Pisces

“ Why fish may be caught in most plenty when the Sun is in the sign of Pisces, is as clear as the reason why trees are to be felled, or vegetables gathered, or manure used, while the moon is on the wane, for these things have to fall, or be consumed, or rot ”

“ The recovery of the golden ring is the return of the sun after the sunless Arctic winter, and this return occurs towards the end of January or the beginning of February, under the constellation of the Pisces. The fish, then, is the constellation of the Pisces, and Broad can be no less. In George and his Goat the man with his finger in the mouth of the bottle is certainly Aquarius, and Sharp-Eyes is always Sagittarius. It follows, therefore, that in Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes, Long is Aquarius, and in George and his Goat, Pisces. ”

“ There is a strong tendeney to mediumship among the Pisces people, and therein is a danger greater than any other on earth. No one should “sit for development” and degenerate into the tool of low spirits, but a Pisces person in particular is “lost”? ”

“ The Sun rising in Pisces gives more energy and ambition, Jupiter, the ruler, strengthens the morals, and Venus exalted in this sign, gives great musical talent, but accentuates the tendency to alcoholic indulgence, which mars the lives of so many splendid musicians.
When many planets are in Pisces, the person will have a hard life, because he or she will not want to take up their life’s burden, but love to dream, they become recluses; they seek to master the hidden arts, occultism and mysticism ”

“ Pisces and Aries.—The remaining zodiacal constellations are Pisces, or the Fishes, Aries, or the Ram (Fig. 398) , and Cancer, or the Crab.
The Fishes lie under Pegasus and Andromeda, but contain no bright stars. Aries (between Pisces and Taurus) is marked by a pair of stars on the head,—one of the second, and one of the third magnitude. Cancer (between Leo and Gemini) has no bright stars, but contains a remarkable cluster of small stars called Præsepe, or the Beehive. ”

“ Very little is known about the private history of these strange Pisces; they are supposed to have been a couple of John Dorys, who, Neptune having advertised in "Lloyd's List" for a wife, introduced Amphitrite, a Wapping lady, to share his oyster-bed with him. Neptune in return, gave the Pisces the entire swim of the Zodiac, where, if Aquarius did not brandish his watering-pot right and left about him for a month before them, they would have nothing but currents of air and thorough drafts to swim in. This would have made them feel very much like fishes out of water. ”

“ Pisces (the Fishes) lie between Aquarius and Aries. They are not distinguished by any large stars, but are connected by a series of small stars, that form a crooked line between them. Piscis Australia, the Southern Fish, lies directly below Aquarius, and is known by a single bright star far in the south, having a declination of thirty degrees. The name of this star is Fomalhaut, and it is much used in astronomical measurements.
The constellations of the zodiac, being first well learned, so as to be readily recognised, will facilitate the learning of others that lie north and south of them. ”

“ Twelfth House or Cycle Pisces Influence
Age Next Birthday--2-14-26-38-50-62-74-86
—z—Twelfth House: Pisces influence; Spirit focusing through Jupiter , planet of business and generosity; and through Neptune , the planet of Spiritual awakening, occult perception. Neptune is usually most influential during this House. During these years be careful of law, legal entanglements, treachery from trusted friends and long journeys without purpose. Do not take any long journeys, get married, or make any new agreements for business. ”

“ It is a fact, not a theory, that he was called a fish, and that the devotees were called Pisciculi or little fishes. I suppose few persons will attribute these appearances of system to accident. As we have lambs and little fishes in the followers of the Ram, Aries, and the constellation Pisces, it is only in character to have the followers of the Bull called calves, and I am by no means certain that we have not them in the Cyclops. ”

“ In all vertebrates the nose is double and opens into the pharynx, until we descend to the fishes, where the whole group Pisces has been divided into two subsidiary groups, Monorhinæ and Amphirhinæ, according as they possess a median unpaired olfactory opening, or a paired opening. ”

