Lag Time

Nature seems to be in a hurry, rushing us out of winter and towards spring, with these too-warm days.  The calendar marches along at a quick trot too, heading towards Super Tuesday.  The news cycle sends up new things to worry about all the time.

But I’m lagging.  With Mercury retrograde, and three planets going through Pisces, I’m captured by a deeper flow.  I only want to meditate, to daydream, to drink tea, to gaze out the window, and to reread books I’ve read before.  I want to spend my time in the Dreamscape, a place where I’ve felt at home since childhood.  My brain produces the images, and I just wander around in them, untethered, free as any discarnate spirit. 

I recently read the novel The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern, a book I’d heard lauded everywhere.  To me, the novel was a beautiful, intricate stage without any actors on it.  The characters were embryonic, the plot scanty, but the setting was amazing, full of intricate details, constantly unfolding.

This feels like the current moment, with all this Piscean energy.  Everything is open, everything is possible, but there is no pressing need to do anything in particular.  The universe flows onward, carrying us all along.  Of course, we bring along our baggage, our worries and concerns.  But most of these seem to be resistant to action. 

Take Covid-19, which is spreading like a storm cloud.  What can we do about it?  We can wash our hands more often, and watch for symptoms, and avoid crowded places.  But mostly we just stand and watch the cloud move along, not knowing when it might decide to dump some rain, and whether we’ll get wet. 

A virus is invisible, as it travels through the air.  It wafts gently towards people, looking for the moist places where it can grow.  It comes for its victims without a bite or a sting, with nothing dramatic happening, and lays them flat for a little while – or forever.  Three thousand people have died, mostly those who were already weak, or who lacked any kind of medical care. 

It’s a very Piscean epidemic.  We humans have always been colonized, although we pretend we’re autonomous beings.  But we’re permeated with different life-forms of all sizes and kinds, and mostly we make amicable arrangements with them.  There are no barriers, though.  And so we’re helpless when confronted with less benign life-forms that want to merge with us.    

And there are no barriers between people, either.  None of us live in isolation.  Rich people have always needed poor people to do the work for them, to cook their food and take care of their children. So we’re all in this together, touching each other in a million ways.    

Of course, the current US government is spreading its own cloud of misinformation, assuring everyone that the virus will miraculously disappear.  In most situations, they’ve been successful with their miasma of lies – but in this case, the virus is more subtle, and is able to slip through their net. It can’t be contained, especially when nobody is prepared, when there’s a general disdain for science, and when the emphasis is on economic damage rather than health.

But Pisces isn’t the only important influence this month.  Capricorn is also strong, with four planets in this sign, and Capricorn is very different from the drifty, dreamy, watery energy of Pisces.  Capricorn is the most realistic sign in the zodiac, the most pragmatic, often the most pessimistic.  So while the administration is sending clouds to fight other clouds, there are people who are actually facing the problem.  They’re the ones organizing, containing, and countering people’s fears with accurate information. 

They’re just like the people who tackle global warming.  Weather systems are very Piscean;  they flow freely over the globe, ignoring borders, sensitive to all passing changes, bringing everyone together. The only way to deal with weather disturbances is to stay practical, to organize, to dismantle outmoded structures and to build new ones. 

These threats are not the same, but they have one message for humanity:  that we’re all together in this, that we are not really divided from each other, or from all the other life-forms in our midst.  There are no national boundaries that can stop these things, and to believe in walls and checkpoints is just magical thinking.

But is the answer just to flow with it?  I think that’s part of it, but the other half is to strategize and to work.  These are the things that Capricorn is good at.  For myself, even though I really just want to float along in the Piscean stream, I know that I have to deal with deadlines and commitments.  I have to stay clear, and to keep it real. 

Both Pisces and Capricorn can help you deal with your fears.  When you’re flowing with Pisces, the main fear is that you’re not in control, and you don’t know what you’re doing.  The answer is to move towards what’s beautiful, sacred and inspirational.  You can tap into all-encompassing divine love, whatever your religion, and you can find healing for the suffering you’ve endured and the suffering you’ve caused. 

And when you’re working with Capricorn, you can appreciate the unchanging physical laws that govern our planet, that keep you from floating away into space, and that ensure that every action has consequence.  These laws are both tools and teachers.  They form the framework of everything you are and everything you do. 

You are at once body and soul, limited by time and space and yet unbounded in this endless universe. And you are not unique in this.