Poissons

Pisces represents Aphrodite and Eros, who transformed into fish and leapt into the Euphrates to escape Typhon -- tying their tails together so they would not be separated. The fish were placed among the stars by Zeus. The image of two fish swimming in opposite directions captures the sign's essential tension: the pull between immersion in the collective ocean and the desire to maintain individual form. In many traditions the fish is a symbol of the soul moving through the waters of the unconscious.

Pisces is a water sign ruled by Jupiter in traditional astrology and by Neptune in the modern system. It closes the zodiac, dissolving the boundaries that the other eleven signs have defined. Planets here operate with heightened sensitivity, empathy, and an instinct for the invisible currents beneath surface reality. Pisces at its best is compassion, artistic inspiration, and mystical awareness; its shadow is escapism, victimhood, and a loss of self through excessive identification with others.