types of transformative (transfigurative) and resurrecting Love — the furors ('madness') of Prophecy, of Spiritual Rites, of Poetry, and of Eros.

Pisces is like Hades, who provides an often dark and unconscious way-station for souls awaiting incarnation. He also provides the gift of ‘continuity of consciousness’ between states of manifestation and consciousness — given "continuity of spiritual practice."

Pisces is like Asklepios, whose priests healed through the dreams experienced by pilgrims at his temples.

Pisces is like the fertility and progeny of Demeter, Mother Earth, who awaits her daughter Persephone’s return every Spring from Hades.

Pisces is like Dionysos, who guards the mysteries of the terrors of Pan (Nature) and the vulnerable incarnation process, as well as the delirious, intoxicating and rending processes of Love.

Let's pray for an Open World of Peace and Harmony for the 21st century.

[ Inspired to write these reflections in part by Heath Ledger’s life, work, and astrological chart. He was a perfect example of someone who could have used a dose of esoteric astrological and esoteric psychological advice. Sun/Ascendant Aries opp. Pluto, Venus Pisces 11th opp. Saturn, Mars/MercuryR/SoNode Pisces 12th. ]

Inspiration: Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Astrology, and her 24 books on esoteric studies.
NY: Lucis Publishing Company – website (http://www.lucistrust.org/en/publications_store).