Pisces/pieces

[jennifer may]

An observation:

p. 41 - Z's text - Pan and Echo - "..tears her to pisces."

p.599 - J's moms letter - "..tore me to pisces."

Significance of Pisces?

C'mon all you horoscope-type people!

[drone]

...and page 552 in Z(?)'s note at the top of the page: "the derivates seem to point to primary sense 'to wound, tear, pull to pisces'". Also there's something about Will and Karen's narcissism in the typed passage on that page, which harks back to Echo again.

[Winteredge]

Pisces - Astrologically speaking, Pisces is associated with secret pain, sleep, dreams and such. Pisces is associated with water (duh, they're fish), and are represented by two fish. The planetary association is Neptune. Neptune was one of Zeus' two brothers who divied up the world (To Zeus the heavens, to Hades the underworld, and to Neptune the seas. Only I think Hades had last pick).

Interestingly enough, the Roman name for Hades is Pluto. Pluto is the planet for Scorpio. Pluto is related to sex, lies, arcane things, and occult, as well as explosive outbursts (see Plutonium). I would definitely associate most of what happens "below" the house to a plutonian nature, except that many (if not most) actions performed there seem to have no consequence which is more the area associated with dreams.

Sleep, and sleep disorders seem to be quite central to the story, again pointing us back to Neptune's influence.

Scorpio, however, is another water sign.

Lastly is Johnny's birthday. If I'm not mistaken, he's a Cancer. Cancer, the crab, is also related to water, intuition, understanding, and matters of a psychic nature (including psychic disturbance - not the metaphysical, but the mentally unbalanced nature of the term). Of course, this I'm least certain with. I didn't check or write down his birthday, and I only remember him mentioning it and me thinking "He's a cancer, I think." and then going on.

If he is, then we're looking at another connection between water, which is one of the most important tools for human survival, and one of the things most often referred to during the exploration into the house.

Just a few thoughts.

[izme]

The note on p.552 is probably written by Johnny. He interfered with Z.'s manuscript before - remember the broken water heater on p. 12-16?

We can't trust Z's manuscript because we know that Johnny changes it as his own life changes. The 'pisces' for 'pieces' is another sign of interference (as is the 'of' for 'have').

[drone]

Is it worth noting the two different versions of the Echo story in Greek mythology? In one story she is destroyed by the hatred of another (Pan); in the other she is destroyed by Narcissus' refusal to love her. Johnny refuses to acknowledge his love for his mother, and her memory distorts his perception of the present much like an echo distorts Narcissus' perception of sound...

[Bacchus]

I wrote this on another thread, but on page 432, if your highlight the line(s) "Then the ceiling lifts until it too is completely out of sight", including connecting the repeated off shoot, you end up with a design that highly resembles the Cancer constellation. Four points making a square-of-sorts (marked by the words: "it", "completely", "too"[lower one], and "out"[lower one]. There are three offshoots from this box, terminating with the words "then", "sight", and the other "sight". The Cancer constellation appears to be a box-like form of four points with three offshoots, three terminal lines. The only differentiation I can see between the two is that the word "until" creates a bit of a curve in one of the lines, whereas the Cancer constellation (which I only know of from a few sites I just checked online), does not have any sharp turns... Anyhow, a box for four points, three radiating lines... Same structure as the text formatted on 432.

-Janson of the Bacchae

[drone]

I was reading "Jung for beginners" today (I had a lot of spare time), and it looks like Mark has been working his way through this series of books as well. Apparently Jung believed that the two astological fish, joined at the tail, represented the two images of Christ: Jesus and his dark side, the Antichrist. Jung believed that everybody had their own dark side (which he called the Shadow) which was cast by the light of their good side and was inseperably linked to them. He also thought that the two fish could symbolise the division between body and soul (I think), e.g. the division between Echo's body and her voice, or (maybe, maybe) between reds and blues.
Jung also wrote about how a quest for self-discovery often took the form of a sea voyage, upon which the adventurer may come across a sea monster, whale or the "eternally devouring, terrible mother". That last bit being an imperfect reproduction due to my poor memory, but more or less untampered with. It's an echo of the original data, if you will.

[Aura]

Pisces is also famous as a symbol of rebirth (something to do with the fact that the two fish are always drawn as if about to eat each other, like the Oroborous), and the interesting thing about the Cancer personality is that it's split in two...

Bear with me here. The symbol of Cancer is the crab, right? Well, the whole reason for the symbolism is that, like a crab, the Cancer personality keeps his/her true personality and feelings tucked away inside a shell... I've seen quite a few of my Cancerian friends who follow this pattern, and when thinking of Johnny it does seem to ring true.

[Jenius]

Pisces is represented by two fish eating each other, or by two fish swimming away from each other. This represents either the seperation of mind and body, lover and loved, or dark and light. All of which are requisites to each other in their own light. A mind is torn from the body and thrown to pisces, ruled by Neptune. This represents each of these sides being weighed on a scale as they are torn from each other and forcefully balanced.

Therefore torn to pisces may represent this as Pan tears Echo and descides which he likes best, body or voice. And as Johnny dissects his mother whether to shun her because of mind, or to love her through relation. Z's note may refer to a man being judged to the afterlife? Not sure on that one, just me rambling again...

[ November 26, 2003: Message edited by: My own self ]

[Ra-ra]

Pisces is also Mark's star sign, and incidently, since apparently we share the same birthday, mine as well [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]