- Aries (cardinal masculine Fire)
- Rulership: Head; face; sinus cavities; nose (1st House)
- Calendar date: 21 March – 19 April
- Planets in rise: Sun
- Planets in rest: Mars
- Planets in detriment: Venus
- Planets in fall: Saturn
- Leo (fixed masculine Fire)
- Rulership: Heart; thoracic vertebrae; muscles of upper back (5th House)
- Calendar date: 23 July – 22 August
- Planets in rise: Pluto
- Planets in rest: Sun
- Planets in detriment: Uranus
- Planets in fall: N/A
- Sagittarius (mutable masculine Fire)
- Rulership: Upper legs; hips; thighs; sciatic nerve; kidneys; liver (9th House)
- Calendar date: 22 November – 22 December
- Planets in rise: N/A
- Planets in rest: Jupiter
- Planets in detriment: Mercury
- Planets in fall: N/A
Welcome to Aries and the 1st House of the Zodiac! Aries is the masculine sign of cardinal Fire. In an explosion of hot, fiery, aggressive, masculine Spirit, Aries is the initial spark which puts things in motion. Aries is named for the Greek god of war and is ruled by Mars, the Roman god of war. Aries is all about spontaneity and risk and this person could easily be heard saying, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” as well as “You’ll never know if you don’t go.” Aries loves the excitement of living in the moment and having an exciting task to occupy his attention: he’s very good at starting projects but his staying power and commitment are questionable because he's happiest as a pioneer setting out into the Great Unknown. He seeks conquest of virgin territories and wants to be the first in whatever he does. Aries sees no reward in sticking around after the job is done – he’s ready to move on to the next adventure as soon as the previous adventure has begun to wind down.
To best capture Aries, imagine that you see a man building a tower: he wants the fame of being the first to build a large and impressive tower. The passion consumes him, he builds, and the tower grows taller into the sky. Eventually he completes the tower and finds himself standing at the top of it with nowhere else to go. Now what? Now Aries is stuck at the top of a tower with no task, no goal, nothing to accomplish, and nothing to spread his renown. As soon as he’s laid the last shingle on the roof, he’ll be on his way to the next big thing and nothing can hold him back.
On a bad day, Aries can go two ways: first, he can share in the same aggressive, hostile Spirit of Mars and incinerate the people around him in his impatience; second, he can become discontent and bored. Without a purpose or a goal, Aries can be listless and depressed. Aries needs purpose and he defines himself by what he does, where he’s going, and what he’ll accomplish. Without those things, Aries will lose interest. He needs an outlet for his Spirit and without one he’s in danger of turning it in on himself destructively.
Aries and his ruler Mars are at home in the 1st House of the Zodiac, the house of outward appearance and external personality. This house describes how a person is perceived, not necessarily who they really are. That’s why you may meet somebody who seems wonderful at first but then later you find out they’re quite unpleasant. This is an extreme example, but I use it to illustrate the effect of the 1st House: it is the surface personality and the first part of a person which everybody else sees. The glyph of Aries shows the horns of a ram and it mimics the brow and nose of the human face, aptly suited for the 1st House of outward appearance and exterior personality as well as the explosive, extroverted Spirit of the sign of cardinal Fire.
Aries is unique in that he governs the whole head, a piece of the body already carved up between three planets and two signs. This can be challenging, but as with any effort to assess the root causes and influence of a subject’s dis-ease, the decision must be made only after careful observation of how stress is distributed across the body. Aries’ rulership of the head is primarily limited to the structure of the head, or a somewhat vague concept of integrity and strength. Aries’ residence in the 1st House of the self, ego, and surface personality connects him to intangible injuries of the ego, but also to swelling, headaches, and other tangible injuries and chronic conditions not related to another element’s balance. Aries also rules the face: the brow, eyes, cheeks, vitality, and expressiveness as well as the intangible “wellness” of the face all belong to the sign of cardinal Fire. This includes the sinus cavities along the brow, by the temples, and on either side of the nose beneath the eyes.
