Aries

Meaning

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, the first 30° counted from the March equinox. It is fire in its cardinal form, ruled by Mars in traditional and modern astrology alike, and astrologers read it as the sign of beginnings: the impulse that moves first and learns by doing.

In a chart Aries describes a way of acting rather than an area of life. A planet here tends to act directly, quickly and in its own name, to want a clear aim and a short road to it, and to prefer an open contest to a long negotiation. Its gifts are courage, candour and the energy that gets a stalled thing moving.

Its difficulties are the other face of speed: a start that outruns the follow-through, an answer given before the question is finished, impatience with slower people and slower processes. None of this is fixed. Astrologers often read the sign’s growth through its opposite, Libra, where the other person comes in: acting for oneself and acting with others need not compete.

Tradition exalts the Sun here, and Ptolemy explained why by the lengthening days of spring; Venus is in its detriment and Saturn in its fall. Read without judgement, this says that Aries favours vitality and initiative over compromise and patience.

In practice

• The Sun in Aries, from 20 or 21 March to 19 or 20 April (the day shifts from year to year): a sense of self built on initiative, often happiest at the start of things.
• The Moon in Aries: feelings that flare and pass quickly; ease comes from movement and from saying things plainly.
• Aries rising, on the Ascendant: a direct first impression. Mars rules the chart, so its sign, house and aspects show where that drive is spent.
• Mars in Aries is in its domicile, strong and uncomplicated. Venus in Aries loves quickly and openly and has to learn patience. Saturn in Aries builds by starting over rather than by waiting.
• Aries on a house cusp: that area of life is met head-on, with more appetite for opening it than for keeping it up.

Across traditions

• Jyotish, the astrology of India, calls the sign Mesha and also gives it to Mars, with the Sun exalted there. It counts the signs from the stars, though, so its Mesha begins about 24° further on, and the Sun enters it around 14 April.
• Human Design lays its gates on the same tropical zodiac: Aries holds gates 17, 21, 51 and 42 whole, with the end of gate 25 and the start of gate 3.
• The Chinese calendar marks this stretch of the Sun’s path with two solar terms: Chūnfēn, the spring equinox, at 0° Aries, and Qīngmíng, “clear and bright”, at 15°, where the month of the Dragon (chén) begins.

Origin and history

Babylonian astronomers called these stars the Hired Man. The Greeks saw a ram, Krios, and told of the golden-fleeced ram that carried Phrixus and Helle away from their stepmother; Helle fell into the strait that kept her name, the Hellespont. When astrologers tied the zodiac to the seasons, the sign that begins at the spring equinox became the first, and Aries opened the astrological year.

Precession has since carried the equinox backwards along the stars. The equinox point left the constellation Aries for Pisces in the 1st century BC, and by the boundaries astronomers published in 1930 the Sun now stands in front of the Ram from about 19 April to 14 May. The sign still opens on the day of the equinox, and astronomers still call the March equinox point “the first point of Aries”.

How Ulune calculates it

A body is in Aries when its tropical longitude, from Swiss Ephemeris, lies from 0° up to 30°, measured from the March equinox point of the date. The table flags a body within 1° of 0° Aries. In the dignity table Mars holds its domicile here and the Sun its exaltation, at 19° by tradition; the triplicity rulers are the Sun by day, Jupiter by night and Saturn participating, after Dorotheus; the terms run Jupiter to 6°, Venus to 12°, Mercury to 20°, Mars to 25° and Saturn to 30°, and the faces are Mars, the Sun and Venus. The readings’ decans are those of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, ruled by Mars, the Sun and Jupiter.

Correspondences