Three Misconceptions of the Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Transcript:

Hey everyone, this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology and today we are going to finish our series on the misconceptions of the zodiac signs by talking about some of the most common misconceptions that people have about the sign of Pisces. So let's go ahead and dive in here are some of the things that I'm used to hearing about the sign of Pisces over the years. I would not say that these are untrue statements, meaning there's some truth in them, but it's not the whole story. And so we're going to try to unpack these common misconceptions or stereotypes as we go.

One: Pisceans are extremely sensitive and emotional. So what's the sign of Pisces all about if we're talking about some of the psychological archetypes and so forth. You always hear people say this, Oh, they're so sensitive and emotional. The other thing that I wrote down was Pisceans have poor boundaries, or are wishy washy or can't distinguish between fantasy and reality. That is probably the most common one actually. Maybe right next to their emotional or something like that emotional poor boundaries wishy washy, can't distinguish between fantasy and reality. So they all kind of bleed together even in the the misconceptions. Number three is Pisceans are any of these potential words: escapists, romantics, spiritual or psychic somehow, or they like to rescue people or they're the victim that needs rescuing? These are some of the misconceptions that I hear all the time and like, it's not like the traditional, just three stereotypes that I've done for a lot of the other signs, they take some explaining and teasing out.

So, you know, there's been a lot of different people, a lot of different types of people who have been born with the Sun in Pisces, just in terms of the life path that people take. got people like Einstein, all the way to people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you have serial killer like John Wayne Gacy, and you have someone like Shaquille O'Neal. You have Osama bin Laden, the organiser of al Qaeda, if I remember correctly, and you have someone like the bhakti Yogi singing Beatle George Harrison, you have Elizabeth Taylor, Kurt Cobain, Justin Bieber, but you also have people like, you know, Alan Rickman, and Erica Badu, Nina Simone. So it's really not as hard to an eye you can see some things that each character that I've mentioned has in common. But there's a big difference between Mr. Rogers, who was born with the sun and Pisces and Shaquille O'Neal, right? So, um, you know, maybe in some ways, they're more similar than I know. But at any rate, I like to give people lists like that right away, just so that you can remember, people aren't going to fall into handy little stereotypical categories with when it comes to astrology. A lot of that is also because surprise, surprise, the position of the sun in your birth chart is often not really the determinant of the determining factor when it comes to character psychology behaviour, it's often going to be the ascendant planets in the ascendant, the ruler of the ascendant, sometimes the moon and Mercury play a role in ancient study of temperament and character, the moon and Mercury were key along with the ascendant.

So, first of all, you also may remember that one of the things that's misleading about the stereotypes that you hear about the signs in general is that a lot of the times people are referring to people sun signs as the most indicative of character, but it's really not historically, the case. If you attend my speaker series that's coming up, Peter Yong next weekend will be giving a talk on the argument for the ascendant as more primary and determining character. In ancient astrology, he's laying out a whole presentation on the history of it at any rate. So a lot of variety in the way that Pisces can express itself. You have extreme religious sentiments and someone like Osama bin Laden, you have devotional sentiments and art, artistry and people like, you know, George Harrison, you have an interest in visionary metaphysics and science and people like Albert Einstein, you have concern with progress and innovation and technology and people like Steve Jobs, you know, and then you have the the truly remarkable compassion and kindness and, and art artistic qualities of Mr. Rogers, so really different types of characters. So, first thing to remember is that Pisces is the feminine temple of Jupiter. It is a watery, double bodied sign, it's the sign of the fish, the fishes, the fishies. And it is also the exultation of Venus you can imagine that this temple of Jupiter He has like a little wing. And in that wing of the temple, Venus is that there's like a little place in the temple where there are people worshipping and exalting Venus. So think about it like that. This is a place where Jupiter also exalts Venus.

