the revolution of the piscean

September bookings are open for tarot readings, archetypal life path readings and transmutational counseling. I am also available for event bookings. Pre-sale orders for my poetry book, A Love That Lives in the Dirt, are open until Sept. 15.

“I’m here with the words you feel in your body but haven’t learned the language of just yet.”

I found this phrase in my screenshot archives the other day as I was reviewing key dates related to the first Pisces eclipse last September. I was in Barcelona at my first artist residency after what I consider the hardest time of my life. Whether through screenshots of philosophy, videos of Patti Smith interviews, or my own poetry, the themes I found running as a silverly backbone shining solidly throughout were palpable: Freedom.

Upon first glance, Pisces may not seem like the ideal archetype to suit the concept of revolution, in all of its Martian qualities. We may perceive this mutable watery sign to have its head in the clouds, in dreams, in the watery emotional realms. Anywhere but decidedly not on the ground where we might assume war happens. But there are many roles in transformation, many that do not exist directly on the frontlines of physical violence. But what do you think it looks like when you cut off the hand of those who naturally beats to the tune of their own drum?

Me, and my natal Jupiter in its home sign of Pisces, have a core mission in this world of being able to express myself freely. This doesn’t just mean being able to use any words I want, it means being accepted to speak in languages beyond vocabulary, to have those around me trust my body and intuition and dreams and many healing modalities, including art of all sorts, as much as I do and for these languages to speak just as tangibly as any word in the dictionary. My secondary mission is to burn all oppressive systems, people and ideas, to the ground. And while I was aware of this previously, it only revealed itself as secondary as I was reviewing these images from last year. Because as I saw post after post about disappointment, heartbreak and pain of both personal and collective abuse, I could also see that this energy only existed due to my incredibly pure desire to be able to be myself in the world, to be able to communicate in abstraction, in philosophy, and in the trust of my body and intuition and acceptance of myself as nature, of myself as part of the Whole. And, if these boundaries and limits didn’t exist, this would be no problem. And yet this energy acts as the limitless supply of hope and love for beauty and belief in the collective that acts as the generator to move me through the most oppressive, difficult situations and internalized belief systems.

In the Hermetic tradition—of which I am a practicing part—the key of Death in the tarot corresponds to the Hebrew letter of nun and the symbol of the fish. In ancient times, the markers of a living being were that something should be both warm and breathing. The fish exhibits neither of these qualities, and yet it lives, cold-blooded in a climate most could not. And so it became a symbol of Death, navigating an alternate reality and the realm of the unseen, as water relates to the intuitive, emotional and psychic. The zodiacal sign of Pisces also contains fish, with the archetype speaking to our soul’s reconnection with Oneness, the collective all, and a dissolution of boundary between us.

It’s worth taking a moment, in honor of Pisces’ opposing force of Virgo—the sign of systems, language, philosophy, purity, getting to the root, the surgeon, and the harvest—to unpack some concepts around the word, “psychic.” Many, upon hearing this word, think of “being psychic” as an inherent state of being or “being a psychic” as an identity or profession. This often immediately results in a person identifying wholly within or without of the boundaries of this term. Which both does not acknowledge the true nature of the psyche—something that every human has—and also defies the concept of psychic connection, an act of lowering the boundaries of the conscious mind to allow the full psyche to be considered. The psyche is defined as the part of the brain that contributes to the formation of our personality, although there are varying schools of thought about what exactly these parts are. Jung held that our psyche is made up of three parts: our conscious mind, our personal unconscious mind, and the collective unconscious mind, which forms our personality through archetypes. So, although there may be some who practice and therefore are more adept at connecting with and interpreting the unconscious—personal or collective—we all have a psyche, and therefore are all capable of accessing the unconscious information that forms us.

The Piscean realm is where all of these parts are reunited as one. Where we don’t have to separate what we consciously know from what we feel and what we feel intuitively from what we feel in our bodies and what we feel in our bones from what our art is saying, screaming. And what happens when we put all of this information together and behave in ways that are outside of society’s norms? We are “not in our right mind,” we are “psycho.” We have an illness of the mind, we are pathologized and medicated, numbed. We are constrained by shame, fear, and invalidation. If that doesn’t work, by dehumanization, by lack of resources from the system, and eventually—ultimately—by institutionalization. I can’t think of someone more dangerous to a system that profits off of us existing like cattle—homogenized, used for our resources, and disposed of—than someone who is comfortable existing beyond definition. What would you do if a pig at a pork farm began reciting you a poem as you went in for the slaughter? And what do you imagine the reaction of the pork farmer would be when he knew that all of his livestock were expressing themselves rather than behaving obediently for his profit? (You’re welcome for this mental image…)

The astrologer, Judith Hill, speaks of eclipse energy as plugging up the spicket of a running faucet…and then removing the plug. So, as we approach an eclipse, we shouldn’t consider only the moment itself, but before and after. And for a lunar eclipse happening in mutable water, at the north node where things enter, it seems appropriate to consider what water is flowing to the spicket as we approach the moment of eclipse. And then, what happens as the water is relieved with increased pressure due to a momentary blockage? What happens when the celestial light of the luminary representing the body, cycles, emotions and our inner, “unseen” world in the sign of the collective unconscious, The Great Sea, dreams and the psychic is blocked from what is evolutionarily entering? What is being blocked about what we know to be true in our bodies, in our “gut” (ruled by Virgo), that is creating an acute alchemical point, unconscious information gushing forth into the conscious demanding to finally be heard, seen, realized? What has been shamed, invalidated, gaslit and so pushed into the fringes of society simply because it didn’t exist in the shape of capitalism, colonialism, in the willing submission of you as a pig good only for your pork?

