What a week ahead we have – Mercury goes retrograde on Saturday 23rd February to 17th March; a Full Moon across Pisces/Virgo on 25th February; and Venus enters  Pisces on 26th February.

Saturn went retrograde in Scorpio last Monday 18th February, ending a couple of weeks during which all the planets were in direct motion. Now with both Saturn and Mercury retrograde by the end of this week, things will become more complex again. All your plans and ideas, New Year Resolutions, etc that you were hoping would just fly ahead will now have to be questioned, redrawn, details gone over and over. Then maybe just maybe in a few weeks time when Mercury goes direct again, you will have a more realistic idea of where everything is heading. No bad thing in the longer term, just a pain while it’s happening.

Mercury and Mars met at 4 Pisces on 8th February and Mercury, didn’t listen (typical!) to what Mars was trying to tell him. So as ME now makes his station at 19 Pisces, he waits for Mars to catch him up – imagine a relay race where the baton is heading towards a waiting hand to grab it. We can only imagine what was originally said – Mars hates repeating himself – so they may have heated discussions towards the end of February – usually news (ME) of war (Mars)? Athletes talking about drugs, (Mars in Pisces)? Gun control discussions getting overheated? Oscar Pistorius* being interviewed by the tabloid press? We will have to wait and see – find out more about OP’s chart below..

When Mercury goes retrograde so does everything else, particularly journeys to and from work, so expect delays over the next few days. However, you might see something interesting that you could otherwise have missed on your usual trips. Air and sea travel can also be affected as Pisces rules far off journeys – again, you could meet some interesting people while you hang about waiting for a delayed flight or ferry.

With no fewer than 5 planets in Pisces right now, this puts this gentle, reflective and devoted sign under enormous pressure. These are: Sun, Mercury, Mars, Chiron and Neptune then in a few days time Venus joins the throng. By the weekend of 10th March, the Moon also enters Pisces, bringing the total up to 7. Gosh!

Pisces is such an interesting sign because it is often seen as fey and slightly daffy by many astrologers – not at all, I say – Pisceans have extraordinary endurance in the face of life’s struggles. The symbol is of two fishes joined by a cord and pulling in opposite directions. Maybe the big choice they have to make is whether to incarnate at all – and they obviously make it because they’re here. However, it’s the pull against each other that I find so interesting in terms of their psychology.

Pisceans need to have something external to pull against – be it health issues, financial hardships, addiction of one kind or another or the struggle to put their inner visions into some kind of form. Like all the water signs the preference is to flow around obstacles but with the pull from the other end, this is not an option – they must stay and gradually wear their obstacles down while remaining in situ. While Pisces is seen by many as an escapist sign, I see the desire to escape thwarted by everyday life and the individual is either strengthened or weakened by whatever faces them

The fact that Pisces has two ruling planets – Jupiter (traditionally) and Neptune – seems to describe very well the nature of the two fish. One wants to get away and swim downstream (Neptune) while the other wants to find meaning in life, turning to God, the Universe or whatever floats their boat, as a means of so doing.

The ego structure of Pisces is not the same as for the rest of the world – they have little hunger or interest in “making it big” in the world. Their sights are on the more diffuse world of empathy, intuition, emotions and imagination. They are attuned to the non-physical world of music, painting, perfume and impressions.Their boundaries are created by the size of the body of water they swim in, i.e. pond, river or ocean, yet their fluidity is in many ways enviable, because this adaptability is their strength.

Famous Pisceans: Rudolf Steiner, mystic, educator, homeopath, and much more; PD Ouspensky, author of “In Search of the Miraculous”; Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis; Albert Einstein, genius, quantum physicist.

Venus enters Pisces 26th February, 2013

Venus enters Pisces, her sign of “Exaltation”which according to Traditional Astrology is the very best sign for Venus to be placed. The planet of peace, love, harmony, beauty and balance in the last sign of the Zodiac famed for it’s empathy and idealism indicates that we are in for an interesting three week period – would it be too much to hope for that we see a cessation of violence in the world – particularly against women and children?

Full Moon – Pisces Sun/Virgo Moon 25th February 

This is a great time for us all to test some of our ideas under Virgo’s microscopic eye for detail – the very opposite of Pisces’ breadth of vision. So, a good Full Moon for us all to enjoy and use.

Oscar Pistorius

 *Oscar Pistorius – a multi-Scorpio, with natal Pluto conjunct a natal retrograde Venus. Saturn has been going over them both within the last few weeks. Saturn/Pluto describe cruelty and violence according to Ebertin’s ”Combination of Stellar Influences”, the key book of midpoint theory. Pistorius’ childhood contained this theme, as he had to fight to come through all the pain and terror that was visited upon him during his medical treatments in his early years. He was also born with an explosive Sun/Mars square, a challenging and violent aspect that he put to good use on the sports field. He won’t go down without a fight.

Pluto/Venus – Venus is moving away from Pluto on his chart – do we blame her? I once had a student with Venus square Pluto who lost no fewer than 4 girlfriends to violent deaths – tragedies that he had nothing to do with. Another client with the same aspect had two marriages that ended in the death of her partners – again not her fault – it just happened. In Pistorius’ case, he has a conjunction which is much more potent – whether pre-meditated or not, the result was the same.

What touches me about his chart is poor little Venus (retrograde) trying to run away from Pluto in Scorpio, the sign associated with bathrooms and lavatories.

And it was not lost on me that everyone in the media spoke about “a bad day for athletics”; “a tragedy for South Africa”; “a fallen hero” etc; and no one mentioned the greater tragedy for his victim, the beautiful Reeva Steenkamp, the victim in the whole horror story!

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