The older we get and more set in our ways, the more water and wind it generally takes to knock us down. When we're young we lack a truly mature root structure to hold us in place. Consequently, we're a bit like saplings that snap under a forceful gale: we can be felled with a strong breath or a harsh word. The older we get, though, the stronger our sense of self - and the better we learn what to tune out, to regulate how much negativity we will pay attention to, whom we will allow to influence our notion of who we are. But this is a bit like tuning in to a favorite radio station: you're sure to hear something you like, but often lose some interesting possibilities in the static-y never-never land between frequencies.

We set course in life in tiny dinghies, suitable only for shallow waters. In adulthood we build huge ships of iron, as seemingly infallible as the Titanic, and falsely imagine we are much safer from harm than we were in the dinghies of our youth. Life quickly disavows us of this illusion. Experience the death of someone close to you, and you find out quickly just how small an iceberg it takes to sink a ship. Participate in a profession that requires constant exposure to the physical or psychic pain of others, and you soon find yourself flirting with rocks too close to shore, testing your mortality and sanity to see if you have any feelings left of your own.

The lesson of Pisces is a lesson of making ourselves vulnerable - tuning in to all frequencies, and learning to navigate the tempest-tossed waters of emotional and psychic involvement without drowning. Contrary to pop astrology clichés, Pisces is no more inherently spiritual, psychic, or saintly than any other sign - but it is more vulnerable. The symbol for Pisces is two fish, the tenderest of creatures; Cancer and Scorpio swim in the same empathetic waters, but only Pisces navigates them without a protective shell, completely exposed to both danger and ecstacy. Pisces teaches us divine vulnerability - lowering our defenses, the better to fully empathize and blend with everyone we meet. Learning, in fact, about the illusory nature of protection.

I'm no mystic. I dabbled in yoga for only a year or so, but I was impressed by its effects not only in my physiology but in my psychology. Our instructor constantly urged us to relax and breathe into a pose, to trust it, even if it seemed likely to hurt. It's interesting to watch the body's instinctive reaction to such poses, which is to clench and tighten in fear, as if to adopt the hard shell of the crustacean against the threat of pain. We go through life that way, most of us, clenching and tightening and fighting the yoga posture of balance and relaxation. The Pisces path, though, is a yoga of yielding, softening, and breathing that leads to strength, poise, and courage.

Like every sign, Pisces walks a razor's edge between its nobler and its baser sides, which in the case of Pisces can make itself felt in a certain lack of constancy. Pisces is compassionate, and supportive, all those good things; but if you lean too hard on him, he'll swim away in the blink of an eye. On one hand, this is an admirable survival skill. You can't absorb the whole world's pain and misery 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and stay sane. You've simply got to get away from time to time, whether in a nap, a bottle, a song, or a massage. The strongest and wises of Pisces pay close attention to their need for healthy escape.

On the other hand, if you find yourself dodging your dearest friends' phone calls in their times of need because "it's just too painful" to stand by them, because you are suffering from compassion fatigue - well, you're failing Pisces 101. An important part of the Pisces lesson is knowing your limits, and being honest about them. You only have so much to give, and you must occasionally call upon Pisces' opposite sign, Virgo, to remind you of the practical limits of your time and energy. Pisces tempts us with the notion that we are one with everything, a limitless river; but without boundaries, the river overflows, with destructive consequences.

At its best, though, the Pisces season is an exercise in pure enchantment, a round-the-world voyage in a dinghy, the agony and ecstacy of the entire human experience. Born with a fierce, fixed Leo Sun squaring Neptune, I haven't Pisces' agile gifts of yielding and blending, of empathy and escape, so can only marvel at them. I admire Pisces as I admire water, for its quickness and its stillness, its ability to shape-shift, its long rains that nourish the soil. Pisces is the exotic music we hear faintly, through static, between the stronger frequencies; it is the fragile pre-spring flowers outside my office window, their seeds scattered here by the wind, pale and pretty in the flat, gray light of late winter: They are the youngest and tenderest of flowers, yet they stand up to sudden storms with surprising strength, refusing to be blown down or washed away.

© 2005 April Elliott Kent
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