Thursday, December 10, 2009

Pisces the Fish

Enough 2012 stuff, let's get back to the constellation mythology.

To the left of Aquarius is the zodiac constellation Pisces the Fish. If you thought Aquarius was hard to find, Pisces is even worse. The stars are all so faint that they are only visible from a dark sky away from city lights. There is a ring of stars for one fish that's tied by a string a stars to another fish left and then up from the first fish. It looks like an "L" drawn with the base too long. Where the cord bends, you will find a star called Al Rischa which means, "The Knot of the Band."
-
The story behind Pisces is related to the one about Capricornus. A long time ago the gods were terrorized by a roving monster named Typhon. He was such a horrible creature with 100 dragon heads instead of fingers. When Typhon came around all of the gods hid by changing into animals. Apollo turned into a crow, Diana into a cat, and Venus and Cupid (the gods of love) turned into fish. They jumped into the Euphrates River to escape Typhon but tied their tails together so that that would never be parted.
-
Pisces is part of a very watery part of the sky that includes Aquarius the Water Bearer, Piscis Australis, and the fish-half of Capricornus. I don't believe in astrology but the Sun does go through Pisces from March 12 to April 18. If you were born between those dates, according to an astronomer, you're a Pisces.
-