Why is there water in Aquarius and Capricorn?

Saturn rules over Capricorn, which is an Earth sign, and over Aquarius, associated with the element Air. However these two signs have Water as part of their symbolism. How come?

The symbol for Capricorn is a Sea-Goat. The front is goat, the back is fishtail. This suggests a transition from fish to goat, from sea to mountain, from Water to Earth. It’s a story of becoming dry.

Everything is relative. The story may not be about becoming absolutely dry, but moving towards the dry end of the wet-dry spectrum.

Psychologically, this dryness is the dryness of the child growing up. In the beginning, in Cancer, the world is all emotional dependency, mother-child bond, the protection of the family. In the womb we were completely immersed in Water. When we were a baby, we were still swimming in very emotional waters… Growing up is somehow drying up! Like the goat we learn to climb our own mountain without being carried by mother and the flow. We learn to be self contained and pursue our own goals, in spite of the contrary moods…

Now, the rulership of Saturn over Aquarius, the Water Bearer, often representing Water pouring down, seems to contradict the idea of Saturn being dry, or drying. Aquarius is an Air sign.

Even without knowing Greek mythology it’s easy to connect the Air of Aquarius with the sky. In the air, the water bearers are the clouds. The ruler of the opposite sign, Leo, is the Sun - which, during daytime, can only be obscured by clouds. Uranus, the modern ruler of Aquarius, happens to be named after the God of the Sky.

Water in Air and pouring down is rain. Here, the action of Saturn is condensation. Saturn always increases density: with this energy, Water comes out of Air and Earth out of Water.

This is not modern physics! This is a language of symbols. Replace Air by “gaseous”, Water by “liquid” and Earth by “solid”, and think of Saturn as cold and pressure.

Rain is cold. Air is considered hot according to the traditional elemental qualities, this shows how relative these notions are: Air is definitely hotter than Water. Air has insulating properties. At the same temperature, we feel Water colder than Air. Air can be felt as cold, especially in Winter when it rains and winds, but by contrast with Earth and Water, Air is hot.

Air is a symbol of mental space. Fleeting thoughts and ideas are weightless and invisible like the wind. With Saturn, our mental life becomes consistent and coherent. Our ideas may become fixed or at least organised into systems - theories, plans or ideologies.

Saturn gives form, Saturn shapes: In Air, it is the wind blowing on the water, making waves, as the glyph of Aquarius represents. Waves are visible manifestations of the invisible wind’s action. Our ideas shape our realities.

The wave is a symbol of individuality. We are waves, and we are the ocean. We are made by the wind, and we are the wind (but we have forgotten).

Now you may wonder. Is Aquarius, the water bearer, a symbol of the clouds, or is it the wind that makes waves? The answer is: both.

Symbols do not obey the “either…or” demands of rational definitions of concepts. Symbols don’t separate, they unite. The wind carries clouds, clouds carry water, the context is the sky, the symbol is the whole picture.

I hope you enjoyed this Watery ballad through the lands of Saturn!

Jean-Marc Pierson

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Spiritual Enzymes

The symbols of the zodiac are spiritual enzymes.  Edited and posted on Substack

The anonymous author of “Meditations on the Tarot”  - A Christian Hermetist - introduces the Major Arcanas as “Spiritual enzymes”: they have the power to stimulate and awaken deep layers of the soul when we contemplate them. I have no doubt that the zodiac is the same. The twelve signs are authentic symbols. 

Symbols are not mere conventions, like ordinary words. If you don’t know that the French word “bateau” means “ship”, you won’t be able to guess. The sound of the word “bateau” has nothing to do with any sound that may suggest a ship. You can calligraphy the word with great art, it won’t look like a ship at all. 

Symbols on the other hand are like tips of icebergs: if you see the tip, you can have an intuition of the whole iceberg. 

Imagine being new to the world like a child. You see an iceberg for the first time, however you have previous experiences of  floating things. 

Intuitively, you are using the law of analogy: this new thing (the iceberg) must behave like things you already know (the yellow duck in the bathtub, a piece of wood in the river...) so there must be a  part of the iceberg below the surface. Intuitively you also understand density, because you have experience of small and heavy things versus bigger but lighter ones (the formers sink, the latter float).

You can feel the approximate size of the immersed part of an iceberg, even without previous experience of icebergs. You apply the law of analogy: you assume that it goes with this new thing- the iceberg - like with the things you already know.  

Symbols invite us to a similar intuitive understanding. They appear as the tip, they mean the iceberg. Thanks to the symbol, we should be able to guess the whole thing without opening a textbook. 

One day a guy called Archimedes found the exact formula for floating bodies, but he would never have been able to discover the scientific formulation if he hadn’t had first the lived experience of things floating or sinking. 

The famous esoteric law of analogy states that we can similarly get intuitions about the invisible worlds. 

Symbols are tips of spiritual icebergs. Don’t take the metaphor too literally, this doesn’t mean that the spiritual world is cold like the Arctic. It’s only the tip versus hidden part that is supposed to make sense! 

