This reflection on Aquarius is dedicated to the memory of Varya, who was born with the Moon in the final degree of Aquarius.
There has been much discussion of Aquarius and Pluto this week in astrology-land, given that former planet Pluto has now ingressed the second-to-last sign of the zodiac.
Though Pluto entered Aquarius for the first time almost a year ago - and will retrograde back into Capricorn later this year - this particular ingress (Jan 20th) seemed to have penetrated the public psyche in a grander way (at least from where I am sitting, which is behind my laptop on the futon in our basement).
I wanted to share some knowledge and personal reflections about Aquarius as a sign and archetype.
A great place to start, joining the chorus of many wonderfully skilled and learned astrologers, is to consider Aquarius as a fixed, air sign traditionally ruled by Saturn (co-ruled by, or associated with, Uranus in modern astrology).
As part of the fixed cross (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius), Aquarius occurs in the middle of a season. The middle of a season is where that seasonal energy is fully established and thus highly concentrated. Aquarius occurs in the dead of winter, and the halfway (cross quarter) point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox occurs in the middle of Aquarius (Imbolc, Groundhog Day, Candlemas) in early February.
The dead of winter fits well with Saturn as the ruling planet of Aquarius. Saturn, as the most distant planet of our solar system that is visible to the naked eye, has come to symbolize boundaries and structures. Ancient astrologers posited Saturn as the literal end of the cosmos, the final sphere of all planetary spheres. With such distance from the light and life-giving Sun, Saturn naturally represents the opposite: death.
In the wheel of the year, winter is not the process of decay but what remains after death. Stillness. Space.
Aquarius is often connected to the Star card of the Tarot, an image of a person filling up a vase with light from the stars and pouring it down to nourish humanity on Earth. Aquarius, situated in the stillness of winter, seems to have this connection to space, and the nourishment we can draw through deep relationship to its vastness.
Aquarius is also an Air sign though many have mistook it for a Water sign given its symbol of the Water Bearer (s/he who carries the vase).
The vase, or any container capable of holding water, has ancient connections to the Goddess. A Water sign is attuned to the feeling and current of here and now, changing and flowing as the water moves. The capacity to hold the water indicates several things that deserve deeper pondering.
To hold water means one can share water with another. To hold water means one can delay consumption of water to a future moment. To hold water means that one can rest with the knowing that they will be ok. To hold water is to hold empathy and intelligence that can only come from the emotional body. To hold water is to hold a strict boundary, for water’s nature is to flow downward and outward, or around should there be any obstacle in its way.
Curiously, though Aquarius is of the masculine polarity, as all Air signs are, the three faces of Aquarius are ruled by Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. Notice that two feminine bodies - Venus & Moon - hold power in Aquarius, and Mercury is the hermaphroditic planet. That Mercury has special affinity to Aquarius and Air signs more generally fits with Aquarius as bridge between heaven and earth, society and spirituality (as the sign between Capricorn and Pisces).
Perhaps the influence of Moon and Venus is somehow connected to the woman pictured on the Star card, receiving inspiration from the vast starry sky and pouring it down to the humans below. Women as vessel, capable of receiving the vastness of space, and woman as nurturer who naturally shares her stellar wetness with humanity below. By contrast, Aquarius is commonly described as the sign of the androgyne.
The concept of the androgyne, the balance of male & female, or the absence of sexed characteristics of male and female, is fascinating to ponder in our current era of sex & gender culture war.
In my obsession to prevent female erasure and to protect bodily integrity and the rights of women and children, I can sometimes gloss over the potency of people who can drift from masculine to feminine pole of experience with ease. Aquarius speaks to this potency.
Consider though that to be human on Earth means that you are either male or female. To exist in a body means that this is true. People want to deny this for various reasons because one’s mental or emotional experience can be so at odds with the body, and because it is often seen as spiritual or transcendent to reject the body in some capacity.
If Aquarius is the androgyne, the perfect balance or absence of the duality of sex, this must speak to our Mind (as part of the Air element) as reaching some kind of integration, wholeness, or perfection that is missing in the earlier Air signs. It also speaks to some sort of ideal, that for humanity to be perfect or evolved there must be some integration of the sex or transcendence of sex reality. Air signs can draw us out of the body and into the realm of concepts and constructs.
Aquarius is the last of the Air trigon (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius), representing the blossoming of the mind toward the benefit of all. Gemini is the flowering of the individual mind; mutable Air is forever drifting, shifting, changing, experimenting. Libra is the application of the mind in service to harmonious relationships; cardinal Air blowing the scale toward greater balance. Aquarius as fixed air denotes the structuring of the mind to climb toward greater perspective and spaciousness.
This is where humanitarian and technological interests become associated with Aquarius, I suppose.
If you know and love an Aquarius, you may recognize their curious combination of openness and stubbornness, intellect and imagination, empathy and aloofness. Consider these polarities through the lens of ‘fixed Air’, androgyny, and bridges.
As the opposite sign to Leo, Aquarius naturally represents the other, the edge, the boundary, the border, the perimeter, the outcast. Leo is ruled by the Sun and occupies the power at the centre. Aquarius speaks to the rot of the centre and the increasing influence of that at the edge. Consider how much this is occurring now, with widespread distrust in many institutions and systems, and increasing influence of non-traditional media outlets, personalities, and more.
Notes.
I have drawn on the excellent work and bright ideas of Austin Coppock & Erich Neumann in the writing above