Virgo and Pisces

… . . no one can fly unless the fairy dust has been sprinkled on him.

The Fish were born under a double feminine influence—the feminine Sun Sign of Pisces, ruled by the also feminine planet, Neptune. Virgo is also a feminine Sun Sign guided by Mercury, a masculine planet. Right away, you can see that the Virgins are one up on the Fish, in the sense of active or positive (i.e.: masculine) initiation. Not that Pisceans think they’re missing anything, however. All Fish consider active initiation an energy-depleting and tiresome thing at best, and they’d just as soon not be burdened with the astrological necessity to actively initiate anything in particular. So they’re quite content to leave Mercury’s masculine vibes to Virgo.

The Fish and the Virgin represent the 7-7 Sun Sign Pattern of opposition. It’s not so much that Pisces and Virgo are at war with one another, but that each of them possesses certain qualities the other (if only on a subconscious level) lacks, envies and would like to acquire.

To begin with, Virgos possess the talent of mental card indexing. They can sort out, efficiently file and quickly locate, when necessary, detailed data on all manner of people, situations, worries, problems and frustrations. Everything is kept neatly recorded. Virgo checkbooks are nearly always properly balanced (allowing for the exceptions that prove the rule, such as those Virgins who have Pisces Moon Signs or Ascendents). Virgo payments of bills are usually made when due, they arrive at work on time, or a few minutes early, obtain the proper number of hours of sleep per night (when they aren’t constipated or have insomnia from fretting), write their courteous bread-and-butter letters promptly, keep their clothing and personal possessions in a more or less systematic order—and make sure their cars, their teeth and so on are checked regularly for any possible deficiency. They can spot ring-around-the-collar a block away, and they tend to carefully measure both the bleach and the detergent in the washing machine, therefore avoid using too much or too little. They seldom get parking or speeding tickets—and never spend excessive amounts of energy in counterproductive activities such as daydreaming, wool gathering, relaxing and taking it easy. (Neither are they famous for spending excessive amounts of money.)

The typical Piscean is the veritable opposite of all the foregoing. As far as precise order is concerned, most Piscean personal belongings resemble a Picasso abstract. As for the neatness of their dwellings, whether they live in one room, an apartment, a house or a mansion, the residence of your typical Fish is about as neat as a Salvador Dali canvas—utter chaos. A lovely, charming and rainbow-streaked mess of total confusion. But only in relation to tidiness. Beyond that, there’s always a contradictory, yet unmistakable feeling of peace and quiet which is hypnotically inviting, in the very midst of Piscean disorder. Now and then, of course, you’ll run across a Neptune person like a male bachelor Fish I know in Colorado, whose house is always ready for the photographers from Better Homes and Gardens to pop in the door unannounced—but he has several planets in Virgo, and a Virgo Ascendent. Astrology still claims that most Pisces homes are like a tangle of colored ribbons—a crazy crochet of warmth, coziness, tea and sympathy, and casual disorder, not carefully dusted in each and every nook and cranny. Who cares about a few specks of dust in nooks and crannies? (The Fish have lots of odd sized secrets tucked away in their nooks and crannies, and may not want them disturbed by Virgo’s feather duster.)

Actually, all those Virgo qualities mentioned in the last paragraph are not habits the Fish would care to acquire—consciously. Deep down inside, however, they’re aware they could benefit by a little less daydreaming and relaxation, a little less procrastination, a little more mental tidiness and emotional neatness—whether involving their cars, their teeth, their checkbooks or what-have-you. They just don’t like to admit it. Nevertheless, they do sense it, which is why the Fish are fascinated by Virgo. That is, they’re fascinated by the opposite sex of their opposite Sun Sign of Virgo, but they may feel a little nervous around Virgins of the same sex, who seem to project an unspoken challenge of competition with Pisces. There’s nothing in this world that makes a Pisces man or woman more fidgety and uncomfortable than to feel that he (or she) is expected, in some manner, to compete with someone. That’s an activity they happen to feel is counterproductive, as well as time and energy wasting—competing. Because they were both born under Mutable Signs, Virgo and Pisces often surprise each other by managing to communicate very well together, even when they are competing, despite the vast differences in their polarized personalities. Also, they’re both somewhat reticent and reserved with strangers.

