Neptune in Pisces
The social environment, mercurial by nature, has become so divisive that it now feels dangerous to speak one’s mind. This dangerous sense of consequence has not, however, suddenly popped up like a jack-in-the-box. It has grown out of a deeper problem: the undermining of our ability to share understanding and jointly know things. The epistemological foundation of our society has all but evaporated. Most of our discussions, most of our assertions, are based on hearsay, and those sources of information have now been called into a storm of question.
That in itself wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the fact that our intellectual culture has grown steadily unhinged, having long since broken from its mooring in traditions of introspective wisdom. Bobbing about, adrift amongst the clashing currents, confusing the whitecaps of looming waves for the firmament of snow-capped mountains, our intellectual life as a society is now thoroughly without sure and trustworthy points of reference. Is it any wonder everyone aboard is freaking out? Desperately trying to ascertain what is real and firm within this tempest, the stakes feel high and everyone is ready to destroy anyone who, by their mere utterance, disturbs the foggy mist-like image they’re trying to cling to for security. This has to be the doings of Neptune.
Of Mercury’s two signs, I take Virgo to be the one most concerned with epistemology. The intellective process is turned in upon itself in Virgo: the mind sensing itself. Hence Mercury’s exaltation in that sign. Perception and thought are themselves the object of perception and thought, which is entirely consistent with the question of epistemology, the question of how we know what we think we know. Being an earth sign, the details become important, the material facts, for they are understood as the moorings by which knowledge is anchored.
And yet, Virgo is tied to Pisces just as one side of a coin is to the other. There is a distinction between the two, but to consider them separate is to ignore the limit of our own perception and consider as real only what we can see at once. So, if Virgo has to do with epistemology so too must Pisces, but in a different way. For all the details remain but that—a mass of details—until the faculty of pattern recognition (entailing judgement and, thus, will) is applied to the otherwise endless white-noise parsing of detail. The myth of Virgo is that it is the facts, but actually it is but the parsing and cataloguing of facts, the parsing and cataloguing of material perception (earth). Like a civil servant clerk wearing fisheye glasses, their nose deep in an endless register of listings, Virgo cannot see the forest for the trees. It can’t connect the dots. That’s what Pisces does. Like the politician who asks the clerk to look through the registers for justification of his claims, Pisces deals with what is to be known. The question of how we know (epistemology), which is Virgo, has no relevance outside the question of what we know, which is Pisces. And so the two, like a single coin, must be taken as one.
When the facts can be arranged to justify any statement, this isn’t a problem with Virgo but rather with Pisces. So, now, with Neptune passing through Pisces, the entire coin of knowledge is in shambles. The tempest of Neptune has made an utter chaos out of what is to be known, and down in the basement beneath the maddened court, in the registrar’s office, the clerks are running around like headless chickens satisfying search requests for listings of facts to justify a folly of conflicting arguments. It’s mayhem.
A computer laden down with too many tasks will slow to a crawl, as though stalled out, even as its fan begins whirling at top speed. Unable to complete the appointed task due to a backlog of pending related sub-tasks, computational preoccupation overwhelms occupation. How can one carry on an open conversation now when the utterance of every word, like listed facts called upon by warring factions, is fraught with implications? The mind boggles to lay out a thread of sense that won’t render itself more deeply into crisis.
This is what it feels like to live in the Tower of Babel. It’s far worse than simply being in a place where everyone speaks a different language. At least then, that simple fact would be known and easy enough to recognise and agree upon. The Tower of Babel really comes into its own when, speaking the same language—“our” language!—and using the same words—“our” words!—in glorification of Lovely! Beauty! Unity! (the exaltation of Venus), all of us mean something different. Speaking the same about what is different, we’re broadsided by conflict. What a surprise… This is the Tower of Babel: where ignorance parades as knowledge, and knowledge dares not venture.