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Pisces Rising: Return of the Goddess by Maria Kay Simms (From the NCGR Journal - Winter 1987-1988 (Philosophy Issue)) Ancient Goddess-worshiping civilizations were peaceful. Primary occupations were gathering, and later agricultural. People were very conscious of their dependence on Mother Earth, and they respected Her deeply. Human mothers were the center of society. Lines of descent were traced through the mother line. Inheritance of property and position passed from mother to daughter. Councils of women had the final say on most decisions that affected the welfare of their groups. Women were priestesses and healers. Their brothers and uncles protected the women - especially when they were pregnant or caring for small children. Sexual activity was considered a natural function - a gift of the Divine Mother, meant for pleasure. Since the line of descent came from the mother, it really didn't matter who the father was. All children were cherished, protected by the entire clan. All this was during the time that we call the Age of Taurus-earthy, sensual, peace-living Taurus. Taurus, we are taught, is a "feminine" sign. Around 2000 years ago the Age of Aries (a "masculine" sign) began. Slowly, one by one, the culturally developed, urban, Goddess-worshiping civilizations fell under the domination of conquering Aryan (or Indo-European) tribes with a new point of view. Their God was masculine, and was symbolized in various forms of fire. Their leaders were men, their social-political structure patriarchal. Because descent and inheritance from the father was important to them, very strict sexual mores had to be enforced for women. How else could the men be sure who fathered each child? Women became the property of their fathers to be sold to their husbands. With great religious zeal the Aryans slaughtered the matrifocal societies into submission. This change in world view did not happen overnight, or even in a century. Throughout the entire Age of Aries the migrations and invasions went on. By the dawn of the Age of Pisces, though, the transformation was nearly complete. Only a few cultures, like the Celts, still clung to the Goddess. Throughout the civilized world the vast majority of people referred to God as He. That there had ever been another way to think was all but forgotten. The macho, all powerful, stern, punishing Aryan God, who was given to appearances in fiery pillars or atop rumbling volcanoes, had been modified by emerging Piscean concepts. He was now to be called "Father", and while Father may be stern and just, He was also loving and forgiving. But the social-political structure had become firmly patriarchal. Generations had forgotten that women had ever been more than property. Men made all the decisions. Nearly 2000 years more have now gone by. The pendulum is slowly swinging back to a matrifocal society. The struggle is much less violent than before, but it is persistent - and inevitable. Why is this so? As above, so below! That's a familiar concept to all of us. We know so little about how and why it works, yet life on earth does reflect the patterns in the cosmos. Individuals and nations respond to the cosmic clock, even when they have no conscious awareness of its existence. We astrologers know this is true. We prove it to ourselves with every chart we study. Most of the time, though, like everyone else, our focus is limited to our own lifetime and our current problems. That's natural. Why should we be concerned about where we are in a cycle of thousands of years? We have enough to contend with in our own lives. For today, though let's look at the whole, the forest, instead of just the individual trees. Let's see how very much we are influenced by our place within the cycle of the ages. Let's see how this cycle has affected our views about ourselves, where we are, where we are going - and even our concepts of astrology. To summarize: The collective concept of God reflects the cycle of the precessional ages. To say that again, a bit more simply, for emphasis: The way people think of God, and of themselves in relation to God, is deeply influenced by the Great Ages. This is true - it happens - even if the people have no idea what a Great Age is - even if they've never heard of astrology. The peaceful, agrarian, earth-centered, matrifocal cultures of Taurus reflected Taurus not only in their values, but also in their sacred symbols. Think of the sacred cattle of India, the bull God Apis of Egypt, the Minotaur of Crete. Throughout the civilized world bulls, cow, oxen - or the opposition Scorpio symbols such as serpents, phoenix, eagles and Selket the Scorpion Goddess, were important religious symbols. The Aryan invaders of the Age of Aries introduced a competitive, warring, patriarchal culture. God was represented in fire. Apis of Egypt was supplanted by Amon the Ram God. Athena, born of her father, wore a helmet with ram's horns. The Hebrews escaped from Egypt, sacrificed the bull as a sin offering, and consecrated their altar and priestly vestments with the blood of a ram. As the Age of Aries drew to a close the Lamb of God was sacrificed to atone for sin, and rose to introduce the Age of Pisces and a new religion. Pisces is a 'feminine" sign, and the god- concept softened to a compassionate, forgiving, parent figure who loved