So I want to pull up my astronomy programme for you to give you a little picture of what is happening during Pisces season, because one of the most important ways that we can understand any sign is by understanding the quality or the combination of light and dark that are playing on one another at that during that time of year. So here is the here is the astronomy programme on the screen. What we're looking at during this time of year is what the what the sun or what the light is doing relative to darkness within the solar year, when the sun crosses this line, and it is spending its time on the top half of the line, that's the light half of the year where there is more light than darkness. When it's on the low this line, that's the celestial equator, then it there's more darkness than there is light in the day. So from Libra to Pisces, it's the dark half of the year and from Aries through Virgo, it's the light half of the year. This matters a great deal when it comes to understanding some of the core characteristics of each of the 12 signs. Because the most fundamental that we can say the foundation of each sign has to do with the alternation of light and dark through the equinoxes and solstices, that is what forms the basis or underlying rationale of all the 12 signs.

So why is Pisces the fish the Temple of Jupiter and the exultation of Venus, it's probably has to do in the earliest sense of the tradition with the way that astrologers were associating certain planets within the circle according to the qualities of light and dark. So that's the that would be like probably the symbolic rationale, I think there's a strong case to be made for this at any rate. So what's happening during Pisces season, this is important. Here's the celestial equator, and come Pisces season, the sun is moving through the last portion of the winter seasons directly speaking, and it is moving toward the spring equinox or the vernal equinox, at which point the light will be taking over and will be on the light half of the year. So this sign constitutes the handover from dark to light, it was called a double bodied sign because double bodied signs are said to be of two natures simultaneously. So in this case, the sign of Pisces is of the nature of the prevailing or pervading darkness, while also being about the handover of light. So maybe more than any other sign, Pisces is going to be oriented toward the takeover of light while wrestling with darkness, the dominance or victory of light while wrestling with darkness, and that dichotomy, that duality is present in almost all of the stereotypes that we come up with. And by understanding its presence, the wrestling of light and dark as the light is about to prevail. If we can meditate on that very deeply, we get something a lot richer to focus on than just the stereotypes, we understand where they come from. And that's going to free you up a great deal as an astrologer.

To make more interpretations, if you understand the rationale behind all of the lists and categories that you study people, the same thing with houses planet science, people give you lists of things to memorise, it's better to understand where those lists come from, and why each thing on a list, whether it's a house topic, or categories, or qualities of a sign, or whatever, or a planet, it's understanding where they came from, that gives you the ability to continue to generate novel interpretations based on the underlying rationale. That's why we're doing this series. Really, it's not so much to say, oh, there's nothing to these stereotypes. It's to say, well, you know, stereotypes alone are not really going to serve you in the long run, and also can be can, what do I want to say they can give us a almost two dimensional understanding of the people that we're dealing with the people that we know are ourselves.

So at any rate, Pisces, the two fish all about the rising of light out of darkness, the duality of light and dark as light is taking over. These are the most important things to understand. So this little belt here what before the sun crosses this red line, which is where the light takes over? This is suggesting that in the sign we have the wrestling of light and dark with the light about to take over and remember, it's in Sagittarius and pisces the two signs in which the takeover of light is the transition of the takeover of light is occurring. This is important because although Capricorn is the sign in which the light starts to return, although Aries is the sign in which the light dominates, these signs were said to be the signs in which the transition toward that dominance or toward that return of light starts to occur. So they get to be in on the turning point in their very nature, they get to be in on the turning point implied by the solstice or Equinox that comes at the end of their sign. Not surprisingly, both Sagittarius and Pisces are ruled by Jupiter. This is the planet that tends to bring about coherence and unity. So when we're talking about the Jupiter ruled signs, Sagittarius and pisces proceeding Capricorn and Aries were light returns and light takes over. We're talking about building toward cohesion out of the chaos and disintegration implied by the Yin or the darkness.

Now that chaos that disintegration is absolutely fundamental natural good healthy divine it's there's nothing wrong with it. In the same way, you know, when we look at the signs that handover to darkness, which would be Gemini and Virgo that handover to cancer and Libra the two signs at which darkness starts returning and darkness takes over was a Mercury ruled signs. Mercury tends to be about dismantling dismembering taking things apart. So Jupiter and Mercury are like the empty your cup and fill your cup metaphors of, of Taoism, right? There's the sense of emptying out taking apart falling apart disintegration, to pulling things apart through doubt, building things back up through faith, and not one is to be understood as better than another. They're a part of the ever turning wheel of fortune, that that is this material world that we live in. So at any rate, with that being said, how many of the stereotypes of that we think about when we think about the sign of Pisces boiled down to an understanding of this movement toward cohesion out of the darkness, as well as the, you could say, lust or desire for light coming out of darkness, or the constant wrestling of light and dark as light is emerging. And what that might mean both positive and negative. Because remember, light does not equal good, that's not the idea here. Light and Dark are ever rotating opposites that we move through in this world of duality. So first of all, remember again, that this is a sign of Jupiter, a feminine double bodied water sign that is also a temple, exalting Venus. So we're gonna remember that as we go along.

