Polarity: Nocturnal
Element: Water
Modality: Mutable
Traditional ruler: Jupiter
Keywords: Sensitive and creative
Symbol: ♓ (The fish)
Pisces, a mutable water sign, is the natural healer and artist of the zodiac. It’s known for its ability to infuse any medium with its creativity, imagination, and emotion. Pisces tends toward the poetic. The nonlinear. The impressionistic. And the ethereal. Pisces is malleable and wants to move in every direction in the same way water without a container soaks into every surface it can reach. These qualities can make Pisces adaptable and, at times, a bit gullible.
Pisces is highly fertile and is energized by having as many experiences as possible to pour all that generativity into. Yet, like all water signs, Pisces needs to recuperate the emotional expenditure it puts out. And, like all mutable signs, Pisces might also feel drained from its attention being dispersed too widely.
The symbol for Pisces is two fish swimming in different directions, bound by a cord. This symbol encapsulates the paradox at the heart of this sign. Much like two people rowing with opposite oars in the same boat, Pisces can tire itself out swimming in circles. This whirlpool effect can eventually lead to another dimension. But it can also cause Pisces to feel torn — talented at many things and easily bored by consistency.
As a result, Pisces needs a smorgasbord of opportunities and delights. It does well in environments that encourage its intuition, sensitivity, and imagination. Yet, as a way of protecting itself, Pisces might space out, check out, or peace out when others least expect it. Music, movement, art, creativity, and any healing outlets or endeavors help Pisces channel its ocean of feeling as well as its return to the present.
When distorted, Pisces can end up a martyr or can become unstructured, distracted, and confused. Incredibly empathic and tuned in to the suffering of others, Pisces may get lost in the pain it feels from the world around it, or attempt to pick up every stray cat and broken-winged bird. Pisces can be a salve to many, but often to its detriment. Because of this, it’s vital for Pisces to define and strengthen personal boundaries. Pisces must remember it’s not responsible for healing everyone — or anyone, for that matter. Counterintuitively, once it does so, its ability to give to others is amplified. It’s only when Pisces learns to take its needs seriously that it can share its gifts with the world.
Note: Each sign has its own signature style, and every planet or point has to function through the filter of the sign it’s in. The manner in which this happens depends on all the planets, points, and signs involved. To find out which placements you have in Pisces, download the CHANI app or use our chart tool.
What does it mean to have one of your “big three” in Pisces?
Sun in Pisces
The Sun passes through Pisces from around February 18th to March 20th every year, though the exact dates will vary. Having your Sun in Pisces makes you compassionate, kind, empathetic, and pacifistic. A natural healer, artist, and poet, you are talented at leaving an impression on the world. Lifelines are far from linear for you. You swim to the rhythm of your own streams, flowing along the currents of your life rather than following a set path. You may be known for having a mystical, elusive quality. Your Sun in Pisces makes you a great escape artist, and though others might get mad about it, you can evaporate at a moment’s notice. You’ll always benefit from anchoring into the present and clarifying your boundaries.
Moon in Pisces
Your Moon in Pisces wants to help you live out your life’s purpose by implementing the power of your imagination and compassion in your daily life. Your Moon will imbue the mundane with either a fantastical sensibility or a deeply empathetic one. This is, in part, how you meet your emotional needs and create safety. And while the Moon in Pisces wants to merge with others, it can tend to want to escape as soon as the situation gets sticky. It will be necessary to shore up where you begin and end, as well as practice staying present. Your Moon will most likely do well in environments that encourage your intuition, sensitivity, imagination, and creativity.
Ascendant (aka rising sign) in Pisces
If your ascendant is in Pisces, then Jupiter is your chart ruler. You’ll most likely be known for unending compassion, kindness, and empathy. When distorted, your Pisces ascendant may garner you the reputation of being a martyr — without boundaries, structure, or direction. When you develop discipline, find successful ways to ground yourself in the world, and resist the temptation to swim away at the slightest change, your creative and intuitive abilities can become more potent and supportive.
What it means to have other planets and points in Pisces
Mercury in Pisces
Mercury is in both its detriment and fall in Pisces, which means it experiences difficulty in doing its job. Pisces is concerned with the big picture, not the individual strokes it takes to paint it. Here, Mercury can struggle to collect facts or keep focus, since there will always be something interesting — and distracting — for it to swim away with. With this placement, you’ll need to find ways to channel your creativity toward your aim.
Venus in Pisces
In Pisces, Venus is exalted, which means it’s not only supported but utterly magnetic and radiant here. It will attract all manner of connections. That being said, people with relationship wounds will often make you their savior, object of affection, or obsession. It may be hard setting boundaries with others, but once you do, you can use your power of healing, compassion, and creative imagination toward untold ends.
