A Tale of Two Pisces

Because I am endlessly fascinated by the lives of real people whose tales are often stranger than fiction, I have been looking at two Solar Twins (born with the Sun in the same sign and same degree of that sign):  Justin Bieber and Harry Belafonte.  One is young with his whole life ahead of him while the other is nearing the conclusion of his long and highly productive life.  Both are musicians.  Both can sing and dance.  Both have had enormous popularity.  Both have been steeped in controversy.  Both are Pisces born at 10+ degrees on March 1st.

The degree rounded up to 11 Pisces is most interesting.  The Sabian Symbol for this degree is ‘Men Traveling A Narrow Path, Seeking Illumination.’  Dane Rudhyar in his interpretation says this, Keynote: “The capacity inherent in every individual to seek at whatever cost entrance to a transcendent realm of reality.”  He goes on to say, “This refers to the ancient and eternal symbol of the Path of Discipleship.  The greatness of man is that he can always be greater; and the belief—-deeply rooted in men’s inner nature—that if he fulfills the necessary conditions he can find ‘Elder Brothers’ who have already attained a higher level of consciousness and will transfer their attainment and light to him.  The Path is always open to the pure in heart, the mentally aware, the conqueror of emotions and the spiritually self-mobilized…………Someone can show him the Path, but he alone can do the walking.  Thus the Zen injunction:  WALK ON.”

So here we have a very young super star at the wee age of 20 years in need of perhaps a wise elder such as Mr. Belafonte, now 87 years, to show him the path.  Sadly, this is not likely to happen though Justin Bieber has been ‘branded’ as a rapper bro with strong ties the hip likes of Usher, Diddy, and a host of C-grade wannabes.

Let’s first take a look at Justin Bieber’s chart as we flesh out more details from his life:

Justin was born up in Stratford, Ontario in the very first hour of March 1st, 1994 so his Sun in Pisces is buried deep near the bottom of his chart along with Saturn, Venus, and Athena, also in Pisces. This containment of the Sun between Saturn and Venus shows us something of his hero’s journey which is to learn constancy especially in matters of the heart.  He must learn to be orderly in mastering his goals, and, like all Pisces; he must seek a certain degree of rest and peace.  Not easy for a Pop Star!  His Sun is strongly opposed by Chiron close to the top of his birth map, again pointing the way to ‘A narrow path, seeking illumination.’  It is tantamount that he brings his Higher Self into his body in this life.  That is what Chiron is all about for his journey.  His Sun also shows an easy trine to Jupiter in Scorpio Retrograde in the 12th indicating the ease at which he has thus far found success and made a vast fortune so early in life.  His Sun is semi-square to the conjunction of Neptune/Uranus in Capricorn indicating pressure to overcome the obstacles of his generation.  Yes, he is a product of his times, a digital wonder boy discovered on You Tube and carefully groomed by his first mentor/manager, Scooter Braun, to epitomize the ideals of his generation, Neptune in Capricorn.  On a worldly level this ideal says that you can reach the top before your 20th year and have it all on the material plane.  You can be adored by millions, have unlimited wealth to throw around wily nilly, and do whatever you dam well please because you are a ‘god’.  Neptune  widely trines his Midheaven and forms a super great sextile to Venus, while Uranus forms a sextile to Pluto in Scorpio rising in his birth chart.  Money, Power, and Sex seem to have come easy.

That Pluto/Scorpio Ascendant pulls us in.  We either love him or hate him; all or nothing, and—boy—is that coming to the surface now with transit Saturn barreling down through the 12th house to unmask one role and reveal another, ‘the bad boy’.  Will that curb his popularity?  Probably not.  The tabloids are having a feast day.  Even Rolling Stone sells more copies by blazing him on their cover with that title.  Any publicity is good publicity in the pop world.  Mr. Braun took him at the tender age of 13 years with his hard-working Mama in tow to Atlanta where he got Usher to invest in him.

Young Bieber

Eventually the adorable doll-faced teenager was branded and molded into capitalism’s finest trophy star, a lil white sexy bro worth millions.   Braun’s business savvy also steered Justin’s vast earnings into investments for future sustainment.  Good enough; but was there any investment made to ensure his Soul growth?

How will lil Justin survive in the years ahead?  How will he manage to reach his full destiny as a Pisces?  Will he implode like Icarus who flew too high, too close to the Sun?  We see that as a possibility because his ego may not be strong enough to withstand what fame (50 million Twitter followers) and fortune (worth $160 million as of this writing) has brought him.  Chiron opposite his Saturn/Sun shows the wound of father/mentor figures where his beliefs are concerned. To quote Mr. Braun, “If you want the Michael Jackson career, you have to grasp that you are never going to be normal again.”

His biological father, now usurping Mr. Braun’s position, is probably no help.  At least Mr. Braun kept him working hard and saving his money.  Daddy isn’t much older emotionally than his son.  That 17 year age difference makes them more like buddies it would appear.

