Chapter 49: PISCES on the ASCENDANT THE '1-12' MASK The symbol for Aquarius, the Water-bearer, is 'singular'... thus we needed to search around Greek mythology to find the dual, divergent symbol (i.e. Prometheus & Epimetheus) with which we could usefully explore the 'progress-vs.-regress (from the ascendant)' question. Here, at Pisces, however, we won't have to be so searchful i.e. 'progres-vs.-regress' symbolism – two Fishes, swimming in opposite directions – is 'already there'. If there is a search to be made, it would involve the question: how far along the zodiac's circumference (either by progression or regression) do these Fishes 'desire' to swim? In the prior chapter, we noted that the on the ascendant individual might 'desire' a '30º fly-back' (or, if 'wise', a '300º fly-forward') to his/her 11th house. When our focus slips down to the on the ascendant individual, we have no grounds to assume any kind of flight ('flying fish' notwithstanding)... and, indeed, this individual is often happy to 'bob about' and/or 'slip-slide away'. One of the more interesting aspects of the '1-12' interaction is that both '1' & '12' have links to 'unity'. Even an anti-astrologer should 'get' '1's link to unity... and, anyone who has studied astrology for 15 minutes should have no trouble 'getting' the link from Pisces to 'boundary-less-ness' to all those “we-are-all-one” sentiments. The difference between Aries and Pisces is that the Ram is, in part, a 'heated up' version of the Fishes e.g. Aries is Piscean unity 'under pressure' and/or Aries is Piscean unity 'maculinized' with (potential-soon-to-be-kinetic) 'energy'. Perhaps, then, the 'basic' image for Pisces on the ascendant is less 'fish' and more 'reef' i.e. a place where the waters are warmer than in the ocean depths of the 12th house (but not so hot that the Pisces riser-faller morphs into Eddie Murphy sending up James Brown, “yeahawh!, hot tub!!”... well, at least when Pluto isn't in the vicinity). When, in “The Matrix”, “Neo” waits in the ante-chamber of “The Oracle”, he enounters a child-apprentice who tells him, “there is no spoon”. He could have said the same thing about the Pisces ascendant... “there is no ascendant”. The 'desire' to 'initiate' fleshy life is characteristic of a lower hemisphere sign on the ascendant... we will be convering these over the next 6 articles. The best thing, therefore, that we can say about Pisces on the ascendant is that 'initiative' isn't as 'far away' as it is for, say, Capricorn on the ascendant i.e. the majority of Pisces rising-falling individuals only have to swim as far as their (respective) 2nd house cusp(s) to access their (respective) Aries sector(s)... whereas, say, a Capricorn riser-faller might have to 'reach' his/her (often difficult to 'reach') I.C. before s/he becomes fully aware of the role that Arien initiative plays in heroism. In doing so, however, the Fishes ascendant individual still needs to avoid being smashed on the reef... a-la-Tom Hanks in “Castaway”. For this reason, you might hear the person who is familiar with a Pisces riser- faller admit, “yes, s/he's a bit of a couch potato but, once you get him/her going, s/he can become surprisingly energetic”. By virtue of the Jupiter-Moon conjunction on the cusp of her Aries 2nd house, 'Example 50B' fits this bill. Still, even a 29º Piscean ascendant begets a 1º mystery regards s/he might 'reach' his/her Aries sector... Although it was not nearly so widely seen as “The Matrix” (i.e. it was a very low budget 'indie'), the reader who wants to get a more 'mundane' sense of Pisces on the ascendant would do well to track down a film released at about the same time as the Wachowski's... “Open Water”, a young couple of holidaying reef-swimmers who find themselves abandoned by the boat that, symbolically, could have carried them back ('forward', actually) to the safe harbour of the ?Taurus/Gemini/Cancer I.C.. It is a kind of 'anti-Lawrence-of-Arabia' wherein, Casablanca-like, the troubles of two lovers in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere to go but where the tide carries them don't add up to a hill o' beans. Most of the dialogue is a mutual 'blame-a-thon' that, like the couple themselves, goes nowhere and, as revealed in the final scene, arrives nowhere (… to put it in movie-critic speak, the ultimate look on Blanchard Ryan's face is award caliber; the Academy would, once again, add to their uber-long list of shameful omissions because it couldn't see a Simone-de-Beauvior-mermaid even if it tripped over one... aw, go on, Meryl!! have a crack