There was a new moon in Pisces yesterday, and the ocean is calling all that is known and all that has not yet been discovered, all that is possible and all that has already been, all that we dream of and all that is beneath our dreams, for a swim.
The new moon in Pisces is an invitation to begin a cycle that marks the end and ushers us into a new beginning. Pisces is the last sign on the wheel of astrology. With this archetype we complete something by submerging into the waters of the infinite. The fish takes us into the cosmic ocean, back into our mother, into amniotic fluid, into our origin – we all come from fish. And as we plunge into this Piscean vastness of the universe, we give birth to another journey around the sun, we jump on the back of Aries, the Ram, and spark something, renew something, resurrect something.
The sign of Aries meets us on the Spring Equinox, ten days into this lunar cycle.
Pisces is often referred to as a mystic. Transcendence is the language of their soul. Oneness is the lens through which this archetype looks at the world.
Oneness, while often thought of in spiritual worlds as a vision seen by enlightened beings, the goal of spiritual work, and an expression of liberation, can also lead us down a path that closes us off instead of opening us up. Oneness means there’s no other, and if there’s no other, it’s hard to see one another. Seeing our differences is actually how we make room for more than ourselves, it’s how we cultivate respect, it’s how we can learn from each other, and it’s how we become creative.
We are all a part of one reality, one universe. Remembering that is important. But that should be our starting point, not the end goal.
When we are seeking oneness, we run into the shadow of thinking we have to think in the same way, and see in the same way. And we see this shadow playing out in the culture of today. Oneness runs into the danger of strangely leading us into a more polarized society. Singularity is the way of dogma. Oneness leads us to believe that there is only one way. If we fail to show up to plurality, to the many instead of the one, we experience the dissolution of our capacity to listen to someone else’s opinions, perspectives, and ways.
Biodiversity is key for a healthy ecosystem.
The dreamland of the Pisces archetype takes us into the power of imagination. If we can imagine what it’s like to be the other, then we have a chance at bridging rather than conforming, learning instead of already knowing, opening, expanding, and extending ourselves in new directions instead of staying the same.
We can tap into the Pisces energy when we see our interconnectedness. We’re not one, but we are part of one thing. We’re not the same, but we are not separate. We’re different, but we are in this together.
On Saturday, Andrew, the kids, and I, along with our dear friends, went to an event at IKAR with Sally Abed and Alon Lee Green, the founders of Standing Together – an Israeli Jewish-Palestinean organization with the mission of working together to build bridges and plant seeds for peace. They understand that the fate of Jews and Palestininas is intertwined. The talk was hosted by IKAR’s rabbi, Sharon Brous. It was incredible!
We started the day with the Shabbat services. I don’t think I’ve ever in my entire life gone to shabbat services at a synagogue. And I can tell you that I probably won’t do that regularly in my life, but it felt like a deeply meaningful experience, even though the kids were bored.
Rabbi Sharon Brous gave a sermon that left me, not surprisingly, in a puddle of tears. You can get a taste of her magic in her book The Amen Effect, which I highly recommend. I cried throughout the entire book, and it left me wanting more. She sees things with nuance. Her wisdom is profound. And she shares herself in an inspiringly authentic way, as she weaves grief and gratitude, mourning and celebration with care, complexity, and depth. In the sermon she spoke of the heartache for all that is going on in the region, about how we all feel like we can’t break anymore.
And then she shifted into our capacity to shift the narrative. She spoke about Yuval Noah Harari’s reminder that we are storytelling animals, and that the endless war between Palestinians and Israelis is a war that stems from stories – each and their own story about God and belonging and the land. The good thing about that, says Harari, enhanced by Brous, is that stories can be changed. And she took her sermon from the depth of despair into a hopeful place.
If we plunge into the waters of Pisces, we can imagine new ways, we can tell new stories, we can slowly change the narrative, we can choose where to place the focus, where to steer our ship.
I came for the Israeli-Palestinian issue, to support the founders of Standing Together – an organization that is giving me so much hope – and to meet Sharon Brous, because her voice in the last few months has been a beacon of light. And then there was something about being there for a Jewish service that felt like a shift in the narrative for me, opening up, being less one thing, making room for more, being many things. (Don’t worry, I’m still an atheist!)
The conversation with Standing Together was a narrative shift – that’s what they are trying to do – and it took us into a process of making room for what’s possible if we learn to see each other, if we allow ourselves to listen to one another, and if we understand that we are not separate from each other. The safety and well-being of the people on that land are woven together.
Sally talked a lot about Radical Empathy. This is what we need most right now. Not only in Palestine-Israel.
The capacity to imagine what it would feel like to be in another’s shoes is a radical act in a world that expects you to demonize anyone who thinks differently from you. The ability to show up to our differences with a listening ear is a radical act. To know that there are paradoxes, and that they are often what makes something true, is a radical vision.
Pisces dissolves limitations, expands imagination, and carries us away from separation, and into our interconnectedness.
Check out Standing Together and support them.
And join us for an online embodied mythopoetic journey to bring the transition from Winter to Spring, and the spirit of the season of renewal into your body. The Spring Equinox Somatic Ceremony will turn you into a bee and into a flower, it will take you into where Greek Dionysus and Hindu Siva meet for a drink, it will get you intoxicated with prana, and invite you to explore the diversity of being you, through the movement of your body, the sound of your voice, and the power of your breath. Meditate, move, breathe, and play with symbols and stories in this transformative multi-dimensional embodied ritual. Mythology changes who we are, and we get to change our mythology.
May the moon, as it waxes, and the season as it changes, bring you into where you’re able to swim in the waters of diversity, walk the land with a vision of inclusion, and breathe with the remembrance that you are a part of a reality interconnected, that you are never ever ever separate, and that “the other” is never not part of you.