What Now? The Sun just moved into Pisces

Sun Transiting Pisces

The transiting Sun just entered Pisces as I write this post. The exact time was yesterday 2/18/20 at 11:58 pm Eastern.  If you were born with your Sun in Pisces, Happy Birthday!  What could a Sun transiting through Pisces mean for the rest of us?

Before attempting to answer that, the reply should actually be qualified by what house (s) contain the sign of Pisces in your birth chart and what aspects (connections to) other transiting or birth planets affect its energy.

That said, generally speaking here, I will review transiting Sun in Pisces in common terms so as not to complicate matters.

The basics.  The Sun travels around the zodiac (all the houses in the chart) or if you prefer the dictionary definition of zodiac, an imaginary band in the heavens centered on the ecliptic that encompasses the apparent paths of all the planets and is divided into 12 constellations or signs each taken for astrological purposes to extend 30 degrees of longitude.  

So Sun has just moved through 30 degrees of the previous constellation of Aquarius and into Pisces.  Basic meanings of the Sun itself include phrases such as where a person shines or one’s purpose on an external world/visible level.  Sun rules the 5th house of a chart and thus is associated with creativity and vitality.  While the Moon relates more to the inner world of moods/emotions, the Sun relates more so to the outer world of personality/ego.  The Sun is connected with the archetype of how one identifies one’s self and how one wishes to be seen by others. The Sun is associated with one’s will and determination.

So how do those Sun qualities out-picture the sign of Pisces?  What can you or I expect to affect those qualities in our own life when the Sun moves into Pisces?

I will attempt to use my own chart as a reference here and hope that doing so will add to the reader’s understanding of astrology.  There is a need for me to sort of meditate, contemplate, or sit with the combination of a Sun/Pisces blend in order to receive some insight about how I can answer that for myself.

Recall that Pisces is ruled by Neptune (ruler of the 12th house) and so those qualities relate to dreaminess, spirituality or higher-consciousness, the subconscious, as well as escapism and confusion.  I always think of Pisces in relation to a need for discernment or the flip side of that the delusions associated with a lack of trust.

Here one has to remember that the house of the planet and sign has an influence as well as the ruling planets.  Astrology is like synchronizing energy.  Personally, that’s why I like it since I enjoy reading those energy signatures.  But in this post, I’m going to try to keep it simple if I can.

So a blend of will, determination, and purpose combined with spirituality or spiritual path — for me, that’s how I see the Sun in Pisces energy affecting my life.  I used my intuition as I combined those qualities as well as my own current life experience.  As I considered the Sun transiting in Pisces in my life now, there has been a shift in how I’m doing daily meditation.

It does require some application of will but not too much since meditation is not to be tight or contain too much concentration.  So that will and that purpose (Sun)combined with the mind/higher consciousness and spiritual path (Pisces) makes sense in my life at this time. Revisiting a meditative focus on the jhanas (deeper states of meditative concentration) on more profound levels than at previous times in my life is my overwhelming calling at this time.  And a recent intuitive calling to do this does relate with the timing of this Sun in Pisces transit.

You can go to www.astro.com to create your own birth chart for free *(of course, you must know your time of birth) in order to determine where (what house) the Pisces Sun is transiting in your chart.

In my case, the transiting Sun in Pisces has just entered my 7th house (relationships to others) and will touch into my 8th house before the Sun moves into Aries.  Issues related to my 7th house of relating to others may come into play for me between now and mid-March when the Sun moves our of Pisces.  That last part has to be kind of general leastwise if it isn’t there will be an entire chart interpretation to follow.

One last piece that could be added is that the transit will trigger the birth Sun area and pull that dynamic into the scene.  For me, that’s my 2nd house Libra Sun, Neptune, Moon stellium in Libra.  So lots of Libra energy connections affecting what I value in the world and how I relate to myself as well as others especially with regard to my spiritual purpose and how I use my will to express it or enhance it.

I hope this reflection on the Pisces Sun Transit blog post will interest readers new to astrology and be helpful to anyone who may stumble upon this.

And may you be happy! 

Integrating Spiritual Experiences into the Personality

Integrating Spiritual Experiences into the Personality

Integrating Spiritual Awakenings into the Life of the Personality

Do you see what’s going on?  I mean really? There’s a burning desire within me to write about this maybe because until now I only partially understood what’s been going on.  Maybe that’s what you are (or have been) too and that’s why this post.  Let me give a few examples of what is intended.  Let’s say you watched all three Lord of the Ring movies.  But even if you haven’t, hang in there, okay?  Remember how Sam, Frodo, Pippin, and Merry came back from their adventures returning to the Shire and the looks they got from the hobbits from those who never left?  Remember how Frodo and the others looked at one another?  They had to find some way to come back now after their long journey and live normal lives.  Right.  See where I’m going here?  Integration back into the work-a-day world with others can be difficult.

My gosh, I’ve written about my difficulties with that for years but wasn’t fully aware that its a process now in which many others are also struggling.  Increased sensitivity to sound and noxious energy is one part of it. Yet the other part is continuing to meditate in the world of men and beasts after being in true solitude and withdrawal for an extended period.

