We enter the sign of Aquarius, the water bearer, who pours out a trickle of stars into the mouth of Piscis Austrinus, the southern fish. [1] The constellation is found in a region of the sky often called The Sea as many ‘watery’ constellations are found there, including Eridanus the river, Cetus the whale and Pisces the fishes.
The Greeks saw the constellation as Ganymede, the cup bearer to the god Zeus who stole the youth away after becoming captivated by his beauty, or they associated it with Deucalion, the son of Prometheus who built a ship to survive a great flood. [2]The constellation was certainly associated with floods and water in general; in Babylonian lore it was connected with Ea, god of water and wisdom, commonly depicted holding an overflowing vase, who ruled the southernmost quarter of the Sun’s path through the zodiac, the Way of Ea, corresponding to the period of 45 days on either side of winter solstice. (Pisces contained the winter solstice in the Early Bronze Age.)
The ancient Egyptians thought that it represented Hapi, the god of the Nile, whose annual flooding brought fertility when Aquarius put his jar into the river, which marked the beginning of spring.
[1] Dr.E.C.Krupp, Beyond the Blue Horizon, Oxford University Press, New York, 1991
[2] Robert Bruce Thompson & Barbara Fritchman Thompson, Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders, O’Reilly Media, 2007
Hearth Witchery 