Zodiac Sign Pisces

The thing to do with zodiac signs, in my opinion, is become familiar with their keywords, then carry no expectations whatsoever when someone tells you their birth date.

I haven't knowingly known any Sun Pisceans, known them well, I mean. That doesn't matter, because a person with Sun in Pisces (or Sun in any other zodiac sign) will not necessarily embody all traits associated with that sign. Someone with, for instance, Sun in Aries and a cluster of planets in Pisces could be far more typically Piscean, as could someone with Pisces rising, or Moon and a couple of planets in Pisces.

The signs and their attributes are ingredients in a recipe, that's all. No single ingredient can adequately describe the dish. With that warning in mind, the attributes of zodiac sign Pisces are as follows, keyword-style:

Compassionate, intuitive, spiritual, sensitive, gentle, easily slips into melancholy or feels misunderstood, changeable, versatile, artistic, creative, forgetful, reclusive and/or introverted.

A few of those keywords could equally be applied to other Water signs, but Pisces, the sign of mutable Water is somewhat different from Cancer's clingy homeliness or Scorpio's intense near-paranoia. Pisces can seem softer, sweeter, kinder, more dreamy and possibly more vulnerable than its Watery cousins.

Jupiter is Pisces' traditional ruler. Neptune was discovered in 1846, and, for reasons which escape me, accorded modern rulership of Pisces. This is one part of astrology with which I'm uncomfortable. The following is an explanation of planetary rulerships given at astro.com.

The Sun has rulership over the sign of Leo, the hottest time of the year when the Sun is at the height of its strength. The Moon has rulership over the sign of Cancer, which begins with the Summer Solstice, marking the Sun's change of direction. Moving outwards in decreasing orbital speeds, Mercury comes next, and has rulership over both the signs of Gemini and Virgo. Then comes Venus, ruling both the signs of Taurus and Libra, then Mars which rules Aries and Scorpio, then Jupiter which rules Pisces and Sagittarius. Finally, at the coldest and darkest time of the year, Saturn as the slowest planet, has rulership over the signs of Aquarius and Capricorn. The outer planets are relatively recent newcomers and have been added to this model: Pluto as the modern ruler of Scorpio, Uranus as the modern ruler of Aquarius and Neptune as the modern ruler of Pisces.

I'd rather the orignal set-up hadn't been messed with......but that's just my personal view.

Romantic poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning is probably the nearest approach to someone who could be described "typically Piscean". She had Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Pluto all in Pisces. If Astrodatabank's time of birth for this lady is reliable, her Moon as well as Saturn conjunct Uranus lay in Libra, with Virgo rising. What strikes me as also significant about her chart is that she had no planets or points in Fixed signs. With such emphasis on mutable Pisces/Virgo, as well as Libra, known for its indecision, Ms Barrett Browning must have seemed particularly ephemeral and volatile. She wrote some beautiful poetry though!

So, our mutable Water sign brings us to the end of another go-around of the zodiacal cycle. The world turns, quietly gets ready to spring back into new life with the Fire of cardinal Aries in a few weeks' time