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Today, I have a gift for you! Open the link »» Your Ultimate Guide to Pisces Season.««
This guide is designed to help you go deep during a season that is all about the watery depths of dreams, intuition, emotion, creativity, and spiritual pursuits.
The Pisces Season Guide is also on the School of the Seasons Page, HERE; scroll down to Seasonal Supplements.
Living seasonally means intentionally becoming aware of the small and incremental shifts in nature, the big seasonal changes, and how they correspond to various systems and structures and to your soul’s experience as you move along your life’s journey.
Enter Pisces Season!
I’m not an astrologer, and you don’t need to be either to use what’s happening in the starry skies to help you understand and guide your inner growth and development.
There are various types of astrological systems. Tropical astrology is based on the seasons and aligns the zodiac signs with the equinoxes, while sidereal astrology is based on the actual positions of the stars.
The size of constellations plays a significant role in the differences between tropical and sidereal astrology due to how each system defines the zodiac.
Tropical Astrology: In tropical astrology, the zodiac is divided into 12 equal parts of 30 degrees each, corresponding to the 12 signs (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, etc.). This division is based on the Earth's seasons and the position of the Sun relative to the Earth, specifically the equinoxes and solstices. The constellations can vary in size and shape, but tropical astrology does not consider these variations; it focuses solely on the seasonal markers.
Sidereal Astrology: In contrast, sidereal astrology aligns the zodiac signs with the actual constellations in the sky. This means that the size and shape of the constellations are relevant, as they can vary significantly. Some constellations are much larger than others, leading to discrepancies in how the signs are perceived. For example, the constellation of Virgo is much larger than that of Libra, which can affect the interpretation of astrological influences.
The difference in how the two systems treat the constellations leads to a shift in the zodiac signs over time, primarily due to the precession of the equinoxes. As a result, a person born under a specific sign in tropical astrology may find that their sidereal sign is different, often by about 24 degrees, which can place them in a different constellation altogether. This fundamental difference in approach to the zodiac is a key factor in the divergence between the two astrological systems.
Tropical astrology aims to articulate and describe the essence or quality of the season. Pisces is a sign characterized by depth of feeling, creativity, and a strong connection to the emotional and spiritual realms.
This is a perfect description of this potent season within a season. Pisces season is the magic of late winter, giving way to spring's rebirth. But none of that happens all at once. The gradual changes can go unnoticed if you’re not paying attention. Early spring, Pisces Season, is more akin to winter than the spring-like qualities present at Beltane, yet it is neither. This lends Pisces Season a liminal, threshold quality, and thresholds are where we are likely to cross paths with the numinous and beings from other realms.
By the start of Pisces Season, the quality of time and the vibrations and activity on Earth have distinctly changed. This is bound to affect our daily lives. Not only that, but your inner world, dreams, perceptions, and emotions will reflect this shift.
The Tarot of Pisces Season
While I am not an astrologer, I am a Tarot reader (certified and everything!). While we usually think about asking questions and turning to the Tarot for answers, I also use the Tarot in other ways. The imagery on the cards, regardless of the deck (though some do this better than others), encodes symbols, concepts, wisdom, and knowledge useful when digging into the secrets of the seasons.
The rich images of the Tarot offer a way to describe the particulars of Pisces Season visually.
Much meditation on the cards has yielded this combination, with the addition of the Jupiter card as a valuable expression of the qualities of the Pisces Season.
These cards may be used as portals into intuitively gathered knowledge about the earth at this season and how the earth’s changing energies affect you.
The High Priestess corresponds to Pisces, so her mystery, hidden knowledge, and spiritual focus reign over this season.
The Page of Wands holds the energy of formation, the newly budding energy of creation, and the rising life force. This is creativity rising and expansion.
The Page of Swords represents the training and firming of the thoughts needed to check the expansive growth initiated by the Page of Wands.
The Queen of Cups sits dreamily in silent reverie on her throne, the seat of intuitive and emotional intelligence. She is at risk of losing herself in Pisces Season’s mysterious mist and visionary matrix.
Jupiter is symbolic of expansion; this energy permeates the whole of the Pisces Season.
Pisces, represented by two fish swimming in opposite directions in their watery world, can create a whirlpool or vortex of rising energy that can spin you into a dream world or off into the outer reaches of time and space. Creatures of the depths, the two fish stir the inner currents of emotion, intuition, dreaming, and creativity. Don’t forget to touch the earth now and again during Pisces Season; we are terrestrial beings and can only remain in the watery depths for a limited time.
Each of these cards offers much to ponder. Use them as mirrors, windows, doorways, or portals into your imagination’s encounters with Pisces Season.
Faeries Waking
As twilight's hush descends on snow,
When the forest whispers secrets, few and low,
The faeries stir, their slumbers light,
Breaks the spell of winter's night.
They gently murmur soft and slow,
As, from their hiding place, they flow.
The lengthening shadows, dark and deep,
Conceal their movements, as they leap.Miniature footsteps lost in snowy hush,
Conceal their covert gathering among the rush;
Their whispers now, a soft, sweet refrain,
Hearalding the time, their domains, to reclaim.
