Modern human beings have lost intimate contact with the seasons, but agricultural or peasant peoples were much more aware of them. However, seasons are still so important that they define the basic cycle of astrological signs. The name "seasons" refers to the stages and stations of the Sun in the sky, just like the stations in a train trip (in Spanish “estación” is used both for seasons and railway stations). This is the reason why Greek mythology talks about the "Sun chariot" (Helios) as a vehicle that carries the Sun god and describes the daily trip in the sky during the day and night with four stages: sunrise, noon, sunset and midnight; and its annual trip that includes the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Only planet Earth has such definite climatic seasons, because it is the only planet with living beings and whose axis is tilted, moving away and toward the Sun like a spinning top during the annual cycle, thus allowing for great biological diversity, landscapes and weather phenomena that cause different moods. A certain esoteric tradition affirms that before human evolution, the axis of the Earth was straight, and that one mysterious civilization caused it to tilt for spiritual purposes: the biological plan of animal and plant evolution, and the plan for the civilization of cultures. Anyway, seasons are magical and influence us enormously, determining ultimately the twelve signs (the “minor stations”) and our destiny marked by our birth at some point in that annual cycle.

During the annual trip of the Sun, there are two great stages: one bright and hot, and the other darker and colder. It is as if there were two basic seasons, one yang and the other yin, with four times of change: two equinoxes, spring and autumn, which is when the two great seasons begin -they are turning points, with many changes-, and two solstices, summer and winter, which is when these seasons have reached their peak and begin to decline -they are more stable points-. Equi-nox comes from “aequinoctium” (aequus nocte), "equal night"; and sol-stice comes from “solstitium” (sol sistere), "still Sun", or stationary Sun.

Dane Rudhyar, the great holistic astrologer, in his book "The Pulse of Life" where he develops the twelve signs, speaks of “the force of Day" and “the force of Night" meaning yang and yin forces that are going to be intertwined during the year. However, in order to avoid any confusion, I use the terms "force of Summer" and "force of Winter" meaning the two great energies that follow on one another and intermingle, producing all that we know.

Stations - equinoxes and solstices

We know that Yang-Summer is expansive, active, extroverted, cheerful, vital, conscious, and productive; and that Yin-Winter is receptive, introverted, thoughtful, sad, non-vital (hibernation, sleep, rest, death), unconscious, and cumulative. This is visibly so in the cycle of nature and in the moods that they cause us, but what is new and revolutionary is Rudhyar's perspective of attributing to the Yang-Summer the value of INDIVIDUAL (bodily, personal and concrete); and to Winter-Yin the value of COLLECTIVE (social, mental, virtual or symbolic).

This comes to meet the great division between the first 6 signs and houses as individual, inaugurated by Aries, and the remaining 6 as collective, inaugurated by Libra. The purpose of this article is to show the great analogy between the seasons and the signs (which was always done by traditional astrologers), but incorporating that last attribution, which is new and revolutionary.

Thus, during spring-summer Nature rises and grows, blooms, breeds, flourishes and is experienced with the senses (enjoyed directly), which symbolizes and parallels the predominance of personal, instinctive, physical, sensorial, emotional and mental development, the "personality infrastructure" (the "psychic apparatus" of the individual human being). During autumn-winter Nature decays, dies, fades out, loses its forms; what was produced is transformed, the seeds are preserved and the ground is prepared for the new cycle, which symbolizes and parallels the predominance of the social, cultural, collective, cosmic and spiritual processes of work and knowledge. Thereby we can observe that there is a dialectical relationship between nature and society: when nature expands, society retracts, and when nature decays, society predominates.

Leaving aside the traditional moral, we can observe it in the famous Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper: the grasshopper is the summer, an “individual song to the sun”, and the ant (which is always the anthill) is the winter, a collective work of elaboration and maintenance of Nature... This is also clearly seen in the analogy of the ages of human being: childhood and youth (play, body growth, adventure = spring-summer); adulthood and maturity (seriousness, social responsibilities, work = autumn-winter)

This occurs in both hemispheres of planet Earth, which have their seasons exchanged: even though Libra is spring in the Southern hemisphere, it is no coincidence that on both sides of the globe the beginning of the academic and the working year, is in autumn. The vital energy starts in spring and defines the end of the academic and working year. We can observe then that spring is never the beginning of the year for collective tasks, which comes to solve the paradox that Aries, the sign of spring in the North and traditionally a symbol of beginnings, is not the beginning of the "human working" year but the beginning of the "natural" year.

