Aries (March 20-April 19) — Self-assertive, sometimes bold, sometimes cloaking deep insecurity with that boldness, Aries is always up for an adventure. Your sign is the key that starts the engine of the universe, and that means you have extra motivation, even in the face of intimidating situations. Something in you just rises to the occasion and you make your presence known. Your friends count on you for this, though you often need their support and do a lot better as an initiator when you have a posse around you.
There’s something truly childlike about Aries, and its natives can accomplish great things because they don’t stop to think about how whatever they’re attempting is supposedly impossible. You are constantly discovering new depths of your inner nature, surprised time and again that your interior world is such a dominant part of your personality.
Aries is associated with the planet Mars. Learn about the placement of your Mars sign and you will learn more about your personality. Mars represents raw, unrefined energy, which can be expressed many ways. Your job is to do the refining, and to learn some political skills so that you can get along with people even as you push them to do what you believe needs to be done. That said, you want relationship situations that are balanced and authentic, even though it can be hard to find people who aren’t intimidated by you.
You have desire, you have determination, you benefit the most from discipline and learning to be happy with gradual progress, and this includes getting to know potential friends and lovers. Remember, you don’t always have to be first and best, and intimate situations are the place to turn off your competitive nature. You can simply be you. Aries is a fire sign, and because it’s one of the signs that starts a season, it’s also considered a cardinal sign. It’s represented by the Ram, which is a very cool kind of full-strength sheep.
Speaking of full-strength, that’s what your astrology is these days. Of all the signs, Aries is the one right now that’s getting energized, electrified and spontaneously transformed. To do this well, you have to stay grounded and take care of yourself. We’re counting on you to lead the way into the future. That’s the true nature of Aries — and it’s blazing out right now.
PERSONALITY
The core of who you are is a creative fire. You are an Aries, the first and arguably most powerful sign of the zodiac. Aries is the engine that initiates the activity of all the other signs, and Aries is a prominent sign in every single natal chart due to the Aries point. Aries is passion; it is the drive to be and become; to express yourself in all that you do; and to find that point of perfect faith within yourself.
The first concept associated with Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, is “I Am.” Aries is the sign of personal initiative, self-concept, identity and self-awareness. If Aries represents self, self-awareness or self-concept, it does so in a time when that self is in crisis. What I’m describing here is the effect that Eris in Aries has been having on our collective sense of self for most of this century, which it will continue to have for a while to come. (You can read more about Eris here in Small World Stories.) Currently Aries is also experiencing Uranus moving through, with its tendency to wake up and shake up the status quo.
Aries is by nature hot, fiery and assertive. Its natural planet is Mars, which is about desire, sexuality, anger and war. One of the things about Aries that is not that well known is that Uranus is one of the rulers of Aries. We think of Mars as being the only planet associated with Aries, but (Alice) Bailey lists two other planets that are rulers, which you might think of as alternate levels of reality; places we grow into as we mature and evolve and gain our bearings and start to find our purpose. The two planets are Uranus and Mercury.
Certainly there are moments when you feel like your energy is exploding and you are on the verge of conquering whatever you have on your agenda, or whatever shows up that day. You live on the constant brink of spontaneous transformation. You’re known for your bold initiative more than for your consistency. The transit that I am describing is Uranus in your birth sign, or crossing your ascendant if you’re Aries rising.
Uranus in your sign portends a transformation of your self-concept and state of awareness that is so total, so radical and so unpredictable in its expression that you need an entirely new guidance system to help you make the most of this. As you burst into one new personality matrix after the next, Chiron in Pisces will help you continually sense your inner presence expressing itself through you.
You may be involved with so many layers and dimensions of “self” and “intention” that your personality can feel, at times, like total chaos. The story of your life is driven by the fact that you are not the same person every day. This has always been true, to a point.
One of the things about Aries that we depend upon is the initiation factor of Aries. Without Aries nothing would ever begin. But when it comes to sustaining that, when it comes to grounding the energy, that is the more challenging question.
The world moves so fast that we barely notice the changes; you’re likely to be someone inherently restless enough that this doesn’t bother you as much. You have a quick mind and a restless spirit — you have a good chance of keeping up.
