I’ve been swimming in a very Piscean existence as of late — the happy, euphoric version of Pisces I so adore. I’ve been joking that I’m in an extended phase of undiagnosable, totally maintainable and functional mania.

I scheduled a session with my therapist this past week just to check in, as I’ve been aware that I’m not really processing or thinking about things, and am clear that there are some sharks underneath the surface. Not to say I need to be digging and analyzing all the time.

I’m also aware, however, how much of my chart is being Neptunized at the moment and that many of my beliefs are in a dissolution process. I wanted to kind of force myself to take some space to look a little deeper.

In short, the transiting nodal axis is rubbing up against my Venus-Saturn-Neptune T-square, while transiting Neptune opposes my Mars-Jupiter conjunction. My progressed Moon is in balsamic phase in Pisces, also opposing that Mars-Jupiter.

Much of what has been coming up for me has been constellating a lot of what I refer to as the Priestess Complex. Through interactions with a variety of lovers lately, I’ve been seeing the complex from new angles. I’ve been recognizing how much I’ve re-written some of those scripts and how far I’ve come in many ways.

I’ve also realized how many scripts are in complete flux, and how strongly one or two of the more painful core ideas and beliefs about who I am in love and relationship are still lingering. I’ve been observing all of these things, feeling like now is not a time for deep diving into them, but for gathering information — and for enjoying the wonders of my 8th house Pisces Venus, who really enjoys the sacredly sexual components of my existence.

Thanksgiving morning, I plunged into an old script. I received a text from a lover I parted ways with a while back. Our parting was my choice and it was one of the most painful experiences of my life. It was a big relationship, although relatively short. We have had some contact since then, but not much. I’ve had to do the boundaries and discernment thing a lot.

The text basically just wished me well and sent love and hugs. He also, however, told me that he was in a better place emotionally than he has been in decades and that he is grateful for the role I played in getting him there.

Two of my past scripts read something along the lines of: Men come in and project all of their darkest stuff onto me, and then leave it there and move on, and they come, get healing, and then go have relationships. I read his text, and although I knew his sentiment was one of loving gratitude, it triggered the heck out of me, feeling more like a punch to the stomach. Or the heart.

Figuring out how to be discerning in romantic relationships is the Saturn part of my natal T-Square, and it’s come to my attention that I really do have to discern between romantic connections versus the connections that should probably take place in a therapeutic space. Being discerning once the Neptunian energy has taken off has been damn near impossible for me in the past — I get tapped into the possibility of transcendent love, and can see through to the core of who I think someone is, flaws and all.

The sensual and sexual components of the energy that can exist between my lovers and myself feels so good that I have tended to figure: why not just enjoy it? Deeper than that, however, my open and accepting heart is one of my favorite parts of being me. Shutting that down in any way has tended to make me sad.

I’ve gotten so much better at discernment, but reading that text put me back in some old head-space. I also tapped into how visceral a complex can be — I know those scripts to be true because they play out! All the time! Even with heaps of awareness and growth! How does one move on from that? Or, perhaps more accurately stated: how does one continue to move into relationship ‘knowing’ the outcome?

I really dislike even typing those things out — too vulnerable, too easily misread or misinterpreted in their oversimplified form, too painful to put in writing. But alas, the juice in my writing process this week lies with the personal.

I did try to move away from the personal while writing, and so I went to see what’s been posted recently on the Planet Waves website. I was struck by the beauty of pieces written by Judith and Len in the past few days.

The writers on this website often blow my mind. There was something in the tone of both of those pieces, however, that seemed to encompass the energy of the Saturn-Neptune square quite perfectly.

Judith’s self-described interest in and reporting about “watching our mythologies break-down,” and Len’s incredible weave of the historical context of the Saturn-Neptune square with the suggestion that the tension of the square can be playing out within each of us, seemed like perfect embodiments of the energy of the square. Something in the energy behind the words felt huge and loving and understanding and entirely nebulous, and yet fully contained and consciously purposeful at the same time.

Once again, I return to the importance of finding containers that can hold whatever it is we’re going through in this oh-so-strange-and-surreal era we live in. Planet Waves is such a container, but it can take many other forms. For me, post-text, it was letting myself cry like I haven’t in months and then spending time with family of choice, followed by some time in the light-heartedly delicious container of a lover’s arms, staying as present as possible through all of it.

I remember that the now-ended relationship really was the first one in my life where I felt held as a complete person, by someone other than myself. The relationship provided an incredible container for rapid and extreme transformation for both of us, even though neither of us could handle the resulting intensity and it did not end well.

I don’t know where all of this will lead. By ‘this’ I mean the crazy world we live in and all of its goings-on. I am consistently shocked at the relevance the astrological paradigm holds when looking at events both collective and personal.

In retrospect, I realize now that the timing of the text that triggered such an unanticipated response coincided with the exact Saturn-Neptune square, almost to the minute — a square that is in exact alignment with Jupiter in my chart. It’s as if the universe gave me a little dunk into the emotional portions of my old scripts just as it is giving me the opportunity to revise them — and to believe and have faith that maybe my experiences in relationship can change, and that the scripts are being rewritten.

Sometimes looking at my love life in that way warrants the same response I often have when looking at the world stage: we just keep making the same mistakes over and over again. But then I get a little tickle of hope and do what I can to actively work to make that hoped-for scenario a reality, even when I don’t understand the undercurrents. It can be a confusing slog, but that’s what Saturn is there for, right? To hone the dream, find out what aspects are worth striving for, stick with it through confusion and doubt, and bring it into reality.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Rilke, which I’ll leave you with now:

I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.