It wouldn’t be fair (what is Libra doing in here? Maybe to help us make peace between the Fish and the Virgin?). As I was saying, it wouldn’t be fair (Libra nods, with a beaming smile of approval) to fail to point out that the Fish also possess qualities the Virgins would benefit by imitating—and it’s a safe bet that Virgo, unlike Pisces, is aware of this on a conscious level. Virgo minds are so acute and alert, there’s almost nothing left down below in the subconscious. They drag all their thoughts and feelings up from the basement, so to speak, and check them over periodically, to make sure there’s nothing being overlooked, neglected or mislaid. So the Virgins are usually painfully conscious, not only of a vague envy they feel around Pisces, but also what causes it. It’s the Neptune talent for daydreaming and wishing, then making those dreams and wishes happen by some sort of strange Neptunian alchemy—from causing a parking space to magically appear at the mall, to becoming happily mated or winning the Nobel Peace Prize, sometimes the Pulitzer. Virgo frowns. Well, but how do they do it? Sprinkle faerie dust on themselves?

Your guess is right on the button, Virgo—as your estimates frequently are (which the good Lord knows they should be, the way you analyze and re- analyze all possibilities before you hazard a guess). The Fish cause their dreams and wishes to manifest into reality by the simple process of continually affirming their faith in the essential goodness of the all (the mass, collective subconscious) and in the eternal wisdom of uncomplaining patience. (Virgos are not slouches in the area of patience patterns either, but one wouldn’t call it uncomplaining patience.) I hate to tell you this, Virgo, but they do it by not fussing and worrying their dreams and wishes into fading away into the shadows of futility. As a matter of fact, these Neptune traits just happen to be the chief ingredients of faerie dust.

Virgo is admiring and interested, but still puzzled. Where may one buy a tad or so of this faerie dust, and is it frightfully expensive? You just goofed it. Sorry. I know how you hate to goof. But you did. First off, one is either born with a supply of faerie dust, or one is not. If you are (as Pisces is) you’re fortunate—but then it can be unfortunate too, because in possessing an invisible supply of faerie dust, one sends out a certain color in one’s aura that’s easily detected by the baddies and nasty little entities in the astral, and which invites them to plague you with trillions of all sorts of problems to test your worth. They also keep trying to steal your faerie dust from you. It’s the ancient metaphysical law of Light attracting darkness, you see. Second off, if you weren’t born with it, obviously you’ll have to manage to somehow acquire a dram or so of it, at least for emergencies—and the surest way to insure that you won’t find any to obtain, is to ask the price and worry about the expense. As soon as you start that picky-picky money mantra, the stuff disappears, faerie dust being very contrary (almost as much so as faeries themselves, who can be simply unbelievably contrary when they’re in a mood for mischief). The best way to obtain faerie dust is through a close association with a Pisces friend, business associate, relative, lover or mate.

Now, I must be honest and perfectly factual (or Virgo would never forgive me) by confessing that, although the Fish are amply supplied with magical faerie dust, and although they do usually refuse to allow their dreams and wishes to fade into the shadows of futility, they are at the same time occasionally guilty of submitting to nameless apprehensions, fears and timidity. Don’t blame me for confusing you, Virgo. Pisces is a Sun Sign of duality, you know. Oh, one of those? Yes. One of those. Pisces is represented by two Fish, not one—and worse yet, the symbolic Fish are swimming in different directions. It’s not at all easy to be pulled in different directions simultaneously. It would drive you, as a Virgin, absolutely crackers to be tugged in two directions at once. You wouldn’t know which route to analyze first. So you really should give all the Fish you know your sympathy. Goodness knows they’re always passing out sympathy to everyone else in such a constant flow, they can certainly use some themselves, to pick up their own spirits now and then. In short, and I hope Virgo forgives our slang, duality can be a drag.