In late winter's gloaming, during the day's last sigh
The sun vanishes below the horizon, and stars appear on high,
The faeries come a-dancing, their footsteps weave a spell,
As they awaken wonder, and bring fresh beauty to the dell;
Their silver laughter echoes, a magic tinkling sound,
As they reclaim their realm, as winter's grip’s unwound.
As a gardener, or earth tender, as I say, Pisces Season is when the faeries begin to wake up after the frozen winter months. They are often loath to return from their winter slumber and are sometimes in a foul mood, but eventually, as the sun continues to climb in the sky, the days lengthen, and the temperatures gradually rise, they shake off their groggy slumber and return to their more pleasant disposition.
I wassail my trees during Pisces Season because the weather seems right. I bring little gifts of cider, milk, honey, and bread for the trees and the fae in my woodland and gardens.
G. R. Willey describes the custom of wassailing as Saxon in origin. The term apparently comes from wes (be) and hál (whole), meaning ‘be of good health’. (Willey 1978: 60).
No one really knows where apple wassailing comes from. As always, there are those who insist it’s an ancient pagan rite, though the first record seems to date to 1585 (Chainey 2021).
The general rite takes the following format. People go to the orchard on 17 January and either select the best/oldest tree, or visit each of the trees in turn. They might sing to the tree, or dance around it, before cider is poured onto the tree’s roots from the wassail bowl. Then people made a lot of noise, often by firing guns, to frighten away evil spirits. The final step involved putting toast in the tree’s branches as an offering to the good spirits. The toast might be soaked in cider first, and some think the good spirits took the form of birds—hence the toast. ~ Icy Sedgwick
Themes of the Season
Rudolf Steiner's "Calendar of the Soul" is a collection of verses that correspond to the seasons and the spiritual development of the individual. Each verse is intended to be meditated upon during a specific week of the year, reflecting the inner and outer experiences of life.
As Pisces Season arrives, we find Verse 47 is the entry for the week…
From the womb of worlds will arise
Joy in becoming, quickening the senses’ life.
May it find my thinking armed
Through the might of God
That lives so strongly in my soul
This verse's imagery and themes reflect a deep spiritual awakening and the transformative power of divine presence in an individual’s life.
"From the womb of worlds will arise" suggests a cosmic origin, indicating that the source of life and joy comes from a profound, universal place. The "womb of worlds" symbolizes the creative and nurturing aspect of the universe, where potential and new beginnings are born.
"Joy in becoming, quickening the senses’ life": Here, the focus is on becoming and transforming. "Joy in becoming" implies happiness and fulfillment in the journey of growth and development. The phrase "quickening the senses’ life" suggests an awakening or enlivening of perception and awareness, indicating that as one grows spiritually, one's ability to experience and engage with the world becomes more vibrant and profound.
"May it find my thinking armed": This line expresses a desire for one's thoughts to be fortified or strengthened. The word "armed" implies that the individual seeks to approach life and its challenges with clarity, strength, and purpose. It suggests a readiness to engage with the world intellectually and spiritually.
"Through the might of God that lives so strongly in my soul": This concluding phrase emphasizes divine strength and power within the individual. It acknowledges that the source of this empowerment comes from a connection to a higher spiritual reality or divine essence. The reference to "God" indicates a personal relationship with the divine, suggesting that this inner strength is a guiding force in the individual's life.
Overall, this verse encapsulates a journey of spiritual awakening, emphasizing the joy of growth and transformation, the importance of strengthening one's thoughts, and the profound connection to the divine that empowers the individual. It invites reflection on cultivating awareness and joy through spiritual development and connection to the cosmos.
There is another aspect to this verse that seems aligned with the Piscean atmosphere of this season. There is a sense of urgency within the inner mind’s thinking force that requires it to counter a movement of the soul into a too-expansive state. The inner being sensing the earth’s shift from winter to spring responds to that energy with the desire to spread itself outward, stretching itself thin and in danger of dissipating altogether. In such a way, the soul can be easily overwhelmed. This emotional, empathic, expansive, and dreamy frequency is part of Pisces Season. The danger, however, can be countered by activating the divinely shaped and fortified powers of the mind and thought to control and moderate the unchecked urge to expand. Plainly put, Pisces Season can be too much woo and not enough rational thought. Our souls can easily be carried off in flights of fancy, disconnecting us from grounded reality. Endlessly expanding balloons will drift away and eventually burst, an experience the soul should avoid.
After the festivities of Yule/Christmas and the stillness of deep winter, the activity that begins during this season offers inner experience and opportunities to notice and engage with the natural world around you.
The trees, the faeries, and you and I are awakening again. This season is emotional, intuitive, creative, and dreamy. What are you experiencing? How would you like to engage with this season to make the most of it?
Don’t forget to download Your Ultimate Guide to Pisces Season
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Thank you so much for the free guide 😊
Beautiful Pisces guide! Also, I always enjoy your art journal artwork that you share. Thanks for this lovely post.