How to recognize PISCES

If you should happen to see a pisces behind a teller's cage, or sitting at a bank president's desk, you'll be viewing a rare kind of fish. Very few of these people can stand being confined for long in one place. You'll have better luck if you wander into a spiritual séance, visit an art gallery, walk though a convent or a monastery, attend a concert or catch a floor show in a nightclub. You might check an Authors League meeting, drop backstage after a play, or try some sunbathing on a yacht.

The chances are you'll come up with a preety good catch in any of those streams of life. The more creative and artistic, the more leisurely and esoteric the surroundings, the more fish you'll find. The net will be full of colorful, shimmering types, if you spread it out a cocktail parties or gala balls. You might even hook a couple of mollies, or an exotic species, like princess Lee Radziwill.

There's little worldly ambition in Neptune people. Most of them wouldn't give a minnow for rank, power or leadership and wealth holds little attraction. Few pisces people accumulate money by the bushel, unless they marry it or inherit it. Mind you , they have nothing against cash. They'll gladly accept any old coins you can't use. But they're more aware than most of us its temporal qualities

Whoever said,"I don't want to be a millionaire-I must want to live like one, was truly reflecting the Piscean philosophy. The typical Neptune heart is free of greed. There's lack of intensity , almost a carelessness about tomorrow. There's also an intuitive knowledge of yesterday and a gentle tolerance of today. It's never easy for either real or human fish to struggle and fight their way upstream. It's more common , and it takes less effort, to go with the current wherever it takes them. But to swim upstream is the challenge of pisces- and the only way he ever find true peace and happiness. Taking the easy way is a trap for those born under this Sun sign, a glittering bait that entices them, while it hides the dangerous hook a wasted life.

You'll be impressed with the Piscean charm of manner and lazy good nature. He's indifferent to most limiting restrictions, if they don't rob him of his freedom to dream and feel his way through life. He's even more indifferent to insults, recriminations and other people's bristling opinions. Tell a Piscean that society is decadent, the government is cracking, air pollution will put us all in our graves and the world is coming to a dead stop ,and he'll yawn, or smile enchantingly, or look vaguely sympathetic. Very little will excite him to violent action or reaction. Of course, the fish is not completely bland. He does have a temper. When he's finally aroused, he can be bitingly sarcastic, with a clever, caustic tongue. Neptunians can lash their tails angrily and spill forth a torrent of nervous irritability, but the typical pisces will normally take the path of least resistance, and the cool waters of Neptune continually wash away his anger. To arouse the fish to a display of temper is rather like tossing a pebble into a clear, mirror-smooth lake, you'll create some ripples. But the surface will soon be calm again.

It can be a love of ice of water, the habit of a dozen cups of tea or coffee a day, a hankering for soda pop- or a yen for something stronger. Like Scorpios and Cancerians, Pisces people are wise to stay miles away from alcohol. Very few Neptuninas can have a social cocktail, then leave it alone. There are some, naturally. But too many Pisceans find enticing relief from trouble in liquor. It lulls them pleasantly with a false sense of security and it's a dangerous lullaby. Of course, every Pisces who drinks a pousse-café doesn't become an alcoholic , but the percentage is higher than it ought to be.

The fish was born with the desire to see the world through rose-colored spectacles. He knows well enough about the seamy side of humanity, but he prefers to live in his own watery, gentle world, where everyone is beautiful and all actions are lovely. If reality becomes too terrible to face , he often escapes into rosy daydreams with powder puff foundations and not a prayer of coming true. When life dumps him with a splash- a real belly-smacker-into a stagnant river of dismal failure and hopeless conditions, instead of leaping out of the murky danger, he's more inclined to hide behind his pale green illusions which keep him from making practical decisions. The rejected Pisces us too inclined to face the ugliness of failure by deepening his false hopes, when a determined switch of course or some new, forceful action might shower him with real, instead of imaginary, success.

Not every March-born person falls into such a typical Neptune trap, but enough of them do to make it a necessary warning. The pisces writer may be tempted to lounge for years in bars, telling himself he's gathering material, when he's really he's just gathering moss and unpaid bills. The pisces artist who can't get the patronage he seeks may stroll through the park, day after day, mumbling into his beard that he's studying nature as a background for his great masterpiece, while his paint brushes gather dust. Where is the angel who will support him while he splashes canvases with glory? The Piscean woman, left alone, with just enough fixed income to keep a roof over her head and a little seaweed in the cupboard, will tend to dream away the hours, tenderly remembering yesterday, hazily hoping for tomorrow, and wasting the bright sunlight of today. The actor, composer, musician-you fill in the stories.

You may have read that the Pisces symbol of two fish, swimming in opposite directions, indicates that the Neptunian is torn by dual desires. It's not so. Dual desires belong to Gemini. The two fish in reversed directions symbolize the choice given pisces: to swim to the top-or to swim to the bottom and never quite reach his goals. Pisces must learn that he is to serve mankind in some way, and eschew worldly possessions. Piscean Einstein, who swam upstream, formulated a whole new world of relative time. Piscean who swim downstream serve by washing dishes or shoveling snow. The choice is always there, because there's never a lack of unusual talent, but the fish, with eyes that see clearly on both sides, sometimes has difficulty seeing straight ahead. Pisces often retreats-either to the sublime height a dedicated professional life, or to stimulants, artificial emotions and false excitement.