So let's go through, and I'm going to go through some of where we get these stereotypes from, and I'll just kind of, I'm just going to kind of bounce around now a little bit. First of all, you have this idea that Pisceans can't distinguish between fantasy and reality are that they're escapist or romantic are always, you know, kind of yearning for something impossible, or whatever the case might be. So a lot of this, this, these kinds of stereotypes come from the fact that this at the core of this sign is very romantic and sensitive. Because it's a water sign. It's a feminine sign, and it's a sign that exalts Venus. But this begs the question, Well, why would this sign do that? What is it about this time of year? Or why, what? What's the underlying rationale? In here, I think we have a sign that sits on the cusp of spring. One of the things we see in an author like Rhetorios is that he says, Why is it that Venus is exalted in the sign of Pisces? And he says, Well, it's because the sensual, and the spring like nature of our appetite or desire body or physical incarnate body is being amplified in the spring when the light returns. So he's associating the return of light with the amplification of desire, and that Venus, naturally rejoices in this environment that is sort of naturally lifted on high. And so when we think about lust, desire, hope reaching yearning for something in the future that we don't yet have. That's also it's it's Venusian, it's Jupiterian. But it's also about the, the wrestling of light from darkness. The desire for light to move toward the state we're in light is now dominant over darkness. So oftentimes, that's going to take place in terms of future idealising, there's going to be a sense have emotional longing and yearning for something with a kind of romantic emotional zeal. And that's implied not only by the lifting of the Sun toward the space of the lights dominance in the solar year in this sign, but it's also again, the fact that we have this exultation of Venus.

So all of that can create within us the lust for something more than what we have the hope for something good in the future with a kind of emotional, romantic artistic intensity. It can also be about reaching for something. But of course, all of this can imply discontent with what is. And so the sense of divine discontent of romantic dissatisfaction. That kind of burning and churning with desire and romantic ideations and so forth, comes from this unique, almost spring sign, if that makes sense. Moving toward the light, not yet. They're wrestling light from the darkness, not yet there. So you get hopefulness. But you get discontent, you get longing for something in the faith needed to move towards something in the future that you consider redemptive, something that redeems light from darkness, it's always often will be characterised in terms of redeeming something. So that's where we also get this idea of rescuer or victim I'm in need of redeeming I need to be brought toward the light. And then also, oh, I need to redeem someone bring them toward the light. That whole idea of redemption implies someone being rescued or saved, or it implies sin and salvation, it implies saints and sinners, victims and Redeemers, and implies all of that.

But as an archetype, it's important to understand that it's not just that this sign is all about, you know, salvation and redemption from dark things. Because then we can cast Pisces in this kind of with this kind of romantic glaze over the top of it, light isn't always a good thing. For example, I recently told the story in one of my classes as well. When I was in India, there was this thing that was happening in Myapur in one of the main temples with the pancha tattvas, these five beautiful deities, and they must be like 15 feet tall, I mean, they're really, really tall. And at any rate, they once in a certain number of years, or something like that, they bathed the deities, they're up on ladders, bathing them with water from the Ganges, and with yoghurt and milk. And I mean, it's very beautiful to behold. But there were 1000s of pilgrims there who were trying to get into the temple. And you could see these golden deities through the doors of the temple. And I was in the crowd, it was trying to push forward and get in and I got kind of carried in and sucked into this crowd, who were breaking down boundaries and barriers and places where families, pregnant women, children were sitting, who had, you know, gotten in line and very early, and you know, they had a right to be there. And this was like mob mentality, no total disregard for the rules and boundaries, just trying to get as close as possible to these huge golden deities.

