Solar Zodiac · The Sun's Path
Pisces
“Two fish, one cord, and they are swimming apart.”
Polarity: negative · Modality: mutable · Element: water · Ruler: Neptune
Pisces is mutable water ruled by Neptune, the last sign, and it inherits something from all eleven before it. The boundary between itself and everyone else is thin to the point of not being there, which produces real empathy, real imagination, and a tendency to absorb whatever is in the room and mistake it for weather of its own. It is the most artistic sign and the most porous. The constellation is two fish tied together by a cord, and the knot is the whole point. Aphrodite and Eros, fleeing Typhon, took fish form and bound themselves so they could not be separated in the water, which is why the two fish are always drawn swimming in opposite directions with the tie still holding. The star at the knot is called Alrescha, the cord. The sign is also where the sun now sits at the spring equinox, having drifted there over two thousand years, so the year quietly begins in Pisces while every chart still calls that point Aries. A Pisces is the one who understood what you meant rather than what you said, who makes things, who forgives faster than is sensible. They are intuitive, funny in an oblique way, and much tougher than the softness suggests. The cost is the cord: pulled in two directions at once, giving until there is nothing to give, and escaping into something, work or fantasy or a person, rather than saying no.
Pisces Dates
The Sun is in Pisces from February 19 to March 20.
The boundary moves by a day or so from year to year, because the solar year is not a whole number of days. If you were born within a day of either end, check your birthday against the finder rather than the table.
Pisces Ancient Zodiacs
Every sign a Pisces can be, one for each year of the Chinese zodiac.
- Mosquito: Pisces Rat, “Small, patient, and impossible to ignore for long.”
- Manatee: Pisces Ox, “Enormous, harmless, and moving at the speed of peace.”
- Shark: Pisces Tiger, “Feels the heartbeat before it sees the animal.”
- Goldfish: Pisces Rabbit, “Remembers everything, and grows to the size of the bowl.”
- Siren: Pisces Dragon, “Offers you the thing you most wanted to know.”
- Eel: Pisces Snake, “Nobody has ever seen where it goes at the end.”
- Seahorse: Pisces Horse, “The slowest thing in the sea, and it does not care.”
- Seal: Pisces Goat, “Awkward on land, and a different animal in the water.”
- Starfish: Pisces Monkey, “No centre, no plan, and it grows back from a piece.”
- Seagull: Pisces Rooster, “Drinks the sea, takes the chips, regrets nothing.”
- Dolphin: Pisces Dog, “Knows your name, and invented one for itself.”
- Capybara: Pisces Pig, “At ease with absolutely everyone, including the crocodile.”