everyone unconditionally. The followers of the Fisher of Men identified themselves by the sign of the fish. The leaders of the new religion adopted fish-head hats, and their supreme pontiff is said to wear the "shoes of the Fisherman". The status of women had sunk to an all-time low in the dawn of this age, but still the virgin mother of Jesus was elevated to Queen of Heaven and called the Mother of God. Slowly, slowly social mores and political structures are changing to reflect the Piscean vision of God. A new paradigm is born, but old habits of thinking die very hard. An astrological model that reflects the struggle for a new world view is our so-called "natural zodiac". Aries rises. It represents cardinal east. The ancients called the cardinal points the "four Corners of the world" - only then the eastern corner was Taurus. We have seen evidence of that. Old religious art from sphinx statuettes of Egypt to representations of the apostles of the four New Testament gospels, tell us that the four corners of the earth were the bull, the eagle, the lion, and the man. In Job we are told that the train of the zodiac was led by Aldebaran. The brightest star in the constellation Taurus, Aldebaran is known as the "bull's eye". The most renown ancient astrologers, the Babylonians, measured the zodiac from the opposition axis of Aldebaran and Antares, brightest star in Scorpio.  Now, in our astrological system, we say the whole has three qualities. We attribute the qualities of action to the cardinal signs. Aries, here, represents that quality, Pisces is of the mutable quality. It is a changing, teaching, disseminating mode. Taurus, now well below the horizon, represents the fixed, stable, always there, sustaining quality. There's a close link, here to numerology and to theological concepts. Follow closely: Before the beginning was nothing. The circle, zero, or nothing, contains the potential for everything (in our numerical cycle), symbolized by 9. For reasons we do not know, everything-contained-within-nothing, divided into itself - condensed into a seething center, and with a "Big Bang" (we are told) became One. This was creation - the beginning. The One was Three. It had three qualities. It was always there (in potential) - eternal, fixed, past. In the present, it acted, created, was cardinal. Now it had the capacity tochange - it was future, mutable. Three aspects, you see, of one whole. One is three. What happened to two? Two--duality or opposition - may be only an illusion of our world of time and space. It is a necessary illusion for physical experience. Only that which exists can be perceived. We cannot perceive good unless we have some perception of bad to contrast it with. We cannot see light unless we know what darkness is. We have no conception of quiet unless we know what it is to be noisy. The only problem with two is that it can only be expressed as separation: II The very perception of duality prevents us from truly being whole - it keeps us separated from oneness with God. Christianity, the keynote religion of the Age of Pisces, expresses God as triune - the triangle - the trinity - Three in One. The three aspects of God are three-in-one and one-in-three - all equal and of the same substance. That which is currently called Father represents that which was always there, before the beginning - infinite, eternal, sustaining. The Son is called the Word. He changed our concept of God, heralding a new age and hope for the future in resurrection. The Holy Spirit acts in our lives - is present everywhere. Remember now, all three are one - equal and the same - a trinity of trinities. All three are eternal (fixed), all three are active (cardinal), all three evolve and change (mutable), as new concepts of the Word are revealed. I think that all of the twelve zodiac signs have all three qualities, too. Aries was not always cardinal. In the Age of Aries, Taurus was cardinal east - the sign of spring equinox. Aries rose before the sun. It represented the changing concept of God -the new Word to be disseminated. Hundreds and hundreds of years of struggle passed before the ingrained patterns of how people acted gave way to change. As Aries became the cardinal ascendant, Pisces was given to the world as a new vision, a new Word - but Aries, then, reflected the accepted mode of action. The new vision was Piscean, but the decisions on what actions should be taken to establish the new religion were left solely to the men, who were products of Arian patriarchal conditioning. Ideals were of the nature of the feminine - but females had no voice within the social-political structure. I need not elaborate for anyone remotely aware of the atrocities of early church history, how very Arian were the methods by which the fathers of the church sought to enforce acceptance of the new religion. Where were the simple teachings of Jesus to love thy neighbor? Let's compare a little more theology with astrology. The Holy Spirit, said to act in our lives, is symbolically expressed in three elements, fire, wind, and water. (The previous sentence came straight from a Catholic religious education text-book, and is based on Biblical references.)1 As the three-in-one acts and descends into matter...matter? Mater... ma.. .ma-ma? Mother Earth!...the three-in-one becomes three plus one: four! The cross of our suffering! 