You’re accustomed to being impulsive, passionate and driven toward your goals. Aries is a fairly pushy sign and this is energetic to the core; you were doing it back when you were a fetus. Spontaneous, dangerous. Aries people like to do things that are a little dangerous at least once a day.
Being bold, being brave; this is energy that you know you contain inside of yourself, and I would estimate that you spend a lot of effort holding it down. You’re an Aries and you’re not supposed to be shy, but you have self-confidence issues and you need to get over them. You will do that by practice.
Above all else, your primary need is for freedom and anything that gets in the way of that freedom will serve as a source of resentment, possibly, and strife.
MENTAL PROCESS
How it feels to be in your mind is a little like a constant conversation between two different points of view; two different ideas about existence — one that might seem kind of normal and this other side that might seem kind of unusual. The gift of having Gemini on the third house is that you have a magnificent ability to see both sides to any equation.
Aries possesses this gift of being able to analyze things from two completely different points of view, to be able to, in a sense, present yourself to the world as two different people in some ways. You can switch roles very quickly. You are more adaptable than you might seem, but also you are inherently an idea person. You have high initiative and a lot of this initiative comes in the form of seeing new and better ways to do things here on Earth.
You are not famous for your patience, though I suggest that as you begin to cultivate your place in the world as a reformer and leader, you strive to understand the past and do your best to find some wisdom in it.
Aries is a very kid-like energy. It is impetuous, impatient, demanding; it wants to blaze ahead all the time. There would be few people who would accuse Aries of having a patient and mature mind, except that you know that you strive for these things; you strive to apply your talent and intelligence to the practical matters of the world.
One of the things that may challenge you is that you are multifaceted. You have so many things that you are interested in and so many things that you love to do and indeed there are so many things that you are either pretty good at or very good at that you might not know what to choose.
Chiron through the 12th (12th solar for Aries Sun, 12th by whole-sign houses for Aries rising, represented by Pisces) can bring lots of shadow material to the surface of your psyche. You’re likely to get a tour of everything you’ve avoided, feared or denied in the past, at the same time you get information about how to heal those very things. You will need to listen carefully, and hear well — and you may feel called upon to take action where there is no guarantee involved. As ever, where Chiron is a presence the key is to proceed with awareness, compassion, love and the intention of healing.
Remember, you may have doubts, but you are not your doubts. Remember that, and you can become the person you want to be: the one who is not defined by your fears.
Your definition of yourself as a mental concept is entirely variable, which is another way of saying that it’s subject to creativity. Not it, but who you are, is subject to creativity.
In other words, you are not the passive recipient of “an identity” and its “treatment in the world.” You are in a situation where you need, more than most people, to be a conscious architect of your reality. That need is based on a larger-than-usual dose of personality chaos (thanks to Uranus moving through your sign); which in turn offers you more creative juice. The thing is you are not making an art project or a musical composition, you are the art project.
SPIRITUALITY
For you spirituality has got to be a practical matter. It has to be something where there is a direct application of the information. It’s not enough to be wise and sage and take ayahuasca and go to philosophy class or read a lot of New Age books. Rather, until something has a direct application, a direct way to use it in your life, you might hold it as useless trivia.
Though I have never seen your sign given this delineation in an astrological text (among many other things I’ve never encountered in astrology books), Aries is a sign with profoundly deep spiritual roots. You don’t (it would seem) always claim this as motive, and I doubt you step up to the pulpit every Sunday morning and belt out a huge sermon (but you would be good at it).
I mean that you are in contact with your authentic spiritual roots, which to me equates to having faith in existence that is based on awareness of your cosmic origins. Indeed, this sense of inner strength can be so strong that (at least in many times past) you have taken it for granted, without necessarily checking in with the wisdom it has to offer you.
CAREER
Pluto in Capricorn (your solar 10th house for Aries Sun, 10th by whole-sign houses for Aries rising) represents the ways in which you have been seeing your potential as someone who participates directly in the world. Most astrologers would say that Capricorn is your career house and that this transit is about pumping up your ambition. That’s true as far as it goes; what is really happening is that you’re starting to see the potential for your own growth and ideas for who you’re becoming, meeting up with the upheavals and changes that are gripping the world.
Pluto in your 10th house and Capricorn could be read as career ambition. It is about learning how to manage your encounters with power: cautiously, consciously and noticing when you go limp.
