Various and Sundry Musings

Aries: Sign of Me, Myself and I

Here are some of my Insights into the sign of Aries through time, gleaned from my posts since 2012. Our perception of the signs changes with the times, depending on which planets travel in harmony or tension with them. Even so, the essence remains. If you would like to contemplate the essential qualities of Aries here is something i hope will inspire you.

2020:

As always, Aries is a sign to be reckoned with. We are generally born head first into this world. There is a little Aries in each and every one of us. This year Aries brings more than the usual impulse to get on with it. Whatever ‘it’ is we are called to break new ground and dive fully into the new season (be it spring in the north or fall in the south) as well as a new world that is laboring to give birth to itself. Birth is scary at the best of times. This one is no exception.
As it leave Pisces today, the last aspect the Sun will make is a sextile to Saturn as if to remind us that there are opportunities in a world undergoing rapid, accelerated change: opportunities to nourish the soul as it prepares for birth rather than to line pockets. We can all benefit from the time out which has imposed itself on us. Eventually we will heed the call of self-actualization which Aries suggest.
As the Sun travels through Aries it will square Pluto and Jupiter before it’s done. This suggests that breaking through will require great effort. Later in the second half of 2020 Mars will spend a long time in Aries, making the same aspects. We are getting s sneak preview of the issues that will be activated then.
During the time that the Sun is in this sign it will play host to Saturn as she takes her first step in the sign of Aquarius, as well as Mars shortly after. Change may be good, may be bad but there is no stopping it. Never was.

2019:

It’s time to make the push – to assert our identity – to actualize our existence. Not once and for all but in the here and now. Just because. As the Sun journeys through Aries there is a story to be told. First thing, today in fact, the hours of the day and night are equal. Starting tomorrow or the next day and beyond, the light of day will triumph once again, over the darkness. Life, light and growth prevail. Right off the bat the Sun will conjunct Chiron, reminding us to learn and teach wisely. As the journey develops Aries will meet squares to Saturn and Pluto as well as the nodes. Some say this is about our need to honor the ancestors. Last but not least the Sun will trine Jupiter in a blaze of glory, a righteous moment, the challenge being to recognize the powerful oxymoron at the core of the notion of ‘holy war’. Mars, the ruler of Aries, reminds us today, if we are willing to be reminded, that transformation is an issue of form. The effort we make needs to be worth making, unto the seventh generation.

2018

Aries is a kind of razor’s edge, the perfect balance of light and dark, yang and yin, masculine and feminine, but only for a moment. Then the gunshot, the starting blast and we are off to the races as light begins to overtake night and the impulses for planting and birthing arise at the same time. In some places the seeds as well as the lambs are dropping like crazy.

2017

It’s not easy to push through, to resurrect, to get born again into this world. But it’s what happens every spring. As if called by a conductor of a massive symphony, all manner of seeds sprout through the cold, hard ground and push their way up into the sunlight which has finally surpassed the darkness in the length of time it claims in a day. It takes a particular kind of determination, will and courage to do what Aries does. These days Aries is troubled by climate change; things appearing out of season as well as the unexpected shocks and degradation of our biosphere.  There is not much point in lamenting with Hamlet that:

The time is out of joint- O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Hamlet: Act 1, scene 5

It seems to me we are all here, together, at this very time because we are meant, each in some small way, to set it right; or at least to witness that it needs resetting. If not in our lifetimes, then for the descendants. A secret to the Aries psyche is that as much as it likes to push through, to break out, to boldly go, it really likes to have a solid, stable base to push against which is not so available at the moment, globally speaking. This year Aries has to contend with opposition from Jupiter (what about justice?), conjunction with Uranus (how can we break through the stuck places together?), square to Pluto (who actually has the power?); and Saturn (what it means or why to bother with your personal best) not to mention Venus retrograde in Aries. You could say these are challenges to those born with the Sun in Aries but you could also say it’s a challenge for all of us, to consider how and what to protest and/or protect in a world where nature itself is unstuck in time.

