Why do we love dogs so much?
Yes, companionship. Of course, unconditional love. Those are real and meaningful. But I think the greatest gift our dogs give us is something else entirely: joy.
Dogs don’t just experience joy—they practice it. Religiously. Daily. Loudly. It’s morning? Celebration. New toy? Celebration. Car ride? Celebration. Snack time? Obviously. You left the room for two minutes and came back? Absolute parade. To live with a dog is to live with a creature who insists—daily, relentlessly—that being alive is worth celebrating. Living with a dog quietly teaches you a radical lesson: joy doesn’t come later. It’s available now.
The New Moon in Pisces invites us into a different relationship with happiness—one that isn’t reactive, circumstantial, or dependent on everything going “right.” Pisces energy asks us to soften, to surrender control, and to remember a deeper truth:
Joy is not something we attain after working “hard enough” and is not dependent on any specific circumstance. Joy is something we choose.
Those born under this rich water sign have a natural connection to the joy and wonder of simply being alive—many great artists, poets, thinkers, and musicians call Pisces home, including Michelangelo, Albert Einstein, and Chopin. Along with them are William Shakespeare and Kurt Cobain, two in particular who highlighted the inherent challenge presented by Pisces—getting stuck in torturous emotions and feeling isolated in darkness.
When we feel burnt out, judged, or unhappy, it can be easy to place blame on others, on circumstances, on the world. Where we place our attention is what will grow, so by shifting our perspective to one of joy, we create more experiences where we can feel and cultivate joy. And Pisces arrives to help remind us that, no matter how dire our situation may be, we can shift from negativity to joy in any moment.
I think it’s safe to say that all of us want to be happy. We are always talking about it. Reaching for it. Hoping for it. We imagine that once a certain problem is solved or a certain desire fulfilled, happiness will finally arrive. And yet, when we ask ourselves what actually stands in the way of joy, our minds often go immediately to all the reasons we can’t be happy.
Because we didn’t get the promotion.
Because of a health challenge.
Because our partner disappointed us.
Because of family drama.
We spend far more time rehearsing what could go wrong or ruminating on what’s currently wrong than noticing or even just practicing what brings us joy.
Kabbalah teaches that happiness is not the presence of a material experience nor the absence of challenge—it is the result of consciousness. And one of my favorite teachings about this comes from the story of Rabbi Akiva, the teacher of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar.
Rabbi Akiva was going through town and travelling, it was late at night and needed a place to stay. He would knock on doors in the evening and ask if he could take shelter in their home. He knocked on door after door and, repeatedly, time and time again, for hours, he was rejected. In the face of this, where would many of us go in our minds?
I am not deserving, I am not good enough, what did I do? I cannot even find a place to stay.
But he didn’t. He found a place in a field and settled in, appreciated the possessions he still had: a candle to light the dark, a rooster, and a donkey as transportation. One by one, he lost them—the wind blew out the candle, a cat killed the rooster, and a lion ate the donkey. So at this point, for sure, many of us would feel outright doomed. Oh my God, we would think, I must have done something really bad to deserve all this chaos.
But not Rabbi Akiva. He responded to each loss with the same words:
“Whatever the Light of the Creator does is for good.”
Later, it was revealed that Roman soldiers had attacked the town that night. Had he been allowed inside by any of the people who had rejected him, he would have been killed or enslaved. What appeared to be rejection and loss was, in truth, protection.
The lesson is not that every challenge will immediately make sense—but that every challenge brings us an opportunity for deeper faith and a chance to grow. The difference between Light and darkness is not the event itself, but the consciousness we bring to it.
This is the heart of Pisces wisdom.
We are all human beings mid-process. Sadness, disappointment, and frustration are all a part of life but they arise as information, as teachers, as opportunity. It is when we choose to attach to these states of meaning or define ourselves or our lives by them that we get stuck.
How long do we really want to hug our chaos?
How long do we want to feed our unhappiness?
Joy does not mean denying the inevitable pain that will find us on our path. It means giving that pain an expiration date. It means knowing that it’s simply part of our process, not who we are. When we stay in a reactive state—cycling between highs and lows based on external circumstances—all we are doing is giving our power away. One day we’re happy because something worked out. The next we’re devastated because it didn’t. Pisces invites us to something deeper: the experience of consistent, steadfast joy.
This kind of joy is not created by the people in our lives, our experiences, or our achievements. No one else can make us happy—not a partner, not a job, not even the things we love most. Joy is our responsibility. And that can feel confronting but it is also deeply freeing.
Do we want to feel confronted? Or do we want that sense of freedom? It’s up to us.
When we focus only on what went wrong, we create more lack. When we choose to search for meaning—even in experiences we did not want—we begin to transform darkness into Light. This is especially important when we consider trauma. Painful experiences do not define us—but what we choose to focus on afterward does shape our reality. Healing begins when we stop letting the past dictate the quality of our present.
The month of Pisces arrives to teach us to soften our grip on control and return to surrender and appreciation—to the small, sacred moments that remind us we are alive. Watching the ocean. Hearing music. Seeing a child concentrate on something simple. Laughing in the middle of frustration. I don’t know for sure, but I like to imagine that Rabbi Akiva likely laid in dark field that night, admiring the light of the stars…
In A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Anna Quindlen writes about choosing a real life—not one driven by manic pursuit, but one rooted in presence. Joy lives there. Not in the future. Not in perfection. But right now, in the moment you are living.
One simple practice to anchor this consciousness is to shift from doing (which is about production) to being (which is about energy.)
At the beginning of each day, instead of asking “What do I need to do today?” ask “Who do I want to be today?”
If your intention is to be joyful, your actions will naturally align with positivity. You will find reasons to laugh. To smile. To appreciate. It might seem like a tiny shift, but it’s the tiny internal shifts that lead to massive external changes. This New Moon of Pisces reminds us that life is not meant to be endured—it is meant to be experienced fully. We are incredibly lucky to be here. And when we choose joy, again and again, we connect with the Light that has been with us all along.
Remember to pause.
Look at the view.
It is beautiful.
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