Fixed
The mode of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius, the signs at the heart of each season, read as steadiness, loyalty and staying power.
Meaning
Fixed is one of the three modes, or modalities, of the zodiac, with cardinal and mutable. The fixed signs, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius, fall in the middle of each season, when it is most fully itself, and astrologers read them as persistence: holding, deepening, consolidating, seeing things through.
Each element holds in its own way. Taurus keeps resources and comforts, Leo keeps a warm and loyal heart, Scorpio keeps feelings and commitments, Aquarius keeps faith with an idea or a group. A chart with many planets in fixed signs tends to be steady, loyal and hard to deflect; its gift is endurance, the strength to finish and to protect what has been built. Its difficulty is the same firmness when change is needed: stubbornness, resistance, holding on too long.
The four fixed signs stand at right angles to one another, two pairs of opposites crossed by squares. Planets spread across them, in a T-square or a grand cross, are often read as great determination, which grows easier when it learns when to yield.
In practice
- A fixed emphasis in the balance of a chart describes staying power and constancy, and a certain reluctance to change course.
- A fixed Sun, Moon or Ascendant brings that quality to identity, to needs or to the first impression.
- The succedent houses, the 2nd, 5th, 8th and 11th, which follow the angles, are often compared with the fixed signs in modern practice.
Across traditions
- Jyotish calls these signs sthira, fixed or stable, the same grouping under another name.
- The Chinese calendar begins its four seasons in the middle of the fixed signs: Lìchūn, the start of spring, at 15° Aquarius; Lìxià, the start of summer, at 15° Taurus; Lìqiū, the start of autumn, at 15° Leo; Lìdōng, the start of winter, at 15° Scorpio.
Origin and history
Ptolemy called these signs solid, because when the Sun is in them the season it brings is firmly established and felt most fully. Latin authors called them fixed, and Lilly writes of fixed signs too. The middles of the four fixed signs, at 15°, are the halfway points between the equinoxes and the solstices, the cross-quarter points of the year.
How Ulune calculates it
The chart’s first page counts the ten planets, from the Sun to Pluto, in fixed signs, and the table weighs every body, the Sun, the Moon and the Ascendant most, the outer planets least, leaving the angles out without a birth time.
Correspondences
Related
- TaurusThe second sign, fixed earth ruled by Venus, read as the sign of steadiness, the senses and what is built to last.
- LeoThe fifth sign, fixed fire ruled by the Sun, read as the sign of warmth, creative expression and the heart.
- ScorpioThe eighth sign, fixed water ruled by Mars and, in modern astrology, Pluto, read as the sign of depth, intensity and transformation.
- AquariusThe eleventh sign, fixed air ruled by Saturn and, in modern astrology, Uranus, read as the sign of community, principle and independent thought.
- CardinalThe mode of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, the signs that open the seasons, read as initiative and the power to begin.
- MutableThe mode of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces, the signs that close the seasons, read as adaptability, learning and transition.
- Grand crossFour bodies at the corners of a square, two oppositions crossing at right angles: strength built under tension from every side.
- T-squareTwo bodies in opposition, both square a third: a tense, driving figure whose energy gathers at its focal planet.
Sources
- Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, c. 150
- William Lilly, Christian Astrology, 1647