at that one!! “ John Paul Satre's dingo oit moi boiboi!!”). The big existentialist 'joke' of the film goes: had the couple surfaced a few minutes earlier, everything would have been different... but that's the mystery of life in an existential universe for ya'!!. Yes, dear reader, it is confession time again... I have Pisces on the ascendant (complete with my own existentialist biographical episodes). Although films such as “Open Water” make uber-sense to me, I wouldn't be able to reflect on this from my I.C. until, during my midlife (crisis), I read the opening parts of Erich Neumann's “The Origin and History of Consciousness”. Neumann's chapter on the “Uroboros” illuminates the 12th house's 'feed' into the ascendant and the second chapter on the “Great Mother” illluminates the Fishy 1st house's ongoing ambivalence regards the intentions of the title character i.e. is m/Mother “Great” or “Terrible”? You could say that Neumann's book was a kind of 'boat' that carried me down to my I.C. but, to get there, I would still have to deal with the 'mystery' of initiative... For a man, Piscean 'mystery' isn't very mysterious... it will be an 'embodied' feminine anima-figure. The risk of 'active identification' with the 'raw' anima is an issue that troubles the female of our species (Marilyn; 'Example 50B') but the more difficult problem of '(raw) anima possession' deserves a more extensive discussion. Liz Greene notes that, when under the pump of the 'feminine depths' of '12', many men take a defensive posture... of course, the Freudastrologer would translate Liz's note as “many men, resonating with that mythological creature, the goatfish, regress to their respective M.C.s' ('Example 50C/D')”. Although 'Example 50A's biography is another that reveals this 'goatfish' (or shall we say, a fishgoat-Capra-corn) factor, he, nonetheless, swam the odd anticlockwise developmental lap. Again, the 11/12th's who don't have Pisces on their (respective) ascendants can still get a strong taste of the 'mermaid problem' when Neptune washes its way across their (respective) ascendants... but, of course, more than ½ of this 11/12ths won't live long enough to get the taste. Indeed, with Neptune now in the early degrees of Pisces, it will be 14years before any of the remainder 'begin' to get this taste. Then again, if the individual has a (i) one of the upper hemispheric signs on his/her ascendant (ii) is in the 2nd half of his/her life and (iii) has a good memory, s/he can learn about Pisces on the ascendant by recalling an earlier part of his/her biography. The trouble is, of course, that Neptune leads to the 'sinking' of memory (you won't even need Saturn to 'push' your memories 'down'!!) meaning that we need to add a (iv) “Jane Austen- ish” willingness to write down one's recollections. EXAMPLE 50A ¶ Uran-Sat Frank Chironi CAPRA . Jupiter Venus Sun Mars Sun Merc Pl Nep Symbolicallly, the 'solution' (har, har) to the '(raw) anima problem' is to find ways to bring a mermaid to a 'harbour'... translating this into Freudastrology, we get “after Pisces, comes Cancer”. The fact that Pisces and Cancer (in the 'feminine- anima' sense) are separated by above-ground grazing-(± charging) Taurus speaks of the 'stumble block' problem i.e. how easily can the Piscean 'faller', after tasting the ground of the Bull (on or near the 3rd house cusp), accept the (apparent) move back toward the sea? As was noted in our prelude to this 'Vol.3', we can only establish our (semi)-rounded answer after we have considered 'feeling's opposite function. One reason for beginning with Frank Capra is that so much of his 'libido' (if, dear reader, you conceive 'libido' in a Jungian-general way rather than a Freudian- sexual way, it won't matter here) is dynamically centred near the Taurean 3rd house area. A second reason for beginnning with, arguably (at least, after Charlie Chaplin), the most important figure of 1930's cinema is that, when we 'reach' the Gemini I.C., we encounter that conjunction that history-minded psychological astrologers see as 'key' to the 'birth' of psychoanalysis... the 1896 Pluto-Neptune conjuction in Gemini (many pioneers of depth psychology were born in the last decade of the 19thC and, therefore, have this birth 'signature'). Translating this into Frank's horoscope, we can see an ocean both in front of his 1st person (3rd house) 'mind' and behind it. In our view, this (psychical) 'island-ification' provides us with a ready made reason to forgive Capra for his 'corn'. A number of movie critics have pointed out that the greatness of “Mr.