While you proceed, it’s essential that you maintain a good relationship to people in power; not a submissive one, but a respectful one. Respect the institutions that have influence over your life, not as their slave but as a conscious participant, knowing your options. You must think politically. Build goodwill.
Yet, ultimately, managing your encounters with power is also about taking authority over yourself.
People who lead must also grow, and that is a vital part of their leadership. This is your story, as far as I am reading it in your astrology. Above all else, you must be willing to grow, and grow openly where others can see and feel and experience the process; indeed, participate in the process.
One form this growth will take is the need to do soulful work. Your worldly mission and your soul’s mission are now one thing.
Our whole economy is being driven by a fear or a feel-good impulse. Not, for example, by practical need. Not by ethics. Not by reality. And guess what: if your astrology means anything at all, you emerge into yourself and into the world as a leader of precisely these things: as one whose role is to set the example of a life well lived, and as a person with the capacity to change, to grow and to hold yourself to a measure of impeccability.
As an Aries, you have a mind that your greatest accomplishments are your own work, and that the involvement of others in a group process can at times seem incidental or seriously get in the way.
Part of the game is breaking your addiction to conformity. Despite your abundant sense of innovation, there is something stuffy about the way you approach work, and you have a kind of crushing need for the approval of authority.
It has something to do with the notion that authority is something that is vested in structures such as the government, corporations or the church and not in people. The other view (one taken by the framers of the American constitution) is that power is something that flows upward, from humanity into its institutions, like water flows upward from the ground into the leaves of a plant, even as it falls from the sky. This is a philosophy that is dear to your heart, and which is actually accessible to you now.
ARIES MOON
The Aries Moon would seem to denote a restless, agitated and passionate way of going about life. I could see the Aries Moon being comfortable in its body only when it’s expressing itself, conquering or taking some kind of action, preferably naked.
The world needs impetuous people who don’t think the past is the only guide to the future, and who can’t be shaken in their beliefs by people who know less than they do, or worse, by those who know more. The Aries Moon doesn’t need book knowledge and it doesn’t need a badge or certificate. You’re not going to impress these people by quoting Shakespeare.
One might describe Aries Moon natives as outspoken, blunt, brazen, dauntless, outrageous, authentic or whatever it takes to get the job done. On one level, they can appear simple, but that simplicity hides a complex worldview that they know is wise to keep mum about. What’s really going on is they tend to refine their message to the high-contrast projection that it takes to stand out from the crowd. With this Moon, the inner and the outer person are strikingly different, with the inner being far more perceptive and sensitive than what you see.
PEOPLE WITH ARIES INFLUENCES
Marlon Brando: His characters all seem to be seamless extensions of himself, and are unapologetic, vivid and rarely witnessed expressions of humanity. In each, there is the sense that you are dealing with an extremely receptive person behind the veil of power and conquest.
Bob Fosse, Roy Scheider: Here again, we see the essence of restlessness, innovation and passionate creativity. These are colorful, expressive men who always seem to be dancing in fire.
Jerry Garcia: Jerry certainly had a way of bending reality to his preference. His energy, intensity and focus were inspiring. He did not like conflict and took it out on himself, letting loose, for the most part, only when he played. And it was a tight, ultra-refined kind of looseness, but he really could dance on those strings.
Betty Dodson and her mom: The wisdom of astrology says that, as the double significator of the personality of the native, and of the mother, a lot of who we are on the personality level is based on maternal influences. We’d expect anyone with this Moon to have been raised by a woman whose personality was dynamic, intense and self-assertive; perhaps this was a lot to handle. That, in turn, very likely lead one to stand up to the challenge, to be undaunted.
“She was great,” Betty said of her mom. “I consider her a woman of the pioneer stock that settled this country, the ones that shot wild animals” and helped their families survive on the new frontier in the face of all adversity. Betty’s mom was born in 1899 and the family was from Kansas. She was one of the first women in her community to drive a car and truck, to get an abortion, and to travel alone. “She was a strong woman who voiced her opinions whether they were popular or not,” Betty said.
In public, people would have seen a reserved, even stoic woman who would “present a different face behind the Irish lace curtain. She was a great party girl.” As is Betty, who is as famous for her sex parties as she is for her workshops.