The symbol for Pisces, 12th sign of the zodiac, is that of two curves facing back to back, joined in the middle by the horizontal line in the middle. This represents two fish, one facing down into deeper waters and the other facing upward to the surface but joined together. Ruling planet: Neptune

Pisces Baby – Heavenly Water Baby

Heaven has blessed you with one of its most special little Angels. These are the Water Babies of the Cosmos, so emotional, sensitive and intuitive. Of all the Water signs, these are the ones that, just like their symbols the Fish, swim in water all their lives. These are feeling, emotional Angels, who feel and sense everything at such a deep level.

They are highly intuitive little Angels and very, very perspective, to the point of being psychic, for these little Angels were born with the gift of Second Sight and a Sixth Sense.

These are the dreamers of the zodiac, with vivid and rich imaginations. Don’t ever try and make this little Water Baby come down to earth, or toughen up. These are heaven’s little Angels, here to bring colour and fantasy into the world.

They will grow up to be very caring people and whether they take their creativity and imagination in to the world of the Arts, Entertainment or the Caring, Helping or Counselling fields, they’ll enrich anyone who is lucky enough to come into their life.

They are so loving, soft, cuddly and affectionate, that you’ll be drawn to this hypnotic little Angel. These are gentle souls and at times they seem too fragile for this world and that this ‘dog eat dog’ world is too harsh for these caring Angels. But what a bleak and colourless world we would be without them.

They will have to learn not to take on too much of other peoples cares and burdens, which they’ll do willingly, until the burden gets too much and it gets on top of them. These little Angels love beauty, peace and the ethereal things in life.

Let them explore their imagination and encourage them in any of the arts or creative fields. Don’t push this little Angel, or they’ll feel that it’s what you want and these are People Pleasers. They’ll end up doing things they don’t want to do, if they think it will make you happy.

Your job in parenting this special little Angel, is to let them find their own feet and to follow their own dreams. You won’t have to push this little Angel, just clear a path in front of them, to be all that they can be.

These are sensitive souls, so avoid harsh discipline. You may have to stand on your head and scream to get the attention of your other Cosmic Angels, but this little soul will only need the quietest of requests. This is a gentle soul, easily crushed.

The greatest fear your Cosmic Water Baby will have, is that at some point, they might let you down. There’ll be no punishment you can ever deliver, that could be greater than the self beating they can give themselves.

They love to escape from reality, so lots of fairy tales, fantasy and make believe should be incorporated into their play. They’ll want you to tell them stories, not about real things, but about make believe and happy ever afters.

Piscean energy is very old and ancient, even primordial, so they will have a love of the past, of their own ancestry and of history. They’ll love to swim and play with water and will be happiest of all when swimming free, so teach your Cosmic Water Baby to swim from an early age.

Raising a Piscean Angel is easy, for at the end of the day, all they really want is to be loved and they are so very, very easy to love. They’re sentimental and romantic, so expect many ‘sloppy’ cards, pictures and letters made just for you. Expect to see ‘I love you Mummy’ and ‘I love you Daddy’ over birthday cards, as they pour out those loving feelings they have.

As they get older, they’ll have to learn to adapt their often rosy eyed view of life, to the real world, but so long as they are loved and secure in themselves, that won’t be a problem. Love them, let them know how utterly special they are and foster a strong sense of self worth.

Tell your little Cosmic Water Baby every day, in words, hugs and kisses, how much you love them.

Pisces Baby – The Constellation

Right back to Babylonian times, Pisces, the twelfth sign of the zodiac, has been linked to the Constellation of The Fishes. The Fishes had many references to its origins, but in Greek terms, it relates to Aphrodite and her son Eros. After the Olympian gods overthrew the rule of the Titans, in the battle for sovereignty of the world, they came upon the monster, Typhon.

There are some discrepancies over whether this was at the Nile or the Euphrates River. In the story of Pisces, Aphrodite and Eros jumped into the river to escape the monster, as the other Gods did. Aphrodite and Eros turned themselves into two fish and it is these two fish that were placed in the heavens as Pisces. This is said to be why the Syrians regard fish as taboo.

Another story is that Zeus was in a cave nearby, seducing the nymph Pluto, as he tends to do at every chance. This gave Typhon, the monster, the chance to steal Zeus’ thunderbolts, which held his great power, while he was preoccupied making love. When the other gods saw that Typhon now had Zeus’ power, they fled to Egypt. As they fled they turned into various animals.

It was at this point that Aphrodite and Eros turned themselves into fish. Here, the powerful forces of love and desire were powerless against this monster. For in Greek mythology, even the mightiest of gods trembled in fear at the prospect of encountering this monster that dwells in the deepest reaches of the cosmos.

As the monster closed around the helpless body of Zeus he cut out the sinews on both his hands and feet, leaving Zeus helpless and defenceless. Cadmus came upon the scene, armed with nothing but his intelligence. It was then that Cadmus remembered something that Apollo had taught him – music! He went to a nearby grove of trees and began to play a tune on some pipes.