God, the whole (God manifest in the world) is now four: fire, air, water,
and earth. And each of the elements has three qualities: eternal,
sustaining fixed; initiative action, cardinal; ever changing and
evolving mutable. Four trinities. And the four times the three are
12, and the 12 is 3, and the three is one. God in the Universe -
one whole. We, in the physical universe, however, are still obsessed with dualism. To continue: Earth, theologians and astrologers agree, is feminine: Mother Earth and Mother Church, bride of God on earth. The other three elements - fire, wind, water - the Holy Spirit, the church calls masculine. Unfair, church fathers! At least on this point, astrology "balances the scales" with two elements masculine and two feminine. It is interesting that in early church councils great arguments ensued over whether the Holy Spirit was masculine or feminine. I think it is a reasonable conjecture that the decision to declare the Holy Spirit male may have been prejudiced by the fact the only males were allowed to debate. In truth, of course, God the Whole is One and must be androgynous - the resolution and unity of all opposites. Impaled as we are on our cross of time and space, we perceive opposition. Male and female we are, and male and female we have personified our gods. In this age, which dawned at the same time as the origin of our present zodiacal system, we have called our cardinal rising Aries, and God is male. In the Age of Aries the cardinal rising was Taurus and the Goddess reigned...until She was gradually suppressed by the changing world view. The great fiery wheel of the zodiac is never static. It is constantly turning. Only the head of the western fish of the constellation Pisces now rises before the sun at vernal equinox. Soon, in just a few hundred years, the fish will be lost in the blinding rays of the rising sun, leaving Aquarius as the helically rising sign of the new age. Pisces then be cardinal east, our new cardinal ascendant. Will the Goddess reign again? Lookaround! You can see Her rising now! The changing roles of women are a major issue of our time. Most urban areas now have women's centers, often with emphasis on the feminist spiritual movement that includes a reworking of ancient rituals based on the lunar cycle. The roles of men are changing, too. Society is in a state of crisis over changing ideas on careers, child care, marriage, mothers without husbands, sexual mores, contraception, abortion, environmental protection, disarmament. The momentum is steadily and persistently toward a reawakening and reestablishment of the values associated with the feminine principle. We are returning to a matrifocal social-political structure. The Goddess is ascending! Even highly patriarchal Christianity begins to bend as demands are considered to alter the wording of prayers and scriptures to remove references to God as male. Recent Catholic publications have included discussions of the concept of God as Mother. Our understanding of our own symbolic language of astrology is changing, too, right along with the changing world view. Very slowly, to be sure. I know some of you are thinking already, "How can she say Pisces is becoming cardinal? That would really mess up all we've been taught." Ideas are changing, though...some in ways that many of you may already take for granted. Think about aspects, for example. Aspects are based on numbers. According to number philosophies that were formalized in the Arian Age, one, the monad, is masculine. God is male, He came first, remember? In the Genesis creation myth, probably written by men who were determined to justify the patriarchy, Adam is created first, and then Eve is formed from his rib. She is two, and two is said to be feminine. One, the masculine, represents action and initiative. Two is supposed to be passive and responsive. Poor Eve - she just didn't fit the mold. Not content to be the passive creature that females are supposed to be, she wanted to act, to learn, to know. So she ate the apple, and found that to separate - to act on one's own individual will is to oppose passivity. To perceive anything is to know its opposite. To live - to die. If