In my country, Argentina, Spring Day (September 21st) coincides with Students’ Day, in which they go out to celebrate in the parks, and it’s a fact that teachers have always observed that students, from this date on until the end of the year, no longer want to make any effort in their student tasks.

Thus we see that there is a dialectic between nature and society: when nature society expands, society retreats, and when nature declines, society predominates; the birth of extensive agriculture and livestock led to a boom in society and culture, with the flourishing of large cities and the birth of "the 21 empires or civilizations” (Toynbee's idea). Techniques and laws, religions and universal states, philosophies and sciences, and as cosmic system of explanation, astrologies were born.

Only where it was cold, civilizations were born, precisely to face that challenge. In the tropic regions, despite having two seasons, one of rain and one of drought, a system of subsistence economy and tribal organization prevailed: there is a supply from Nature throughout the year. Traditional astrology does not take into account this historical development that I am raising (following Rudhyar), and deals with simple schemes that correspond mostly to the peasant and pastoral stage (hence the names of the signs: the goat, the ram, the bull, the fish, the scale -of old fairs-, the water bearer, the archer...) because they only think in individual and tribal terms, and not in collective civilizing terms.

In ancient times (or today in the middle of the jungle, the polar circle or the desert), in tribal societies of hunter-gatherers or in subsistence economies, human beings were in direct contact with nature, they depended on it, and the body, its instincts, the basic needs and the basic formation of the mind predominated through language, a simple culture, and local mythologies. The most encompassing institutions were the family, the clan and the tribe, mere extensions of the individual, identified by race, blood and traditions. With the emergence of agriculture and animal breeding, there came surpluses and wealth, social classes, religions and universal philosophies, and the State, thus predominating the collective realities of cities, nations, and currently the entire planet since we live in a global civilization.

When talking about the dialectical relationship between nature and society we can observe that it is a way of speaking about the dialectical relationship between individual and collective, but in order to avoid any confusion or reduction to a social low -the alienating aspect of the social establishment-, or a ʺmassifyingʺ collective in which the individual loses their identity, it is good to talk about the personal-transpersonal dialectical relationship, so that this collective includes the entire planet and the cosmic, greater wholes that contain the smaller individual microcosm. These advanced categories are posed instead of the old categories of matter-spirit, body-soul, ego-love, which entail a negative bias towards the physical and individual aspect.

Astrology must reflect these processes of formation and evolution of humanity, with the scheme of six individual signs and six collective signs, which, we know, come in opposite and complementary pairs. This last feature is manifested in the fact that when it is spring and summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it is autumn and winter in the Southern Hemisphere (exactly the same that day and night are happening at the same time on the earth globe). This complementary temporal dimension is not taken into account by astrologers in the Northern Hemisphere, where Aries is considered, to this day, to be the spring and the beginning of everything, and Libra is the autumn and the middle of the year, since nobody takes into account the Southern Hemisphere.

Let us clarify again: on Earth the complementary opposite seasons are always occurring at the same time: when it is spring in the North, it is autumn in the South; when it is summer in the North, it is winter in the South. We can base this phenomenon in astronomical and astrological terms by observing that, when the Sun is in 0° degree of Aries from the geocentric point of view, the Earth is in 0° degree of Libra from the heliocentric point of view, this is the rationale of the exchanged seasons in the two hemispheres at the same time:

Sun = Aries = spring = North > Earth = Libra = autumn = South.

And when the Sun is in 0° degree of Capricorn, the Earth is in 0° degree of Cancer:

Sun = Capricorn = winter = North > Earth = Cancer = summer = South.

At this point, I must recall that, for some astrologers, heliocentric astrology is as important as geocentric, and both of them complement each other in a magical and necessary manner. Joining these two points of view, heliocentric and geocentric, we can remember that the Sun does not move, that the position of the Sun in the zodiacal circle reveals the rotation and the position of the Earth in relation to it, where the Earth really moves. The famous ecliptic, the circle of the Sun in the sky, is nothing more than the exact reflection of the circle that the Earth actually makes in the sky. From this point of view, the Sun "appears" to be in a sign but it is the Earth that certainly "is" in the opposite sector of the sky.

