Laying the Ground Work for the Nodal Axis Shift to Virgo-Pisces
Part 2
I find it curious that in the first episode on this topic, I began with the chart of the end of the time the lunar nodes will be on the Virgo Pisces axis, rather than the beginning. I didn’t intentionally do that, but it fits the Piscean energy of a culmination. In this episode, I will dive into Piscean waters and explore what beckons us to greater depths.
But first, Neptune has been tugging at me lately, so I decided to just surrender and talk about him a bit. (Actually, Neptune is always tugging at me, as it is in my 1st house, square to my Sun, opposite my Saturn.) There are two stories I hear often from others in recovery that illustrate the fact that Neptune (ruler of addictions) slips into all categories and none. People may say something like: “Looking at me from the outside, things look about the same as when I was drinking daily, but on the inside, everything is different”. Or something like, “When I was drinking, everything on the outside looked perfect, but on the inside, everything was a mess.” Neptune is at play here, the unseeable, the spiritual, or perhaps the invisibility of pain or freedom. Nothing and everything at the same time. Illusion and delusion, bliss or the powerful cognitive dissonance that allows people to engage in any behavior that they know is not in their best interest.
As dual ruler, along with Jupiter, of Pisces, it makes sense that Neptune demand my attention completely now. And absolute surrender is sometimes the only way forward with Neptune and Pisces. Neptune has been in the sign of Pisces since 2011, and when the North Node moves into Pisces on January 11, 2025, Neptune will be 2 degrees away, able to exert its energy at this critical point. And with climate change and the mental and physical health problems that our addiction to social media/cell phone dopamine hits has yielded, we are going to need the imagination, inspiration, and wisdom that the Pisces energy within each of us can generate.
Astrologer Steven Forrest describes Neptune in Pisces in The Book of Water, as follows, and I think it extends to the sign of Pisces itself:
It boils down to … let go of my personality and experience myself as a kind of luminous spaciousness… the entire point is that I am going beyond the world of labels and appearances.
Sounds pretty groovy, right? We immediately want to label even that description in some way. This is how conditioned we have been to inhabit the other end of the axis, the Virgo end.
We seem to only value imagination or spirituality if it yields material or tangible success, think Walt Disney, or westernized yoga as exercise. Although this is changing somewhat, as more people are feeling the value of things like mindfulness and meditation as daily practices, it will likely still feel unfamiliar as the energy becomes concentrated in Pisces (and water signs in general) over the next few months.
Which is why I wanted to provided a heads up to everyone now. In typical Neptunean fashion, I have been confused about how to do this, exactly! I have settled on using Jan Spiller’s book Astrology for the Soul and her chapter on the North Node in Pisces. She is also a musician, which I thought was fitting to Pisces, as it is associated with music [the music industry is full of people (B.B. King, Leonard Cohen, Barry White, Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett, George Harrison, Kurt Cobain, Johnny Cash, Frederic Chopin] on the Virgo-Pisces axis). Spiller organizes information in a way that our Virgo trained brains can grasp. I would suggest you take a topic or two per month to explore, or maybe come back to this episode every so often. I promise, just as individual vs. relationship issues have arisen while the nodes have been in Aries and Libra, categorization vs. what cannot be easily categorized will arise while the nodes are in Virgo and Pisces.
The following lists are taken from the book regarding the placement of the North Node in Pisces and South Node in Virgo in a birth chart, but we can extrapolate this to the collective experience while the nodes reside here:
Attributes to Develop:
Being nonjudgmental
Compassion
Surrendering anxiety to a Higher Power
Freeing the mind through meditation and self-reflection
Focusing on the spiritual pathway
Trusting in positive outcomes
Acknowledging connection with the universe
Welcoming change
Tendencies to Leave Behind
Hyperanxiety reactions
Overanalysis
Obsessive worry
Exaggerating the importance of details
Critical first reactions
Fault finding - making others wrong
Excessive anxiety over making mistakes
Being Mr. or Ms. Perfect
Staying in unpleasant situations
Inflexibility
In the book, Spiller describes in detail the tendencies listed above, however, here I share just a little on the traps I see as most prevalent or relevant. Please note that I have only lived in the United States, and it is possible that some or all of these perspectives are not applicable in other places or cultures.
On Self-Concept. We are always trying to figure out where we belong, what our job is, how we fit in with everyone else. Think about the ubiquitous question upon meeting someone socially, “What do you do?”. What we are actually looking for is the feeling of ultimate security, which we will only find spiritually within ourself. Ideas to expand your self-concept are meditation, analyzing dreams, journaling.
Planning and control. Planning gives us the illusion of control, but due to our interdependence on other humans, perfect control is impossible. What we can do is to intentionally do less, and in the unplanned time see what comes up. Or ‘plan’ in spontaneity or daydreaming. Too far on the Pisces axis, and nothing gets done, so perhaps determine what compassionate control looks like.
Criticism. We are excessively judgmental, which brings on unhelpful shaming and blaming, for the thing that is “wrong” (or often that which we deem is not perfect). The counter attitude is to foster humility by owning mistakes and learning, and having compassion for others doing the same.
Superiority and being a role model. This tendency is about over identifying with the status you have, whether earned or not. But it ends up limiting growth as you do not want to take on a role as a beginner. We therefore may be missing out on something meaningful or joyful, as a result of being trapped in one role simply to continue receiving the expected accolades or admiration, which become less meaningful over time.
Duty and guilt. We can get attached to thinking we are responsible for others. However, this is a self-perpetuating cycle, especially when others don’t share a sense of responsibility. I’m not talking about taking care of children, but at some point it becomes absurd to think we are any more competent that any other adult, and we may be picking up their slack because it is easier than finding a truly challenging calling of our own.
I riffed on a few of her themes below to provide a starting point for inhabiting Pisces energy.
Solitude, peace, and quiet. We need to recharge more than ever. Turn off your phone. Go outside. Look at a plant. Look at art. Journal. Breathe.
Meaningful work. More people with their North Nodes in Pisces may be activated to find the work their soul wanted them to do here. For all of us, it’s not a bad idea to explore what this would be if we are not feeling spiritual alignment in our current work.
Surrender and detachment. This is the flip side of over identifying with one’s roles and responsibilities. Can we consider that we are not that important, or at least not in the material way we think of importance? Instead, consider the patterns in life, where have you put resistance, and how did that turn out? If not to your benefit, what would happen if you instead simply flow and not force the next time? And maybe some things are not for us to fix for others, depriving them of a growth opportunity of their own.
Gratitude and mindfulness. Practicing gratitude forces you to be mindful, because you must scan your environment or recent experiences to identify what you are grateful for. Be open to signs and synchronicities, and you just may see them more often.
I have to leave with with some fitting lyrics from George Harrison, a Pisces Sun:
From Within You Without You (1967)
And the time will come when you see we're all one / And life flows on within you and without you.