The Cups of Pisces

The atmosphere of Pisces reminds is like we might experience in a sensory deprivation tank. The water and air are kept at constant body temperature. You loose the sense of the water’s surface and eventually, the surface of the skin. All that you hear is your breathing, heartbeat, digestion and the occasional creak of joints should you move. These sounds do not seem to come from “inside” your body because you have lost the sense of exactly where in space the body is. You loose sense of time as well. The normal session was an hour and, when it was over, I could never decide whether it seemed like a short time or a long time.

The inner world becomes incredibly lucid and immersive. With no external stimuli, the mind uses all of its imaginative power to generate an orienting reality from thoughts alone. This environment presents both challenges and opportunities. One of the uses people make of such tanks is meditation. Without the distractions of light, sound and one’s own body, it can be easy to stay with the moment, with the breath. But, without the grounding of things external to the mind, the latter is free to run wild with imaginary scenarios, not always pleasant. Or, one might simply fall asleep. Another thing one might seek in the tank is creative inspiration. The tank gives the mind a blank, three dimensional canvas upon which to paint anything. Again, an “undisciplined” mind might go into the experience fully intending to entertain some fantasy only to find that the concerns of the day have followed them into the tank and are now one’s only companion. I found this a lot in my own experience.

Not every one likes the experience and some people would not even consider doing it. They imagine claustrophobia or vertigo or even the loss, even temporarily, of a solid sense of reality. This is what makes the sensory deprivation tank such an apt symbol for the atmosphere of Pisces (well that and all the salt water that one floats in).

In Pisces, all of the lessons and challenges accumulated in our journey through the stars are dissolved in the mutable water. Pisces has a reputation for great compassion and insight. This is due to the fact that Pisces, more than any other sign, focuses on the “illusion” of separation between persons, and between people and the “divine source”. It knows that “I am you and you are me”. This mantra guides the mystic and healer but also the delusional tyrant and the gas lighted victim. The disappearance of all boundaries and flooding of everything into e everything else is the hall mark of mystical union and profound mental illness. There is beauty and danger in these waters.

In Tarot, Pisces is represented by The Moon card. The Moon is pictured in such a way as to suggest all of its phases at once. The rays that form a halo around her might well represent the sun in eclipse. She sheds a mysterious and possibly deceptive light upon two towers. These are surrounded by water suggesting the unconscious, undifferentiated state of some primal chaos. We might see these towers as analogous with the pillars seen in The High Priestess card. But while those pillars are clear and distinct by their black and white colors, the towers of The Moon Card are indistinguishable on from the other, both appearing gray in the moon light. Here we see a major theme of the Picean world, an inability to easily distinguish form from content, dream from reality.

In the foreground we see two canines. One a domesticated dog while the other is wild, a fox perhaps. Both dogs bay at the moon, indicating that the cultured and civilized mind of the human responds as strongly to the light of the unconscious as the “wild beast”. Ultimately, even our finest and most elevated sentiments and thoughts are subsumed in the same undifferentiated waters.

Finally, we see a lobster or cray fish emerging from even more water. This creature is thought to represent the most primitive aspects of the self. Climbing out of the water he enters upon a path that winds away into the distance and loose itself in even more water. We begin as blind impulses emerging from the swirl of organic life and to it we shall return. It is interesting that a shell fish is chosen to represent this aspect of the card’s teaching. Shellfish are soft and fragile on the inside requiring heavy and dangerous armor to protect themselves from the world outside. We might say that they are the most “bounded” of creatures as well as the most “unevolved”. Pisces demands that we shed our protective armor and merge with the whole. The lobster perhaps represents the difficulty and danger we face when confronted by this demand.

The scene is both enchanted and more than a little spooky, lacking hope, fear or even meaning. It comments on our journey from one unconscious state to another with a brief moment of romantic but unreliable light to guide us. It does not moralize much about this state of affairs but merely states it plainly. If we are exhausted by the effort it takes to maintain a way of life, a creed, an ego, plunging back into infinite waters might seem like salvation. If we are not prepared to let go of what we have become in our journey through the zodiac and failed to take the lessons learned there, these waters will seem to mock us. We see only loss and unfathomable depth.