Take, for example, the Piscean sensitivity. The Fish are startlingly perceptive and precognitive. They can read your mind and your heart before you say a single word. Whether you’re a friend or a stranger. They pick up your vibes and soak up the emotional joys and sorrows, elations and depressions of everyone within a few feet of them. Taken in one direction, that’s a blessing. It makes the Fish compassionate, wise, understanding and psychic. Taken in a different direction, it can be a curse. The ability to be sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, whether in the same room or at a distance, brings with it a constant danger, for a sound astrological reason. The gift of being sensitive or psychic, is never present (including all Sun Sign people who have sensitive planetary configurations in their birth charts) without being accompanied by the twin trait of a vivid imagination—and the potential of exceptional creativity. Even though the latter isn’t encouraged in childhood, therefore later grows dormant, it is infallibly latent in the Piscean personality (or in the personality of any sensitive person of whatever Sun Sign). And so the sensitive Fish must always be on guard against allowing the strong imaginations and creative talents they all possess to some degree (whether they’re aware of possessing them or not) to distort the images they are constantly receiving from others, to cloud their impressions with possibly misleading negative tones and shades. Imagination, like fire, is a good servant, but a bad master.

There’s little chance of Virgo permitting such distortion. Therefore, the Virgins can be very helpful to Pisces, and the opportunity to be helpful is enticing to Virgos, being as it is, their main mission on Earth. They can courteously and gently point out to the Piscean where a certain image, impression or idea may not be quite as negative as the Fish first thought, assisting the Neptune-ruled to bring out all the bright colors of their ideas, after retouching the negative with reality (a reality that’s nearly always more hopeful than might appear on the surface). By so doing, the most marvelous thing occurs to Virgos! They come away from a comforting, solacing couch session with a Fish (who needs comfort at times desperately, the same kind Pisces so freely and humbly gives to others) feeling rather happy and cheerful and good inside. Then suddenly, in the middle of the night, Virgo notices that his (or her) hands seem gritty. In fact, the Virgin’s whole body, from head to toe, feels … well, not quite squeaky-clean and shiny. How could that be, when the nightly shower was taken before climbing in bed? So Virgo hastens into the bathroom to wash his (or her) hands, and lo and behold! A miracle has occurred. The Virgin’s hands are covered with a glittery, sparkling, fine substance, like little starflakes. Faerie dust. It rubbed off from the Fish. And it didn’t cost a penny. Now Virgo can become a touch magical too, like Pisces—and won’t it be grand fun? All because of giving to a sad and lonely Fish just a bit of the same kind of compassion and genuinely interested listening the Fish gives so generously to others, and needs so very much himself (or herself). That’s how you obtain faerie dust. They don’t sell it in stores.

Now that Virgo has his (or her) tad of the mysterious Neptune elixir, it must be remembered what will inevitably happen next. Just as with Pisces, the Virgo aura will instantly be streaked with that strange color which signals to the imps of the astral that here is one who hides a secret stash of faerie dust—and before long, Virgo will face the Piscean kind of testing, becoming, like the Fish, entangled in the skeins of all the various heartaches, intrigues and complex problems of friends, loved ones, neighbors and strangers. Glorious! Pisces could give Virgo no gift more welcome than this. Just imagine. A hundred new worries to analyze and solve efficiently, as only a Virgin can. You see? Virgo has already delightedly danced over to the desk, and is promptly, as usual, writing a bread-and-butter thank you note to Pisces.

Dear Fish … … . thank you so much for the enchanting F.D. Are you sure I don’t owe you something for it? You really musn’t give everything away, as you do. It’s generous and sweet of you, but remember that a penny saved is a penny earned. At any rate, I just had to express how grateful I am for all the new problems you’ve allowed me to share with you and your friends. No one has given me such a marvelous gift since the Christmas I was three years old, and Santa left a huge Tinker Toy set under the tree! It took positively months to figure out exactly where all the pieces fit together. That was the happiest time of my whole life, until now. I do hope you’re feeling better since our little talk. I’ll drop by in a few days, to see if there’s anything you need, any way I might be of further help. Thank you again.

Very truly yours
The Virgin

P.S. I just realized how exciting it was, back then, when I believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, druids, leprechauns, elves and wishing stars. You’ve made me remember my old dreams, even made me realize they might actually be worth something, even after all these years. Maybe I’ll clean them up a bit. They must have accumulated a dreadful amount of dust all this time in the basement. I hope none of them are broken. Of course, I suppose I could glue them carefully. Do you suppose anyone will notice? I must close now, because it’s nearly two and one half minutes till midnight, and I set the alarm for five a.m. since I have to be at work by eight in the morning. Do you know what I might do? I just might take the day off tomorrow, relax and dig into some books I’ve been wanting to read. My God. That F.D. is powerful. Really quite intoxicating. It’s probably healthy too. I’ll bet it even aids regularity, and may eliminate my nervous indigestion. You simply must let me pay you something for it, or at least allow me to make a contribution to your favorite charity. I’d feel terribly guilty about accepting it otherwise.

