Linda Goodman's Sun Signs

by Linda Goodman

  Life with an Aquarian employee can be exhilarating and leave you a little breathless. It’s not that they’re extroverts or flamboyant or practical jokers. Quite the reverse. Many Aquarians are sober, cool, aloof and removed from the mad world around them. The only trouble is that they’ve removed themselves fifty years ahead, and when they rocket back to the present every few days or so, they’ve bagged some unusual ideas from the stratosphere. If you’re a smart boss, you’ll invite the Uranus man to your office for a chat once a week. It could be profitable. Who knows what you might pick up? When he tells you in the proper technical language exactly what’s wrong with that loose screw under the fourth bolt in the new machine that keeps breaking down, you may start to wonder if he has been to Mars and back since you saw him on the elevator yesterday. Especially after you check personnel records and see that he didn’t take a course in science or mechanics at college. Still, the informal conference with him may not always turn out so profitably. He may leave after that little confidential talk with your check for a few thousand dollars for the preservation of Basketball on Indian Reservations—or the Research Society for Investigating Psychic Phenomena in Smyrna. The Aquarian interests are worldwide.

  Chances are this seemingly quiet, brilliant and friendly young man won’t stay around long enough for you to remember his face. The Aquarian male will either begin at the top, work his way up there in a few weeks, decide to go it alone as a composer, photographer, ornithologist, dancer, singer, clown, writer, juggler, athlete, geologist, radio or TV announcer, etc.—or leave you to drift from job to job “looking for himself.” Someday he’ll find himself, too. When he does, he usually stays in one place for a lifetime. Until that moment of truth, however, our Uranus-ruled friends spend a period of time just roaming around, experimenting, learning, looking, investigating, and picking up new friends.

  He’s not sentimental by nature. He has a scientific attitude, but there’s also a strong interest in people, what makes them laugh and what makes them cry. An Aquarian does not lean toward emotionalism (except rarely when he’s in the clutch of an eccentric rush of behavior, perhaps a reaction to some very disturbing personal experience). Unfortunately, his ideas and opinions are often considered irrational and impractical, but that’s just because his critics aren’t tuned to his frequency—half a century ahead. Imagine how your grandmother felt when some Aquarian back in the nineties tried to describe color television and astronauts landing on the moon. That gives you a fair idea of the reception Uranus-ruled people get today when they start in on their theory of a time machine, and how it could be designed with safety valves so a defective switch won’t get you lost somewhere in 1770.

  You may notice the Aquarian employee with a different friend each week or so. It’s difficult for him to be satisfied with any one individual at a time, since his sympathies run into so many channels. It’s common for him, therefore, to give more friendship than he receives.

  The first thing you may have to do is decide which kind of Aquarian you have employed. There’s only one basic Uranus type—but there are two ways in which the Aquarian nature can manifest itself. The first kind is the suave, pipe-smoking, professor type, with a relaxed manner and not a few eccentric habits, who lives in an elegant, but curious apartment full of Egyptian mummies, a tree from India planted in the center of the room, bells from Sumatra, 16th Century tables and early American rockets, plus a mod painting or two and maybe an old airplane propeller hanging over the fireplace. He dines on gourmet foods like roasted grasshoppers and steak tartar with ant’s eggs sprinkled on top. He’s usually brilliant.

  The other kind lives in a tiny room over the subway, eats mustard sandwiches and watches his favorite TV show on the first set ever manufactured. He scatters his inventions all over the corner table, picks out tunes on a dusty piano, and washes the dishes once a week. He is also brilliant. The trouble is, when you get them both out in normal society, it’s hard to tell the difference.

  Both are conscientious workers. Both have a high degree of intelligence, as well as uncanny perception and a fine sensitivity to everyone around them. They each soak up knowledge while appearing to be engrossed in some abstract theory. Their memories are weak but their intuitive powers more than make up for it. They’re extremely odd in their habits, kind and sympathetic, usually very courteous, and they wear unusual combinations of clothing. They’re each loyal, honest and have a strict code which is never violated. Both are bachelors, and they number about five thousand good friends each, ranging from Norman Mailer and Michael Jordan to Stockard Channing and Minnie, the apple lady, who takes numbers. So you see? An Aquarian is an Aquarian. A pipe, a mustard sandwich or a couple of Egyptian mummies between a couple of lotus trees have nothing at all to do with it.

  You can be safe in assuming your Aquarian worker is giving you a full day’s work for his pay. Although he’s probably the real cause of your secretary’s severe skin rash her doctor can’t diagnose or cure, he may end up on the front page of The New York Times someday, being presented with a plaque or something and you can say “I knew him when.” He can also contribute some pretty sane, concrete thinking to your firm which will possibly even result in bringing it up to the Twentieth Century. He’s utterly trustworthy with company secrets, and probably the best customer’s man you can find, because he’ll make friends with your coldest client and wonder why everyone thought he was so tough to deal with. To the Aquarian, he’s just another human with some intriguing aspect to his personality to be uncovered with a few polite, direct questions and a little observation.

