Unpopular Opinion: Pisces most realistic sign in the Zodiac

What if our definition of reality is just too small?

I’m writing this on the Pisces new moon to come out on the 21st. I can already hear the Inner Critic’s accusations about how I always do things at the last minute, and let me tell you, it does not sound like a thousand year old fox spirit voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa. Maybe I’d be more okay with an Inner Critic if it did. But part of being in touch with the liminal is knowing when something is wanting to come through you. Whether you think it’s uploaded from a “divine within”, or downloaded from a “divine without” (or, like me, you have no clue). It’s not like the old draft about my North Node is now irrelevant, but you’re seeing the energy in action as I take it in a different direction a month after I woke up in the middle of the night with the urge to write those thoughts down.

You see, the first draft was all about my reluctance with Pisces energy because it’s dreamy and connected with the next realm which I’m not even sure exists, and definitely does not exist in the worldview of my strict and cynical family that has created this reluctance in me. Last night, I was reading yet another astrology book (I have 3 interests: photography, witchcraft, Hakuoki 🫣) and it gave a take on my IV House that changed the trajectory of this newsletter. I’m notuncomfortable with Pisces energy, they are.

I’m just uncomfortable with giving myself permission to go back to being the girl who spent all her free time in January and February dressed like a princess, not even dreaming of a prince except for his horse (although I grew up to like anime princes, but that’s a whole other story), because she had an intrinsic sense that she was special.

That never went away (Manifestor in Human Design, as I mentioned last month for those of you who were already along for the ride -thank you 🖤-, and now for anyone new -welcome 🎉), I just pushed it in the shadows and tried to squash it out of existence by taking seriously the religion of my youth (did I mention I am an ex-Catholic? I did in the podcast for sure, but here I don’t know). You’re reading a newsletter about Astrology titled “Witchy Musings” so you know how that turned out…

Another thing that dawned on me was about how, if I used the Equal House system, Pisces would be my V house with Virgo at the 11th. I don’t, however, resonate with the description of me that emerges, except maybe the tendency to escapism*,* and that could be explained by other placements too.

It shows just how much of astrology is about what we already know to be true about ourselves, and it just gives us a language to talk about it, and, for those of us who are cosmic witches, a framework to work with like if you ever read a book on chess strategy (I have, I’m not naturally a strategic thinker even if I’ve had to condition myself into one).

In the old draft I wrote: “Psychology is the language of the soul, from the Greek psyche and logos. You might be thinking: ‘And?’, confused as to why I’d open a newsletter stating the obvious. Or, maybe, like me, you somehow never connected the dots. I did Classics in high school and yet, somehow, always thought of psychology as dealing with the mind. Nous, in Greek, if your younger self made better choices than mine.

Psychology is a science, it deals with the serious stuff that goes on with our thoughts, like disorders and mental health. The soul is a metaphysical concepts, the stuff of religions and woo people talking about 5+ dimensions and reincarnation. It’s not the same, right? And, yet, we didn’t call it nousology. **Welcome to Pisces season.”

After my life came crashing down circa my Saturn return, I realised I needed a new language to be able to talk about the same old problems of “being human”, and that Jung had been unfairly dismissed by an establishment with the same prejudices as the family which influenced my thoughts as above. It took me a while but then, fully aware that I would be exposing myself to the ridicule of the very people whose approval I had, thus far, tried to earn, I dove head first into the world of the liminal.

I think it’s relevant that, for me, Pisces energy shows up in the tension of the North and South nodes axis. If you know enough about astrology you could have guessed it from the way I talked about my upbringing, it’s there in black on white.

David Odyssey at Nylon put it in my favourite ever way: “Unlike its polar opposite Virgo, a sign in constant pursuit of perfection, the two fish can only coexist in a state of messy contradiction: triumph and tragedy, loss and ecstasy, sacrifice and victory.“ The Nodes of the Moon hold our karmic balance, the qualities we have over-developed that’ll stunt our growth in the South, and the direction we’re heading towards in the North. Our lesson in this lifetime is to redress that balance by embracing the experiences and qualities of our North Node. And I can’t think of a sign whose meaning scares me more than Pisces.