Like the last sign we explored, Pisces has two planetary rulers. Her ancient ruler is Jupiter with its round of success and failure, light and dark, life and death. Jupiter is both generous and lawful. He makes sure that everyone has enough, and sometimes more than enough but never allows anyone to have it all forever. Jupiter lays within the boundary drawn by Saturn. His limitless generosity must be expressed within the limitations set by Saturn. The only way he can resolve this is by an impartial dolling out of gain and loss within the domain he rules, the material world in which we live.

Pisces’s modern ruler is Neptune. Neptune is the second of the so called “outer planets”. While the first, Uranus, is all about breaking out of limitations with no plan but escape, Neptune is a dream weaver. Once we have left the tyranny of structure behind, we are free to imagine anything. This sounds good, and it is, BUT … since we are thoroughly beyond any necessary limitation, including ethical considerations, what we imagine might not always be judged sound or good in the clear light of day. Neptune only imagines what could be. He is said to rule over both social work and advertising, drug addicts and drug therapists, visionaries and the mentally ill. He doesn’t much care what dream is projected, so long is it is novel and seems inescapably real. He rules over cinema for example which seeks, by any available device, to convince us that what we are experiencing is absolutely real.

Jupiter and Neptune work well together, allowing us to dream freely without loosing sight of the Terra Firma of reality. Jupiter is a planet of lawfulness but also generosity. Jupiter is represented in Tarot by The Wheel of fortune. The turning of this wheel profits everyone eventually by allowing no one to profit eternally. Everyone and everything will have their time in The Sun, but only on condition that they will one day be returned to the obscurity of the infinite ocean of undifferentiated potential. Neptune, for its part, imagines a future beyond the self. This could be a Utopian dream or dystopian nightmare. Neptune inspires the beatific vision of the mystic and psychedelic voyager as well as the paranoid delusions of the schizophrenic or totalitarian dictator. He makes no moral or aesthetic judgments about these visions but simply deluges us with their immersive atmosphere.

In Tarot, Neptune is represented by The Hanged Man. We see a person suspended upside down by his ankle. The positive meaning of this card is that one removes themselves from the flow of worldly activities and undergoes a severe trial in an effort to attain a vision. He is Odin, who mounts the tree in order to attain a saving vision for his people or Christ on the cross bringing salvation beyond death to all who will follow his way. The negative meaning is of one, who through misadventure or foolishness, finds them self hung up in a bad situation which they will not escape until they attain insight into how they came to be there.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches that between lives we will travel through various intermediate states or “bardos”. As we move through these states we will encounter visions both terrible and beautiful. We are to understand that both are the play of accumulated karma and are, ultimately, produced by our own mind. The ideal situation (according to the book) would be to recognize ALL of these as empty and thereby “dissolve in rainbow light in the heart of the cosmic Buddha”. Failing this, we might choose, or more likely, be moved by desire or repulsion to follow one of these visions. This, in turn, will determine the form of our next incarnation.

If The Hanged Man (Neptune) can understand the vision of The Wheel of Fortune (Jupiter) and the lesson he teaches, namely, that “there is a time to every purpose”, he might have a vision of peaceful surrender to the undifferentiated ocean of existence itself. Failing this, he may dream that there is a way to always be at the top of the wheel. History and experience teaches us, however, that one who tirelessly seeks the top usually ends up beneath the wheel. Whether one is a wealthy miser, a drug addict or one who seeks to dominate the world, the goal is to “stay high”. All of these are escapist fantasies (escapism is one of the negative associations with Pisces). No one escapes the turning of the wheel. We must hang with the Hanged Man and Neptune until we learn the law of Jupiter’s ever turning Wheel of Fortune or we will be caught in a never ending cycle; the euphoric high followed inevitably by the abysmal depression.

