Part Two:
Twelve Phases of Human Experience
AQUARIUS - Page 1 of 3

With Aquarius, we reach the last of the "fixed Signs"; the Signs through which power is released. Power is energy ready for purposeful use through instrumentalities prepared for it. The nature of the power depends upon the character of the energy to be used; thus "fixed" zodiacal Signs follow "cardinal" Signs, and as there are two basic types of cardinal Signs — those which start with the equinoxes (Aries and Libra) and those which start with the solstices (Cancer and Capricorn) — likewise there are two basic types of succeeding fixed Signs.
      We can thus speak of equinoctial power (Taurus and Scorpio) and of solstitial power (Leo and Aquarius). Equinoctial power is conditioned by the intense dynamism of the equinoctial Signs, Aries and Libra — Signs of maximum speed of the Sun's motion in declination; Signs in which the Day-force and the Night-force are most evenly balanced. Solstitial power is the outcome of a strong concrete type of activity during the solstitial periods (Cancer and Capricorn) which begin with the Sun's motion in declination reduced to a minimum speed and which see the triumph respectively of the Day-force and the Night-force.
      Where the cardinal Sign displays intense dynamism and instability, the succeeding fixed Sign must, as it were, arrest this dynamic activity and limit it. Thus Taurus puts to organic use and forces into concrete purposes the impetuous and universalistic energy of Aries; and Scorpio brings the often diffused social eagerness of Libra to a state of stubborn identification with a particular purpose or a particular person (whence jealousy, cruelty and the like). On the other band, when the cardinal Sign shows focalization upon either personality (Cancer) or a particular form of society (Capricorn), the power demonstrated by the fixed Sign which follows manifests as a release or as an outburst of energy.
      This release either expands and glorifies what has been built and focalized in the cardinal Sign, or else tends to destroy and transcend it. Thus, a release of power in Leo may mean the disruption of the home and of personal integrity through love-affairs, gambling and intemperate gestures, as well as the building of a progeny which consolidates the home. Likewise, Aquarius may see the constructive development of State and civilization through inventions, social improvements and the glorification of special social virtues. It may also mean revolution and a complete upheaval of State and civilization by the power of a new type of human being and of new ideals which the existing State blindly refuses to tolerate, or against which it must fight because it cannot possibly assimilate it.
      This distinction between equinoctial and solstitial characteristics is of the greatest importance, if the more vital meaning of the Zodiac is to be understood. It finds also its expression in the traditional zodiacal terminology which states that the equinoctial cardinal Signs (Aries and Libra) are "masculine," and the succeeding fixed Signs (Taurus and Scorpio) "feminine"; while the solstitial cardinal Signs (Cancer and Capricorn) are "feminine" and the succeeding fixed Signs (Leo and Aquarius) "Masculine." Feminine fixed power-Signs concentrate and focalize masculine cardinal activity-Signs; thus Taurus is solar power impregnating the earth, and Scorpio is the power of human relationship and of social partnership fixed respectively in sexual identification and in business or in trusts. On the other hand, masculine power-Signs release what has been made concrete or what has become crystallized in feminine activity-Signs; thus Leo symbolizes creative and procreative power released from the formed personality and the established home, and Aquarius represents civilization expanding or reforming itself through its inventors, seers and revolutionists.
      In Capricorn, the individual man is a politician, a social automaton, or a hermit in travail of a new vision. In Aquarius the individual may be a rebel or a true reformer, a crank stubbornly trying to peddle his personal scheme of social improvement, or the devotee of a new religion which may renew vast groups of men. He may go to social martyrdom with the same passionate obstinacy with which a Leo person takes violent pride in his own creations or clings to his theatrical emotions. He is the social man trying passionately to cease being a mere creature of the State and to pour his ineradicable sense of bondage to tradition into a specialized social group consecrated to reform — any reform. He is the Party-man who is never more faithful to his Party than when the latter is attacked by conservatives or persecuted by the State as a whole. He is the fanatic who has no individualistic steering wheel to help him direct rationally his fanaticism. But he is also the Edison who fulfills a social order through his inventive genius, and the Liberator who saves a people from bondage and renews civilization without destroying its basic structure. He may pour new wine in old bottles, or break the old bottles and spill the wine for lack of adequate containers.