Without digging much more into this idea, I consider it essential to include the position of the Earth in the zodiac (being always on the opposite sign of the Sun, and also in the exact degree opposite that of the Sun) in order to understand why two seasons occur inversely at the same time on the planet. I have never read in any astrologer’s work a solution for this mystery and I haven’t found any other explanation for this fundamental phenomenon.

When it is summer in one of the hemispheres, light, heat, and the individual aspects predominate there, which does not mean that darkness, the unconscious mind and the collective aspects cease to exist (because there is nighttime, people going to sleep, and society and collective tasks still exists...). When it is winter, the collective predominates, but it does not mean that the individual and bodily aspects disappear: the concept of predominance is the key. The opposite complementary season becomes latent (predominance of one and latency of the opposite), a fact that can be seen on our planet showing both seasons at the same time in both hemispheres, but reversed. It is exactly the same as the fact that day and night are happening at the same time on the earth globe.

A hypothesis that arises naturally at this point is the difference there might be in people of the same sun sign in both hemispheres: for example, an Arian from the northern hemisphere who is born during spring would be different from an Arian born in the southern hemisphere where autumn occurs, but, what would that difference be? The hypothesis that I suggest is that people from the northern hemisphere would be more "Sun oriented", and those born in the southern hemisphere would be more "Earth oriented", which means that in the South the opposite sign would be more evident, without denying the sun sign.

Sharing this hypothesis with my advanced students, we were analyzing closely Pisceans born in the southern hemisphere, who all presented -alongside typical Piscean traits- very evident Virginian traits: order, earth skills, rationality. We immediately recall a first-level Piscean student who did not, who had only typical Piscean traits: confusion, chaos, job vagueness, etc. We got somehow frustrated with this exception to the rule, but then we remembered excitedly that this person was born in Colombia, and even though Colombia is in South America, it belongs to the Northern Hemisphere! Off course this is just one example, but it surely motivates me to keep on investigating about this hypothesis. By finding confirmation at every step, I want to encourage the astrological community to join this research, or to propose another hypothesis.

And finally, a few days ago, as I was doubting whether to add this hypothesis and these observations to the initial article that I was reviewing, a patient comes at the same moment to my consulting office, recently divorced, with the Sun, Moon, Saturn, Pluto and Venus in Scorpio whose main suffering was, not her emotional breakup, but, in her own words, her pain due to an excessive attachment to the physical house that she had to abandon... (Taurus!) I have always thought that the main message of any synchronicity is confirmation…

With these two very synchronistic examples, the door is pushed open to explore one of the intricate and fascinating faces of astrology in human life: each human being responds to individuality and inner collectivity, the force of Summer and Winter, the self and otherness. Now, with the interpretation of each sign, let's delve into the unbreakable relationship between astrology and Nature; we will immediately see the cycle of 12 signs in symbolic analogy with the cycle of Nature, adding to it the cycle of individual and collective humanity

ARIES - SPRING (Sun 0° Aries Northern Hemisphere, Earth 0° Libra Southern Hemisphere)

Aries - shoot emerging from a bulb

Equinox, the beginning of the natural cycle, cardinal sign, it marks the entire first half of the signs, the "emergence of the individual." The seed is broken, the stem emerges from the ground, the buds appear on the branches, the leaves explode or burst from one day to the next, the stem grows, the sap rises in the trees, showing a light green color: nature manifests itself, pops up and begins to grow. In animal life, the egg is broken and the offspring appear, the insects leave the chrysalis, it is time to give birth. Climatically, the animals leave the burrows, and the males compete to ensure sexual intercourse.

Human beings rejoice and stop wearing winter coats and warm clothing, they go for walks, and extroversion is conveyed in physical terms. What predominates during this time is the will to engage in activities, the motivation to start individual projects, the most varied individual desires, the affirmation of the newborn self, the vindication of personal desires and physical vitality. But according to Rudhyar, Aries cannot stop moving forward because it feels behind its back the newly abandoned Pisces Winter force “on its heels”, masking a latent insecurity and a regressive tendency with its impulsive acts of self-assertion: its nostalgia is as strong as its impatience ...

In human history, Aries corresponds to the emergence of humanity, homo sapiens sapiens, the stage of the hunter (gatherer) that implies nomadic life, the first weapons (the spears, the bow and the arrow), the flint knives and the tribes wars for hunting over territories and for the dominion of fire.