I note that Justin’s Progressed Sun has barely entered Aries.  Once Pisces progresses into Aries their hero’s journey really begins.  The period of grace and innocence is over.  Self discovery is what Aries is all about and zero Aries is a highly important point of departure in the chart.  This degree in Justin’s chart is embedded deep in his 4th house of private life, personal quest, and bedrock Soul. The first public sign of this was the egg throwing at his next-door-neighbor in the posh gated community in Calabasas. As this neighbor’s wife stated, “He thinks he’s invincible.  He could do whatever the hell he wants to do to himself.  But I’m afraid he’s going to hurt someone else.  He’s a punk, and no one has the balls to stand up to him.”

Bieber and Lil buddies

Lots of these private neighborhood events have been unfolding of late. That zero Aries is certainly acting out!   He is also surrounding himself with his ‘soul brothers’.  There is nothing wrong with that as long as they have something to offer him and aren’t just being  parasitical with his money and power.  He certainly could use Grandfather Harry about now!!!   At 20 years/0 Aries Progressed Sun he could use Harry’s sage advice for the road ahead.

The heroic journey for a Pisces towards finding Soul integration and wholeness may start with being a ‘believer’.

We can see this in Justin who has tattoos of Jesus on the cross as well as stating that he has conversations with him.

Believe with Bieber

He did an album followed by a tour entitled ‘Believe’.  His followers are called ‘Beliebers’.

  Just look at his face.  See those raised eyebrows with that constant look of wonder?  If you raise your eyebrows like that what emotion does that evoke in you?  Cynicism?  Doubt?  Sarcasm?  No, probably not.  Will he always have that look of ‘the deer in the headlights’?

The Fool from the Rider Waite Tarot

If so, perhaps he is more like the Fool archetype. There’s no judgment on that at this stage in his life.  Perhaps he needs to just step off the cliff…..

Believing, however, is not the same thing as ‘knowing’ something.  That’s when the journey towards wholeness gets interesting.  Every Pisces must eventually move from that early stage of innocent belief to the hard work of exploring the oceanic depths of their own emotional body.  Deep sea diving is risky business.  You’ve got to have some core strength to endure ‘the bends’.  Painful emotional experiences are those tests.  They test Pisces for endurance, strength of will, patience, and a faith in the future to live it out and move on through.  Fairy tales are universal metaphors for these archetypal journeys.  The trials tend to start somewhere in late adolescence up through the Saturn Return, but the dangerous early 20s are particularly fraught with mine fields in facing the shadow.  For each sign this journey may prove slightly different depending on the ultimate goal.  For Pisces the goal is to gain UNDERSTANDING.  That goal isn’t reached without experiencing the vast range of emotions that will arise as life brings encounters with a multitude of exchanges with others, and confrontations with the unknown.

What might abort this journey?  In this modern world it isn’t the encounter with a real shark in the water probably (though for some it is!).  It may not be a literal storm at sea either.  But there are sharks aplenty in the form of cons and exploitative people.  There are also emotional storms involving the heart and soul which feel like rage and grief all rolled into one.  The aborted journey might be getting stuck as a VICTIM and maintaining that stance for years and years.  It might be the numbing of feelings through substance abuse that prevents further growth and thus leads to alcohol or drug dependency.  It might be a form of escape which keeps one locked up in the tower of the mind far above the unconscious watery realm.  A Pisces might blindly believe in something that they have not carefully examined for themselves as authentically real.  Pisces really need to learn to discriminate (their Virgo opposite) by separating themselves long enough from all the distractions of the world in order to self-examine what matters to them, deep inside and learn to trust their deepest core feelings as an authentic guide.

Looking at Justin’s chart reminds us of that need with his Sun near the bottom of his chart which some have called ‘the midnight Self’.  Notice how Transit Neptune in Pisces is working its way slowly but surely toward his Sun.  By 2016, when he is 22 years, it will arrive there exact.  What will sustain his Soul then I wonder?  By then Transit Saturn, moving through his first house, will be squaring his Sun and he may well be facing the shadow realm for real.  If he has core strength, he will not lose his way.  He will re-evaluate his aims and fortify his spiritual purpose.  Twenty-two years, however, is a pretty young age to accomplish that given that he has flown so high into the starry stardom sky without developing strong roots.  We can see that his ‘age of innocence’ is over.  That baby face needs to lower his eyebrows a bit now.  Transit Saturn hits his Ascendant by mid-December with some sort of reality check in store for him and how he will soon view life.

Let’s now move to Grandfather Harry.  I remember when I was on the edge of puberty hearing ‘Day-O’ for the first time.  I went out and bought the vinyl album ‘Calypso’ and loved it.  Harry Belafonte was a pop star back in the mid-50s with happy songs that you could dance to.  He was already an actor and accomplished showman who achieved his stardom a bit later than Justin. He was going through his Saturn Return when ‘Calypso’ sold over a million copies in 1956.

