Pisces
(February 20 - March 20)
The symbol, the two fishes, dates back to Egypt around 2,300 BC. In the constellation of Pisces, one fish faces east and swims upward while the other swims west along the plane of the ecliptic, signifying a duality of nature. The eastern fish suggests an upward ascent or a heavenly/spiritual disposition; the western fish, a mundane/earthly alignment. Pisceans are more likely to head toward the spiritual direction of the eastern fish, which seems most intent upon altering its course. The alternate reality they envision and create with fantasy, dreams, meditation and spiritual bliss is much more attractive to them than the trials, tribulations and sorrow they encounter on the material plane. In the extreme, they could become an ascetic addicted to spiritual attainment, turning their back on the world.
The keyword is UNIFICATION. Rather than retreating into TV, drugs, or drinking, Pisceans can tune into their higher self through meditation. They can channel wisdom and guidance for their own and others' practical, earthly good. They have their cake and eat it too by uniting their inner spiritual aspirations with their physical experiences. They enjoy practicing meditation in various forms including dance, yoga, loving devotion and contemplation. Its benefits will filter down into their everyday life, helping them rise above their emotions, fears, false imaginings and superstitions.
Pisces is the twelfth Sign of the Zodiac. It is the final Sign in the cycle of the Zodiac, and it brings together all that is learned by the first eleven Signs to help man reach the pinnacle of his potential. Pisceans are selfless and spiritual, often strongly intuitive, and they are receptive to the collective unconscious. Pisces is the Sign of dreams and secrets, and it represents much that is hidden, both strengths and enemies. As the twelfth Sign, Pisces also rules the twelfth House: the House of the Unconscious.
The Astrological Symbol of Pisces is the Pair of Fishes. They reflect the dual nature of life; each Fish swims in different directions, representing reality and nonreality, consciousness and the unconscious. On the other hand, they can be indirect and unfocused. Pisceans don't have a strong agenda; they tend to "go with the flow" and move where life takes them. In this way, Pisces exemplifies the Mutable Quality assigned to it. They are the chameleons of the Zodiac, receptive to the needs of others but sometimes getting lost themselves. Within the Zodiac, Pisces is opposite Virgo, the Sign of Health. While Virgo is about consciousness and physical life, Pisces tends to be about the unconscious and mental and emotional life. Both Signs are of service to others; Pisces is charitable and self-sacrificing, but may sometimes be too passive and gullible for their own good.
Pisces is ruled by the Planets Jupiter and Neptune. In ancient Roman mythology, Jupiter (and his Greek equivalent, Zeus) was the King of the Gods. Neptune (and his Greek equivalent, Poseidon) was the God of the Sea. Jupiter rules Pisces and Sagittarius; Pisces is the feminine, or night aspect and Sagittarius is the masculine, or day. Both Signs are spiritually oriented, but Sagittarius is a teacher and thinker while Pisces is more focused on compassion and service than knowledge. When Neptune was discovered, modern astrologers assigned it to be the ruler of Pisces. Neptune is about everything that isn't quite real: illusion and disillusionment, fantasy, drama and art, and spirituality. All of these things are important to people born under Pisces; they tend to be strongly spiritual (not necessarily religious) and artistic. They are idealistic, but sometimes their dreams are vague and impractical. When reality intrudes they can become pessimistic or lethargic, but they are very adaptive and broad-minded so they can rework their ideals when necessary.
The Element associated with Pisces is Water. Water Signs are emotional: they tend to respond to the world through emotion, rather than physical action, practicality, or intellect. In Pisces, Water becomes important because of its tie to the collective unconscious and intuition. Pisceans are compassionate, sensitive, and imaginative; they are sympathetic to the feelings of other people. They tend to be romantic and sentimental, but they may give in to escapism. They are devoted to their goals, but they can be disorganized or procrastinate when things become difficult. People born under Pisces are devoted and gentle, but they are fragile and may become timid if their emotions are abused too often.
Pisceans tend to be shy and quiet. They are sometimes elusive, refusing to show their real selves. They are modest and thoughtful, sometimes displaying remarkable musical talent. Because Pisces rules the twelfth House, which rules dreams, people born under this Sign may be fascinated with dreams and dream interpretation. They are also more susceptible than other Signs to the attraction of mind- or mood-altering drugs, as they may go through life with a feeling of nonreality that is magnified by these drugs.