Virgo Woman and Pisces Man

He would keep no girl in the Neverland against her will.

I know this sounds weird and unorthodox, but the first thing this man and woman may discuss together when they’re initially attracted to each other is … well, it’s not very romantic, but they may become involved in a thrilling conversation about their feet.

It’s an interest they have in common. Their foot problems, their favorite podiatrist and the difficulty of finding the right shoes. At least one or two, if not all three of these topics. Pisces, you see, rules the feet. Every Sun Sign is aligned to a particular part of the body, since men and women were formed in the image of our co-Creators (which is, by the way, why medical astrology is so unerringly accurate and helpful, as Hippocrates wisely knew). Because Pisces is associated with the feet, shoes and foot idiosyncrasies are intriguing subjects to the typical Fish. Likewise to the typical Virgin who is also concerned with feet. Most Virgo women have a slight obsession about practical shoes.

If you’ve ever wondered what ever happened to the little shoemaker or the cobbler on the corner, he’s still there, tapping away with his last and tiny hammer, taking care of his Pisces and Virgo customers (and a smattering of Cappies). Virgos ordinarily do not purchase their footwear casually. They expect the shoes on which they spend their perfectly good money to be serviceable and worthy of repeated repair, not the kind of fragile, fancy booties that fall apart after you’ve worn them only a decade or so. There are, naturally, some female Virgins who escape this odd Virgo quirk, but most of them have what amounts to a fetish about footwear. They may scrimp and save on clothing, furniture, pleasure, recreation and luxuries, but when it comes to health food, medicine, toilet paper and shoes, they’re amazing. Their bathroom cupboards overflow with the softest brand of squeezable toilet tissue (which some of them buy by the case) and Ivory soap galore. The shelves of their medicine chests groan with a drug store-sized inventory of bottles and jars and bandages, their kitchen cabinets are well stocked with vitamins, their refrigerators contain so many boxes of alfalfa and wheat sprouts, they resemble a frozen greenhouse—and their bedroom closets frequently are bulging with shoes. It’s not that they’re extravagant (Virgo extravagant? Heaven forbid!) and it’s not that they buy that many pairs of shoes, but they save them till they accumulate alarmingly, have them repaired and keep them for their children and grandchildren, whose feet they measure carefully every year in the hope their foot size ends up the right size to wear the hand-me-downs.

A Virgo woman will be delighted that the Pisces man is so interested in listening to her Cinderella slipper stories. As for him, he’ll be likewise delighted that she’s so clearly fascinated by his own foot fables. The Fish is so kind about listening to everyone else, it’s a rare treat to discover someone who enjoys listening to him for a change. He’ll snuggle closer (I told you at the beginning of this chapter that the Neptune-ruled can be sneaky and devious. He has romantic strategies in mind related to more than her toes) … so, he’ll snuggle closer, unobtrusively, and tell her how, when he walks on the beach barefoot, even in summer, he always has to come in afterwards and warm his feet before a fire, because they’re so chilled … how humiliated he is sometimes, because his feet are so uncommonly large (or so uncommonly small, for a man—Pisces feet are either huge or tiny, never in-between). She’ll sympathize with him charmingly. Then he’ll tell her about the time he earned money to pay for his college tuition by posing anonymously as a male model for Dr. Scholl’s bunion pads … . she’ll laugh her silvery bell Mercury laugh … he’ll move a little nearer, encouraged by the sudden sparkle in her clear Virgo eyes, and confide that his feet always get cold at night, so that sometimes he has to get up out of bed to look for a hot water bottle as a foot warmer, or plug in the heating pad. She murmurs gently, visibly trembling, that it’s the same way with her too, sometimes at night, no matter how many blankets and quilts she’s sleeping under. It’s a common complaint, I suppose, he says, his voice very gentle and soft now, of people who sleep alone. I’m sure lovers never have that problem. They keep each other warm all night … all over.