  This employee isn’t likely to nudge you constantly for a raise, because money is usually down there on the bottom of his list, along with women. But he’s shrewd enough to know his worth, and it wouldn’t be wise to take advantage of him. He may cause some raised eyebrows, but he’ll seldom cause any scandal or petty office gossip. You won’t find him filled with much intense, driving ambition, yet he has one of the finest minds in the zodiac. If you should decide he knows enough to make him your partner, he’ll never steal the business from you—and he can be a most decided asset, possibly even bring worldwide prestige to the firm someday.

  PISCES the Fish

  February 20th through March 20th

  Child of the pure, unclouded brow

  And dreaming eyes of wonder!

  Though time be fleet, and I and thou

  Are half a Life asunder,

  Thy loving smile will surely hail

  The love-gift of a fairy-tale.

  How to Recognize PISCES

  Hush-a-by lady, in Alice’s lap!

  Till the feast’s ready, we’ve time for a nap:

  When the feast’s over, we’ll go to the ball—

  Red Queen, and White Queen, and Alice, and all!

  Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink,

  Or anything else that is pleasant to drink.

  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 seance, visit an art gallery, walk through 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 pretty 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 at cocktail parties or gala balls. You might even hook a couple of mollies, or an exotic species like Princess Lee Radziwell.

  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 ha
ve nothing against cash. They’ll gladly accept any old coins you can’t use. But they’re more aware than most of us of its temporal qualities.

  Whoever said, “I don’t want to be a millionaire—I just want to live like one,” was truly reflecting the Piscean philosophy. The typical Neptune heart is free of greed. There’s a 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 finds 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.

  When you meet Pisces people, look first at their feet. They’ll be quite noticeably small and dainty (including the men’s), or else they’ll be huge and spread out like a tired washerwoman’s. The Pisces hands will also be tiny, fragile, and exquisitely formed—or else big ham bones that look as though they belong behind a plow. The skin is silky soft; the hair is fine, often wavy, and usually light (though you’ll find a goodly number of brunette fish). Pisces eyes are liquid, heavy-lidded, and full of strange lights. Frequently, but not always, they’re slightly protruding, bulbous and extremely compelling. Some Piscean eyes are simply beautiful. There’s no other word to describe them. The features are elastic and mobile, and you’ll usually find more dimples than wrinkles. Few Pisceans are tall; Neptune bodies are sometimes awkwardly built, but with their extraordinary grace, it’s seldom discernible. They seem to sort of flow along, instead of walking—as if they were swimming across the room or down the street. Sometimes they really are. Where’s the liquid? It may be nearby, and the fish is attracted to it.

  It can be a love of ice 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 Neptunians 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 cafe 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 is 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 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. Pisceans 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 heights of a dedicated professional life, or to stimulants, artificial emotions and false excitement.

  Although Pisceans shrink from competition, the strong pull of Neptune sends many of them, even the shy ones, toward the bright footlights, where they can use their fabulous powers of interpretation to project myriad emotions. In spite of their natural timidity, they often become some of the finest performers in the theater. But only if they fight their distaste for the hard work of grueling rehearsals, and the dullness of the dreary, but necessary years of experience. Sometimes the sharp wounds of the critics leave such a scar on sensitive Pisces souls that a potential Barrymore or Bernhardt retires, when fame was just ahead. Memorization is seldom a problem. The Pisces memory is legendary, although with an afflicted Moon or Mercury they can forget their own telephone numbers.

  To every Pisces, from the fisherman on the wharf to the nurse in the children’s hospital, life itself is’ a huge stage. In the reflective eye of the fish, the entire scene is elusive and fleeting. Knowing this, Neptunians accept most storms with tranquil equilibrium. Despondency, however, is always threatening to swoop down and bring peculiar dreams or weird nightmares which are often precognitive. 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.

  Astrologers who speak of an old soul refer to a soul which has gone through many lives, retaining the wisdom of each. Often, they refer to Pisces, because a life as the fish is either the most difficult obligation a soul can choose—or a chance to reach perfect fulfillment. While Aries represents birth in the zodiac, Pisces represents death and eternity. The fish is the twelfth sign, a composite of all that’s gone before, and his nature is a blend of all the other signs, which is quite a lot to cope with. His surprising ability to organize and concentrate on detail which pops up now and then, as well as his gentleness, reflects his inner knowledge of the lessons of Virgo. His judgment is as fair and detached as that of Libra, and his love of pleasure is also purely Libran. Pisces people have the crazy sense of fun of Cancer, as well as both the Cancerian sympathy and crabbiness. They’re so
metimes full of the Sagittarian outspoken frankness and generosity, as fun-loving and outgoing as Leo, yet as devoted to duty as Capricorn, and often just as envious of social distinction. There may also be a smattering of the Saturnine melancholy. Perhaps more than just a smattering. The fish can be as moody as a Moon child and as happy as a lion. He likes to tease and analyze in Aquarian fashion. He’s often overflowing with Aries idealism and enthusiasm, but usually without the Mars drive. A Pisces person can zip around with Gemini quickness, talk just as fast and think just as cleverly. He can also be as lazy and peaceful as Taurus. He has the clever wit of Mercury and the soft grace of Venus, and he combines it with the mystic penetration of Scorpio, without the Scorpio’s ruthlessness.

  Pisces holds within himself the fondness of debate of all the air signs, the love for 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 undiluted. 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?