He wasn’t ‘discovered’.  He worked his way up the ladder from his birth place in Harlem starting first as a janitor’s assistant.  He met Sidney Poitier, another struggling black man in a highly racist country, and they helped each other for awhile as aspiring actors.  Like Justin, Harry was a naturally good actor, which is a Pisces’ trait—-chameleon like.  He was also talented in music and dancing and became a club singer to pay for his acting classes.  Things changed with his first contract with RCA in 1952 and his first single “Matilda”.

We see an interesting reversal of roles going on here between the two Solar Twins and a very large generational gap.  Today there are many African-American super stars and Usher took sweet white boy Justin under his wing as a sort of cross-over darling of the hip-hop era.

Harry Belafonte and Petula Clark

Harry may have had the backing of white-ruled music media back in the’50s, but he was decidedly kept in his place as a ‘Calypso King’.  When, as late as 1968, he appeared on Petula Clark’s primetime television special on NBC and she ‘smiled and briefly touched Belafonte’s arm’ making the show’s sponsor, Plymouth Motors, nervous, there was great controversy.  Can you fathom that!??  Nonetheless, the show was aired to great ratings.  So Harry was meeting ‘the shadow’ probably from the get-go in the white robes of prejudice and bigotry.

Here’s a brief look at his birth map and his Solar journey:

He was born with the Sun in Pisces conjoined by Jupiter in Pisces solidly in his 10th house of public life and career.  His destiny for this incarnation was to be prominent in the world.  This Sun/Jupiter has given him a buoyancy and great generosity of spirit.

He epitomized the ‘Calypso King’ gloriously.  Both planets were in trine to Pluto in Cancer at his birth with Pluto well attended in his 2nd house of assets and talents.  Yes, he developed his talents, amassed his own wealth, and later went on to generously give it back to others.  Did you know that he helped support Martin Luther King Jr. and his family as early as the 1950s?  He did!  He was one of Mr. King’s confidants who bailed him out of jail, raised thousands of dollars to bail out other civil rights protesters, and financed the Freedom Rides, etc.  He is a true philanthropist through and through.

His Sun/Jupiter also forms a Mutable T-square with his Ascendant/Mars rising in Gemini, and his Descendant/Saturn in Sagittarius.  Nimble and quick he was, and still is.  You might say he took the activist role to the level of Statesman.  He is an eloquent speaker to this very day on both civil and human rights.  He is a champion for all the down-trodden races of the world.

He is living proof of the heroic journey of a Pisces who can rise from an underprivileged Harlem son of Jamaican and Martinique origins to the world stature he holds today as a political and humanitarian great leader.  Mr. Belafonte has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and a cultural advisor to the Peace Corps.  He has been awarded the National Medal of Arts, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.

I wonder if Justin Bieber even knows about his great Solar Twin.  Wouldn’t it be grand if he did and actually approached him and asked for some pearls of wisdom to guide him into his future?  What would Harry tell him?  Would he tell him to trust his heart and love wisely and well?  Would he tell him to work hard?  Both have that Sun/Saturn connection.  Would he tell him to use his fame and money to help others less fortunate?  Both have great Sun/Jupiter connections. (I did read in my research that Justin does contribute to a charity.)  Would he tell him to watch the company he keeps and look for people of character?  Harry seems to have chosen his friends wisely and well while Justin seems to be floundering in that sphere.  Would he be willing to mentor Justin in how to achieve true greatness in life?

It’s interesting that both Pisces also have Air Moons in trine to Airy Mars showing their charm and popularity with the female sex.  One senses that Justin, should he mature and not get trapped before that time, truly has something to offer around Soul and the marriage of the masculine and feminine as witnessed by his Venus in Pisces conjoining Athena in Pisces in the 4th trine his N. Node/Pluto/Ascendant in Scorpio.  This aspect may be highly private and deep within him, though already the exposure via the media may be the over-kill that aborts his true potential.  Nothing is sacred anymore where the media is concerned.   His deep tenderness is probably exploited for gain and thus corrupted before it has time to develop into true power.  Harry didn’t have those issues in this incarnation.  His fights were more visible with the chart of an extrovert, whereas Justin’s chart shows extreme introversion early on tainted as if trafficking a beautiful young girl to the highest bidder before she’s experienced true love.

We live in an age where innocence is denied and exploited.  Pisces, in some ways must re-capture the sweetness of ‘not knowing’.  After all, Pisces is swimming forward as well as backwards all at once.  There is oblivion and there is emptiness.  Emptiness is a spiritual goal because it means the Soul is ready to open to the vastness and glory of All That Is without allowing the ego to get in the way.  Belafonte has allowed his own ego to step aside to champion his race and those less fortunate than himself.  He has Mars in Gemini rising so his warrior spirit has served his Solar purpose for this lifetime.  Justin has Pluto rising in square to his Mercury/Mars/Saturn, but trining his Venus in Pisces.  Will he die and be reborn to a deeper calling than just gaining the world at the risk of losing his Soul?  His Solar directive is to seek a transcendent realm of reality, but first he needs that ‘Elder Brother’ to show him the path….