That will usually win the first battle for the Fish. Not even a detached, cool Virgin can resist melting at those words, despite all her inhibitions and reservations. But only, of course, if by then she’s known him and secretly wanted him for a respectable length of time. Never on the first night. Well, almost never. The lure of the male Fish can be unexpectedly seductive, especially to a woman born under the opposite Sun Sign. Their opposed natal Suns do exactly what they are meant to do—attract, in the manner of bar magnets. Buy a pair at any hardware store, try them and see. When you hold them with their two positive or their two negative sides facing, try as you will, they won’t go together. Ah! But when you reverse one, so the two bar magnets are facing in polarity or opposition (negative-positive) they join and come together with a powerful rush, no matter how hard you try to prevent it. Actually, buying a pair of bar magnets and experimenting with them in her spare time (of which she has little enough usually) would be a very practical investment for a Virgin in love with a male Fish. It will be a dramatic demonstration to her of what she can most likely expect when she’s alone with this man, and they drift into a conversation about feet. It won’t protect her from the inevitable, once he’s already wrapped himself around her heart—but at least she’ll be prepared, and being prepared is only common sense. (Virgos are very big on being sensible.)

The sexual empathy between the Virgin and the Fish is empathetic indeed. These two are natural lovers. Even with an adverse Luminary aspect between their nativities, they certainly won’t turn each other off. They’ll be more likely to discover that they quarrel about everything but lovemaking. Polarity chemistry is potent and powerful. The sheer delicacy of the sexual approach of the Pisces man will cause his Virgo woman to respond fully, as she would never respond to a more aggressive lover or husband. There’s something tender and poetic about his Neptune desire that calls irresistibly to the ethereal in her Virgin heart, while her Virgo quietness, combined with her earthy passion both surprises and excites the Piscean man, arousing all his secret longings to find, through sexual union with the woman he loves, some beautiful dream of ecstasy he faintly remembers … . that’s always haunted him, like a familiar melody from the past. They are both instinctively unselfish in making love, so that their sexual blending is seldom a demanding thing, but a gentle giving that’s mutually fulfilling and peaceful, supported by a genuine affection and a willingness to consider each other’s personal needs concerning intimacy and the physical expression of the depth of their love.

These two may not, however, be quite so empathetic and blissful when it comes to sharing, not just their hearts and bodies—but their money. He likes to share his, she may be reluctant to share hers. Now and then you’ll discover a rare stingy Fish or an overly generous, extravagant Virgo, who looks upon finances casually—but the number of these you find won’t be staggering. It’s possible that she may think he’s impossibly immature and careless concerning material matters, and she won’t hesitate to criticize him when she believes he’s been improvident by wasting cash on ventures that lack, in her opinion, a sound foundation—or simply giving money away to friends, relatives and neighbors who may never be able to pay him back. (He doesn’t expect them to, really. Fish seldom loan money—they give it.) He may privately feel that she’s overly concerned about money, and her constant worrying about it, nagging him (and herself) about financial security may cause the soft shine in her eyes to disappear for him, her voice will sound less like a silvery chime, more like the tolling of warning bells of a restriction of his freedom to be himself.

The most noticeable flaw in an otherwise nearly perfect Virgo woman is her tendency to be unduly critical, and to nag the man she loves. This is most unfortunate, since the one flaw in the feminine sex this man truly can’t bear—is nagging. He’s frustrated when he feels he’s failed her in some way—in any way at all—and he may be tempted to either retaliate by becoming snappy and cross, constantly irritable—or escape the pain in other ways. Like falling into the habit of stopping in at a bar on the way home, telling his foot fables and other stories to strange but sympathetic ears, then swimming home, because he’s not quite steady on his feet. Or he could turn to the dangerous, deadly escape of drugs. Perhaps retreat into daydreams, until the intimate communication they once shared fades into boredom and the silence between them grows into a high wall of mutual bitterness and resentment.

Since the Virgo woman so values common sense, it would be sensible for her to decide, before it’s too late, that she fell in love with this man because he had a magic way about him of taking her sailing off to his magical, secret Neverlands, where all kinds of dreams she’d love to dream if she thought they might possibly come true—do come true. Or at least, he makes them seem almost as if they really might, if they both believed hard enough and long enough. It’s not very sensible, she must admit, to unthinkingly, without meaning to do so, kill the very enchantment in him that once moved her to tears of tenderness. Neither the loss of money nor the accumulation of it is worth that. Too much criticism can rob the male Fish of self-respect, always a sad thing to do to Pisces. She should remember all the wonders about him that first made her love him, and forget the rest.

