Aries 8°

(For last year’s meditation on the Sabian Symbol for this degree: click here)

As mentioned, the Aries governing planet Mars rules the blood which is the most essential part of ourselves. This befits the sign’s native association with the first astrological house of Self. I think of Aries first house as our nature, before any nurture; what it is in our blood to be and do. In our work with clients this is an essential element of the process: to help people connect to that which they pinpoint as their original purpose, before life’s influences and influencers creeped in. “Starsky and Cox, changing the world, one creep at a time.” The first house rules our first impressions, a notion that has many intricate meanings. Primarily I like to interpret this as what impression we feel we are foremost meant to make on the world. We come into the world head first—or we should do—and Aries rules the head, hit home by the headlong Ram, with its might antlers, as the sign’s symbol. The antlers are both for offense as well as defense, but let’s look at the former: What are we impelled to do in this life if we had to say? If we could do but one thing, without anyone preventing us, what would it be? And how much determination do we need to accomplish that or break through the years of barriers opposed on us. For, trust me, embodying purpose is what Aries and the first house is all about. It is our initiation that is most important in so far as it regards our initiative.

We tell clients that it is never to late to be what you are. The motto of this sig is I am, after all. You are what? If you had to say. Before we start rattling off a list of things. I will use myself as an example. I am an actor. That’s the essential part of myself. I work as an astrologer, a counselor, a writer, a producer—I’ve been a journalist, a pr, a sales person, a waiter, an editor, a tv personality, on and on. But I really am an actor and a very good one although I don’t work at it. And I should. So, in that spirit I make a pledge to myself, proof in the putting, practicing what I preach, to pursue that study and career moving forward. One what cannot do is think about results when it comes to the first cosmic energy—cardinal-fire—associated with Aries and the first house. The being is all that matters. The putting of first things first. Expressing one’s truest nature. As a Libra (the opposite sign of Aries), the sign’s motto(s) being a counterpoint to the I am—We are or I balance, both of which point to the being or doing of a number of things, if we read the “We” as a royal one. Meaning Librans, the men especially, tend to be of the Renaissance variety, doing a number of things over the course of their lives, often simultaneously, risking being a jack of all trade and a master of none, a dilletante; while over time (father Time, Saturn is exalted in Libra) they might meet with myriad mastery like the archetype of the sign, Apollo, who is the god of a variety of arts and abstract doings. I say all this to illustrate that, more than any other sign, perhaps, we Librans are challenged when it comes to first-house energies, so unlike Aries people, who are simply the best representations—living illustrations—of that sign’s energy, incarnate. Look to your Aries friends: they are pretty well focused on being one thing, regardless of so-called success or trappings. They tend to develop mastery in one area, seemingly and seamlessly obsessed and driven in a specific direction. And unapologetically so. They are not waiting around for anyone’s approval. And when it comes to the I am, for all of us, we must all take a page from their book.

So what’s in your blood?

Copyright 2016 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.