The Ram - March 21 to April 20
Aries is a Cardinal [action] sign and is ruled by
The Ram - March 21 to April 20
Aries is a Cardinal [action] sign and is ruled by
Positive Traits:
Adventurous
energetic
pioneering
courageous
enthusiastic
confident
dynamic
quick-witted
Negative Traits:
Selfish, quick-tempered
impulsive
impatient
foolhardy
daredevil
Aries (ram) governs the head and brain, therefore Aries are said to be prone to headaches, particularly migraines, sunstroke, neuralgia and depression. Indigestion and nervous disorders are also threats to them, and their rashness, impetuosity and wholesale physical commitment make them liable to accidents and physical injuries. On the flip side, they are a fire sign eager to learn and quickly understand the nature of reality as consciousness.
Aires is a fire sign therefore they will try many things with full passion at the onset, but do not often finish them.
Like the young ram, Aries is adventurous, ambitious, impulsive, enthusiastic and full of energy. The Aries personality is a pioneer both in thought and action, very open to new ideas and a lover of freedom. They welcome challenges and will not be diverted from their purpose except by their own impatience, which will surface if they don't get quick results.
Aries can be courageous leaders with a genuine concern for those they command, but they will not hesitate to use their subordinates to obtain their own objectives as leaders. As followers they can be troublesome, as they don't do well with authority figures, especially those them deem ineffectual. They may be unwilling to obey or submit to directions for which they can see no reason, or with which they disagree.
They are much concerned with self, both positively and negatively, self-reliant but also self-centered and concerned with their own personal advancement and physical satisfaction to the point of greed. Their immense energy makes them aggressive and restless, argumentative, headstrong, quick tempered, easily offended and capable of holding grudges if they feel themselves affronted. Thus, if at work superiors cooperate well with their Aries employees, approving of their good qualities, they will receive from them complete loyalty; but if Aries considers themselves unappreciated or exploited, they are likely to give notice impulsively, to nurse resentment and even, in extreme cases, to revenge themselves by slandering their former firm, or by acts of sabotage.
In their personal relationships Aries are frank, direct and candid, and make enthusiastic and generous friends.
They generally have a high sex drive and make passionate but fastidious lovers. There is, however, a negative side to their associations with other people. They can easily be irritated by slowness or moderation in their companions and, though themselves sensitive, ride roughshod over the sensitivities of others. The intensity of their sexual urges can drive them to promiscuity and a Don Juan-like counting of conquests of the opposite sex. It can also trick them into early unwise marriage which may end disastrously. Their love of change more than counters the little loyalty they have, and their tenacity, though sufficient to achieve short-term objects, is unlikely to stand up to the challenge of a lifetime's faithfulness.
Mentally Aries are intellectual and objective, but can be bigoted and extremist in religion and politics. They are good champions of lost causes and last-ditch resistance. They are quick-witted but foolhardy and overly optimistic, lacking thoroughness and the ability to evaluate difficulties in the undertakings into which they often rush impulsively. The great need of Aries natives is to exercise an iron self-control, to discipline the qualities and tendencies of their character to the advantage, not the detriment, of the society in which they move.
They can make good athletes and climbers, doctors, explorers (of new ideas as well as uncharted territory, the latter in these days including adventuring into outer space), soldiers, sailors and airmen, and leaders, though awkward subordinates, in industry and politics.
Aries is a rather inconspicuous northern constellation and sign of the zodiac, which honors the ram whose golden fleece was sought by Jason and the Argonauts. Aries used to contain the vernal equinox, the point where the Sun crosses the celestial equator. Nowadays the vernal equinox has moved in the constellation Pisces, but sometimes it is still called the first point of Aries. The constellation can be seen from latitudes between +90° and -60°, and is best visible in the winter sky. The spring equinox, March 21, is the beginning of the new zodiacal year and Aries, the first sign, is therefore that of new beginnings.
Aries is devoid of prominent deep sky objects, and has only a few stars of interest, notably the triangle made up of the principal stars in the constellation. Aries is a nice constellation to view in the autumn and winter sky. The sun passes through it from late April to mid-May. Although there are not many objects to observe in Aries this constellation is important to astronomers. In former times the vernal equinox (i.e. the point where the Sun crosses the celestial equator when moving from the south to the north) lies within Aries, but due to the effect of precession this point is nowadays located in the western neighbor Pisces. For historical reasons the vernal equinox is still referred as the First Point of Aries. The meaning of this point is equal to the meaning of the null meridian at Greenwich: it is the zero point of the right ascension. This constellation can be found between DECL=+10 degrees and DECL=+30 degrees and between RA=1h 40m and RA=3h 30m, respectively. Over the body of Aries another asterism (pattern of stars seen in Earth's sky which is not an official constellation) is located - the Northern Fly hovers over Aries.
Aries constellation in the years approximately 2,000 years before the birth of Christ was the position of the equinox, previously the position held by Taurus. The change was due to the precession of the axis and became evident throughout the mythologies of several areas as the cult of the ram overtook that of the bull. The constellation was at one time called the Prince of the Zodiac. This slow precession has since shifted the sun's position from Aries to Pisces.
Mesopotamia:
The Sumerians called the sun, Subat, meaning the Ancient Sheep or Ram and the planets the Celestial Herd. The bright star in Aries, Hamal, meaning the lamb, represented one of the stars in the Scimitar, a celestial weapon that protected against the Seven Diabolic Spirits of the Storm. The Babylonian priest Berossos who lived around 275 BC said that the world was created when the Sun was in the Ram.
