Early last year, my Uncle was suffering from kidney failure and needed a transplant as soon as possible. He had been on the organ donation list for 3 years and time was running out. It was a difficult time and my Zia (Italian for “aunt”) was beside herself with worry.
I remember talking to my cousin Maria on the phone about it. She was obviously hurting for my aunt and uncle. I could feel her compassion over the phone. In the most serious tone, she informed me that she planned on being tested to see if her kidneys were compatible to my Uncle’s so that she could donate one to him and save his life.
My mouth hit the floor. “But Maria, what are you talking about…you couldn’t possibly do that!” I was astounded at her even voicing this because, you see, my cousin suffers from a rare autoimmune disease called Fibromyalgia. She lives in constant pain and the last thing her body could endure would be donating a kidney! It wasn’t realistic!
My cousin, in typical Piscean fashion, responded as if she had offered to donate a used car to a church instead of a kidney to my ailing Uncle. She said, “Maria, how could I stand by and watch them suffer? I have to do something.”
Extraordinary! She didn’t think twice about what it might do to HER. In fact, SHE didn’t matter – what mattered was that she couldn’t bear to see someone she loved suffer if there was anything she could do about it. I learned right then and there, on the phone with my cousin, the power of love that Pisces is capable of.
As it turns out, my Uncle got a surprise call from the hospital shortly after and he received a kidney that now works beautifully inside his stubborn Sicilian body! All’s well that ends well with that story.
There’s a lot more to be said however about my cousin Maria, born February 23rd, and the beautiful sign of Pisces.
A water sign, Pisces is among one of the most emotional in the zodiac. Thanks to its mutable nature its feelings become transcendental. They are the one sign in the zodiac that is truly able to feel someone else’s emotional pain and suffering. In fact they are called psychic sponges because perceptions are soaked up into their bodies all the time! A Pisces will know something based on instinct but the problem with Pisces is that they often do not learn how to trust and harness their powerful intuition because it is so overpowering! This is why it’s easy for a Pisces to get lost in others.
Pisces is known for compassion towards those who suffer and for their healing energy. It will always be Pisces to the rescue when something goes wrong and sometimes this unconditional capacity for love can work against them. Sometimes a Pisces gets used and abused.
Like Cousin Maria. She has a history of being the doormat because everyone she loves knows they can count on her no matter what. She will literally drop everything for another person’s needs. She has to be aware of the potential for people to use and abuse her – even though very often she’ll never see this because a Pisces really wants to believe the best about the world and the people in it.
But very often, Pisces falls into the martyr complex where they feel righteous in knowing that everyone else needs them. Their self worth depends upon being needed by others; a very dangerous trap to fall into and a hard lesson for Pisces to learn – when to help and when to let someone help himself.
Being ruled by the planet Neptune, Pisces is the most imaginative sign of the zodiac. My cousin Maria is talented in many areas of the arts. She used to dance, is an accomplished professional chef, has had her own catering business and also has her own wedding planning business where she takes care of every detail to make another person’s dreams come true. Dreams. Pisces is big on that – for sure! On top of this, she’s a successful mortgage consultant and I can truly say that with the combination of her Pisces Sun and Scorpio Moon, helping other people do the right thing with their money. Doing the right thing FOR them is one of her passions and talents! Here is a rare find – someone who is good with other people’s money that won’t rip you off!
A big deal for Pisces is that they need to take awhile to understand who they are. They are so flooded with everyone else’s impressions that it becomes difficult to filter out ME from YOU. Life as a Pisces can be like living with a cloud in front of you all your life, trying to sift through the fog.
But once clarity is found, the power of Pisces is not to be missed! After all, as the 12th sign of the zodiac, it symbolizes mastery of each sign before it and the culmination of understanding with love and the ability to see beyond any veils – on the physical plane or beyond.
As for my cousin Maria, I bet she wouldn’t think of herself as overly compassionate or too nice. I’d ask her for you, but right now she’s too busy flying from Philadelphia to Florida for 1 day to baby-sit my sister’s kids so she and my brother in law could attend a business party. And after that she’s got to figure out how to feed all the hungry children in the world. And of course, there’s the problem of world peace…
But when all is said and done, if I had to list one of the people in my family who I know I could count on for anything, cousin Maria would be at the top. She knows, better than anyone else, all about the power of love.