Uranus in Pisces
Revolution in the Sign of the Seeker
Neil Giles examines the changing patterns of the world in the light of the transit of Uranus into Pisces. This transit will have a profound influence on the cultural lives of all passengers on the great ship we call Planet Earth. Uranus is the planet of upheavals and of genius, while Pisces is the sign of the seeker, diving deep in the vast ocean of unconsciousness. This change of sign from eccentric Aquarius to mystic Pisces presages a major shift in our awareness and the events of our lives. Now, read on... By the end of 2003, after a little dance of to and fro, eccentric Uranus established himself in the sign of Pisces, set for a journey of seven years, a journey that will move us through a cycle of endings and beginnings, both personally and globally. Uranus is known as the revolutionary planet, all air and upheavals. Pisces is the sign of the seeker, a water sign symbolized by two fish at-swim in the vast ocean of unconsciousness. This change of sign by Uranus presages a major shift in our awareness and the events of our lives. Planet UranusIn the solar system, Uranus is known as the revolutionary planet because of his tilting, erratic orbital plane. He literally lies on his side and rotates around the Sun across his own equator, placing one of his polar regions in darkness and the other in light for long periods of the eighty-four year journey of a Uranian year. Thus, he makes a dramatic polar shift that symbolizes the sudden and revolutionary change he brings into our lives. Uranus also spins in a direction that is the reverse of that of the other planets in our solar system.  He has five moons, two of which seem poised to fly out of their orbital pattern and hurtle towards the Sun only to be pulled back into order at a last impossible moment by his inescapable gravity. Uranus is erratic but, in the end, strong-willed, holding on to his own. These moons are known as Titania and Oberon and their erratic orbit is known as their dance. When Uranus calls the tune, we are headed for a time of upheaval, an exciting but often uncomfortable passage through revels wild and mad. Uranus leads the fool's dance, the erratic gyrations of change where sometimes we have to fall down to move ahead. Uranus is the revolutionary planet. He governs change, disruption, reversals of direction or situation, the elevation of thinking or consciousness, brilliance, acceleration, eccentricity, the unique individual and the wider community with all its disparate and unusual elements. Uranus is associated with rapid understanding, blinding insight and with sudden or unexpected change or developments. Uranus also brings radical or unforeseen departures from the expected path or the accepted way. Uranus brings excitement and disturbance. His domain is not a comfort zone. He can bring enlightened growth or bloody-minded rebellion. In modern astrology, he is said to rule the sign of Aquarius but, traditionally, he is known as a transpersonal planet while Saturn is given the joint rulership of Capricorn and Aquarius.
The Sign of Pisces
The essential movement of Pisces is towards ecstatic or divine union. Pisces is the last of the twelve signs and signals an end to a cycle of life and the beginning of a search for deeper consciousness with which the evolving inner self can then merge. The Piscean urge is towards transcendence, a movement beyond the normal or accepted framework of reality. This urge is experienced as a yearning for the unknown or for hidden realms. It is a desire for a nameless or unnamable something, 'something' absent from the current environment but somehow possibly present somewhere else, either in a different environment of some other outer world or in a new environment of a yet to be discovered inner world. Pisces produces the mechanics of escapism, avoidance, addiction, blind romanticism, naiveté and focus in one area at the expense of all others. Pisces can also produce wholeness, integration, fluidity, creativity, intuitive responses, psychic awareness, effortless growth, ecstatic awakening and a spiritual understanding that is gained through direct experience. Pisces can fall victim to fear, worry and self-undoing. Pisces can also bring the unshakable courage and will born in true belief. Withdrawal can play a powerful part in the journey of Pisces. Withdrawal can be the means by which we discover 'something else', the unidentified or unidentifiable heart's desire, as we withdraw from the world of external consciousness or familiar situations, thus gaining access to the new. Or withdrawal can be simple escapism, an exit point where we opt out of our current responsibilities or obligations. Sickness or fatigue can also play their part. Sometimes through ill-health or tiredness, we can grow in understanding as we are forced to let go of all the things that have been our anchors and attachments in the world of 'old reality'. In weariness, we let go of the wearying world and thus discover a world of ecstasy within us or within the subtle realms of existence. Through Pisces we travel on a river. We can flow or we can just drift, but slowly we lose the strength to fight the current and must, in the end, surrender to its tides. Submergence or submission can also play a part in the Pisces cycle. We surrender to spirit and play our part in the greater pattern or we lose ourselves in the overwhelming forces of the outside world. Uranus was last in Pisces from 1919 to 1927, so we may gain some insight into what lies ahead of us by looking back to that era. The Roaring TwentiesThe last era of Uranus in Pisces is now remembered as the era of jazz and gin, flappers and gangsters, the Roaring Twenties and prohibition where the urge was to live an intoxicating carefree life, without thought for tomorrow. This was an era that began in the ruins left by the Great War and the horrors of the Spanish 'flu, a plague that was to claim more than twenty million lives as it raged through 1918 and 1919. This was a world that turned from despair to hope as it embraced pleasure and decadence while stock markets climbed to unprecedented heights. This was an era that was blindly hurtling towards the edge of a precipice, the Great Crash of 1929, and the rocks below it, the Great Depression. Pisces marks the end of a cycle, a submergence of the self into the more powerful or transcendent forces at work in the cosmos.  Read part two of Uranus in Pisces, where Neil discusses the effects of Uranus on "the Lost Generation" and the "Bright Young Things" of the Roaring Twenties.
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