As for him, he’ll have to realize that keeping secrets from her can hurt this woman deeply. Earth Signs feel everything deeply. Sometimes, Pisces men keep secrets for no particular reason, except that they get into the habit of doing so with strangers. But she’s not a stranger. She’s the one with the clear, sparkling eyes, who understands things about him no one else ever did—and who listens to him with affectionate concern, when no one else will. Most of her worrying is because she wants him to be happy. Besides, when he faces the truth, the Fish must agree that he could benefit from a little looking after by a Virgin who really cares about his future and his peace of mind. He’s not very talented at looking after his own best interests, when you really analyze it. It causes her great inner anxiety when a relationship seems to have no clearly defined, purposeful goal. It wouldn’t hurt for him to graciously allow her to guide the ship for a while, until they’ve passed the storms that threaten. Later, she’ll be happy to join him in pursuit of Neptune’s mysteries and beckoning waterfalls, when she feels safe and secure—but she’d rather they paid cash for their tickets, instead of charging them on a credit card, and going deeper into debt.

Because both Virgo and Pisces are Mutable, they’ll enjoy traveling together, talking together—and in general, they’ll communicate very well. The chances are they’ll talk over their troubles and disagreements, analyze them and find a solution. When everything is smooth and happy between them again, and the old trust has returned, they’ll exchange gifts on the anniversary of their first toe talk. She’ll give him a pair of sentimental sandals, for walking on the beach in wet sand … and he’ll give her a couple of bar magnets in a tiny box … to remind her, in his subtle Neptune way, of what she’ll be missing if he should ever leave her because she feels so restless and unhappy in Neverland with him that it breaks his heart, and he’d rather go away than make her unhappy. She’ll probably get the message, as soon as she opens his small gift. After all, she is a Virgo. Her mind is alert and quick. And she’s sensible. She knows that a heating pad under the quilts and blankets is a lonely substitute for four warm and cozy feet—and twenty intimate toes, that have grown so close over the years, only a touch is needed … . to communicate any wish.

Virgo Man and Pisces Woman

Peter, she asked, trying to speak firmly, what are your exact feelings for me?

Those of a devoted son, Wendy.

I thought so, she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme corner of the room.

It’s probably a little sneaky of astrology to give away some of Neptune’s secrets, but if it helps the Virgo man understand his female Fish better, they’ll both be glad of it someday. You see, this woman who behaves most of the time like an angelic little girl who’s afraid of being scolded—and is ever so grateful for the smallest kindness, this woman who’s so timid and tentative, so uncertain and dependent, needing his strong shoulder to lean against—knows exactly what she’s doing when she thus make-believes. (Pisceans are all quite expert at make-believe, you know.) She is Eve personified, Nature’s gift to the male sex, wrapped in an appealingly feminine package, tied with delicate pink ribbons.

She had an excellent reason for moving to the extreme corner of the room in reaction to his detached reply to her question. There’s always a method to her madness, a clever strategy behind her sensitivity. We’ll explain her secret reason for sitting in the corner like Little Miss Muffet later. It’s important to first give the unsuspecting Virgo man some idea what’s inside this dainty package, tied with the delicate pink ribbons. That way, he’ll be better able to cope with her corner craftiness.

Twelve women. That’s what he can expect to find when he cautiously (Virgos do everything cautiously) unties those ribbons. This sweet, deceptively submissive lady is a whole harem, all by herself. If he’s been memorizing his astrology lessons, like a proper Virgo, he’ll remember that her Pisces Sun Sign carries the seeds of all the other eleven signs around the karmic wheel. That’s why she’s such an exquisitely fine listener (which, by the way, is how she first enticed him). She listens well because she’s wise. She knows. She’s been there—karmically—and since all Pisceans are usually in rather intimate contact with their subconscious selves, she remembers well many things she hasn’t even come close to actually experiencing in this present incarnation. So naturally, she’s a good listener. Why shouldn’t she be? There’s not a single thing anyone on this Earth can nervously confide in her or confess to her sympathetic ear that will cause her to so much as flicker an eyelash in surprise. If one of her twelve karmic memories doesn’t comprehend, a couple of the other eleven will.