Welcome to Leo and the 5th House of the Zodiac! Leo is the masculine sign of fixed Fire and he can be described in just one adjective: Lion-hearted. Leo the lion is a true and constant companion who can be depended on to be there for you even in the most trying of times. The sign of fixed Fire is ruled by none other than the Sun himself. Leo is bright, resplendent, shines strong for the people in his life, and brings the flame of friendship to everything he touches.
Being a fixed sign, Leo enjoys constancy and consistency. Like the invariable heat of the Sun, Leo’s support for others doesn’t change with the season: he’s the same today as he was yesterday. He is royalty and carries himself with the same sense of pride, dignity, and self-respect you’d expect to find in any prince of distinction. To complement his royal dignity is his sense of pride and identity. Like a Lion, Leo can be seen preening his mane and strutting his stuff: whether he’s posing for himself or others, it’s because he wants to know that he’s appreciated. To maintain his dignity and pride, Leo is also disciplined (or vain.) Like the runway model who religiously maintains his appearance or the gymnast who lifts on a regular schedule to maintain his physique and physical abilities, Leo has the discipline to regularly invest in himself to maintain both his abilities and his status. Essentially, Leo is like the Sun: he needs a Moon to reflect his light.
Don’t misunderstand Leo – he truly is a wonderful person and has a lot to offer: his passion, intensity, constancy, consistency, pride, self confidence, and eager willingness to help others is unmatched by any of the other 11 signs of the Zodiac... you just have to understand that he’s a social creature who requires external validation. Like the Moon which reflects the brilliance of the Sun or all life on Earth which is nurtured by the heat and light of the Sun, Leo needs people who need him. Leo needs love and attention! The down-side to Leo is that he can’t just switch off his constant Spirit: he just keeps going, and going, and going. He is happiest when he is himself and is fulfilling his purpose in life, but what happens when he isn’t fulfilling that purpose? Well, he just keeps going. Even if he’s doing the wrong thing and is showing a degree of hypocrisy, he’ll just keep on doing it because it may be the only thing he’s got going for himself at that moment.
This drive to push forward and be of service to others or to be helpful to others can also lead Leo to put up a facade over who he really is. Leo wants to be strong, capable, and helpful, but it wounds his pride to let others see when he’s not able to fill that role. Leo needs authority and sense of power and responsibility which come from being looked to by others for leadership and stability. If his admiring audience is gone or he can’t find one, he scrambles to regain the attention and adoration of those people who need his help. On a bad day, Leo could be heard exclaiming “You don’t know how badly you need me!”
Leo and his ruler the Sun are at home in the 5th House of children, lovers, dependent relationships, vanity, and creativity. Like a lion and his pride, Leo needs people around him who, in turn, need him: children, dependents, lovers, spouses and significant others. Like Leo’s need to be the center of somebody’s attention, vanity also appears in the 5th House. Vanity and creativity go hand-in-hand for Leo because it all begins with him. His creativity is first exercised over himself and then offered to the world around him.
Leo rules the heart and the thoracic vertebrae: for more about heart, refer back to the Sun and Moon. Efferent spinal nerves extending from the thoracic vertebrae innervate muscles of the upper body (but not the neck or head), to include muscles of the mid- and upper-back, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms, and hands. Afferent nerves relay sensation to the central nervous system from the upper-chest (beneath the scapula) through the lower abdomen (excluding the upper hips and groin.) They also relay sensation from the back at the level of the thoracic vertebrae.
Welcome to Sagittarius and the 9th House of the Zodiac! Sagittarius is the masculine sign of mutable Fire and is ruled by the planet Jupiter. Sagittarius, being the complementary opposite of Gemini, is fast-moving and exciting. Both Gemini and Sagittarius share mutual interests in learning new things, but they satisfy their interests in different ways. Gemini would rather read or talk about something, but Sagittarius would rather get up and actually go somewhere. Gemini would spend the day in the library reading journals and magazines or using the library’s computers to scour the Internet and read the latest blogs, but Sagittarius would prefer to buy a bus ticket or get in the car and go where the action is.