And one of the reasons for that, of course, there's many reasons for that on one level, it's kind of admirable that people have such fervour and desire to be close to God. Let's put it that way. Well, that's amazing. And I'm certainly not one to criticise that. But there was also very present in India, and in many places in the world the idea is that like, I need to be close to these deities, because they're going to give me a benediction. I'm going to get something out of this. Maybe I'm healed, maybe I advanced spiritually, maybe, you know, I get something magically some money to fix my car, whatever the case might be, there's always some gold rush, you know, spiritually speaking toward the light in the hopes that it will give me something, level me up, give me a material benediction, whatever the case might be. And I felt myself getting caught up in the fervour, this kind of an idolatry. Like let me just get toward these and I don't care who if I stampede and crush people, I just need to get toward the deities. There was some of that in the crowd was really intense. And I was like, I got to get out of here. Right. And, you know, not surprisingly, there was a good amount of Piscean energy In the air, there were some other stuff too, that I thought matched pretty well. But this was, to me a really good example of the fact that whatever sparkles, whatever glows, the more we rush toward it, this kind of blind lustre desire for the goodness for the light, we can actually be blinded by that.

There are verses in the Sri Isopanishad, which is one of the like, main new punish shots that we study in the bhakti yoga tradition. And in that punish shot, there's the author on several occasions, asks God to remove the blinding, dazzling, effulgence of light that covers his face, so that the seeker can know God intimately. Without the without that sense of God being this almighty glowing, beautiful thing that, you know, makes people kind of kind of lose their mind. So it's about like, it's a prayer for like encountering God, but not encountering the dazzling effulgence of God, which can actually be like a distraction or some kind of temptation. So if we think about light from that standpoint, light is always going to, you know, there's always going to be a sense in which we, we can rush towards something and cast it in gold cast that in light. And in the meantime, we discard, we reject and condemn anything that we see as relatively dark, or anything that falls short of that ideal. And so, the fish of this image, there are two fish one swimming upward in eastward, the other downward and westward their tails tied together. So the neither of them can make it to their destination. Because they're, they're pulling on each other like attention, upward and eastward the call of spirit, downward and westward the descent of spirit into matter, downward and westward being toward the earth upward and eastward being upward, toward the place of the Rising Sun, toward the place of the setting sun and the earth if you're heading downward and westward. So the sign also gives us a warning about being caught in a cycle, a spin cycle of hope and reaching and yearning and lusting for something that we consider good or beautiful, or attractive, or alluring. But that will always simultaneously engage us in rejecting something being dis satisfied or discontent. And that in the material world, this is like a spin cycle.

And this is where you get some of that idea that there's a wishy washyness or can't distinguish between fantasy and reality, escapist romantics rescuers or victims, Redeemers, sinners, saints, etc. All of those dualities are represented and entangled in the two fish with their contrary emotions in the desire for light from within the darkness. So if you understand that basic underlying dichotomy of light and dark in the sign, you can go a long ways to understanding it. Okay. So there's a good way of thinking about this, it comes from Indian astrology, which is also if you if you think about Rahu and Ketu, the north and south nodes of the moon. And Rahu is generally going to amplify the desire for sparkly things in the material world fame, Glamour, success power. So you get into almost like kama and art territory with Rahu dissatisfaction of the sensual desire, body, and satisfaction of the desire for power success. Ketu, the south node of the moon is going to embody the desire for liberation. It can be about material suffering, but it's also there's something there about being liberated from this world and worldly entanglements. However, both of them are seen as malefics. And there is a dark side to seeking Moksha as well. When we seek worldly things that glitter and we get caught up in the glamour of these things. You know, eventually we can be torn apart by that the very thing that sparkles shines, just like fame, can be a downer. Think about someone like Justin Bieber, for example, or even what George Harrison often said about fame. Think about, you know what Jack Kerouac said about fame and success and how that drove some of his deepest problems is some of the addictive ish addiction issues that he faced. So we know that the things of this world that sparkle that look like they are real treasures can be really deeply entangled. And that's a very Piscean kind of thing. The sign of Jupiter an exultation of Venus, yearning for the light but potentially entangled in a spin cycle of light and dark because the two are, even though the light is taking over. Don't forget that the cycle of light and dark is an eternal round in this world.