One of my core wounds is around being perceived as “up with the fairies”. My family has always criticised me for being too imaginative. I dream too big and don’t want to face “reality”. They’re not exactly wrong, I don’t want to face what it is they call “reality”. Why would anyone want to get up every day to be sad, stressed, and overworked making money for someone else? Day in, day out, seeing only the grind, shrugging it off like “it is what it is”. No thanks, I’d rather be dead for real than dead inside like that. The thing is, wherever Pisces shows up in your chart, the liminal is reality.

As Descartes famously said, “I think therefore I am”. Buddhism and Eckart Tolle (and I’m sure others) would warn you not to identify yourself with your thoughts, but it’s still how we experience the world. As long as we’re alive, we think. Even when we are in the moment, just perceiving, the sun and wind caressing our face, a song in our ears giving a soundtrack to an entirely mundane moment, our mind is still thinking in the background.

No matter the scaremongering about Pisces being out of touch with “reality”, Pisces may be the sign the most in touch with it. Everyone else just doesn’t have the courage to lift the veil of their own comfortable illusions that life is something we can control, or that we ourselves are.

And if, like me, you’re uncomfortable with Pisces, or what it means in the specific context of your birth chart, remember this: the energy of a sign always works as an axis. Tap into the other side if you feel the balance tipping somewhere that’s too much for you right now.

Since Pisces is my North Node, it shows in multiple areas of how I lead my life. I skipped a Pisces house in Placidus, which is the system I use, so my North Node falls into my Aquarian IV. The traditional interpretation would be that my area of growth is family life, as opposed to my South Node in my Leo X House. Of course, I’m having none of it, because I believe the separation of home and family life from work is a relic of an industrial past where one’s career is a man’s kingdom while a woman rules the home.

I was very deliberate in my wording there. After all, I have a Master’s degree in History and, even if I’ve been shedding an old identity that used formal education to prove her worth, the knowledge will stay with me. The gendered lines of home and work were a little more blurred when society was built around agriculture and artisanal pursuits, and the jobs out of the home reserved for men were fewer and more prestigious.

I think work is an important part of my North Node journey because the new paradigm of business blurs the lines between life-work balance again (yes, the switch is also deliberate).

Having my own business is scary and radical enough doing it the way my Earth-dominated mother would do it, but finding myself dragged into Intuitive Business circles was outright “insane”. And, yet, it feels like I had no option; not so much in a fate kind of way, I believe in free will. It was no option because I saw people doing things differently, being successful, and as a sensible person (as an Indian mother once called me in the queue at the supermarket, I’ll hold on to that foverer) I’d rather take advice from someone who is in a better position than I am.

Overcoming the cynicism about how it’s their claim that they’re successful and I don’t really know if they truly are was easy: the idea of trying and failing because it was all a lie scared me less than failing by default. After all, someone years ago won the Lotto twice with the same numbers, a one in 5.4 trillion chances. No matter how small the odds, if there is a chance, it’s worth it to me.

Pisces season, being the winter of the Astrological year, is the time to wrestle with the questions that plant the seeds for the future. We tie the karmic loose ends so we can move forward without their weight holding us back. Astrology shows us the cyclical nature of time, and whatever the shadow of Virgo might say you don’t need the loose ends to be all tied neatly with a bow. Things will come back and forth in waves, but just because life will carry us it’s not an excuse not to take responsibility for learning how to row the boat and even try to work with the forces around us to get to a place we ourselves chose.

So, this month, look at where Pisces falls in your placements (and if you too skipped that house, pay attention to where your sun is, and also what goes on with the placements in your 12th house as that’s Pisces’ domain, as well as Jupiter and/or Neptune, its co-rulers), and see how you can let go of control a little more in those areas. Even one small action can have a powerful result.

Happy Pisces season!

This month in my world:

Still working on my website rebranding for my photography business, still navigating separation and grief and all the ugly stuff that goes with it now I can’t offload my emotional needs on Reiji Kotobuki, and Starry Sky is on a hiatus.

I have exciting plans for season 2, which will be Star Magic: working with light and shadow and will cover things from the upcoming meteor showers to the possibility of life in the cosmos with Jaime Green’s upcoming book, and a journey through the Underworld and our dreams with The Dream Translator (and more surprises to come).

You can catch up with the Star Magic episode and the rest of the series in the meantime. I’ll see you in the next newsletter, either on the 21st or on the day the sun actually enters Aries. In the meantime, keep living in wonder! ✨