Capricorn 18° (January 8)

 

Pisces Woman

 

Just as Pisces man draws on the fishy archetype of Jesus, Pisces woman is a big Mary. The sign is ruled by Neptune, whose symbol is a trident, originally that of the triple goddess, akin to the Celtic shamrock or the gnostic lily or fleur-de-lis. Biblically, there are three Marys—the mother Mary, the virgin (sacred harlot) Mary Magdalene and that elusive, etheric one who seems to pop in and out only at crucial moments, like the crucifixion and resurrection. Taken together, she is the great goddess in triplicate, akin to to the Great Goddess of the Sea, Aphrodite, curiously also called Mari. Mary’s della robbia blue gown fringed in white is the sea fringed with foam, that primordial mutable-water Piscean froth from whence Aphrodite emerged. Indeed the two Pisces “Fish” of the zodiac are the totems of Aphrodite and her son Eros. Eros is love, Jesus is love. And just as Pisces man’s sexuality can put the ishy in fishy, Pisces woman tends to take up with guys who are a bit light in their loaves and fishes, if not as lovers than as platonic soul mates. We often cite Tennessee William’s Blanche du Bois, an incarnation of the medieval Blanchefleur (who rocks that fleur-de-lis) as the modern emblem of the Pisces woman. She is forever remerging from her bath, creating Neptunian enchantment, reeling from her Belle Reve and looking to share a cherry pop with some pretty young thing barely out of short pants. Likewise, the personality of the female Pisces, the Everywoman of the zodiac, runs the gamut from fantastical diva to tragic dame-on-the-verge, from sacred lover to sacrificial killer. And for this, and so many other reasons, we are enraptured by the likes of Nina Simone, Elizabeth Taylor, Kathy Ireland, Sharon Stone, Tammy Faye Baker, Tamar Braxton, Glenn Close, , Christine Ebersole, Laura Pepon, Chelsea Handler, Patsy Kensit, Theresa Russell, Rue MacClanahan, Eryka Badu, Liza Minelli, Elis Regina, Nancy Wilson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anaïs Nin, Patty Hearst, Bernadette Peters, Tyne Daly, Lynn Redgrave, Anna Magnani, Rihanna, Ursula Andres, Queen Latifah, Irene Cara, Isabelle Huppert, Eva Mendes, Eva Longoria, Eva Herzigova, Meow Meow, Drew Barrymore, Dakota Fanning, Rashida Jones, Bernadette Peters, Connie Britton, Dana Delany, Vanessa Williams, Kristin Davis, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Julie Walters, Sandy Duncan, Juliette Binoche, Sharon Stone, Ellen Page, Emily Blunt, Veronica Webb and Sophie Turner.

 

In a cartoon echo of the seemingly perfect Pisces woman archetype, to which Blanche du Bois pretends in low light, smoke and mirrors, Penelope Pitstop might be considered a modern figurative incarnation of this most profound of water signs, another echoing of the eternally sought-after but insouciant goddess of love, Aphrodite. Both Blanche and Penelope would have you believe she is the ideal woman, pure in thought and deed—a proclivity that is also particular to the Pisces woman, who may be loath to admit she can be as much a pit stop as she is, at least, a pretense of a prude. But that’s the Pisces paradox. She’s at once rarified and raunchy. Think of that other, golden girl Blanche character that a Pisces actress embodied so brilliantly on TV. Blanche—white—pure as the driven snow. Or is that snow incessantly plowed? It’s this very combination of personality traits that makes Pisces woman the most dramatic of creatures and, if we may say so, a most beloved character by the queer if not general population. She is all about sexuality and spirituality, the gutter and the stars, those opposite facing Fish of her sign pointing upward toward heaven and downward into the very depths of earthly delight. In French the world for that pure white creamy sea foam is écume which one and the same for the word scum or, as the myth of her birth from the god Uranus suggests, the same word minus the s. So let’s hear it once again for the Pisces diva, as sometimes tragic and utterly triumphant as a lady can be!

Pisces woman is tougher than she imagines.

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
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