ARTSTROLOGY: Pisces 2020, Love and Other Drugs

Picking up from quirky Aquarius season, the month of Pisces is often associated with dreams, imagination, and mystery, but tinted with mood swings, confusion, and potentially chaos. Symbolically, Pisces and its ruling planet, Neptune, are connected with drugs and addiction. Think of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, for example, whose struggles with addiction and depression contributed to his suicide—he had a Pisces Sun with heavy placement in the mutable signs. When it comes to the arts, the creativity of Pisces can be stimulated by the enhanced, mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs, or other chemicals including alcohol and sexual endorphins. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that you will become a drug addict or pick up psychedelic music this month, it could be easy for you to become vulnerable to hazy ideas, from romantic fantasies and sweet talk to deception and fraud—certainly not an ideal time to close a major sale for the art dealers.

Pisces energy often creates a blurry filter for your day-to-day encounters and communication, especially when the season is accompanied by the first Mercury retrogression of the year (2/17–3/10). Hong Kong art week, the busiest time of the art-world calendar, often happens before or exactly during Mercury retrograde, causing disorganization, miscommunication, confusions in scheduling, and delays in transportation and transactions. Notably, art week comes at the end of Pisces season, as we march into the vibrant, busy, fire season of Aries, the first sign in the astrological cycle. Unfortunately for 2020, Aries’s ruling planet Mars (representing the god of wars, violence, and disease) joined Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto as it entered the sign of Capricorn (connected with authority, suppression, and structure) on February 16, intensifying pre-existing sociopolitical tensions (seen in Hong Kong’s recent protests) that have already been exacerbated by the panic surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak—a situation that has brought art events to a halt. Astrologically speaking, we are potentially facing more conflict and disruption. 

In mundane astrology, Pisces is often related to hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, and secret societies. With Neptune sitting on its Pisces throne from 2012 to 2025, it is no surprise that the novel coronavirus broke out in the beginning of December, when Sagittarius (travel, journeys) was making contact with Neptune. Fingers crossed that the investigation of the contagion, as well as the measurement and development of drugs will take advantage of the vibe of revision during the retrograde period. As the world continues to be destabilized at the hands of Geminis Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, and Boris Johnson, for now perhaps the most effective drug against global turbulence is empathy—the strength of Pisces. When we show love and care for people in need of help, instead of panicking and serving our own selfishness, we will be able to support each other as we move through this crisis.