Sagittarius can be an inspiring person – he sees connections between all things and is great at finding corresponding elements between even the most diverse subjects. If Gemini is the field reporter gathering the facts, Sagittarius is the investigative journalist who puts the pieces together and discovers a larger story. Sagittarius doesn’t need to rely on cold hard facts to do his job because he has enough intuition to follow his faith to what he’s looking for.
Sagittarius is called the archer for his far sight and accurate aim: once he gets an idea in his Mind, he can find a way to make it work. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Sagittarius can be counted on to find it and make it work. Sagittarius is also called the sage for the advice he can give: he loves to learn and do new things, so he naturally collects words of wisdom. While the rest of us have to strive our whole lives to find meaning or purpose in what we do, Sagittarius never lacks for a purpose or destination. Sagittarius isn’t necessarily a religious person, but he is naturally suited to faith and religious convention. He sees everything as connected and related one to the other and could probably recite scripture for any occasion if he was so inclined.
Sagittarius takes a long, broad view of the world. He takes from his ruling planet Jupiter a desire to grow and enjoy broadening experiences which give him a fuller appreciation for life. Sagittarius isn’t necessarily the person who believes that he should go large or go home, but does see a need for a larger scope in what he does. Sagittarius can be depended on to consider the future and make multiple contingency plans. If it’s worth doing, Sagittarius can be depended on to come up with several terrific ways to do it.
Of course, on a bad day, you might wish Sagittarius would just find somebody else to help. On a bad day, Sagittarius knows all the answers and is more than happy to make sure that he gives you all of them – whether you want them or not. Sagittarius gets caught up with himself and his ego inflates to massive dimensions. Right or wrong, he knows the best and right way to do anything. Because he knows (or thinks) he’s right, he comes across as self-righteous or “holier than thou.” His vast experience, sage knowledge, and incredible insights are something he has and you don’t. Simply put, his arrogance can be legendary.
Because he gets caught up in how much he knows or thinks he knows, he can be a fanatic. His mutable fiery Spirit carries him away to great heights where his own importance is grossly exaggerated. As a side effect of the ego-inflation process, he doesn’t bother to do any fact-checking or to consider the validity of what he’s found. He’s too busy forming connections and creating a “bigger picture” of what he thinks is happening to consider the factual reality and what’s really happening. The worst part is that you can’t even challenge him on this: disputing one wrong fact doesn’t change the validity of any of the other connections he’s formed. Unlike Scorpio who is totally attached to her emotions and identity, Sagittarius has a more cellular personality. So he’s wrong about one thing? No problem – he’s still got a dozen other ways to prove his angle.
Sagittarius and his ruler Jupiter are at home in the 9th House of religion, philosophy, higher education, and travel. The 9th House is the house of things which give us a broader world-view and enlightens us to the ways of the world. Religion, philosophy, higher education, and travel cultivate our minds and show us the essential truth celebrated by Sagittarius: we are more alike than we are different. Thousands of years ago when the Greeks assigned these meanings to the 9th House, travel far from home and in foreign countries was considered a broadening experience as valuable as that gained from a formal education.
Sagittarius, the sign of mutable Fire, rules the upper legs, hips, thighs, kidneys, liver, and the sciatic nerve. It is true that the sciatic nerve is a member of the nervous system and should thus be included under Mercury or even Gemini, but its size and location instead give it to Sagittarius. The sciatic nerve is the largest, broadest nerve in the entire body. It stems from portions of the lumbar and sacral vertebrae and passes through the buttocks and the protective loop of bone made by the ischium and pubic bones on either side of the pelvis. The sciatic nerve relays information to and from the lower back and nearly the whole of both legs.
The significance of the sciatic nerve is also Spiritual: Judaic kashrut laws strictly forbid the consumption of it. This prohibition against consumption of the sciatic nerve is based on the Old Testament verse which tells the story of Jacob wrestling with Yahweh. Whether you believe or doubt the story of Jacob’s struggle with the God of Abraham, I introduce this verse to provide one Spiritual illustration for the separation of the sciatic nerve from the Balance of Air:
KJV Gen. 32:25-32: And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank.
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