In their leisure time, Pisces may work to alleviate their emotional stress through exercise. They especially enjoy sports that bring them into contact with their own Element of Water, such as swimming and sailing. They are very artistic, and may excel at music and drama. In love relationships, Pisces is caring, devoted, and romantic.
The great strength of the Pisces-born is in their compassion. They reach out to other people more skillfully than most other Signs, and especially enjoy helping others reach their fullest potential. Their natural sensitivity makes them one of the most understanding characters of the Zodiac.
The Piscean Woman
Here is the woman who can play the emotional organ, from the sweetest music in the world to the most jangling, nerve-blowing discords. Her womanliness amplifies and exaggerates the duality of the Piscean nature.
She is an angel - a fallen angel.
She is a mistress of illusion, with power to draw you into the rose-coloured realm of unreality. Some of the women of this sign have a glorious, fragile, but evanescent beauty in their early years. Many, during their growing-up years, take ballet classes, dreaming of being whirled about by mad, passionate male dancers from theater to theater, world capital to world capital, of receiving admiration, applause, champagne, and romance.
Ballet, however, requires great discipline and dedication, perspiration and effort. These words are nearly considered to be obscenities by the Piscean lexicon, along with that dirty four-letter word, work.
Acting, art, music, writing, poetry, these pursuits seem more like choices than obligations. While Capricorns get almost idealistic feelings when they contemplate the work ethic, Pisceans actually feel that it might degrade them in some way.
No matter what a bright start they make, the moment always comes when the Piscean woman starts feeling that she is and always has been some sort of victim, a prisoner in what, for others, is a freer world.
Is it possible that she is more gullible than the other signs? Could be. Does her track record include much wasted affection on the undeserving? Could be.
Have men asked her to do things, to submit to actions no Leo or Libra would put up with? Pour her a glass of wine and hear the story of her life. What this idealist has suffered in debasement, disgrace, and social ostracism; disappointments in familial, illicit and even marital love would fill a five-foot shelf of books on romantic misadventures. Only the Marquis de Sade, you may begin thinking, could have thought up half of it.
Her sexual attitudes and habits can often be traced to what she went through as a child. Even if it was a comparatively happy childhood, she may not have realized it at the time. The villain in many of her childhood-originated problems was the father, whom in some cases she idealized, but more often who fed her feelings of being misunderstood, insecure and unhappy. He many not have taken her seriously enough to find out who she really was as a person.
In other cases, her father may have imposed his iron will on her in an effort to make her into a different type of person because of some fear she would turn out the way she probably ends up turning out anyway.
That beautiful, tragic, and romantic (and surprisingly tough) poetess, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, was a Piscean's Pisces.
They seem weak, these Piscean women, but they can absorb quite a lot of punishment, and still be able to kiss their own blood off the hands of their tormentors. Some unsympathetic modern astrologers have dubbed them the poor little ol' me Pisceans, not realizing that these seemingly masachistic persons take pain and mistreatment only to wear out their sadistic oppressors.
They are as easily led into doing the right thing as the inappropriate. The problem is that they distrust good advice and usually seek other opinions. The opinion that they are the most likely to take seriously is the one diametrically opposed to the most practical.
If the Piscean woman could find a man who could take command over her life, understand her deepest emotional needs, forgive her when she was impossible, spoil her whether she deserved it or not, and love her passionately and unconditionally, it would be her fantasy come true.
The Piscean Man
Show me a man, slow of pace, a little round of shoulder, overweight, carrying a bottle of wine, a candle and roses - a man with a sad, sensitive look on his face, a wishful, bedroomy glint in his eyes, and I'll show you a Piscean with a sneaky approach to women.
"Women don't understand me", he says. "They take advantage of me", he complains, as he puts his clothes on again.
"He looked so unneeded, unwanted, and unloved, so vulnerable, that my heart reached out to him".
"In the most natural way, his arms reached out for me, for comfort, I suppose....."
"As the sad words fell from his lips, I found my clothing falling from my body, as he reached for the kind of comfort few mothers can give!"