2016

Just as each and every of the almost 8 billion people on this earth is born with a heart, so does each person receive an identity. Aries is not how we act out this identity it is where, in our astrological horoscope, we have an attitude or an understanding about identity: First and foremost, our own. Here in the northern hemisphere today is the first day of spring. One of only 2 days of the year when the hours of daylight are equal to the hours of darkness. A point like the head of a pin, where perfect equality is possible. But although the other point – the first day of Libra – is associated with relationship and the drive toward harmony (sometimes at any price) Aries is not. Aries looks at the phenomenon of day equaling night and use it as a wake-up call to identity and all that could be done to grow the light to its fullest. Aries is a striving sign: A sign that believes that the most important thing is for the individual to step up and take action. Some people were born with the Sun in Aries. To achieve their hearts desire they must know themselves as separate; as individuals. But each and every one of us has Aries in a house or on the cusp of one. This represents the environment of your life where you really have to take on the fundamental question of what it means to be an individual. For example: 

House 1: Who am I?
House 2: What do I have or want?
House 3: What am I curious about?
House 4: Where is my home?
House 5: What or who makes me feel lovable?
House 6: What kind of life am I living?
House 7: Who is that person to me?
House 8: What does that person want from me?
House 9: What is true?
House 10: Who is the boss of me?
House 11: What are my ideals? Who are my friends?
House 12: How do I surrender myself to become mySelf?

2015

We all believe in the power of identity. We go to great lengths to be unique, ahead of the pack, our own person. Aries likes this. But it’s not really what Aries is about. It’s about the strength and courage it takes to get born; to break through. We see little baby things such as humans and lambs as cute and helpless for example. But each and every thing that gets born into the manifest world risks everything to do it. We all took that risk and survived. It’s a 7.2 billion people success story. Although, I will say we have strange ways of celebrating…

2014

Today is the first day of Aries and just so you know, this has less to do with the actual constellation and more to do with the fact that today is one of only two days in the year when day and night are in perfect balance. It only lasts a moment and then the light begins to ascend, pushing the dark further and further away until, at some places on earth it becomes daylight for 24 hours a day for a while. (Of course this is the opposite Down Under. But even in the Southern hemisphere the day and night are equal today.) So here we stand, poised at the beginning of the season of birth and rebirth; when everything fights for its life. Hence, the meaning of Aries as a sign that fights to actualize its identity.

Here is a fifth century take on Aries: “…there is a ‘birthchart’ of the creation known as the thema mundi. … The idea is often introduced to explain why Aries should be the considered the ‘starting point’ of the circle of the zodiac, a circle which has no beginning. ‘They say,’ Macrobius wrote, ‘that when that day began which was the first of all and is therefore rightly called the world’s birthday, Aries was in the Midheaven; and because the Midheaven is as it were the vertex of the world, Aries was therefore held to be the first among them all, the one which appeared like the head of the world at the beginning of light.’ ” P. 304 World Astrology: The Astrologer’s Quest to Understand the Human Character. 

2013

Aries is about breakthrough. We can all agree about that. But we should not confuse breakthrough with progress or some kind of self-improvement. Consider the crocus; first child of spring who pushes up through the still partially frozen ground and announces itself in perfect form and beauty of color. This harbinger of spring is not a better version of itself than it was last year. It is simply, powerfully, unmistakably itself. Nothing more or less. Such is the key phrase for Aries, “I AM”. Even God says it in the Bible: I am that I am. Many people celebrate Resurrection at Passover and Easter during the month of the sign of Aries. Joy to the crocus!
The hostility of Aries comes when we are not satisfied with the I am-ness of ourselves or the moment; when we forget to appreciate the ‘mere’ fact of existence; when we worship the myth of progress, thereby overlooking the moment. Be Here Now is the title of a classic book written – wouldn’t you know – by an Aries!? 

2012

Possibly life is like a novel; there are themes. This month’s theme has something to do with breakthrough without (or with) violence. Is it possible to leave home, get born, change political structures without unnecessary harm to self or others? Possibly we have confused the urge for individuation with the need to kill that which we are individuating from.
Today is one of only two days a year when day and night are perfectly balanced. It’s a short-lived perfection of balance and like all perfections a fleeting but not insignificant moment. From today until summer solstice the days grow longer and longer overtaking the night. The Sun gets higher in the sky. Most of us are aware that this is not true in the southern hemisphere. In fact down there it’s just the opposite: The dark is rising. Do not confuse light and dark with good and evil. There is nothing here requiring a judgment call. No, this is just a moment; arising and passing. And we are all, each and every one of us, a part of that moment.

Saturn square Uranus

Just in case you were wondering if anything is happening in the world that reflects this aspect you can simply think about what has happened in Texas. Not just the snow but the cracks it has revealed and the difficulty fixing them. Of course there is more. But this is a good place to start.

Remember, the signature of this combination seems (to me) to be ‘beginners mind’. The more we give up our know-it-all defenses, the more we can learn from each other as well as the world around us.