Everything You Need To Know About Water Signs: Cancer, Scorpio & Pisces

As we welcome Aries season in, we say goodbye to Pisces season, but we hold onto what the Sun in Pisces taught us. We hold onto it because the Zodiac is a wheel, always connected, and because while we move forward with the Sun in Aries, many of the planets that affect our daily lives still linger under the stars of Pisces and over us.

The others trail behind in Aquarius and Capricorn, activating all four Western elements. Water mediates the conversation between these influences and, so, it is a good time to talk about water — about water signs — about what they teach us and how they work with the other elements.

Perhaps it would be better to start with Scorpio and work our way back. Because Scorpio believes they have a lot to teach someone and because Scorpio has a lot of trouble doing just that. Like Aries, Scorpio is ruled by Mars but unlike Aries, Scorpio likes to wait. Waiting and watching is part of Scorpio’s strategy, one of the reasons that Scorpio is considered the night expression of Mars (as opposed to Aries’ Carpe Diem energy).

The night, like the depths of the sea, blurs edges and contains hidden depths. Scorpio is a fixed sign, and its natives are often set in their ways, which doesn’t mean they can’t change. In fact, Scorpios crave change and are drawn towards personified catalysts. The change, however, begins from the inside and works its way out, slowly, and with intensifying passion. The phrase “still waters run deep” has Scorpio written all over it.

The topic of catalysts brings us to our next water sign, the well-loved and often underestimated Cancer. It might be true that all Cardinal signs, of which Cancer is one, are catalysts. But, few cardinal signs can both initiate and sustain sea change as effectively as a Cancer. Aries inspires, lights a match, and has a tendency to burn out quickly, Libra negotiates, intervenes by marrying opposites. Capricorn sets the example, takes the difficult road so that it might grow more passable. But Cancer? Cancer calls you in and brings you to the table. Cancer reads the room and sets the tone, taking charge and collaborating in turns until you are convinced that to succeed is to be on the same team, to follow suit. In this way, Cancer is not unlike her ruler — the Moon — pulling the tides and reflecting off of them.

While Scorpio dwells in the depths and Cancer laps at the shore, shaping the shoreline, Pisces moves from river to river, tributary to confluence. Pisces is often depicted as two fish, yet the two are but a sliver of the school that Pisces belongs to. Pisces is mutable and so Pisces shape-shifts, learning through association, thriving in relation to others. Of course, many Pisces prefer solitude but Pisces rarely requires company in order to feel connection.

Pisces people experience connection across time zones and timelines. Primarily because, below the water, what Pisces can’t see or hear, they feel. Their ability to feel is so clear, so refined, it gets them into trouble. Because feelings are powerful, because they do not submit to logic or rules, Pisces people spend much of their lives learning to separate their own feelings from those of others so that they might act with accountability, so that they might know themselves apart.

For this and many more reasons, Pisces season flows into Aries, the way a fetus is nurtured through connection, before time, and begins their life at separation. The way we live our lives flowing into each other, depending on one another, exploring what love and witness can do for a heart, before we redeem our ticket out of the world — and take the solitary ride.