Pisces men are much the same, but since this is a double feminine influence (feminine Sun Sign, feminine ruler, Neptune) the female of the species is definitely trickier than the male in the technique of employing feminine wiles. That’s just good, sound astrological common sense. A Virgo man can surely recognize that, after a bit of meditation. He should also be able to see why it is that she confuses his orderly mind and emotions with her chameleon charisma. When she (rarely) becomes aggressive, and unnaturally (for her) spoiled and demanding, shocking him out of his Earth Sign complacency, it’s the small sliver of Aries in her. When she’s occasionally being stubborn, and won’t budge an inch (even more stubborn than he is, and that’s pretty stubborn) it’s the strain of Taurus in her nature that’s causing her mind to be temporarily set in cement, firmly rejecting all his considerable powers of gentle persuasion. Then, when he finally manages to chip away the cement with his quiet Virgo charm, she turns as flighty as a Gemini butterfly, so changeable, she makes swift, wing-footed Mercury himself (Virgo’s foster ruler) seem slow and deliberate. Then she weeps sadly, her tears turning without warning to rich, warm laughter—first snapping at him, then fussing over him like a mother hen—decidedly moody. She’s only revealing the Moon Maiden in her soul. (It was likely during her Cancerian phase that he first began thinking of her maternally, so his answer of a devoted son to her query about his feelings for her can be excused.)

Also, there was that strange week when she arrogantly expected him to wait on her hand and foot because she’d sprained her ankle, and was too proud to admit the very real pain she was feeling. (She was under her Lioness influence.) Then once, for a whole month, she was simultaneously so humble and courteous, yet so critical of his every word, he felt vaguely as though he was gazing into a mirror of himself. He was. It happened to be the Virgo scene of her twelve-act drama.

When he drove over to show her, with shy pride, the old Model ? Ford he’d fixed up like new, after long, weary hours of tinkering with the engine and body work, she couldn’t decide if she adored it or hated it. First she wanted to go for a ride in it, then she said it depressed her because it was black, and he should have painted it some cheerful color, like maybe mauve, to match her new dress. (She was feeling a brief breath of her Libra balancing act.) Once when he fell asleep and forgot to call her when he promised he would, she got an unlisted number the next day, and refused to answer her doorbell. She was giving him a small Scorpion sting of retaliation for breaking his word to her. Afterwards, when she forgave him, she gave him such a sensual and lingering goodnight kiss, his knees went weak and he nearly blacked out from the impact of her temporary Scorpio passion.

Then there was the morning she told him abruptly that he needed a haircut so badly, she was thinking of getting him a collar and leash, right in front of his mother and his two best friends. (Just one of the stinging arrows from her karmic bow of Sagittarian truth she shoots only very rarely, when her Archer self emerges.)

For a while after that, she was unaccustomedly reserved and quiet (reminding him of a Capricorn woman he once knew) until finally she told him coldly, without the slightest emotion or sentiment, that she didn’t want to get married because she planned to go to Europe to study art, and her career was more important than mere romance—or than him. He was shattered at the hint of icy Saturnine ambition in this normally humble and self-effacing creature he thought he knew so well from having analyzed her so carefully.

Just when he thought things were level again, familiar and comfortable between them, she unexpectedly and suddenly decided to move to a new apartment, within two short days, and forgot to tell him she was moving. She left her new address with the old landlady, but she transposed the street and the number mistakenly, and it took him three months to locate her through her mother, who was in Ohio at the time. When he did locate her, she was dating her yoga teacher. (She was suffering from one of her annual Aquarian lightning bolts of amnesia and eccentricity.)

Eventually—and also essentially—she’s her normal, sweet Piscean self. It’s just that she has those moments, in twelve varieties. But they’re only moments. Most of the time, she’s the dearest, most sympathetic, calm and unruffled lady this side of Heaven. Sentimental and sensitive. Serene and dependable. Still, it’s best that the Virgo man who loves her knows how many of her he’s measuring to see if she fits his idea of a lifelong mate.