BEGINNING OF THE INDIVIDUAL, BIRTH OF THE BODY, IMPULSE OF GROWTH AND DIRECTION (“breaking through”), MOBILIZATION AND DISCHARGE OF ENERGY, FIGHT FOR EXISTENCE, VITAL INSTINCT OF SURVIVAL (not all seeds or sprouts grow, only the strongest ones). PERSONAL PROJECTS AND DESIRES.

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TAURUS

Fixed sign that enhances the previous phase, the analogy is the growth in quantity and volume, the strength of the stems, the consolidation and robustness of plants, the operation of leaves in photosynthesis (which is the food taken from the energy, the analogy of all "food"), the sap rises and runs thoroughly, the green of the vegetables intensifies to the final color, and the flowers appear, the maximum beauty of the season, with its colors, shapes and various perfumes: we can see Venus here.

In human terms, elementary production, house-building, the satisfaction of needs and desires, the search for pleasure that these imply, the value of the object of desire, consumption, attachment, individual property, and the accumulation of produced and valuable objects, the body and its needs, food, sensual and youthful sex that seeks the other through seduction and pursues procreation.

In human history it ensues the peasant life through the first settlements; the first sedentary experiences after centuries of nomadic life in search of stability: building square houses of earth, wood or stone, first plantations and first domestication of animals, and the production of ceramic bowls, pots and utensils. Human beings experience the abundance of Nature.

GROWTH, CONSOLIDATION, ROBUSTNESS, INCREASE, QUANTITY, NATURALITY, BEAUTY ("Nature copies art" and vice versa), SENSUALITY, COMFORT ("shadow and fresh water"), BASIC NEEDS, SECURITY AND STABILITY, ACCUMULATION AND INDIVIDUAL WEALTH.

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GEMINI

Mutable sign that prepares the arrival of summer, the analogy is the pollination of flowers through the breeze, the wind, and the insects, bees, butterflies and birds, that is, there are interchanges at all levels: the sexuality of nature (flowers and animals) for the next phase which is flourishing and breeding, and in this sense the heat increases a lot since the force of Summer is already in the air. Squirrels and butterflies are the emblematic animals here, as they flutter and snoop, carry and bring; however, all animals sexually mating in the spring are emblematic too.

In human terms, it represents movement, perception, curiosity and exchange. In history, direct trading in stores and local fairs or at least crossroads markets (not at a national or global level). Also the domestication of horses and the invention of wheels as first means of transportation, the emergence of writing (papyri, scrolls, parchments) and scribes, as well as the relevance of oral tradition. Obviously nowadays Gemini is represented by cell phones, going to school, television and all kinds of personal connections.

EXCHANGE, MOVEMENT, CURIOSITY, SEDUCTION AND SEXUALITY ("flirting"), SHALLOW CONTACTS, FIRST SOCIALIZATION, MARKETING AND LOCAL TRADING, TRANSMISSION OF KNOWLEDGE AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL.

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CANCER - SUMMER (Sun 0° Cancer Northern Hemisphere, Earth 0° Capricorn South Hemisphere)

Cancer - bird feeding young onesIt is the summer boom, the heat is peaking and so is the sunlight, the days are long and the nights short. The analogy in the natural cycle is the gestation and formation of fruits; the fertilized flower closes, forms a green thick skin or peel and begins to grow and ripen. As to the animals, it represents the building of nests and shelters, the hatching of eggs, breeding and breastfeeding, the need and defense of their own living space.

In human terms, it is the point where intimacy is created by providing protection and creating boundaries towards the outside (which is the jungle, or “the world”), and in history it corresponds to the formation of homes, families (with all the ancestors), clans, little towns and tribes. Here the importance of pets is also relevant, and the domestication of cows and sheep in barnyards due to the importance of their services provided, for example milk and wool. The psychic substance is fed and nourished in the form of emotional support and the satisfaction of the need to belong to something a little greater than oneself. Intimacy at the individual level is subjectivity, emotions, feelings and imagination. Observing Cancer in the middle of the individual cycle, it is understood that the family is only an extension of the individual, and that it is formed only as a defense against the fear of loneliness (Liz Greene and Oskar Adler).

GESTATION, INTIMACY, NUTRITION, PROTECTION, SUPPORT, MATERNALITY, SUBJECTIVITY, EMOTION, IMAGINATION, BELONGINGNESS, DEPENDENCES, FAMILY, ROOTS, ANCESTORS, PAST TIMES.