Symbols show something we know, the head of a ram, a bull, two twins etc. or imaginary creatures like a centaur or a sea goat - but these are made of parts that belong to the world we know: a  horse and a man, a goat and a fish…

The other side of the equation, the hidden part belongs to dimensions that are beyond the grasp of our senses. Symbols mean psychic energies or spiritual realities. The word “occult”, as you know, means “hidden”. 

The law of analogy, as an esoteric principle, states that “As above, so below” and we usually understand that “above” means the heavens, and “below” is down here on earth. 

Above means the subtle and invisible worlds. Below is the reality we experience, everyday, thanks to our senses.

As above so below goes both ways. Our world below is like what is above, it is a reflection of the psychic or spiritual dimensions.

At the same time, there is a radical difference between what’s familiar and what’s beyond our grasp, transcendent, mysterious, unutterable, ineffable, you name it. 

The more we calm down the mental noise the more we’re making room for intuition.

The more we become silent like a cathedral the more we can hear, feel and see.

A humble temple can do.

Blog posts from past years have become a book…

Symbols are spiritual enzymes. Astrology is a spiritual path. 

Jean-Marc

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How to develop your intuition with astrology

Symbols show what they mean. We can understand them directly.

Take Cancer. Let’s dive into the picture. Let’s pretend we know nothing. Where will this symbol take us?

It's a crab. There is an environment: the sea and its perpetual flux and reflux. Crabs appear on the shores when the tide is low. They disappear when it's high. Tides are following the rhythm of the Moon and like the Moon they come and go.… 

Let’s be carried away by the sound of the waves.

This makes us feel in a certain way. How is it? A bit nostalgic? Dreamy? There are days and there are nights, there are ups and there are downs, sometimes we’re strong, sometimes we’re vulnerable, like babies… 

Life is an eternal return. Women make babies, babies grow up, boys and girls become men and women. They make love, they found families. Women have babies, babies grow up, repeat.

Generations are waves. Waves speak of generations. Out of the water comes the crab, soon to be taken back in its embrace. 

When the Moon, responsible for the ebb and flows, shines over the sea, we enter a world of dreams. We may wish we had a shell like the crab to protect our sensitive mood. We’re swimming in the world of the soul, all pictures and fantasies, yet instinctive and sensitive…

Water is fertile. Water is full of creatures that can't survive out of their environment. Babies‘ world is an emotional bath: in the nursery, when one starts crying, another joins in and soon they are all crying together, it's liquid… Mothers sing nursery rhymes, they don’t try to reason with babies, soothing passes through presence, intonation, feelings. Baby calms down and falls asleep… One wave after another…

Letting our mind and soul be impregnated by symbols allows us to follow threads of meanings. 

Leo. A roaring lion, claiming power in broad daylight. After Cancer, that’s a completely different atmosphere! 

Symbols make us feel the meaning before we find words to describe what it’s about…

Reading the part about Cancer

Focusing on the symbols, we can conjure up the spirit of the energies. “Conjuring up spirits” are words that belong to magic, and yes there is something magical in this poetic approach. Imagination is a way to develop our intuition. Imagination doesn’t mean making things up: imagination simply means forming mental pictures.

However, we shouldn’t naively believe whatever comes up in our mind. Reality checks are necessary. 

Whatever we may come up with has to be consistent with standard astrological knowledge or be rejected. It may also be confirmed by the feedback we can get from others. Coming back to Earth is the healthy conclusion of the process. The alternative is drowning. Beware, Water is also a world of illusions. 

The same imaginative approach works to explore the meaning of complex configurations. This may lead to psychic perceptions at times. 

In a previous post, I used Venus in Leo square Mars in Taurus as an example of the method consisting of combining keywords to make meaningful sentences. Thinking in pictures is the “right brain” complement of this “left brain” technique. 

Venus in Leo. Can you see this beautiful girl? She is the kind that can’t be missed. There is a little crowd of admirers around her. She laughs at their lines when they are good, there is a constant banter going on, she loves it. She decides on every move. She says “Let's go to the bar!” or “Let’s go to the beach!” … They all follow. 

There is one who is not happy over there. It’s Mars in Taurus, her husband. He played the game, and he won. She found him different. He knew how to do beautiful things with his hands. He had a rooted style that fascinated her. She married him. He believed the game was over, but no. The game is never over. It’s just a game, but…

What happens next? I won’t tell you! 

Let the story fall into your mind like a seed. Let it grow like a plant. Play with ideas, let them go, forget about the whole thing, think of your characters again after a good night’s sleep. It’s not assembly-line work. 

Make an independent portrait of Mars in Taurus, before he met Venus in Leo. Love him, love her, understand how a square connection can be so exciting, in the beginning… 

Maybe, something will come up and make you laugh, or touch your heart. We can’t take it for granted but it may happen. Sometimes it takes days, sometimes a split second. Sometimes it’s a good metaphorical story, and sometimes, it’s spot on. 

I leave you to it. 

Jean-Marc

Thinking of taking a class? What I have been describing in this post and the previous one (Sentences with keywords) is a mental gymnastic. Understanding how things work is great, practising it takes training.

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