As we begin to work through the decanic minor cards and their ruling planets we might notice the unfolding of this drama.

Decan One

0-10 degrees Pisces

Eight of Cups

Decan Ruler Saturn

The World

The first decan of Pisces is ruled by Saturn. As you might imagine, Pisces, with its emphasis on dissolving all boundaries, is not a comfortable place for Saturn with its rules and limitations. In Tarot, Saturn is represented by The World. The World shows us a dancing figure surrounded by a wreath of living green. All living things depend on limitations. Our bodies are limited in their shape and strength. Our minds are limited by the brains they inhabit, our accumulated knowledge, insight and imaginative power. Even the karma accumulated in past lives sets limitations on what we might reasonably expect from this one. Such limitations fall on all things, they are the primary requirement of being a thing as opposed to everything. All of the beauty and terror of life is predicated on these limitations. Saturn lays between Jupiter’s ever turning wheel and Neptune’s limitless vision. In the first decan of Pisces we must transcend the limitations imposed by Saturn to acquire a clear vision of the eternal round of existence.

This decan is represented in the Minor Arcana of Tarot by the Eight of Cups. We see a person walking away into the distant hills. He has neatly stacked his eight cups in the foreground. Looking at the top row of cups we see an empty space, a “missing” cup. This card represents one who, having realized that all cups can hold only a limited amount of the waters of life, leaves to seek the source of these waters.

The Suit of Cups represents both our emotions and the way in which universal spirit becomes individual soul by containment in some form (cup). Sooner or later we all must face the fact that, no mater how grand our cup and no matter how sweet its contents, we will one day reach its’ depths. There we find dry and bitter dregs. The Eight of Cups might be thought to represent one who has become disillusioned by the promises of life and turns their back on it’s gifts, which always come with conditions. Buddhism teaches us that “life is dukkha”. Usually translated as “suffering”, dukkha is more properly understood to mean something like “sour”. The milk of life sours in our cup. Sickness, old age and death are inevitable. The figure in the Eight of Cups has realized this truth and, like so many seekers before, retreats to the mountains to find what is beyond this mortal coil.

What we must accomplish in the Eight of cups is the transcendence of Saturn. We must come to understand that limitation, as the basis of all forms of existence, must also be subject to its’ own rule. Limitation has to stop somewhere. We must finally recognize that our efforts to find the one perfect form is like trying to empty the sea with a paper cup. This recognition transcends limitation by recognizing, and even honoring it. Ultimately it is not the cup we seek, it is that that which ever fills it. But still we need a cup to hold these waters.

Before moving on I want to call attention to one more feature of the Eight of Cups, namely, The Moon which hangs above the hills. This moon, like the one in The Moon Card which represents Pisces as a whole, shows all phases simultaneously. This reminds us that the Moon casts a fickle light. Sometimes in its fullness we see a Stirling landscape overflowing with romance and mystery. Other times it just looks cold with menacing shadows. In her emptiness the sky is dark and we see the billion stars that hold our destiny. Other times we are friendless and alone, surrounded by the endless void of space. When we see beyond all limits, as the Eight of Cups encourages us to do, we might become inspired by a cosmic vision of dynamic unity, but we might just as easily yield to nihilism and hopelessness.

Decan Two

10-20 Degrees Pisces

Nine of Cups

Decan Ruler Jupiter

The Wheel of Fortune

In the second decan we see Jupiter in his ruler ship. Jupiter wants to make all things grand. Here his lawful aspect that takes as much as it gives, is out shined by his generosity. We have passed beyond Saturn’s severe limitation and anything might be possible. Jupiter “eggs on” Neptune’s expansive and immersive visions. Grandiosity is the name of the game here. This sounds great, and it is, but ...

Without the limitation of Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune conspire to weave epic narratives which may or may not be realistic or even wholesome. We swim in an intoxicating and apparently bottomless sea of possibility. Jupiter is with us but, as we have already noted, his more sober face is obscured. We can not easily see the downward movement of Fortune’s Wheel, so blinded are we by the vision of ever expanding possibilities. If we aren’t very careful here, we might become captured by our own visions. But if we can remember the great lesson of Jupiter, that everything that can be, must, we are free to make our wish.