Now, would you like to know why she scurried over to the extreme corner of the room after she asked him what his exact feelings for her were, and was disappointed in his answer? (Re: Peter Pan verse at the beginning of this section.) Because she was hurt, and went to the corner to cry with a spider? No. Because she was angry, therefore went to the corner to pout and eat some curds and whey, without offering him a bite? Indeed not. She went to the extreme corner of the room. Remember, I told you she’s wise. She either knew consciously or sensed (same thing to Pisces) about the powerful Sun Sign polarity between them—that their natal Suns were opposed at birth. She knows what that means. After a while, a polarity becomes too magnetic to resist. (Check bar magnet illustration in another portion of this chapter.) So, you see, she knew very well it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes for the magnetism of their astrological opposition to draw them together, and if she placed herself physically in exact or extreme opposition to him—well, things would become physical even quicker—and he’d be sure to change his answer to something a little heavier than a devoted son. She was aware that his actions would soon speak for him and clearly cancel that statement as false. Virgo men tend to rise very early in the morning by nature, but he’ll have to rise very early indeed to stay ahead of the female Fish.

She was right, of course. Her Neptune strategy worked perfectly. As smooth as satin, as pink as ribbons. Within ten (rather silent and uncomfortable) minutes, he behaved in a surprisingly impulsive way (for a Virgo), rushed across the room, swept her into his arms (not with a broom, that was only a metaphor) and actually wept openly, declaring he didn’t feel at all like a devoted son to her, but more like Alexander the Great, burning to conquer the world—the mysterious world of her. Then, wonder of wonders, he actually proposed marriage to his blushing, once again feminine and submissive female Fish with the dreamy Neptunian eyes.

Earth and Water Signs nearly always blend sexually in sheer ecstasy, very naturally. The passion between these two is seldom less than deep, enriching their love, in faithful imitation of Nature’s own comforting blend of earth and water. She feels safe in his arms, and he feels a new awareness through their lovemaking. Often, a Virgo man loses all his normal self-control with the Pisces woman who’s won his heart, and that’s the best thing that could happen to him. As for her, she’s fulfilled by just the knowing of the peace she brings to him. For he was a man desperately haunted with loneliness until he learned what intensity his imprisoned feelings could contain when he released them with a woman he could trust not to bruise his vulnerability—never to offend his secret image of the purity of sex. Perhaps Virgo and Pisces love so completely because they sense their dreams are warm and safe with each other. And so their bodies respond freely, with a wisdom of their own, to the intimate and the familiar. There shouldn’t be many bumpy spots in their 7-7 relationship. He’s so clever and she’s so wise (there’s a dram of difference) that if they really try, they can flatten them into smoothness. They’re both Mutable, so it will be easy for them to talk over their problems, and that’s always a huge help. She flirts. There’s no getting around it, she flirts. She’s been doing it since she was six. Men find her magnetically attractive, and she can’t help responding affectionately. But he should beware of over-analyzing the catholic compassion and listening ear she gives so freely to friends of both sexes as disloyalty or unfaithfulness. It isn’t, and it won’t be, unless he should make it so by continually pouting in resentment, thereby causing it to materialize. (That which we fear surely comes upon us.) Nor should she cause him unnecessary tension and worry over her casual attitude about money. She might try a little harder to balance her checkbook, and stop giving away all the cash they saved for their vacation to the first person she thinks might need it. On the other hand, he shouldn’t excessively stifle her generous impulses because of his own obsession with thrift, make a genuine effort to be looser, with both his finances and his feelings.

This woman can’t remain in love with a man who’s stingy, with either his cash or his emotions. She can’t respect or warm up to a tight fist, a tight bank balance or an uptight personality. It will gradually turn her frigid (and it can sadly drive some Neptunians to drink, from sheer depression and frustration). If he wants to keep all twelve of her happy, he’ll have to learn to relax, take it easy, stop criticizing her when she’s trying to please him, be more giving and natural. As for the female Fish, she’s simply going to have to stop hiding his favorite magazines and sweaters behind the davenport when company comes, mismatching his socks and forgetting to set his alarm clock.

Libra Libra
Air—Cardinal—Positive Air—Cardinal—Positive
Ruled by Venus Ruled By Venus
Symbol: The Scales Symbol: The Scales
Day Forces—Masculine Day Forces—Masculine

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