What languages do you speak beyond words that act as the limitless generator for hope in a world that can easily seem hopeless to the untrained mind? What systems, what types of societies, what philosophies or collective understandings scream to be realized through poetry, dance, painting or any act of imagination? And how can we support structures and resources or build out spaces—personally and community-wide—for these languages to be spoken, validated and to cultivate the trust of the inner voice? What are the tangible avenues—and they can be as small as a 10-minute meditation or as vast as a school or country—we are creating to support the manifestation of dreams? What if, every time, we had an idea that felt expansive in our body, it was spoken and passionately echoed with the accompaniment of embodied movement like the heaving howls of the women in Midsommar, surrounding the main character in her grief, or the entire community thrashing in agony as their community members burned in sacrificial ritual? I do not hold that we should annually burn our friends, but—for a horror movie—it sure has some great ideas around community, grief and the cycles of nature.

A Small Reading

I leave you with some brief divinatory framing and advice from cards. I’ve pulled messages about our conscious (6 of Swords reversed), personal unconscious (The Sun) and collective unconscious mind (3 of Swords).

Our conscious mind is speaking to way in which we feel we are “back here again” with a concept or situation. This is a review. This feels like it may be quite nasty for some people, relating to trauma. But in order to fulfill the positive aspect of this archetype, truly moving forward into calmer waters without having any idea of where we are headed, it requires faith. And we can see how scary the uncertain is in the way that many experience wild amounts of pain within repeating patterns based on beliefs they hold before they truly decide to leap into the abyss of the unknown. These mental patterns are narratives used by those in control to keep us good little piggies. And so they are effectively ingrained, and deep. Honor this truth of the psyche, give yourself grace for existing as a human under capitalism, and feel the grief of this truth as you experience whatever might arise.

We are not assisted with any positive energy in the collective unconscious as everything surrounding us seems negative, cynical, depressed. Just know that as you experience this energy, that it is simply unprocessed emotion. And allow people to let their emotions flow. Be sure to create the space within your relationships and communities for these emotions to be processed. And process them in yourself, leading by embodied example when you can.

We find the juice in the card of the personal unconscious, The Sun. Here we see energy available to us that is warm, healing, creative. Go towards it. Run, really. Lean into it. Clear your calendar to knit if that is something that calls to you, especially if it’s something you used to do in your childhood. Cancel your plans to bake a cake. Randomly feeling like making a beaded bracelet like you used to in camp as a child? Too bad, responsibilities. We are taking a trip to the craft store to buy beads, get an ice cream cone and then put on your favorite movie or album while stringing sparkly stars and magenta beads on elastic.

The contrast is palpable. This warm energy needs only to be seen, validated, nurtured to be brought into our lives and the lives of those around us. Our mental prisons are hefty, yet they are no match for the star that makes all life on our planet possible. I saw a quote somewhere yesterday that said (and I’m paraphrasing), “If you want to be the sun, you need to be comfortable with getting burnt.” We take a big risk in existing with our inner child exposed in all of its vulnerability of play in this seemingly frigid world, but the sun is ceaseless in its purpose. Although it may ebb and flow in its amount and quality, an eclipsed luminary will inevitably recede and reliably deliver life-giving celestial stuff. Your subconscious is sitting soundly like a warm campfire, inviting you to sing songs around it, and showing you the ways and means to do so.

Our final advice comes with the 7 of Cups and the Surrender card from the Death Doula Oracle deck. It may feel confusing to identify what you believe right now with so many distractions, which thoughts and feelings to trust. Do not bail simply because it’s hard to discern and choose material comfort. Use this moment to clarify and better understand your spiritual truth, your core. What is true for you on the highest level? What is your mission? Once this is understood, the rest can be let go and surrendered to the laws of nature. This is the development of our faith seen in the card representing the conscious mind.

Working with the psychic isn’t delineated to some and not to others, it’s simply the choice of engaging with the practice or not. Whether you are someone who is evolving this practice or just beginning, the work is always ongoing. This moment asks us to do that work. And creates a stark contrast with this eclipse energy of what comes from honoring what we know, on all levels, versus ignoring it in favor of belief systems and patterns that are not our own.

Wishing you all an easeful and energizing eclipse.

LVX,
Jillian

Jillian Adel is a multidisciplinary artist, Hermetic practitioner and archetypal reader with her esoteric practice, Vague Intellectual Pleasure. You can book 1:1 Tarot and Archetypal Life Path Readings as well as Transmutational Counseling here. You can view and buy art here.

Her work lives at the intersection of the mystical, the intimately personal, and the philosophical. She utilizes energetic and emotional landscapes, archetypes, and alchemical processes of death, rebirth, and ritual, in order to observe and discuss the far corners of the human condition. Through configurations of paint, pastel, and poetic phrasing, she makes the subconscious conscious and discusses the unseen forces that move us. She has been featured by Philadelphia Contemporary and was a 2024 artist-in-residence at Can Serrat, Barcelona.

You can follow her on Instagram or Threads.