to live is good, then its reverse, death, is evil. Blame it on Eve! She tipped the Libran scales out of balance and has been blamed by mankind ever since the time of the Arian patriarchs. Mankind has preferred her to remain passive, taking the action principle onto itself. To continue with our numbers, three (remember the trinity) is masculine and good. Four, the number of earth, the cross and suffering, is feminine and evil. Astrology used to be very firm on the meanings of aspect. The conjunction based on one, was powerful and positive. The opposition was bad. Trines were benefic-wonderful. Squares were malefic-awful. Now, like masculine and feminine roles, the interpretations are becoming blurred and meanings are changing. Now we consider oppositions and squares to be not bad, but rather challenging. The words "benefic" and "malefic" are out of fashion. We now speak of "hard" and "soft" aspects. The hard aspects (derived from the feminine, remember) are said to represent action. They make things happen. lf we didn't have them we'd sit on our posteriors and not get anything done. We wouldn't grow. The soft aspects represent a state of being. They are called passive, easy flow. And they are not always "good" anymore. Now our textbooks tell us that a grand trine might not be so wonderful after all. That easy flow of energy can get us into trouble. Can it be that the principle of action is changing? Is it passing symbolically as well as culturally from the masculine to the feminine? Hundreds of years remain before the transition is complete. The vernal point will not precess into Aquarius until about 2700 A.D.(2) What new religion might emerge in this new Age of Aquarius with Pisces rising? Aquarius, an airy intellectual sign, will surely present us with the ideal of universal truth. I do not think that a single new Messiah or even a second coming of Christ will herald Aquarius. Rather, numerous great teachers will emerge, with roots in all religions and all ethnic groups. They will be men and women, of various races. They will merge to prove to the world that all gods and goddesses are One. The Christ will be revered, but understood to be not a god-man forever set apart from sinful humanity, but instead, the potential within every human to transcend the physical body and become one with the One. The Aquarian word will be taught, yet still the new world religion will be established according to actions initiated by people long conditioned by Pisces - now cardinal ascendant. As always, through the ages, the masses will personify the divine. It seems to be the nature of humanity to create symbols. With Pisces rising, the most popular personification of deity will be a Goddess. What might She be, the Piscean Goddess? For ideas let's consider the Mother of God of our age - how she has been understood and misunderstood and why. The archetypal goddess of the zodiac is the Virgin - Virgo. She is pictured with the wheat and corn of the harvest, symbols of the fruitful bounty of Mother Earth. Often she is pictured standing upon the moon. The moon was long revered as the Goddess who gave birth each day to the sun, and whose changing phases timed all the cycles of life that were necessary for survival. How in the world did this fertile and powerful Virgo get transformed into a barren and nit-picking old maid? Virgo has suffered from being the opposition to the sign of our age. If Pisces is God, then Virgo must be not-God. The virgin, in this age, is mortal. A lowly mortal maiden gave birth to the Messiah. A patriarchy then told the world that the main attribute of this virgin maiden is her chastity. Forever untouched by man, pure and obedient, she is placed on a pedestal as the ultimate example for all women. How convenient for the purposes of the patriarchy! A nearly unreachable ideal of chastity - a perfect excuse to heap guilt and inferiority on all women who fall short of the ideal. Before this age, however, the word "virgin" was not synonymous with "chaste". It used to mean a woman who was independent - who did not belong to any man. The temple virgins of Goddess cultures were called temple prostitutes by their patriarchal conquerors. 