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LEO

The force of Summer is maintained and intensified (fixed sign), fruits ripen, their appearance -color, smell, and brightness- is enhanced, the sweetness or the taste is defined, and they show themselves in full swing: it is the victory of Nature because the fruit has been achieved. Wheat fields begin to bend expressing ripeness. As regards animals, paternity is expressed and enhanced: the offspring is the most important matter (the fruit), and the playing of puppies is a symbol of the playfulness of that stage.

In human terms, it symbolizes the need for holidays, creative leisure and fun, joyous sex and romance, sports and performing arts. In primary communities there is singing, dancing, meeting late around the campfire, and wishing for parties and celebrations. Brilliant people stand out (such as sports champions or individual artists) as a result of individual effort and talent, but also as a consequence of family traditions and ancestral culture. Love affairs are also archetypical of this phase (the "summertime romances"!), simply a spell for self-knowledge. Although they are very passionate, they are nothing more than a projection of ideal love. In Freud's words, a narcissistic projection, or a projection of the Higher Self as Assagioli assures. As one may say, it simply confirms the essential individual motivation of this mid cycle.

BRIGHTNESS, LIGHT, PARTY, JOY, EXPRESSION, VICTORY, PLAY, LEISURE, CREATIVITY, FUN, HOLIDAYS, PATERNITY, INNER CHILD, ROMANCES, SCENIC ARTS, OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUALITIES.

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VIRGO

The fruits demand harvest, the intervention of human labor, and also the selection of fruits according to the quality required for processing. This sign represents all and any human technical intervention that improves and takes advantage of Nature, from the techniques of sowing, cultivation and harvesting to the processing of the fruits of the earth, which appeared in humanity when agriculture and the first civilizations developed, especially cereal cultivation: wheat (oats, etc.) in Europe, rice in the East, corn (quinoa, etc.) in America. Cereals were made by Nature with the intention of being planted extensively and they demand human labor imperatively, otherwise they do not yield; hence the icon of the sign that is a maiden holding a wheat ear. Every technique is a rationally developed skill, and Virgo is a self-sufficient human being because they know how to do many things, they can solve all problems, closing the individual cycle that comes from Aries.

Virgo also symbolizes working with domesticated or herd animals, such as farms and shepherds. Many products that are grown and processed contribute to the improvement of food and health, such as honey, flour, cotton threads, wool, wine, cheese, herbs, etc. This cosmic month, this stage, is a mutable sign, therefore it prepares for the following season, autumn, whose mark is the collective aspects. In this way, Virgo is individual and collective at the same time: is self-sufficient because it crowns the individual cycle and is also closely connected with the needs of the environment and its community, through service and performance of their specific function; doing this prepares the macrocosm of the collective that appears in the next sign, Libra.

WORK, SELECTION, TECHNIQUES, RATIONALIZATION, CLEANLINESS, ORDER, ELABORATION, REFINEMENT, SHORT TIMES FOR ORGANIZATION (daily, weekly and monthly cycles), RITUALS, PREVENTION, HEALTH, SELF-SUFFICIENCY.

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LIBRA - AUTUMN (Sun 0° Libra Northern Hemisphere, Earth 0° Aries Southern Hemisphere)

Libra - harvest and fruitAutumn is the equinox, the duration of day and night is the same, Nature begins to decline, the cold begins to come, the sun begins to move farther from Earth (it is cold in the shade and hot under direct sun), the sap gradually stops circulating, the leaves and plants begin to dry, as beautiful and peaceful as the sunset. Autumn and sunset are the two moments of Libra. The late-harvest of the fruits intensifies until it is finished, with the grape harvest festival as a typical party of autumn, a cultural celebration that ends in a beauty contest (Libra!). Human and social activities are intensified: the selection of quality, the classification of seeds (for the next spring cycle), the payment for the work done. The sale of crops is installed with price negotiations and the establishment of markets.