Piscean men may take this sort of approach. They may request a favour, often assuming negatively that it will not be granted. If you waver in deciding to help, they start their calculated retreat, with their tragedy mask on, littering words of humility, unworthiness, and self-abnegation, until you find yourself pulling their chestnuts out of the fire for them.
But let's look at the other side of the coin. Suppose you need some help and sympathy. Go to the Piscean man, reciting first your difficulties and your defeats.
Drink a little of his wine, and listen in turn to the story of his life. It is so depressing compared to your petty problems that you will soon be feelingn guilty for bothering him. But he may help you after he has gulped a few more goblets and shed a tear or two.
Regrettably for the peace of your conscience, such a Piscean man normally refuses to accept payment of any material nature for the kind of help that calls for it. Your gift must be tendered later. Don't send money. He has a rather unhealthy feeling about that commodity, feeling that it represents a payment against the helpless. His aptitude implies that he feels the paper pulp the dollar is made from was taken from the woodpile that was supposed to warm the poor blood of widows and orphans, from whose tears the dollar's ink was mixed.
Pisces men have an interest in sex that is difficult to put into words, although many words come to mind which approximate it: promiscuous, spiritual, poignant, poetic, loving, self-sacrificing, romantic, sentimental, and mystical.
He is the most introverted of the signs, probably the most vacillating, certainly the kindest, the organist by excellence of the emotions. He sees beyond the superficial beauty of clothing, cosmetics, and professionally set coiffures. If there is inner beauty, sensitivity, and a soul under the powder, perfume and potions, his radar will tell him so.
He is most likely to become promiscuous after a rebuff or an emotional defeat - or under the influence. Bottle in hand and feeling out-of-hand, his radar guides him to a soft, warm, curved belly landing, and no matter how worthy the pickup or unworthy the lady of the evening may be, she will share the ritual drinks and the mutual autobiographical remarks, the inner aspiration and kisses, sometimes mingled with sentimental tears - in other words, the foreplay of his fantasies.
Although what follows may be action or fun for her, for him it was an act of love, no matter how transient the moments - and sweet revenge on the woman who upset him in the first place.
The habits of the Piscean man make him or maul him. He readily accepts great responsibilities, but he needs a practical helpmate to encourage and reorganize him, write the checks for utilities and other obligations, steer him away from the liquor supply and the refrigerator when he is feeling depressed.
Being a dreamer rather than an action person, he often wonders why a person such as he, with such exalted ideas, is obliged to suffer in the corporate box while smaller-souled men are better compensated with prettier wives, more personal satisfaction and more of the world's tinsel goods and ready cash.
Thrice blessed is the Piscean who does the kind of work he likes, who has tenure and retirement insurance. He is Mr Nice allright, but the other side of his nature has earned him names worse than Mr Naughty.
Compatibility With Other Signs
Pisceans are most compatible with Capricorns and Taureans.
The PISCES- CAPRICORN Relationship
Strange to say, they all recognized it at once, and until fear
fell upon them they hailed it, not as something long dreamt
of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they
were returning home for the holidays.
In the calm presence of Capricorn, the Piscean Fish often feel cozy and snuggly secure, rather like baby bears when they're tucked into their winter logs for a nap. It may seem odd to think of the Fish as a bear, but Capricorn's ruling planet, Saturn, has that effect on Pisces. Because they're ruled by the slippery, subtle, and elusive planet Neptune, Pisceans find the solid stability of Saturn so comforting, it makes them feel like baby bears — (or Mama or Papa bears).
Conversely, in the serene presence of Pisces, the Capricorn Goats often feel a light-hearted, floating sensation…like bubbles, when they're released, shimmering, into the air. It may seem odd to think of the Goat as a bubble, but the Pisces ruling planet, Neptune, has that effect on Capricorn. Because they're ruled by the stern, demanding discipline of Saturn, the Goats find the dreamy, relaxed looseness of Neptune so fascinating and so full of the promise of freedom, it makes them feel like bubbles.
So, here they are, a Fish and a Goat, magically transformed by each other's proximity into a bear and a bubble. It's really quite beautiful, don't you think? All Pisces and Capricorn people should ponder the previous two paragraphs for a while, until they're permanently impressed by all the good things they can derive from their association, and realize the great value of the intangible, but precious, gifts they can exchange. The thought will bring them smoothly through the problem periods they'll experience, from time to time. But let's stay with their positive points of compatibility a bit longer, before deliberating on the dangers they must guard against.