Egypt:
The Egyptians associated Aries with the god Amon Ra. During the time of Dionysus and his campaigns in Africa, his troops were traveling through a sandy desert. They ran out of water and were worn out struggling through the sand. A ram appeared before them, rose up in the air and landed behind a dune. When scouts followed the animal, they came upon a spring of water, but no ram. Dionysus ordered the building of a temple to Zeus Amon on the spot where the spring rose. A likeness of the ram was placed in the temple and the ram was placed in the heavens in a position of great importance.
The cult of Aries had its beginning here since its position at the zenith coincided with the rising of Sirius in the east and the flooding of the Nile. The Temple of Amon-Ra at Karnak bore the likeness of the supreme sun-god with the horns of a ram. The road to Karnak was formed from the wings of two granite sphinxes bearing the head of Aries.
Greece:
In the second century BC the Greek astronomer Hipparchus set up the system for measuring positions of stars and other fixed objects in the heavens. He established as his starting point the location of one of two places where the Sun crossed the "celestial equator," an extension of Earth's equator out into the sky. Thus, the vernal equinox, where the Sun stood at the beginning of spring, became the reckoning point for the heavens.
During Hipparchus' time this was located in the constellation Aries, the Ram. This fact of history gave everlasting fame to one of the smallest and dimmest constellations of the zodiac. From that time hence, even though the vernal equinox slowly drifts along the ecliptic, it has been referred to as the "First Point of Aries." This could get confusing if we forget its historical origin, for the "First Point of Aries--the vernal equinox--is currently in the constellation Pisces, the Fishes, just west of Aries.
There are several mythological stories involving Aries. It is said, for example, that this was the ram Zeus transformed into in order to escape giants pursuing him. The most famous legend of all, however, is that of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece.
The story begins in Thessaly with Phrixus and Helle, Children of Athamas, King in Boeotia. Their stepmother mistreated these boys, so merciful Hermes (Mercury) sent them a ram with Golden Fleece, which they rode away upon, sailing through the air to cross the sea. Helle fell in mid-flight, over the strait between Europe and Asia, drowning in the sea which thereby acquired the name "Hellespont" (near the Dardanelles). When Phrixus landed safely in Colchis at the East End of the Black Sea, he sacrificed the ram to Zeus (Jupiter) and gave the Fleece to Aeetes, King of that land, who placed it in a sacred grove guarded by a dragon that never slept. Later, believing that Phrixus' ghost wanted the radiant golden hide recovered, Jason and fifty of the foremost heroes of the time (including Castor and Polydeuces, who we will meet in a couple of months in this column) built a ship and mounted an expedition for the purpose of acquiring the legendary Fleece. Amid trial and turmoil, which included slaying the fire-breathing dragons and a crop of warriors that arose when the dragon's teeth were sown in a field, they succeeded. Finally, to honor the valiant ram, Zeus placed it among the stars in the gleaming girdle encircling the sky, the zodiac.
Aries has none of the brightest stars, so a little patience and persistence is required to learn to locate it. Look to the east in the evening and find the dim clustered stars of the Pleiades and, below them, the companion cluster in a "V" shape, the Hyades. The bright reddish star at the end of the "V" is Aldebaron, brightest star in Taurus, the Bull. Let Aldebaron be the beginning of an arc and extend it on through the Pleiades (it is about one clenched fist at arm's length between Aldebaron and the Pleiades).
Keep on going about 25 degrees (two clenched fists at arms length) where the two brightest stars of Aries, close together (two finger-widths at arms length apart), will form the West End of the arc. Notice the dimmer star located just beyond the second star of the pair in Aries; let this dim star form the very tip of the arc we have described. Now, back along the arc, about midway between the Pleiades and the brightest star of Aries, there is still another very dim star belonging to Aries. The four stars you have found, two of them considerably brighter than the others, are all there is to see of Aries without optical aid.
It is not the brightness of the stars of Aries that makes them worth knowing. They provide one of the twelve constellation sky-marks to help you know the zodiac, and it is the zodiac, after all that is essential if you are to know the apparent journeys of the Sun in our sky caused by the fact that we orbit the Sun.
From mid-April until mid-May the Sun is drifting under the stars of Aries that we have just described. Thus, they are not visible during spring. We begin to pick them up in the early morning in summer and they rise in the evening during autumn. In late November they are high in the southeast at 8:00 p.m. and nearly overhead by 10:00 p.m. If you have trouble finding them, visit your local planetarium or contact your local astronomy club for a program about the current sky and ask the staff or club member to identify Aries. You could also ask one of these organizations for a chart of the sky to assist in finding Aries.
The ancients needed a marker of some sort to indicate the beginning of spring. The only stars occupying that particular place on the Zodiac at that time were those dim ones we now recognize as Aries. Around 1800 B.C. the position occupied by Aries on the Zodiac band was an important one, and will be again in the distant future. It marked the beginning of spring and was known as the First Point of Aries.
The brightest star in Aries is Hamal, from the Arabic Al Ras al Hamal, meaning "the Head of the Sheep." The ancient Greeks from about 1580 B.C. to 360 B.C. oriented the construction of many of their sacred temples in relationship to Hamal.
In May of A.D. 1012, a supernova reportedly was seen in Aries.
The Chinese knew Aries as a dog, Kiang Leu. Later they knew it as Pih Yang, or the White Sheep.
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