Historically, nomadic or land-bound tribes come to an end, therefore it implies the founding of state cities (Ur, Babylon, Nineveh, Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut, Memphis, Thebes, Athens, Sparta, Taosi), with individual adaptation to the collective laws of coexistence. Commercial, industrial, and other types of companies are then established, agreements and contracts are arranged, the salaries of the year are discussed in joint committees, and taxes are paid. The academic year begins at schools, colleges and universities, together with annual projects of all types: cultural, artistic, communal, political, and research. Summer is over together with its climate of holidays. If Aries means "wishing to do something individually for oneself", Libra is "wishing to do something together for the collective": the two signs are cardinal, and thus Libra is the "spring of the collective". The Whole is now more important than the parts -the individual selves-, be it the city, the culture, the society or humanity. The partner or the "Other" is a symbol of the collective, the Non-Self, a symbol of Love that is no longer personal and self-centered, and that is directed toward God (Pisces).

BALANCE, HARMONY, UNION OF BODY AND MIND, SOCIABILITY, ASSOCIATIONS, SOCIAL PROJECTS, COEXISTENCE, US, THE SOCIETY INSIDE THE INDIVIDUAL, AESTHETICS, ARCHETYPICAL IDEALISM OF THE UNIVERSAL MAN AND LOVE AS A COLLECTIVE PROJECT.

SCORPIO

Autumn deepens and is defined, we are in the fixed sign of autumn; the beauty of the landscape now in yellow and red tones, and a melancholy for the sun that moves away. Something deep and inner sneaks into the message of Nature: Nature is dying... Halloween parties in the Celtic tradition, and Day of the Dead in the Christian tradition, are examples of the hidden and mysterious aspects of this stage. Leaves fall profusely and make up a mattress on the ground, which will rot and compost with the earth, becoming a fertilizer for the future cycle. Oil is precisely that: underground biological waste that is a source of energy: "black gold", hidden wealth. Products of Nature that have been harvested or slaughtered are stocked up and stored in silos or sheds, in basements and warehouses, in freezers or refrigerators. Formerly this storage was a reserve for winter, but in modern industrial societies it is a symbol of capital or collectively generated wealth, where finance and capitalism were born. The processing of products is also emphasized, causing an essential transformation: pigs are slaughtered and butchered and cold cuts and cheeses are seasoned, grapes are turned into wine and aged in the darkness and cold of the cellars, fruits become alcohols, sweets, preserves, flours, sugars or chemical elements, symbolizing alchemy and distillation, which lead to the "sublimation of nature", the sublimation of instinct which is the mark of elevated Scorpio.

Sex during this stage is understood not as sensual or reproductive (Taurus), but as a cosmic and instinctive, merging, mysterious and the creator of collective units rather than individual ones, the basis of society. Rudhyar says that when socially accumulated wealth is used for individual purposes, it has a perverse effect, another meaning of base Scorpio: this author states that the scorpion bug is a degeneration of Nature, and that it symbolizes greed and corruption, when wealth is not used for collective purposes but for individual ones. The high animal of Scorpio is the eagle, which although carnivorous and killer of preys, sees everything (totalities) from above and has traditionally been a symbol of empires and civilizations: (Sumeria, Rome, Prussia -and Nazism-, Byzantium, Austria, United States)

HIDDEN WEALTH, UNDERGROUND (UNCONSCIOUS) ENERGY, COLLECTIVE ORIGIN OF WEALTH, ACCUMULATION AND CONSERVATION OF COLLECTIVE VALUES, FINANCES, TRANSFORMATION WHICH COMES WITH DEATH (of “nature”), DISTILLATION AND SUBLIMATION, MERGING SEX, PERVERSION, CORRUPTION.

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SAGITTARIUS

Mutable sign, it prepares for the next phase, the force of Winter. Opposite to Gemini, there is also movement, knowledge and interaction, but now on a universal level: the winds of the end of autumn finish the task of releasing dried leaves, and we know that there are winds across the globe, caused by the differences in temperature, exchanging planetary energies (solar and electromagnetic energy, particles, gases, seeds, dust, sands, insects, birds, fertilizers) as a concrete symbol of the exchange of ideas at a global level. The winds were also the driving forces behind the great voyages of discovery, typical of Sagittarius.

Regarding the collective human aspect, it is represented by the global distribution of products, the large business chains, the trade between countries (import and export, “the Silk Road”), and finally, the exchanges between and the fusion of cultures. Anthropology has studied the "Potlatch", a ceremony between traditional cultures where abundance was displayed, people showed extravagant manners and they exchanged material and cultural goods. Historically it represents the abduction of the sabinas, and the interracial types that make up a civilization: the "gaucho" as a symbolic figure of Argentina (Indian + white captive woman), the "mulatto" in Brazil, the “cowboy” as the symbolic fusion between the European and the North American Indian (Jung's intuition).

