To explain 'Why a Fish?', I'll tell you about a dream that I titled "It Takes Time".

In the dream...

I'm watching myself from a distance.

This other me stands on the back of a deep-sea fishing boat with a pole in his hands.

Yes, I'm after the big fish.  But I can see that the boat is going way too fast.  I think to myself, "You'll never catch anything at that speed."

It was one of those rare occasions that I understood a dream immediately upon awakening.  The problem was obvious.  I was rushing through my dream work, going way too fast.

If I really wanted to bring anything up from the deep waters of the unconscious, I had to slow down.  The line needed time to sink, to go to the depths.

In the words of author and Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson...

"To fish in this sense is to do one's inner work--work on dreams, meditation, active imagination, drawing, music, or poetry--any form of inner work that is rich to one.

"Even such mundane things as gardening and getting a 'runner's high' are fishing in this sense since they put one in contact with the inner world."  --- from The Fisher King and The Handless Maiden by Robert A. Johnson