February 20th to March 20th

How to Recognize PISCES (cont.)

“When you meet the Pisces people, look first at their feet! They’ll be quite noticeably small and dainty (including the men’s), or else they’ll be huge and spread out like a tired wash woman’s. The Pisces hands will also be tiny, fragile, and exquisitely formed — or else big ham bones that look as though they belong behind a plow. The skin is silky soft; the hair is fine, often wavy, and usually light (though you’ll find a goodly number of brunette fish). Pisces eyes are liquid, heavy lidded, and full of strange lights. Frequently, but not always they’re slightly protruding, bulbous and extremely compelling. Some Piscean eyes are simply beautiful. There’s no other word to describe them. The features are elastic and mobile, and you’ll usually find more dimples than wrinkles. Few Piseans are tall; Neptune bodies are sometimes awkwardly built, but with their extraordinary grace, it’s seldom discernible. They seem to sort of flow along, instead of walking — as if they were swimming across the room or down the street. Sometimes they really are. Where’s the liquid? It may be nearby, and the fish is attracted to it.

It can be a love of ice water, the habit of a dozen cups of tea or coffee a day, a hankering for soda pop–or a yen for something stronger. Like Scorpios and Cancerians, Pisces people are wise to stay miles away from alcohol. Very few Neptunians can have a social cocktail, then leave it alone. There are some naturally. But too many Pisceans find enticing relief from trouble in liquor. It lulls them pleasantly in a false sense of security and it’s a dangerous lullaby. Of course, every Pisces who drinks a pousse-café doesn’t become an alcoholic, but the percentage is higher than it ought to be.

The fish was born with the desire to see the world through rose-colored spectacles. He knows well enough about the seamy side of humanity, but he prefers to live in his own watery, gentle world, where everyone is beautiful and all actions are lovely. If reality becomes too terrible to face, he often escapes into rosy daydreams with powder puff foundations and not a prayer of coming true. When life dumps him with a splash–a real belly-smacker–into a stagnant river of dismal failure and hopeless conditions, instead of leaping out of the murky danger, he’s more inclined to hide behind his pale green illusions which keep him from making practical decisions. The rejected Pisces is too inclined to face the ugliness of failure by deepening his false hopes, when a determined switch of course or some new, forceful action might shower him with real, instead of imaginary, success.

Not every March-born person falls into such a typical Neptune trap, but enough of them do to make it a necessary warning. The Pisces writer may be tempted to lounge for hours in bars, telling himself he’s gathering material, when he’s really just gathering moss & unpaid bills. The Pisces artist who can’t get the patronage he seeks may stroll through the park, day after day, mumbling into his beard that he’s studying nature as a background for his great masterpiece, while his paint brushes gather dust. Where is the angel who will support him while he splashes canvases with glory? The Piscean woman, left alone, with just enough fixed income to keep a roof over her head and a little seaweed in the cupboard, will tend to dream away the hours tenderly remembering yesterday, hazily hoping for tomorrow, and wasting the bright sunlight of today. The actor, composer, musician–you fill in the stories.

The two fish in reversed directions symbolize the choice given to Pisces: to swim to the top–or to swim to the bottom and never quite reach his goals. Pisces must learn that he is to serve mankind in some way, and eschew worldly possessions. Piscean Einstein, who swam upstream, formulated a whole new world of relative time. Pisceans who swim downstream serve by washing dishes or shoveling snow. The choice is always there, because there’s never a lack of unusual talent, but the fish, with eyes that see clearly on both sides, sometimes has difficulty seeing straight ahead. Pisces often retreats–either to the sublime heights of a dedicated professional life, or to stimulants artificial emotions and false excitement.” (from Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs)

…TO BE CONTINUED…