A close reading of the gospels suggest ideas that the church
has suppressed or forgotten. Consider the choice of the name Mary
for the mother of Jesus - any the very predominance of Mars -
even to the three Marys at the tomb of Jesus. The pre-Christian
Man was the Goddess of the Sea, clothed in blue robe and pearl
necklace as symbols of the sea. Sometimes she was the Great Fish
who gave birth to the gods; and sometimes the Mermaid. Her latin
name, Maria, means "the seas". Evidence of that remains. The dry seas of the moon are called marias. Mar is the
root word for the sea in many languages - think of the costal
city names that end with "del Mar". As for the triple Mary at
the tomb, the pre-Christian trinity was the triple Goddess: Virgin,
Mother, Crone - representing the age cycle of the feminine. The gospels are full of symbolism that was no doubt quite deliberately put there by very early Christian Gnostics with a background in the esoteric mysteries and in astrology and numerology. The church is not the only culprit. Our Virgo has been shortchanged by astrology, too. Our present system of rulerships was set up by Ptolemy back at the dawn of this age. Since Leo and Cancer were at the zenith at the warmest time of the year where Ptolemy lived, he assigned the Sun and the Moon as their rulers. From then on around the circle in either direction, he assigned planetary rulers in their order out from the Sun. That is how Virgo got Mercury. It was a purely arbitrary arrangement. Sterile, sexless Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods, was to be the ruler of the Goddess of bountiful harvest? The rulers thus assigned, delineations were made to fit, and Virgo was decreed to be barren, and then further demeaned into her critical, sterile new image. (It is interesting that the virgin Mary of the gospels was also given her new role by a winged messenger of God.) Recently many astrologers have finally become dissatisfied with this state of affairs and have sought a new, more appropriate ruler for Virgo among the asteroids. I submit that the artists who have portrayed the Virgin standing upon the Moon have the right idea. Virgo, the only Goddess figure in the zodiac, belongs with the Moon. When one compares Christian symbols and gospel stories with knowledge of astrology and of the precessional ages, it's clear that the links are numerous and deliberate. The fact that present day biblical scholars disclaim the link doesn't mean it isn't there. History undergoes great transformations in 2000 years. One only needs to compare history books written generations apart to prove that. Mary is obviously a composite of Pisces/Virgo symbolism. No matter what the actual facts might be of the lives of Mary and her Son, the stories about them are woven with symbols of the new age. St. Paul, the true founder of Christianity, whose letters reveal a fear and dislike of women, declared Jesus to be God. It is Mary, though, who lives deep in the consciousness of the masses. Think about this: throughout this age, whenever anyone has reported a vision of the divine, almost always it is Mary. Many miraculous healings have taken place at shrines built at the sites of her appearances. In the current revival of interest in the Goddess, Mary is so far not prominent. She is still misunderstood and too closely connected with her chastely pristine image within the patriarchal church. In thinking of her only as the mortal virgin, we hold her and ourselves with her, away from full realization of our spiritual potential in Pisces. Mystical, visionary Pisces is synthesis - all in one whole. It is the promise of resurrection - the deep soul-connection of each of us with all others and with the divine one whole. "Love thy neighbor as thyself' - because in that divine synthesis we are our neighbors. Jesus is a man and also God. Mary is Virgo, but she is also Pisces. Understanding her in a new image that fully encompasses all aspects of the feminine principle may be an important part of learning to understand ourselves, our times, our culture - past, present, and future. Our Lady of the Seas may even emerge as Goddess - when Pisces rises. Notes 1 James Finley & Michael Pennock, Your Faith and You, Notre Dame, IN, Ave Maria Press, 1978, pps 62-73. 2 2700 AD as the approximate beginning of the Age of Aquarius is based on a ratlo of the number of years in each Great Age to the number of degrees in its corresponding oonstellation. This theory of measurement is explained in my book, Twelve Wings of the Eagle, forthcoming from ACS Publications in early 1988. Also, see Rob Hand's Essays on Astrology:, "The Age and Constelladon of Pisces, Rockport, MA, Para Research, 1982. Recommended Reading Barbara G. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1983. Merlin Stone, When God was a Woman, San Diego, Harvest/HBJ, 1976. Carol P. Christ & Judith Paskow, ed., Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1979. |
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