Pisces Season, Mercury Retrograde, & Lillith

Written By: Shawn Engel

The days are slowly becoming longer, and the start of spring is just about a month away. As winter symbolizes death and stillness, we are coming towards a new beginning, life and resurgence.

Pisces, the sign of the fish, is the final sign of the zodiac, closing out the wheel. Marking endings, invoking healing, and bringing closure, this slice of the zodiac uses a dreamy and ethereal lens through which to mark the end of a chapter in our lives. It rules our subconscious beliefs, and under this sign we may need to say goodbye to those that no longer serve us. As a Water sign, Pisces season is incredibly emotional, but being ruled by Neptune, we may have a fog over these emotions. It is time for us to swim in the depths of our psyche with a guiding light, so we can not only feel through the motions, but see them as clear as possible.

Ruling the 12th house of spirituality and closure, Pisces asks us to have faith that closed doors don’t always mean a stark conclusion; rather something bigger is beyond us. While many Pisceans have struggles with boundaries in this regard, it is their lot in life to learn how to set and stand by them. We are all called to this purpose while the sun is in Pisces. With their Tarot card being The Moon, we know that although there may be anxiety around this process, ultimately the light of our intuition will guide us through the change.

As the sign that ends the winter and the entire zodiac wheel, Pisces mutable quality is quite fitting. The name of the game for Pisces is to close out the show with a bang, so come prepared to go with the flow.

Mercury Retrograde

The planet of technology, commerce, and communication stations retrograde on the 16th or 17th (depending where you are in the world.) This transit is always a nuisance for this generation, as we live in the most mercurial world thus far. Everyone is communicating at all times, so when mercury goes retrograde, we feel hiccups in our fast paced lives and get very frustrated.

However, this transit can be quite fruitful and timely if we let it do it’s job. If we take this retrograde to slow down, take a pause, and reflect on how we communicate, we can enter and exit Pisces season with grace, and even more know how for when Aries season comes blazing in.

As Mercury will go retrograde in Pisces twice during this transit (starting in Pisces, moving into Aquarius, and then back into Pisces) , we are asked to focus on how we communicate in terms of matters of our heart. How do we speak our truth in our emotions? Is it effective? Such matters should be explored.

Lupercalia

Are you more of a Valentines Day babe, swept away with the sweetness of the imagery and the overall romantic vibe?

Or are you drawn to Lupercalia, the old Roman holiday lasting between February 13th and 15th looking to purify the land of evil spirits?

Lupercalia seems very timely before Pisces season, because it does a lot of clearing away in the climax of our years journey before slowing down into the end. It’s a festival that ushers in health and fertility, which is what we see in the spring to come forward.

As everything in life moves in cycles, it ebbs and flows, back and forth, just as Mercury moonwalks between two signs. There is always some clearing away, moving forward, then coming back to clear away some more.

Lupercalia, basically the anti-Valentines day, is a holiday of lust and vices. Instead of celebrating harmony and union, Lupercalia invokes the demon and lets it run rampant, so that it may go back into the shadows and leave the earth to harvest come spring.

art by MidnightDrearyOdd 

Lilith

The dark goddess Lilith is shrowded in mystery and sexy to boot. I find her to be most appropriate for this time because she knows all about endings and still is able to hold her power. She is a source of feminine strength and perseverance.

The story of Lilith, in the simplest explanation, is that she refused Adam, as he was the first man and she was the first woman, and denied to be promised to him. Because of her lack of subservience, she was cast out as the Mother of Demons and used as a cautionary tale to other women who followed the Judeo-Christian faith.

Lilith is an excellent goddess to work with in terms of independence and the shadow self, because that is her home. She has found strength in the shadow, and that is exactly what we will do here.

Exploring the Shadow Ritual

By combining Lilith energy with Pisces, and a bit of deviance from Lupercalia passed, you will be able to explore your shadow in terms of what needs to end.

What you’ll need:

• Cleansing tool of choice (bells, smoke, etc.)
• Pen and paper

• A bowl of water

How to perform:

1. First, clear the area in which you’re performing your ritual. This will help give you balanced energy in which to work.
2. Call in Lilith's energy by (either aloud or in your head) asking for her presence as you perform this ritual.
3. Take your pen and paper, and journal on these prompts:
1. When I end a relationship, how does it make me feel about myself?
2. When I end a job or opportunity, what does it say about me?
3. When I end a habit, what do I immediately replace it with? How does that serve me?
4. As you journal, let your truth come up as it does. Try not to censor yourself, no matter how uncomfortable it gets.
5. When you are done journaling, take your paper and fold it in half.
6. Submerge it in your bowl of water, and imagine the water cleansing and purifying your shadow, bringing light and awareness.
7. When you are finished, thank Lilith for her presence and healing, and make sure to throw out your water and paper in an outside bin, or flush it down the toilet.

This ritual will help to make the endings become manageable, because once we see clearly, we can navigate with more ease.

Meet The Writer