The nine of Cups is the representative card of this decan. Sometimes called the “wish card”, The Nine of Cups indicates that we are finally in a position to enjoy the greatest happiness. We see nine cups beautifully arranged on a curved platform. This foreshadows the rainbow we will see in the final decan. In the foreground, a seated figure with arms crossed and a look of satisfaction, (possibly smugness) seems to contemplate the neat arrangement of circumstances that will allow him to reach his goal. In the eight of Cups we saw one in search of the living waters which fill all cups. Here we have found it and may fill as many cups as we wish.

The Nine of Cups is Jupiter without limits. We are free to wish for anything with the assurance that, not only will we receive it, but, in the great unfolding of things, we already posses it! Still, things are just that, things. Things are, first and foremost, what they are by not being something else. Jupiter promises us all great wealth, friendship and love, delicious, overflowing cups of vibrant life. But, in turn, he also promises poverty, alienation and itchy discontent bordering on misery. In time we will experience ALL things by being EACH. There is no light without shadow.

Nor is it the case that we must learn and accept this truth before our wishes might be granted. Jupiter is generous to the ignorant as well as the wise. The only difference is, that the person who does not take Jupiter’s teaching along with his gifts, might too often find himself surround by mountains of gold and yet see only shit. In the end, you will get every thing – everything you want, every thing you don’t, and many things beside. The stream that fills all cups contains all things. This water will take the shape of any cup we fill. Remember this before you make a wish.

Decan Three

20-30 Degrees Pisces

Ten of Cups

Decan Ruler Mars

The Tower

Like Saturn, Mars is not particularly at home in Pisces. Mars is highly motivated, he wants to conquer and to build. But to do these things, he must plant his foot on solid ground. There is little of this to be found in the depths of Pisces. In Tarot he is represented by The tower. The Tower represents a violent and decisive undoing of all that we have built. Lightning strikes the tower, setting it ablaze. Crowned figures leap from its high windows. But unlike Death, which indicates radical transformation of the self while the rest of the world goes on, The Tower represents the collapse of the world around us, all that we thought solid and unchangeable, while leaving us standing in the debris field wondering where to go. This can be devastating but also liberating. So often we find that we are trapped in prisons of our own devise. We recognize the constraints of our place in the world and reproduce these constraints in our own mind. But, as we have seen through out this essay, Pisces has little tolerance for anything solid and unchangeable. The tower might be a protective fortress or a punishing prison but neither of these can endure forever. Eventually we find ourselves unprotected but also free.

The Tower might seem a strange ruler for the joyous scene we see in the Ten of Cups. We see a happy couple, their children dance and play. Before them is a verdant green world of grass and trees and flowing waters. A modest house protected in the woods. Above them is the rainbow holding 10 cups aloft. They are happy, for the moment. This bucolic scene conceals the essential truth of happiness – happiness, like the rainbow, is fleeting. Unlike the Ten of Pentacles which shows enduring wealth, the ten of cups shows the most sought after treasure of life, bliss. But you can’t take this treasure with you.

To know love and happiness is to know how fleeting it is. Mutability gives love its’ poignancy. The things that bring the greatest joys, making love, raising children, a magnificent feast, a perfect sunset, a crystalline vision - all these things bring excruciating pleasure made all the more so because we know they can not endure forever. Eventually there is the washing up.

Compare the clear blue sky that holds the rainbow to the glowering clouds and lightning of The Tower. They seem a world apart and yet, the violent tempest fecundates the land. There is no growth without destruction, the charred forest bares the sweetest green in time. Unable to endure in Pisces, Mars, through The Tower, does the only thing it can - undo to make. It is his inevitable undoing which drains every cup. Knowing this, drink up! Do not allow the moment to sour in your cup. Trust that there is an ever flowing source which will fill your cup again in time.