Some people go on retreat, some for as long as a year.  For myself, it was a much longer period of time overall.  Not that I didn’t have to deal with real-world concerns in spurts but for the most part, I do recall at least 2 solid years of meditation throughout the bulk of the day.  I was, for all practical purposes, withdrawn from the world of the ego/personality and spent a good deal of time in states of . . . well, let’s just say in states in which the self that deals with earth living was out of the picture.

I pictured myself remaining in that state until the end of days.  Yet, the personality/ego needed to integrate all the spiritual meditative states and bring them right into the face of loud neighbors, barking dogs, mean humans and the whole gambit of aversions.

My meditations took on a new format at that point.  My mind was being critical, judgmental, aversive, impatient, intolerant—you name it.  Woah, my spiritual practice took a huge hit!

I began to really dislike myself and felt like all my spiritual work was destroyed.  My mind, in meditation, was running in 10 different directions and it wasn’t easy to pull myself together, so-to-speak.

At that point, thoughts of becoming a nun of some type or other or hiking the Appalachian Trail on a permanent basis were prominent.  I began to resent my family to whom I came down of the mountain (literally from the high Country of the Appalachians to the flatland) to serve.  I wanted to go back, desperately.  I didn’t want to integrate.

Many times when my energy tangled with a difficult human I’d find myself really angry at myself instead of realizing it’s okay to stand up for one’s self in a way that is direct and at the same time kind.

My point in writing this is that people who view themselves as on a spiritual path upon which they might have had profound spiritual experiences feeling great love, peace, and unification/oneness in meditation or on retreats should give themselves a break.  Like Frodo and the others and even like Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, it’s a path and may take a while to come back to this temporary earth home after having really gone HOME.  No matter if that going HOME was brief or for years, it is my current understanding that our job now is to apply what we experienced to our ego/personality and integrate that within the earth world.  It’s a journey and self-acceptance is a huge part of it now as we pull the mind back into the unity consciousness it once knew.

Memories will arise triggered by life experiences and people outside of times of spiritual withdrawal and we can watch the mind and learn about our patterns and tendencies.  In that awareness, we can diffuse their energy.  But it doesn’t mean we’ve lost our prior spiritual state, nor does it mean we have done anything wrong.

It’s just a deeper level of spiritual awakening and not a failure in any way.  That’s what I’m trying to convey.

I hope these views and opinions of mine will find their way to those who might be able to understand and benefit from this little post.

Life – Is it one unchanging moment of happiness?

Is it possible that any moment in our life would be one that we would wish to have unchanging, remaining the same for eternity?  We do this with life maybe subconsciously but we seem to continually be leaning forward to try to achieve that unchanging and happy moment.  Here are some thoughts about that from my view.  My life does not seem to be one unchanging moment of happiness.  That’s likely true for you too, right?   No matter how we try consciously (or subconsciously) to achieve a continually unending moment of bliss, we know it’s not possible.  Yet we still try for it.

What to do then?  We can pull back from striving to reach for that unending happy moment and instead make peace with this here moment no matter how it appears for us.  How?  By believing that this moment is more than enough.  Its not that difficult really.  We can do it by developing stability and the state of wellbeing with intentionality. ( Fake it until you make it using the tool of meditation. ) This then is the gateway to freedom from the suffering that consumes us due to yearning for some other moment (s).

It is to our great benefit to have the kind of confidence in our overall life that any moment has, contained within it, the seed of freedom from the suffering that yearning creates – said another way, enlightenment comes from making peace with the human condition. 

When we don’t argue with the way things ‘are’ and when we don’t make life wrong by believing like . . . “it shouldn’t be this way” . . .  and when we can make peace with life in such a way that we do not become tired of life or weary of the trials that are natural to this dimensional reality.

Let’s face it.  Life does turn sour on occasion or as I have heard it recently referred, “. . . when life turns rancid.”   But what I am referring to here is that to make peace with life and its many ups, downs, and experiences keeps us out of that kind of yearning that causes our unhappiness.

Psychologists tell us that even if we intellectually admit that difficulties in life happen and we concede that trauma does occur in life,  when we bump up against such energy there’s a part of the mind that is incredulous–its doubtful about it’s happening.  And in that type of unacceptance, we suffer even more.  In Buddhist thought, this is referred to as ‘the second arrow’ if you are familiar.  Double suffering is another way to say that.  There’s a part of the mind that cannot conceive that suffering can occur in our life! And want’s to deny that it shouldn’t be the way it is.

We set ourselves up when we try to reach out to find that which we believe will complete or fulfill our hearts.

The fact that we think our heart is lacking that which something outside ourselves can provide is the first step in the confusion about all this.

Whatever we reach out for in order to bring the heart to its fulfillment it (or to complete it) will eventually disappoint us.  Clinging or grasping for what we think we don’t already have can never work in the end.

Imperfection, disappointment, anger, even hatred energies exist in this realm and are woven into the fact of being human.  It’s just how things are on earth.  Yet, remember, as you just read that last sentence, there was likely that part of your mind that disbelieves it.  Or believes those energies bump into others but not myself. 

Stress occurs by not making peace with that way things are and resisting or arguing with it all.  I often quote this phrase, “Whenever you argue with life, you lose.”  Meaning you suffer.

My final thought:  All difficulties or suffering bring opportunities for growth and insight.  When we understand life in the ways I’ve written about here, we develop wisdom.  Then the mind feels strength, energy, freedom, detachment and becomes devoid of craving and the sources or causes of suffering.