The sound so intoxicated the monster that its many arms and its only human head (he had 100 heads, but only one was human), came to the mouth of the cave in search of the source of this music. Realising the power of the music, he challenged Cadmus. Cadmus’s music verses the thunder and lightening bolt he had stolen from Zeus.

With his newly found power, he offered to give Cadmus any goddess he chose, except for Hera, even the virgins Athena and Artemis.

Cadmus, even though he was frightened, boasted that “What would you do when I strike out a hymn of victory on the harp of seven strings to honour your throne?” “Forget the pipes” Cadmus said, “I’ll play the harp whose seven strings play the music of the seven spheres – the seven sacred vowels”. Cadmus said he could do this, but he didn’t have any sinews to make the harp. Pumped up by this time, Typhon disappeared into the cave and came out carrying Zeus’ sinews and gave them to Cadmus.

Cadmus built the harp, but he used the sinews from the bark of a tree instead, safely putting Zeus’ sinews under a rock.

Then he began to play the harp. The monster heard the tune, but didn’t understand it, so came closer, straining to hear the composition that Cadmus had promised him, an opus to celebrate the overcoming of the Olympian gods. He came away from the cave entrance to get closer, to hear the music, with all of his 100 heads distracted. Just as he did, the music fell silent.

Not hearing what he expected, he rushed back into the cave to get the thunder and lightening bolts, but found only an empty cave. Zeus had turned himself into a bull and found his sinews.

With his power restored, Zeus chased Typhon back to Sicily and finally killed him by throwing him into Mount Etna. What is left of the monster is the volcano that continues to erupt to this day.

A leap into the water, in fear, by Aphrodite and Eros, ended with the restoration of order to the entire cosmos and all because of the intoxicating allure of music. For Pisces, love is mightier than the sword.

The two fishes that form the Constellation of Pisces, swim in different directions, bound by a cord. It lies between Aries the Ram and Aquarius the Water Carrier. They are widely separated in the sky, with the north eastern fish lying just south of Beta Andromedae and the south western one, headed east towards Aquarius and Pegasus.

One fish faces east and is swimming upwards, while the other swims west and horizontal. The ancients saw this as representing the dual nature of the constellation and the duality of human emotions that we find in Pisces. This represents the dual nature in the sign, with opposite qualities that cross, but are bound together forever.

The eastern Fish swims up and is said to represent an ascent to heaven and spiritual matters, with the western Fish swimming towards human alignment in the everyday mundane world.

This is how the ancient world viewed Pisces, the Fish, but when Christianity came along, it claimed Pisces as its own. For the last 2,000 years the Fishes have come to represent ‘Christ’. The bible makes many references to fish. Jesus is called the ‘Fisher of men’.

It was 2,000 years ago, at the time of Christ that the Equinox Point moved through this constellation, passing through the first fish as the Christian Church was founded and Christianity developed.

The Fishes were both a Christian and a pagan symbol. The ‘Creation Myths’ all have different stories about how the Creation unfolded, but in one of them, we meet Atagartis, a love goddess. She pushed a giant egg out of the water of the Euphrates River, from which she emerged, where herself, her son and lover Ichthys took the form of fishes.

This parallels the story of Aphrodite and her son Eros, god and goddess of love and desire. However, it’s in the Atagartis myth that we get the pagan origins of Easter.

In the early fish cult that she formed, the mother goddess and her son die each year and are reborn. This birth and return takes place in the dying month of the old year (Pisces) in order to be reborn in Aries. Nearly every ancient civilisation links the ending of the old year with the constellation of the Fishes.

Since ancient times the Constellation of the Fishes (Pisces) was under the care and protection of Neptune, now its ruling planet. Before the discovery of Neptune, Venus ruled Pisces, but in her more exulted form, just as Mercury ruled Aquarius before the discovery of Uranus.

Even without the story of her dive to safety in the Euphrates River, Venus herself came from the sea. Sir Thomas Brown, 17th century author and physician, said “who wilt not commend the wit of astrology? Venus, born out of the sea, hath her exaltation in Pisces”.

The constellation has been known as ‘Venus et Cupido’, Venus Syria cum Cupidine, Venus cum Adone, Dione, and Veneris Mater and as the Sarmatian Aphrodite. All coming from Venus aka Aphrodite’s pivotal place in the story of this constellation.

On a more mundane level the constellation derives its history from the fact that the Sun moves through the constellation of Pisces during the rainy season.

In Astrology, Pisces is the most mystically inclined of all the signs and being the last sign of the zodiac, represents the return of all energy into the great ocean. It is seen as dreamy, gentle, creative and intuitive and slightly hypnotic.

