Three Things I’ve Loved about Uranus in Pisces

©5-24-2010 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 Uranus’s first, brief entry into Aries on May 27, 2010 marks the end of a dazzling seven-year tour by the planet of brilliance, invention, and discovery through Pisces, the sign of imagination, spirituality, and inspiration. Certainly, it’s been destabilizing on a political level.

On a creative level, though, I’ve often experienced a heart-racing excitement as I watched entirely new forms and possibilities burst into being for myself and others. Here are some of the remarkable trends and events that transpired during this passage.

 1: Glass Ceilings—What Glass Ceilings?

 Like Neptune and the 12^th house, Pisces is said to rule minorities, the disabled, and the disadvantaged. During Uranus’s transit through Pisces, disadvantaged people made inspiring breakthroughs—minorities and others who had yet to enjoy the full measure of success because they’re different in some way.

 I’m especially moved by those who refused to be held back by traditional limitations—they didn’t even fully recognize that they have them! They no longer allowed their gender, race, age, medical condition, or national origin to keep them from achieving their dreams.

 During the 2008 primaries, Hillary Clinton proudly proclaimed that she’d put 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling that the U.S. presidency represents. Though we still don’t know whether her birth time is 8:00 AM or 8:00 PM, we do know that Uranus was trining her three Scorpio planets and possibly crossing her Pisces Moon.

Her opponent, Barack Obama, the African-American son of a single mother, cracked a few ceilings of his own. He accepted his party’s nomination on the 40^th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s, “I have a dream” speech.  He later honored his worthy opponent by naming her to the prestigious position of Secretary of State.

 2: Disability—What Disability?

 As a social worker, I generally worked in 12^th house settings—hospitals, agencies for the disabled, the homeless and other seemingly hopeless situations. I have been thrilled time and time again during Uranus in Pisces as we saw people with disabilities or severe disadvantages having breakthroughs. They accomplished many unthinkable things, in part because of technological breakthrough, but more often by sheer grit and determination.

If Connor Gifford, a 26-year old man with Down Syndrome, can appear on national television to promote his poetry book, America According to Connor Gifford, maybe you’re smarter than you think too. He works three jobs, volunteers for organizations, and serves on the board of an organization that works to change stereotypes about disabilities.

 If a group of six blind Tibetan teenagers—despised and stigmatized former street beggars—can climb the 23,000-foot north face of Everest led by a blind American mountaineer, maybe there are new heights you can scale as well.

 More recently, Everest was scaled by the first woman with multiple sclerosis to make it. It was her final step in achieving her goal of climbing the 7 tallest peaks in the world.

If 41-year-old Dara Torres can make the US Olympic swim team and win two silver medals, can’t you set some new productivity records yourself?

If Marlee Matlin, a deaf 43-year-old actress, can finish in the top four couples on Dancing with the Stars, surely you can do better than to drag your feet in to work each morning.

 3: Inspired Giving—Innovative Ways of Helping

Before Uranus went into Pisces, most of the established charitable organizations had become stagnant and not terribly inspiring. They were also hemmed in by budgetary concerns and the specter of being sued for every dime in their coffers because some volunteer Good Samaritan in some way harmed the people they were trying to help.

 Most established organizations are more Saturnian than Uranian. If you propose an idea, they tell you all the reasons it can’t be done and then refer the project to committee for study and consideration for a year or more, then come back with a report about all the reasons it can’t be done, and besides where’s the money coming from?

 (In a nutshell, that’s why I’ve done most of my service to astrology outside the organizations—including the Astrologers’ Memorial and the recent International Astrology Day Blogathon.)

 I apparently wasn’t the only one who felt frustrated by the old ways of serving. Instead, informal and individual ways of helping sprang up. Individuals, rather than feeling overwhelmed with the vastness of the needs, thought of unique ways to give of themselves and raise money or do good deeds.  

 For example, a collective of executives who owned time shares that laid vacant much of the year decided to donate some unused weeks to soldiers returning from Iraq so they could have a dream vacation with their families. Pretty soon, other executives who heard about it started donating frequent flyer miles so the trip would be free.

In Uranian fashion, many of the new forms of giving sprang up spontaneously and never became formally organized. A speaker from an organization helping relief efforts for people living in refugee camps in Africa mentioned in a talk for a big corporation that most of the people in the camps had no shoes. Audience members began taking off their shoes and piling them up at the front of the room for him to take back with him.

 Uranus also represents the Glitterati, and during its time in Pisces, giving became really glam, as celebrities got into the act and served as role models for us all. It became commonplace for actors and entertainers to go to Africa, India or sites of natural disasters to raise money and build something solid to help people who lived under dire conditions.

We watched Oprah build a school in South Africa, Brad Pitt build green homes for flood-devastated New Orleans, and the entire cast of American Idol get its fans to donate millions for causes abroad and here at home.

 You can find many innovative ways of giving back on the internet, such as the phenomena of volunteer vacations. There you donate your time and pay your own way but come back revitalized by a fulfilling experience. National Geographic has a list on the Top Ten Volunteer Vacations – Intelligent Travel Blog. Cheaptickets.com and the United Way are working together to organize trips like these (See Volunteer Vacations – Cheap Flights, Airline Tickets, Airfare.)

 But What about Neptune in Aquarius?

 Readers who are advanced enough to follow transits are probably asking why these trends are assigned to Uranus in Pisces, when they could as easily be related to Neptune in Aquarius.  Certainly those two placements have much in common—in fact they’ve been in what is known as mutual reception for the last seven years, from 2003 to now.

That is to say, Uranus (ruler of Aquarius) has been in Neptune-ruled Pisces, at the same time as Neptune has been in Uranus-ruled Aquarius, so they’ve inhabited each other’s signs.

 Mutual reception sets up a special connection between the two planets, and it’s hard to separate out the effects of one or another. It’s just that Uranus is more connected with innovations, discoveries, independence, and social action, and that’s what I’m talking about it here.  At any rate, we’re facing the end of both eras, since Neptune is also leaving Aquarius in May of 2011. 

 It’s been a great ride, but we’re on to the next adventure, with Uranus in Aries and Neptune in its own sign, Pisces.  I’ll miss you, Uranus in Pisces, and I’m glad my life span included you! 

Related articles on Skywriter:

•  Neptune & Uranus in Mutual Reception
• The Mars-Uranus Conjunction in Pisces and Children Born with it
• Betty White—the Very Essence of Uranus in Pisces
• Uranus in Aries—a Heads Up for the Accident Prone
• Uranus in Aries & Flower Essences–8 Years of Significant Change Ahead

 Readers, did anything great happen to you that you attribute to Uranus in Pisces?  Leave the story in the comment section.

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Art credits: the photo of Connor Gifford comes from his website, please everyone check out my website http://www.connorgifford.com, where you can also order his book.