Meaning of the water signs of the zodiac: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces

In addition to being divided into 12 signs and 12 corresponding houses, the zodiac wheel is divided into four elements: air, water, fire, and earth. Within the element of water we find the signs Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.

While these signs each possess their own strengths and challenges, their ruling element lends itself to a number of common grounds or underground waters, so to speak.

Highly imaginative water signs are predisposed to creativity, vivid dreams and acute insights. Water signs “feel” their way through the world, relying on instinct and emotion to guide them.

Pisces Anaïs Nin may have spoken for all water signs when she compared herself to a mermaid, writing, “I have no great fear of the deep and a great fear of shallow life.”

These people exist to feel and find union and transformation through emotional experience.

The zodiac and the elements are divided into female (Earth and Water) and male (Fire and Air) signs; this difference is not related to gender so much as the dichotomy of yin and yang, or passive, receptive, internal energy versus active, projected, external energy.

Female water signs, Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces, tend to carry energy, taking it from those around them, internalizing it and often holding onto it longer than is necessary or nourishing.

Along with agreeableness, there is a risk among watermarks to seek external validation.

This mode lends itself to instability and a tendency to become deeply anchored by endings: relationships, careers, Mufasa’s death scene in The Lion King, etc.

The emotional quality of water signs is inherently vulnerable, but as any therapist worth their salt and trained in Jungian interpretation will tell you, vulnerability is the truest kind of strength.

Water signs ultimately seek direction and release. They need a direction to direct their tremendous emotional energy and a mode of catharsis to clear the negative or challenging currents they collect.

Water signs, in their highest expression, can offer refreshing insight and compassionate clarity. In their lower vibrational environment, they are guilty of passive-aggressive manipulation and emotional immersion.

Cue Fleetwood Mac’s “Storms” and read on to find out more.

Water signs in love

The acute sensitivity of water signs is often preserved from an initial distance.

These people can’t trust their inner marshmallows to anyone. Because they feel deeply and hurt easily, they are understandably more discerning than other signs when it comes to opening the chambers of their oceanic hearts.

In love, water signs seek reassurance from their partner through words and physical touch. They need to feel safe before they feel safe enough to share their wholeness.

Once security is assured, the water sign relationship style can be quite intense, oceanic in its reach and tidal in its retreat. These people dive deep and hold on tight.

Water needs a sense of stability; without a ship to carry it or a proverbial river bank to tie it, it risks drying up or flooding. Often, water signs seek this control through their romantic relationships, hoping that another person will provide them with a safe harbor.

Unsurprisingly, the boundaries within relationships are a perpetual water fight; this again relates to control. It is difficult for them not to spread to others and vice versa; Sometimes it’s hard for water signs to determine where their partner’s needs and wants end and their own begin. Alone, water is and rightly feels formless, but the lesson for water signs is to find form in the scaffolding of their own selves rather than in the murky jumble of their romantic entanglements.

Water and fire signs

Cauldron bubble, water disrupts fire’s sometimes tactless approach, while fire encourages water to be bold and seek reward and recognition for their achievements

Water and earth signs

Water cultivates the earth, making it more malleable and inviting those of the crust to engage and fully express their often neglected emotions. Earth reminds water to take snack breaks between true crime episodes.

Water and air signs

Here, we find a balance between the cerebral and the sentimental. Water gives meaning to the cold removal of air, and air provides calmness and communication with water.

Water and water signs

Water signs find security and the quality of being “first” in others of the same element. The best mix is ​​a mix in itself – eg, Scorpio and Pisces, Cancer and Scorpio.

Water signs at work

When water finds its purpose, it flows easily and powerfully in its service. Water signs are built for careers that focus on spirituality, inquiry, and or caring. They thrive in environments where their preternatural gifts of intuition and empathy can flourish. Water signs’ ability to read and respond to the emotional energy of others lends them to success in a collaborative workplace.

Water signs are prone to drastic mood swings, and in the workplace, they must guard against an all-or-nothing approach that might make them appear extreme or erratic to others.

Water signs need stimulating work environments as stagnation of any kind is a dangerous stasis for them. Appropriately channeled and effectively challenged, water signs, like hydropower itself, have the potential to be expansive and absolutely illuminating.

Ideal career for water signs: social worker, creative director, orchestra conductor, lawyer, nurse, scuba instructor, pre-k teacher, underwater basket weaver

CANCER (JUNE 21 – JULY 22)

Ruler: moon

Quality: Cardinal

Moon-ruled Cancer gets a rep for being the most outwardly emotional and nostalgically unapologetic of the water people.

Rulers of the fourth house of home and descent, Cancers tend to fixate on the past and, even worse, on a rose-tinted, gingerbread past that never was.

This idealization is harmful to the Cancer contingent, as it prevents them from processing the pain and entering into the unknown.

True transformation and true intimacy for Cancers comes not through caring for others and the control it provides, but through baring them and elevating the personal to the universal.

Look no further for evidence of coddling the past than Lana Del Rey’s peak Cancer, who reconstitutes the American aesthetic and imagines its history to the tune of music, offering it as alms for the collective, a catharsis through return and escape.

SCORPIO (OCTOBER 23 – NOVEMBER 21)

Ruler: Mars and Scorpio

Quality: Arranged

As a fixed water sign, Scorpio finds meaning through mining, whether it’s their pain or the undercurrents of humanity in general.

If Scorpio were a body of water, it would be a swamp at night; calm and hazy, brimming with vitality and eager to swallow you whole.

Ruled by the planet of war and the planet of death, Scorpio is secretive, strategic and more than a little psychic. Prone to extremes and obsessions, control and release are themes and lessons that Scorpio is born to learn through and from.

Scorpio Travis Barker showed his penchant for extremes by doubling up on tattoos, covering ex-flame Shanna Moakler’s name with a scorpion (feel the sting, y’all) and adding a mark of black ink to wife Kourtney Kardashian’s lips.

PISCES (FEBRUARY 19 – MARCH 20)

Ruler: Neptune and Jupiter

Quality: Variable

Ruled by trine-wielding ocean daddy Neptune, Pisces may well be the ultimate water sign.

The poet, the nihilist, the wary bear, the marshmallow-hearted martyr lover, Pisces is the last sign in the zodiac and, as such, is the aggregate of all the trauma and transcendence that comes before it.

Hyper-informed with the emotional currents of others, Pisces are also aware of the ethereal and the esoteric, the inexplicable and the unseen. They believe in ghosts and love equally.

These are looking for people who are easily overwhelmed by their ability to feel and, as a result, sometimes need to disconnect from the world at large through sex, drugs, excessive drinking, meditation, sensory deprivation, and/or a bad romance. .

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Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and reports irreverently on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture and personal experience. To book a reading, visit her website