In the ancient world, fish were sacred, in reverence to Aphrodite, however, it is also found in cultures as diverse as Scandinavian mythology. Freya, the Scandinavian counterpart to Aphrodite and Venus, gave her name to Friday (Freya Day), a day that Christians later adopted as a day on which they ate fish.

Friday is also sacred to the followers of the Prophet Mohammed. Even the word ‘nun’ means both fish and growth and the name is given to the female ‘brides of Christ’.

Across all times, religions and cultures, the shared symbolism of Venus and the Fishes has brought Pisces its qualities of spirituality, religion, beauty and love.

Pisces Baby – The Planet

Neptune is the eighth planet out from the Sun and the fourth largest. It is often called Uranus’ twin planet, for both share a distinctive blue colour. It was discovered on the 23rd September 1846.

In true Neptunium style, it was nearly discovered 200 years early, by Galileo himself. In 1613, Galileo saw Neptune very close to Jupiter, but he thought it was a star. On the nights following, he noticed that it had moved slightly, arousing his speculation that it was in fact a planet.

Over the next few nights he wasn’t able to observe it, because of cloud cover. By the time he had a clear view, Neptune had moved below the horizon where it would stay hidden for another 200 years.

Had Neptune been discovered then, which it would have if not for a fluke of nature, it would have predated the discovery of Uranus by 100 years. How typical of the planet of illusion that it would hide behind cloud cover. However, I’m of the belief that it wasn’t its time, as each of the modern planets were discovered in a time that reflected its influence.

When Neptune was finally discovered and given rulership of Pisces, the most religious and spiritual of all the signs, it was a time when people were questioning their spiritual beliefs. Up until then religion was akin to politics, yet in the 19th Century people were looking to other means of spiritual enlightenment. Mankind was seen as individual spiritual beings.

There was a rise in the Psychic movement, but also in social awareness. Slavery was abolished and the rights of women and the disadvantaged took on an almost religious fervour. Even ether, the gas that allowed for painless surgery and sent the patient into a state of intoxicated unawareness, was discovered the same year that Neptune was discovered.

Neptune was given rulership of Pisces, as it was considered to be the planet of inspiration, dreams, illusion, psychic ability and spirituality.

Neptune is a typical gas planet, very similar to its sister planet Uranus. However, Neptune’s winds are the fastest in the solar system, racing at almost 2000 km/hour. Like Jupiter and Saturn, it has its own internal heat source and emits more energy than it receives from the Sun.

Like Jupiter, Uranus and Saturn, Neptune has rings. The outermost one is called ‘Adams’ after one of the men influential in Neptune’s discovery. This ring has three prominent arcs that bear the names ‘Liberty’, ‘Equality’ and ‘Fraternity’, all Piscean concepts and all relevant to the time that Neptune was discovered. Neptune has 8 known moons.

Pisces Baby – The God

Poseidon is the ruling god of Neptune and Pisces. After Zeus and the Olympian gods won their battle over the Titans, one of the first things they did was to release the Cyclopes and the ‘Hundred Handed Ones’, from the underworld, where Cronus had held them captive. It was the three brothers who were instrumental in their release – Zeus, Hades and Poseidon. In gratitude they gave Zeus the thunderbolt as a weapon, Hades a helmet of invisibility and to Neptune they gave the trident.

After the war, Zeus set up council at the Oracle of Delphi and was given rulership of all the heavens. Hades was given rulership of the underworld and Poseidon of the sea. Humans got rulership of the land itself.

All three brothers are equal in divinity, but not in superiority, with Zeus taking full power. But Poseidon’s power was immense. He ruled the oceans and brought storms and crashing waves to destroy those who displeased him and granted safe passage and favourable winds to those that pleased him.

Therefore, he was a god that all the Olympian heroes tried to please, but just like the oceans themselves, he was often unpredictable and unruly. As a god he is unstable and often sent great floods to wash away whole cities if they displeased him, until the other gods forbade him.

Poseidon did leave the sea from time to time, even though he wasn’t allowed to. When he did, he took on the disguise of a horse, usually a wild stallion that would charge across the countryside.

Pisces Baby – The Season

Of all the water signs, Pisces is the sign that runs the deepest. As the last sign of the Winter Triad, it presides over the end of one year and the preparation for the new solar year that will soon begin in spring.

By the time the Sun reaches the Constellation of Pisces, the days are already starting to get longer and as the temperature starts to rise, so do the hopes and optimism of humans. It’s often a time to give thanks to the gods that protected them through the long, dark winter months. Underground, the frozen earth begins to thaw and water begins to flow as the water tables once again find their balance.

Deep within the ground, the dormant planet life begins to stir and deep within the ground, growth is taking place that won’t show itself in an outer form until spring. Rivers start to flow as ice melts. Moisture is so abundant you can smell it in the air, with damp soil giving up its hold on this essential life force.

As a mutable sign, it’s a time of change and of the changes of season, this is the one that is most pronounced. The old year is in its dying phase and the New Year is tantalisingly close. Life goes on.