Aquarius

Meaning

Aquarius is the eleventh sign of the zodiac, from 300° to 330°, the heart of northern winter. It is air in its fixed form, ruled by Saturn in traditional astrology and by Uranus in modern astrology, and astrologers read it as the sign of the group and of principle: thinking beyond oneself, treating people as equals, and holding to an idea of how things could be.

A planet in Aquarius tends to step back to see the whole system, to question conventions and to act on convictions rather than on moods. Fixed air is a steady wind: ideas held firmly and for a long time. Its gifts are fairness, originality, loyalty to friends and causes, and an independence that is not easily swayed by fashion or pressure.

Its difficulties are the cool side of that clarity: distance where warmth is needed, principle defended against a person, contrariness, a feeling of standing slightly apart from everyone. The opposite sign, Leo, leads from the heart, and the pair is read as the axis of the individual and the collective, of one person’s light and everyone’s share of it.

In the traditional scheme no planet is exalted in Aquarius and none falls here. The Sun, whose sign Leo lies opposite, is in its detriment: the lone, central self is asked to become one among many.

In practice

• The Sun in Aquarius, from around 20 January to 18 or 19 February (the day shifts from year to year), in detriment: a sense of self found through friends, groups and causes larger than oneself.
• The Moon in Aquarius: feelings thought through before they are shown; comfort comes from freedom and from friendship.
• Aquarius rising, on the Ascendant: a friendly, slightly unusual first impression. Traditional astrologers take Saturn as the chart ruler, modern ones Uranus, and many read both.
• Saturn in Aquarius is in its domicile: principled, systematic, loyal to its commitments. Venus in Aquarius loves as a friend first and needs room to breathe.
• Aquarius on a house cusp: that area of life is approached independently, often with friends, groups or new ideas.

Across traditions

• Jyotish calls the sign Kumbha, the water pot, and gives it to Saturn rather than to Uranus; measured from the stars, it begins about 24° further on, and the Sun enters it around 13 February.
• Human Design begins its wheel here, with gate 41 at 2° Aquarius; gates 41, 19, 13 and 49 lie wholly in the sign, with the end of gate 60 and nearly all of gate 30.
• The Chinese calendar opens Aquarius with Dàhán, “major cold”, and sets Lìchūn, “start of spring”, at 15° Aquarius: there the month of the Tiger (yín) begins, and with it the solar year that BaZi counts.

Origin and history

Babylonian astronomers drew here the Great One, a figure pouring streams of water. The Greeks called him Hydrochoos, the water-pourer, and told of Ganymede, the Trojan youth carried off to pour the gods’ drink. In the old doctrine of planetary houses, Aquarius is Saturn’s day house and Capricorn its night house.

Uranus was discovered in 1781, and during the 19th and 20th centuries most astrologers came to give it Aquarius, a sign whose themes of freedom and invention seemed to match; traditional astrologers keep Saturn. By the boundaries astronomers published in 1930, the Sun crosses the constellation Aquarius from about 16 February to 12 March, and the March equinox point, now in Pisces, will reach Aquarius around the year 2600; the “Age of Aquarius” of popular astrology is dated in many different ways.

How Ulune calculates it

A body is in Aquarius from 300° to 330° of tropical longitude, measured from the March equinox point. Ulune names both rulers. The sign’s reading and the house readings give Uranus, and the house table adds Saturn as traditional ruler; for Aquarius rising, the chart ruler is Saturn, with Uranus shown beside it in the table and on the wheel. The dignity table counts Saturn’s domicile here; no planet is exalted or in fall, and the Sun is in detriment. The triplicity rulers are Saturn by day, Mercury by night and Jupiter participating, after Dorotheus; the terms run Mercury to 7°, Venus to 13°, Jupiter to 20°, Mars to 25° and Saturn to 30°, and the faces are Venus, Mercury and the Moon. The readings’ decans are those of Aquarius, Gemini and Libra, ruled by Uranus, Mercury and Venus.

Correspondences