Mars in Pisces
Mars in Pisces takes courageous action when fueled by emotions. Much like a surfer on a wave, Mars here knows both when to float with the currents, and when to use its total attention and energy for a meaningful goal. Like a DJ cutting tracks together, or a film director splicing images into a larger tapestry of meaning, Mars in Pisces is keen to bridge the waters of sentiment with a sharp, clear style.
Jupiter in Pisces
Jupiter is at home in Pisces, so when Jupiter is in this sign, it knows no bounds. Here, Jupiter easily generates opportunities, thanks to its overflowing abundance. Though this placement opens up incredible opportunities for you, you may have difficulty sorting through which to take on, and an even harder time following through. The key is to ground yourself, clarify where you start and end, and make a choice based on what’s most resonant for you. When you do, blessings will find you wherever you are.
Saturn in Pisces
Saturn in Pisces demands dedication, boundaries, and persistence. Here, the clearer the container for your artistic and spiritual pursuits, the better. When you consistently commit to these practices, you shore up your inner authority and belief in yourself.
Chiron in Pisces
With Chiron in Pisces, one of your greatest life lessons is learning the difference between service and servitude, sacrifice and martyrdom, and selflessness and self-sabotage. Your task is to trust that you are here, you are embodied, you are tethered to this wondrous and weary earth — and you are no less holy for it.
Uranus in Pisces
Uranus loves to innovate and disrupt. In Pisces, it brings breakdowns and breakthroughs in the realms of intuition, fantasy, imagination, and mysticism, as well as radical disruption and innovation to religion, spirituality, and morality.
Neptune in Pisces
Neptune has been in Pisces since 2011 and will remain here until 2026. The last time Neptune was in Pisces was between 1847 and 1862. In Pisces, Neptune brings its themes of idealism, illusion, and fantasy to spirituality, imagination, transcendence, and mysticism. While it strengthens our ability to co-create and transform dreams into reality, it can also blur the boundary between fact and fiction. At its worst, this placement can heighten our desire for escape hatches, magic cure-alls, and oblivion.
Pluto in Pisces
The last time Pluto was in Pisces was 1823, and it won’t be back in Pisces until 2043. No one on the planet right now has this signature. But if we reflect on past and future generations of Pluto in Pisces, they are people who transform themselves and the world through creative expression, idealism, and their relationship with nature.
North Node in Pisces
With the North Node in Pisces, there’s an ethereal quality about you — a sense that you perceive more than what is visible in the room. You likely receive downloads that are too slippery to convey to other people. At times you may feel so absorbent that it’s tempting to numb out rather than sort through concrete facts of a situation. So grounding yourself in the here and now is a must. The labor of discernment, of combing through and identifying your feelings, can help you find anchorage.
South Node in Pisces
With the South Node in Pisces, you are growing the capacity to trust. To know, on the deepest of levels, that you are already whole, worthy, and enough. Your need for control can often feel at odds with your drive to abandon your systems altogether. A path of balance will be more sustainable in the long term.
MC in Pisces
When your MC (or midheaven) is in Pisces, you shapeshift into many roles in this life. In the public arena, you play the empath, the intuitive, the dreamer. You gravitate toward vocations that provide escape for yourself or other people such as music, video games, TV, or film. Your skillset is fluid, and you’d do well in positions that require some malleability. Your ideal vocation will give you space to meander, to deviate, and to trust your inner instinct. Not only that, it should enrich these processes, adding texture and intrigue to your imagination, rather than restraining it.
IC in Pisces
Your upbringing may have exposed you to faith, escape, and fantasy if your IC (or imum coeli) is in Pisces. Your forebears include poets, preachers, musicians, and witchy workers. On the one hand, you may have experienced inspiration and spirituality from a young age. On the other, your caregivers might not have been the most involved parents at the PTA meeting. You have power in deciding which cups to pass on, and which to drain, rewriting the script as you choose.
DC in Pisces
You gravitate to those who encourage your softening if your DC (or descendant) is in Pisces. While you respond to life with practicality and structure, you have a knack for finding the folks who know how to dissolve your protective armor. Often, they’re intuitive enough to read your subtle body language. Their compassion coaxes your emotions to release.
Affirmation for Pisces
Being clear about what I want and need is how I learn to take care of myself. Honoring my boundaries is how I can share what I have in excess and keep what I need for myself.
Want to learn more about the signs in the zodiac? Click the links below.
Aries | Taurus | Gemini | Cancer | Leo | Virgo | Libra
Scorpio | Sagittarius | Capricorn | Aquarius | Pisces
Then download the CHANI app on iOS or Android for additional readings.