“ When the Moon is afflicted of Mars in this Signe Pisces, and is encreasing in light, and swift in motion, the Body is full of grosse Humours, the Disease proceeds from too much ingurgitation, swelling and drinking, the Disease is most prevalent in the night-time ”

“ Who will not commend the wit of Astrology? Venus born out of the sea hath her exaltation in Pisces. ”

“ In Pisces, where Venus is exaltate,
And Venus falls where Mercury is raised. ”

“ Its convulsive movements, when taken from the sacrificed victim, gave warnings of the future. So sacred was the liver held in Israel, that eating it was forbidden: it had to be returned to the Giver of Life. [990]
Fish were early utilised for the calendar of the year. The signs of the Zodiac showing Pisces, possibly derived from connection with the god of water, and Scorpio, possibly representing one of the Crustacea, date back to c. 3000 b.c. ”

“ The tide fell fast and foaming, the empty sand shone bright,
And by the ocean roaming, upon the edge of night,
I found a something stranded with sea-fowl mewing high--
A wondrous atom landed and left all high and dry.
Whoever yet suspected mer-babies on a beach?
Yet here, by tide neglected, lay one within my reach--
A dainty, winsome creature as pink as any rose,
His golden tail a feature to take the place of toes.
And through the billows splashing, the sunset in her hair,
Over the white foam flashing, there rode a lady fair.
His blue-eyed, wild mer-mother swam wailing on the sea. ”

“ When the tide advances over a sea-beach on a calm and sunny day, and its tiny ripples enter, at various points, the clear shallow pools which the preceding tide had left behind, the little wavelets run and climb and cross each other, and thus form a lovely chasing, which has its counterpart in the lines of light converged by the ripples upon the sand underneath. When waves are skilfully generated in a vessel of mercury, and a strong light reflected from the surface of the metal is received upon a screen, the most beautiful effects may be observed. ”

“ The last two thousand years, comprising the Piscean Age, has certainly been one of water and the many uses of that element have been emphasised, and sea and lake and river navigation has been brought to a high degree of efficiency.
3 What is the Aquarian Age? The human race is to-day standing upon the cusp of the Piscean-Aquarian Ages. Aquarius is an air sign and the New Age is already noted for remarkable inventions for the use of air, electricity, magnetism, etc. Men navigate the air as fish do the sea, and send their thoughts spinning around the world with the speed of lightning. ”

“ Now, take one of the Medusæ, choosing a specimen that lies near low-water mark, and place it in a tolerably large rock pool, where the water is clear, and where it can be watched for some time without the interruption of the advancing tide.
The apparently inanimate mass straightway becomes instinct with life, its disc contracts in places, and successive undulations roll round its margin, like the wind waves on a corn-field. ”

“ There the gently rippling wave was smoothing the outside sands as if it would level them for a promenade; and as the sea is always restless, even when the winds are lulled, it came up on the shore, although not with waves crested and foaming, yet with waves crisped and curling. ”

“ Here is the best place of all for sharp eyes to find the animals and plants we seek. Where the hard rock has been worn down into hollows, the falling tide leaves a pool of still, clear water. These rock-pools are the home of many a creature. So let us look for them, until the rising tide sweeps over the rocks once more, and drives us away. ”

“ Teach me to fish in the lake.
Piscator. Without doubt, my fair young lady, it must be as you desire. And yet, it is not every woman that would have the courage to cross the pond in a skiff that rocks to every ripple.
Discipula. Trust me for that. You should know that I am not wont to be frightened at trifles.
Piscator. Truly, it is so; and I do not question your courage. Then on any day that you will appoint, God willing, I will give you a sail; or indeed, this morning, if duty does not incline you in another direction, and you will step with me into my little boat yonder. ”

“ How softly and eagerly this coming tide swirls round them! All day the fishes haunt their shadows; all night the phosphorescent water glimmers by them, and washes with long, refluent waves along their sides, decking their blackness with a spray of stars.
Water seems the natural outlet and discharge for every landscape, and when we have followed down this artificial promontory, a wharf, and have seen the waves on three sides of us, we have taken the first step toward circumnavigating the globe. ”

