By Eugène Carrière ‘Meditation’ c1890 {{PD}}
This is the last installment in our Ascendant series–I hope you’ve enjoyed it! All the other signs are available here on the site–just search!
We hear about how the Pisces rising person appears scattered and unfocused to others, but do we notice how often others gather round that individual, as if the very air they breathe contains some kind of creative juice? This sign rising can come across like a font of inspiration, a walking dream (or nightmare!), whatever you’re looking for, or a victim—but from the inside looking out, what they’re seeing is usually the same world you see, just either under gauzy filters or selectively perceived—that means they don’t waste their time on what doesn’t matter to them—and this disconnect from the mundane and every day is interpreted by some as being unfocused. Do they hear the singing of the spheres? Oh yes, they do, but they also hear you nattering on about household matters or politics or what happened at the grocery store—just because they’re not giving you their rapt attention, don’t make the mistake of thinking they’re absent minded or that they’ve checked out—of all the signs, Pisces may most easily hold a great number of things in their awareness at once—it’s all that practice attuned to the Collective that makes it possible.
Since Pisces rising so easily receives (without their consent) the projections of others, most people see these individuals (unconsciously, of course) as either a dumping ground or as idealized, and it’s not uncommon for them to receive the projections of the social sphere, via ancient ruler Jupiter. Having this rising sign is almost like wearing camouflage, with the exception of those times others put all their negatives on the Pisces rising person (that’s not to say, especially in the case of Pisces rising Josef Stalin, that the negative rep isn’t deserved)—then Pisces wants to get lost in a dream just to avoid the nonsense she’s being handed. Since the onlooker has the potential to see such a variety of images, we turn to the Pisces rising individual to consider what she sees from the inside, looking out.
Pisces rising sees the world as an illusion; this can be anything from the concept of Maya to the belief that everybody’s a no-good liar—whatever the beliefs underpinning it (and there will be beliefs, courtesy of Jupiter again) it’s a ‘what you see isn’t what you get’ framework. Pisces may have survived an early environment that repeatedly pulled the perceptual rug out from under her—or, the caretaker was so harsh or punitive that Pisces had to escape to a land of imagination—or caretakers could’ve encouraged creativity to the exclusion of more grounding energies, and Pisces doesn’t know how to get back to Earth. Too, Pisces could’ve been in an environment where being a chameleon, or even invisible, was preferable to being noticed, or where lies were the only shelter. This rising sign can be hyper-sensitive to the surroundings, and so the Piscean reaction may actually be an over-reaction. In positive forms Pisces rising can literally (often through reading bodily sensation) act as a bridge between the seen and unseen, and in any case can tap the Collective and channel the creative, imaginative, and what’s on the cusp of appearing as the latest thing (and unless it’s tech, often beating Aquarius to it).
This rising sign, though, may long to sink her hands in the dirt, to become truly involved in the most solid facets of reality—there will be a desire to become grounded, whether it’s conscious or not—and that’s where incorporating characteristics of the opposing sign, Virgo, comes in. Hands-on dealings with surroundings, plus a requirement to focus on details and accountability, will ground Pisces; becoming involved with what the Earth itself can produce (food, flowers, minerals, materials for construction and creation) can act to anchor Pisces and give the creative vision a solid place to manifest, beyond the purely spiritual or creative act. They are attuned to the Universal Om, the sound of the Cosmos, and that manifests as the material world, something Pisces rising needs to get to know.
Julie Demboski's ASTROLOGY 
When I was a kid, my (Pisces Moon) mom had a rare disease at about the same time we were moving onto our land and building a house, and all my parents could afford to complete was the outer structure of the basement, with the skeleton frame of the rest of the house above it. We lived in a basement in the woods for years (and for a brief period not even in that). Big piece of plywood for a door with a block of wood you turned to lock it. I don’t remember if we had a roof in the beginning. When the building inspectors came my parents would move all our belongings to make it look like no one lived there, and we the kids would go off into the woods.
A girl that lived next door – just barely within sight – told me some years later she and her friend (the other girl that lived next door) thought we were “the weirdest family they had ever seen.” All I could do was nod, though in my head I was wondering how you could think that was a nice thing to say to somebody.
I had one friend come over to the house, one time. I remember helping hook my mom up to her morphine drip feed while he watched. She weakly smiled at me, which is probably my clearest experience and memory of love. He never came back.
I was in our house a few months ago a little after daybreak when I flung open a door and was stopped dead in my tracks by the beauty in front of me. Stacks of wood leaning against the walls, golden light streaming in sideways, a lamp with a face painted on it, old books and trees and snow and tools and angles and lines and patterns and a deer standing there staring at something, all suffused with what seemed like a gentle animating spirit. I couldn’t move for a good minute or two, and later that day retrieved an old camera of mine. I camped out at the same time for several days trying to capture a picture that might get across a sliver of my experience that morning. The guy at the camera place said none of the pictures came out.
Zack, that was beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
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curious as to your take on 29′ pisces rising. thank you.
Since I don’t like addressing single placements outside of a chart, I’ll speak very generally. An Ascendant at 29 degrees will be under some sort of stress or tension perpetually; this may be as straightforward as feeling the need to ‘finish up’ its understanding of the sign energies, or as complicated as meeting missteps related to this energy that have accumulated (with the assumptions both that there is a ‘before’ to the current life to be addressed, as well as the idea that we progress in our understanding of the depth and meanings of a sign energy with the placement of any point or body indicating how far into that sign meaning that energy has made headway). With that latter, I mean that a placement at 1 degree of a sign is ‘new’ in its experience of the sign through the lens of that point or body, while one later in a sign has had experiences with it and has likely developed certain means of coping or responding. Of course, without a chart to place a 29 degree Pisces Ascendant in there’s not much I can safely say, though it might strike me as giving the individual a ‘one foot out the door’ sort of personality, one foot planted in the world, the other in the Cosmos.
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very helpful. this person actually has all four points at 29′ and i know the birth time is right. i read it as one foot in one space and one foot in the other generally; i follow your elaborations, too. i imagine this person tells self often, ‘i feel lost but i am taking action anyway.’ thank goodness for an at home taurus moon and a couple of other well set-up houses. also, the trajectory of growth of the person is quite something to witness, after the life experience gets over a looong hump.
many thanks!
You’re welcome! Thanks for the feedback on how that’s playing out in real life, and especially for the confirmation on the ‘two feet in two different places’ theory–much appreciated!
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