It also represents the research that results in new knowledge and the formation of universal religions, artistic productions of complex cultures, long trips to visit other countries and thus leave the local culture and expand the mind: overcoming ethnocentrism is the spiritual purpose of tourism.

Christopher Columbus, Magellan, Marco Polo and Captain Cook are historical figures of this stage. Also Alexander the Great, who united Greece and the East: Asia Minor, Egypt, and India, and who created the first planetary library and the first intercultural research center, Alexandria, is an archetype of this energy, because he fully respected conquered cultures.

The collective wealth generated and accumulated in Scorpio is what allows the dedication to knowledge and philosophies, and the production of art and symbols as the greatest products of a culture. They represent freedom over primary needs, nowadays also satisfied by the welfare state. Nowadays, collective money enables scientific research and even projects with ships to Mars...The professors, the teachers, and the advisers -the wise- forming the central powers (the prime ministers, the economic consultants) are other Sagittarian characters within the constitution of the State and the companies, institutions that are archetypically the Winter on the next step, Capricorn.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS, INTERCULTURAL EXCHANGES, UNIVERSITY (“universal” knowledge), RESEARCH AND DISCOVERIES (going beyond national or local knowledge), TOURISM, LONG TRIPS, UNIVERSAL RELIGIONS (Catholic means “universal”), SUPERIOR MIND, PHILOSOPHIES, CULTURAL CELEBRATIONS.

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CAPRICORN - WINTER (Sun 0° Capricorn Northern Hemisphere, Earth 0° Cancer Southern Hemisphere)

Capricorn - snowy winter landscape, bare treesWinter Solstice, the peak of the cold, darkness and entirely loss of forms represented by the leaves -the life that had blossomed in spring-. Nature has completely undressed and there appear bare tree structures, only trunk and branches that look dry. The sap does not rise anymore; instead it gathers down on the roots and inside the trunks, to keep life to a minimum level. Tree pruning reinforces this reduction to structures. It begins to snow on the flatlands or on the mountains: snow is and symbolizes crystallization. Animals go into hibernation, also reducing their vitality to a minimum level as a death or sleep to spend the winter.

The reduction of life to its basic structures is a symbol of the constitution of the maximum institutions of the community: the State and the enterprise, society represented as a pyramid. The cities of the Libran autumn have grown and multiplied, and the local kingdoms or fiefs call for direction and unity: national states, empires, the “United Kingdom", the “United States" are created; Athens is annexed to Rome and forms the Roman empire. The capital cities (Cuzco, Tenochtitlan, Rome, London, Paris, Xi’an) must now manage large cities that flourish during the winter, to preserve social life in the face of extreme cold: large cities are the “refuge”.

The power of the authorities, the constitutions, the laws that are the collective formalization of customs -"crystallized customs"-, the power of royal rulers (and also the power of representative democracies) are organized. Social classes and hierarchies are organized, the police and the army institutionalize internal and external surveillance. Society reigns over the individual, either directly or internally through the Super-ego: commands, judgments, restrictions, guilt and punishment.

Work is also organized (the trades are from Virgo) reaching the professions. Professional prestige is necessary to counteract the State's tendency towards massification, otherwise the option is to rule or to submit. The public employee is an intermediate state, making up different levels of bureaucracy. The ideal of climbing the social pyramid is also stimulated, fueling ambition. Politics and state policies are the reigning ideology, and the head of the State (emperor, president) or the entrepreneur, must control people in order to rule, even in democracy, otherwise the organization is impossible. It is said that the Inca empire was socialist, but the emperor had to be informed of each and every inhabitant in order to distribute goods equally. The same happened in communist countries.

STRUCTURES, POLITICAL POWER, AUTHORITY, HIERARCHY, ORGANIZATION, EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL CONTROL, INSTITUTIONALIZATION, SOCIAL PYRAMID (classes and social statements), PROFESSIONS AND PROFESSIONALISM, CONCENTRATION, PRESTIGE OR FAILURE, BUREAUCRACY, LAWS, SUPER-EGO, AMBITION OR CONFORMITY, PRESSURE AND EXPECTATION, TRADITIONS, CONSERVATISM, CRYSTALLIZATION.