To every pisces, from the fisherman on the wharf to the nurse in the children's hospital, life itself is huge stage. In the reflective eye of fish the entire scene is elusive and fleeting. Knowing this, Neptunians accept most storm s with tranquil equilibrium. Despondery , however is always threatening to swoop down and bring peculiar dreams or weird nightmares which are often precongnitive. When Pisces has a feeling something will happen , it usually does. If he tells you not to get on that plane or in that car, you'd better plan to swim or walk.

Pisces holds within himself the fondness of debate of all the air signs, the love of nature of all the earth signs and the flaming aspirations of all the fire signs. But he is neither fixed nor cardinal. The fish is mutable always; in this respect he is undilled. The one and only quality which originates with his own sign is his strange power to stand outside himself and see yesterday , today and tomorrow as one. The Piscean love of music and art, and his highly developed senses and versatility he owes to other signs, but his deep wisdom and compassion belong only to him, culled from the combined knowledge of every human experience. Now that you understand all that, is it any wonder that your Pisces friends are a bit of a puzzle at times, not to mention being outright kooky odd balls on occasion?

Humor is one of their secret weapons.Pisceans grin to cover unshed tears. They're masters of satire, and you may cringe from a bright remark thrown at you so casually that you're unable to pin down the exact meaning or the intent. Yet, you'll have a decidedly uncomfortable feeling. The fish can scatter caustic observations around like flashing them.He's an excellent practical joker, great at pulling hilarious lines while he keeps his own elastic face mournful and straight. He can move gracefully from stapstick to brittle, sophisticated jokes. Something the fun is warm and harmless, sometimes it's cold and merciless; but it's always a cover for another emotion the fish wants to hide, seldom spontaneous of itself. Pisces wears his laughs as a mask, and they disguise him well.

To help is his instinct. There are Pisces people who are crusty and brusque, but it's only a fragile shell, worn for protection. The fish soon learns how vulnerable he is.The world is not yet tuned to the sensitive Piscean wave-length, so to avoid ridicule ( as well as to avoid being taken for every last dime he owns), he sometimes feigns indifference. The impositions of those who would trample him force the fish to hide his true spirit. Since the depth of Neptune's waters causes him to absorb every pain and joy as if they were his own, it's little wonder many Pisceans pretend disinterest in hearing sad stories. But remember that they are pretending. If you've been rebuffed once, try twice, and the real fish will surface.

The glorious Piscean imagination, their marvelous elfin humor and the Neptunian sense of beauty can create the most delicate, yet eternally lasting prose and poetry. Indeed, the world couldn't do without their artistic efforts and their gentle compassion for a moment. It would stop spinning. You'll frequently find fish who have buried their personal dreams to brighten odd corners of the lives of relatives and friends, or to bring the gift of tears and laughter to the public through the stage, at the cost of the privacy Pisces seeks and needs. Yet Neptune is a deceptive planet, capable of giving birth to natures that twist and turn in two directions at once, distorting the truth, an influence which often causes Pisces to hide his real emotions.

This thespian quality is obvious if you've ever tried to pin down the elusive, flashing fish. He hates to answer a direct question with a yes or a no. It's always maybe. A simple question curiosity about what play he just saw or what book he just read can bring an evasive answer for no reason in particular. He can turn on tears, then turn on sunshine by pressing another invisible switch. Neither is truly real. All is illusion with Pisces, and they find it hard to tell the difference themselves. Their internal nature is as unfathomable as Neptune's great oceans. The altruistic fish is filled with an inexhaustible, tender love for every living creature which is truly saint-like , when it's not turned inward in self-pity and self-love. Typically Piscean are the gregarious housewives with hearts big enough for the troubles of all the neighbors, and the patient bartenders who listen sympathetically to hundreds of tales of woe each week.

Hanging somewhere between the silent waters of the sea below and the vast,star-studded mist above, only barely touching the earth from necessity, Pisces lives his life in lonely understanding of truth too deep to express in words. Those who want him for a friend, those who love him, must use their imagination to grasp the strange planes of his mind and emotions. The other two water signs-Scorpio and Cancer are symbolized by half land -half water creatures, ambitious and flexible -but the fish can't breathe air. He must live in cool green water, sometimes muddy, always moving.

Pisces is represented, not by iron or mercury or gold or lead, but by the vibrations of the indefinable, artificial metals- again, an echo of the unreal and the illusionary. He sees his reflection in three dimensions in the violet amethyst and the clear emerald; and his natal flowers are the water lily and the lotus. Their blossoms are pink and white and delicate, but their stems and leaves are made of strong fibers, tough and indestructible, unless they're torn up by the roots. Few can follow Pisces and probe his aquamarine nature, whether he swims downstream to oblivion, just another lashing speck in the large, moving school of fish-or fights his way upstream to conquer the swift current and find serenity in pure waters. He is stronger than he thinks and wiser than he knows, but Neptune guards this secret until he discovers it for himself.

Famous Pisces Personalities.

Edward Albee, James Madison, Harry Belafonte, David Sarnoff, Earl Watten, Ben Hecht, Grover Cleveland, Earl of Snowden, Ted Kennedy, Auguste Renoir, Handel, Rex Harrison, Svetlana Stalin, George Washington, John Steinbeck, Victor Hugo, Jackie Gleason, Dinah Shore.