There's often a marvelous serene sympatico inherent in this 3-11 Sun Sign Pattern, because it vibrates through the Earth and Water elements. Their association causes Capricorn's Earth essence to be greatly enriched, and the Piscean Water essence to find a secure place in which to flow. In these dual rewards, it's similar to the 3-11 Sun Sign Pattern influence of Earth and Water also experienced by Pisces-Taurus, Taurus-Cancer, Cancer-Virgo, Virgo-Scorpio, and Scorpio-Capricorn.
Goats feel somehow safer with a Fish than with most Sun Signs, other than Scorpio, in kicking up their heels defiantly against the natural Capricorn restrictive behavior. Although the Goats also get along smoothly with Taurus and Virgo, they may feel considerably less inclined to kick over the traces with the Bulls and Virgins than with Pisces. Contrariwise, the Fish, somehow, feel more protected with a Goat than with most Sun Signs, other than Taurus, from life's harsh, abrasive experiences — more courageous in Overcoming the natural Piscean introverted behavior. Although the Fish also get along smoothly with Scorpio and Cancer, they may feel somewhat less protected, as well as less courageous, with the Scorpions and Crabs than with the Goat. In many ways, therefore, Capricorn and Pisces were made for each other. If one of them has a Moon Sign or Ascendent in conflict with the other, they'll sputter and spat back and forth occasionally. Otherwise, these two will be far happier and more harmonious together than uptight and tense.
Because Pisces and Capricorn feel alike and think alike about most major issues, their differences of opinion are relatively less frequent than their times of agreeable, almost effortless, cooperation and compromise. Even in those areas where they differ and disagree, they'll take turns carefully convincing each other to come around to the other side of whatever question caused the friction. Sometimes it's the Goat who manages to straighten out the confused or muddled thinking of the Fish; at other times, it's the Fish who manages to soften the Goat's firm stand. For example, if they should become involved in a discussion of controversial subjects like astrology and religion, they probably won't be able to avoid clashing in principle, because Cappy is so big on tradition and authority-suspicious of the abstract — and less instinctively compassionate and perceptive than Pisces. In this case, it will usually be the Fish who gently turns around the Goat's wrong thinking — although on other subjects, an equal number of times, it's the Goat who determinedly switches the Fish's viewpoint to his (or her) own.
The PISCES-TAURUS Relationship
Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference
between an island of make-believe and the same island
come true.
Yes, there are three of them, for Pisces is a sign of duality symbolized by the two Fish, swimming in opposite directions. In one sense, this symbol represents the powerful polarity of Piscean spiritual and human qualities, struggling for control. In another sense, it suggests the temptation of Pisceans to swim effortlessly downstream, with the current, rather than making the more difficult journey upstream, toward the mountains of enlightenment.
Pisceans aspire beyond the limits of earthly knowledge, because they were born under a Water Sign, and Neptune (their ruling planet) flashes into their souls the light of the spiritual vibrations of the Universe. The Piscean drug addict, alcoholic, genius and saint are all striving for the same thing. What separates them is the degree of experience each is able to wring out of life.
Taurus can be a great help to Pisces in obtaining experience in a practical way, through the reality of the tangible. Until they know each other better, however, the Bull may think the Fish is a foolish creature, swimming around in watery illusions, his head wrapped in cotton, pursuing futile daydreams.
The Fish may think the Bull is a dangerous animal, stomping around through the corn, his head full of obstinate opinions, pursuing filthy lucre. Filthy, because money is (at least subliminally) a dirty word to most Pisceans. They resent having to concentrate on how to earn it, keep it, spend it, distribute it, budget it and save it. They'd be much happier if someone else handled the cash flow, and just kept them supplied with food, drink, dreams, tickets to shows and concerts, a couple of sarongs, and holidays sailing on the bright blue water — allowing them lots of free time to work on inventions, artistic creations or scientific research. Anything left over can go to the orphans' home, the animal shelter, the actors' relief fund, Greenpeace, taxes or whatever.
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
- Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879)