Now Ketu on the other hand, the seeking of Moksha of liberation from the material world, well, how many times does that come out in a way that is not so helpful, I think, for example, of Kurt Cobain's use of heroin, or, you know, Jack Kerouac's use of alcohol or Nina Simone, you know, think for example, about one of the things Shaquille O'Neal has said, and I've heard him say this in an interview before was that he felt like if he hadn't been so lazy and gotten so high on the fame of some of the early championships with Kobe Bryant, he had kept working, and not gotten sort of satisfied with the glamour of his success that he could have won more. It's an interesting standpoint. And think also of, you know, people like Einstein, forever wrestling with the nature of reality, what is the grand unifying theory, right, looking for that striving, struggling, never quite finding it. So, when we seek Moksha, when we seek liberation spiritually, or we seek escape from this world in any way, oftentimes, the ways that we seek escape are fundamentally are sort of implicitly condemning something about this world, rather than accepting it, which will entangle us all over again in the same cycle. So in Indian astrology, you know, the search for moksha, or liberation could be a very positive thing, if you're trying to wean yourself off from all of the glittery stuff of this world that doesn't last that could ultimately be good for you.

But the warning of seeking out Moksha is that, you know, you have to do it in a way that doesn't mean sort of retreat from or condemnation of the world, and your dharma or your reasons for being here. So even the seeking of spiritual things, I think, again, about, you know, having to work my way out of that crowd, and being pulled into rushing toward the light of spiritual truth. Even that is a bit of a venus flytrap. In this sign, you could say that the idea that spirituality will liberate me from this fallen world, you know, condemnation is implicit. If condemnation is implicit in the way that we seek some spiritual goal. It's going to entangle us all over again. So I sometimes say Rahu and Ketu are like going those, those finger traps, try to pull in either direction. Try to go for something glittery and glamorous in this world, it'll entangle you in it. You try to escape this world because it's so bad, it'll entangle you in it. These are the kinds of dualities that Pisces is wrestling with the two fish tied together one moving upward and eastward the other downward and westward. So, if you can understand that basic quality of the sign, Jupiter sign, Venus's sign, very benefic but also have two natures simultaneously wrestling with the you know wrestling with the darkness trying to emerge into the light. This can give such sensitivity such hope such faithfulness, such creativity and such troubled qualities as well. So, you know, it can be a very Dionysian sign in the sense that we are the ecstasy we seek is the ecstasy that dismembers us and tears us apart.

The spiritual wisdom that we seek is the very thing that ends up in a stampede and people getting crushed. So if you understand these things, you can go back and say okay, the sensitive and emotional nature where does that come from? It's a double bodied signs Venus a sign it's a water sign and it it moves back and forth with what we desire versus what is and that's a really strong dichotomy it's similar in in Aquarius but with Aquarius is more fixed Saturn nine airy, rational Pisceans have poor boundaries or are wishy washy. Well, this is because there's this, there's this wrestling going on all the time. And I think it's almost better to think of it in terms of a wrestling rather than poor boundaries. I mean, that might be a result of the wrestling with. But is it fair to just label people like that? can't distinguish between fantasy and reality? Well, most of us can't, if we're honest, and Pisceans are sometimes just more acutely aware of the dichotomy between what we need, what we want, what we desire, and what is and the wrestling with those two things. And, you know, we all deal with that, right? So at any rate, hopefully, this helps you if you're a Pisces, you know, people who have strong Piscean placements or stellium, or your Pisces rising, whatever the case might be, to understand the sign a little bit better. And hopefully to help you evolve in your understanding of how you read the presence of Piscean planets and birth charts, knowing that this kind of wrestling is taking place, knowing this is the place where Jupiter and Venus come together in this space of the two fishes and their tail tie. There's tails tied together in the wrestling of light from darkness and what that means and the fact that light isn't always good, but sometimes it is. And, you know, you get really deeply into these things. And you realise that you if you're not wrestling with the archetypes themselves, in the same way that Pisces is wrestling with these things, the likelihood that we understand any of these signs very well is not high. So at any rate, thank you guys for listening to the series. I hope that you have enjoyed it. Hope you guys have a great day today.

If you are a Pisces with any stories to share wisdom to add, please feel free to drop a line in the comment section. I love reading what you guys have to say. And we will see you guys again tomorrow. Take it easy, everyone. Bye.