Pisceans often get a good press as dreamy, artistic and compassionate. You're forgiven then, for failing to recognise media mogul Rupert Murdoch as a paid-up Piscean (11pm59 GST, 11/3/31, Melbourne). What the books often forget is the inner contradiction in Pisces. It has two fish swimming in opposite directions. One is a helpful dolphin, but the other is an all- devouring shark.

Murdoch's watery nature is compounded by three planets in Cancer the Crab. Water signs run deep and shy away from the sunlight, like fish beneath the surface or crabs scuttling under rocks. This can be an asset in a business context because water knows which way the tides are turning. Murdoch couples this with a libertarian, entrepreneur Moon in horsy Sagittarius, which loves the thrill of the chase, and only now is his confidence beginning to wane with projects like FiredUp in the dot.com era.

His silver-spoon background and good fortune come from Jupiter in Cancer, the family sign, and its connections with the Moon. But what really drives him on? His daughter Elisabeth seems to speak truthfully when she says her father is not driven by greed. Murdoch's published time of birth gives us a fuller psychological profile than one based only on his day of birth. His ambitious Capricorn Ascendant is tied in with an opposition of controlling Saturn and autocratic Pluto, right across his money and death zones. Murdoch's media career began in 1952 when his father died suddenly and he returned to Australia to take over the family publishing business. Saturn-Pluto transmutes mortality into cash, a burden of responsibility which forever pursues him like the ghost of the father. The question of legacy for him now is the same question that has always been, binding his own offspring through a business empire.

The current focus in his horoscope is on Neptune crossing Venus until the end of November 2001. This god of the sea has been his empire builder, but now it suggests sacrifice and dissolution. Neptune's same influence triggers News International's UK horoscope (28/7/04), perhaps putting it at sea in the coming months. Murdoch is slipping towards a dissolving agenda, rather than a definitive stand-down. He may take a major step along these lines next February, but how will the family shape up? Elisabeth, Lachlan, James ....watch this space for further astro-analysis, coming soon.