“ She has the robustness, volume and vigor of the great high seas. She is deep-bosomed and broad of thigh and stands as though storms and monsters had no terrors, as one accustomed to breast and conquer the waves. Water creatures supplement her, but she seems made on too goddess-like a scale to disport herself with them. It is interesting to contrast this nymph of the fathomless trough of the sea with the arch and playful Water Sprites of the froth and ripple, on the columns within the Court of Ages. ”

“ Sometimes those most sensitive and important organs affect the most elegant and fanciful forms; we would say that they wish to plead, to melt, to secure mercy, taking every form and every color. These little children of the sea, the molluscs, in their infantine grace, in their rich variety of colors, are their ocean mother's eternal ornament and joy. Stern as she may be, she has but to look on them, and she must smile.
But a timid life is full of melancholy. ”

“ Brimming up to the stone step, worn smooth by generations of sinners, the waters of the spring lapped lazily, stirred by the myriads of small fish which, in their eagerness for the coming feast, flashed hither and thither like meteors, to gather in radiating stars round the least speck on the surface; sometimes in their haste rising in scaly mounds above the water. ”

“ If you go down among the rocks when the tide is out, and look into the shallow pools which have been left among them by the retreating waves, you are quite sure to see numbers of shadowy forms darting to and fro through the water. A good many of these will be prawns, and if you catch one or two of them in a small net, and examine them carefully, you will find [84] that they are very much like tiny lobsters. Indeed, if you could magnify a prawn to the size of a lobster, or reduce a lobster to the size of a prawn, it really would not be very easy to tell the one from the other. ”

“ The water beneath me was clear as crystal; and, gazing into its depths and shallows, I perceived beds of shell-fish, like large oysters, attached to the rocks and to each other by tufts of hairy filaments. ”

“ Into one of the nozzles, when the tide comes over it, is constantly sucked a current of sea-water which passes into a stomach-like cavity, where the minute particles of food in the water are caught and digested; then the water passes on through another cavity where the blood receives its oxygen, as in our lungs or a crab's or fish's gills, and then rushes out. ”

“ The lecturer himself, however, prevented.
'We stand to-day,' he said, using his notes again, 'upon the cusp of the Aquarian Age. The Piscean Age lies behind us. The Zodiacal Intelligences of that Piscean Age were watery powers and water was its keynote and its symbol. ”

“ We know that tides have wrought our solar system into its present form; and are we to say that the wondrous powers of the tides have no grander scope for their exercise? I prefer to believe that tides operate far and wide through the universe, and that in the recognition of the supreme importance of tidal evolution we mark a great epoch in the history of physical astronomy.—Nature. ”

“ Do not the sublime aspects of the ocean—the sound of its deep, ceaseless voice—the eternal on-coming of its waves, now in calm undulations, and now in hurtling wildness against the base of those cliffs whose white brows are wreathed with perennial flowers—suggest other matters both for reflection and amusement? ”

“ A swim was generally the first thing, and I mention a swim because it brings me to the way in which this mere pond illustrated the great ocean which encircles the world. For it is well known that the mighty ocean is belted with currents, the cold water of the Polar seas seeking the warmth of the Equator, and the warm water of the Equator floating—like the Gulf Stream—towards the Pole, floating because (I think I am right) the warm water runs on the surface. ”

“ For an overwhelming proof of tidal efficiency I shall summon the heavens themselves to witness, and I shall point to the stupendous task which tides have already accomplished. As the moon has made and is making tides on the earth, so the earth once raised tides on the moon. ”

“ We have also pools, of which some do strain fresh water out of salt, and others by art do turn fresh water into salt. We have also some rocks in the midst of the sea, and some bays upon the shore for some works, wherein are required the air and vapor of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and cataracts, which serve us for many motions; and likewise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds to set also on divers motions. ”