AQUARIUS

Fixed sign of winter (the “cold sun”), the cold intensifies, the snow spreads everywhere. In traditional communities social life becomes active within homes and social centers, because in nature or on the outside it is impossible to carry out activities. However, in industrial societies, work and social life intensify, people work to pass the winter, and they participate in social groups with common interests: unions, churches, universities, clubs, friends, hobbies, political parties, movements, research centers, non-profit organizations (NGOs), several types of arts and activities fans, alternatives, way of lives, tendencies or fashions ("urban tribes"), gender or minority groups, social networks (Facebook, Tweeter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Lnkedin).

The product of industrial civilization is the megalopolis, the great "electric cities", where people can experience all the technological advances and the latest intellectual and artistic trends. The positive part of massification is anonymity (any city that exceeds the million inhabitants), since the social control from the State and the surveillance of the dominant social classes of the previous phase are vanished.

Individuals wish to participate and thus improve society and the planet, because they do not support the unfair structures of the previous sign that restrict individuality and freedom. The democratic distribution of the goods and benefits of society is an advanced value (what has been done since the discovery of Uranus): society is now the supreme cluster, global civilization is the expected result, and planetary consciousness (and not the super-ego of tradition) is the corollary of the more encompassing Whole that is imposed: humanity, the planet, the solar system (Astrology!). The reformer or the revolutionary character appears, the genius or the inventor, the alternative or the ‘rebel with a cause’, all of them wishing to give their contribution to society and humanity. And currently these reformers, scientists or technologists, visionary politicians of the future, take action in groups or in teams, no longer as isolated geniuses or heroes. The latter and the eccentric people are a perversion of the Aquarian energy, because they go to the opposite Leo, from the individual cycle: deep down they seek egocentric recognition (selfies!), even though the rebellion that wants to stand out, an insecure identity that does not contribute to or participate in the collective.

DECRYSTALLIZATION, DEMOCRACY, EQUALITY, FREEDOM AND JUSTICE AS SOCIAL VALUES, REFORMER, GENIUS, REVOLUTIONARY, ALTERNATIVE, REBEL WITH A CAUSE, COLLECTIVIST (socialist, community and liberal ideologies), FUTURISTIC POLITICIAN OR SCIENTIST, MEMBER AND PARTICIPANT OF DIVERSE GROUPS OF INTEREST.

PISCES

Mutable sign, it symbolizes the end of winter that prepares for spring, the weakness of the force of Winter that calls the force or Summer. The snow melts (in the flatlands wetting the earth, or in the mountains forming the rivers), resulting in water that will fertilize the seeds. The ice dissolves and icebergs melt in the ocean. People plow and sow, and the seeds are hidden germinating in the silence and darkness of the underground, or the seedlings in the artificial climate of the "greenhouses." Everything is prepared and remains latent for the great beginning of the calendar year, the resurgence. Naturally it is also symbolized in the time of gestation within the mother's womb (XII House), the individual absorbing the energy of the collective past to build his or her future.

In humanity, the collective totality becomes cosmic, the year comes to an end, and the assessment phase of the entire cycle begins. The assessment includes whether the fruits, products and seeds have been produced, whether they have been disseminated or released, whether the initial projects have been concretized, whether the essential purpose has been achieved, what has been learned or transformed in order to modify the seeds for the next cycle. There are storms or rains that prepare the earth, a time of crisis before the great transformation: the end of the unconscious winter and the beginning of spring, the light and heat that will resurface.

Human beings have completely identified with society, absorbing its values and its wastes, its conquests and its miseries, its glory and its madness, thus becoming the mass of people, the collective human who completely loses their personal or individual boundaries. What now rules is mass psychology. Football (Piscean sport because it's played with the feet) with its fanaticism, and massive music shows are typical rituals of this stage. The end of the seasonal cycle coincides with the end of the Age of Pisces that we currently live in: it is the collapse of the empire, the decline of civilization, the harassment of “barbarians”, which always happens in the life cycle of empires (the external proletariat wishes to invade and become part of the empire, according to Toynbee). Nowadays we are literally experiencing this phenomenon with massive immigration movements and refugees at a planetary level, and in the mixture of cultures that occur in the fusion of customs, ideas, values and social classes that define post-modernism. Today's music is exactly that: fusion and hybridization, and the screens surrounding us everywhere (cinema, television, computer, internet, cell phones, streaming) are just the projection of images from the collective unconsciousness taking over actual human identity, a legacy of the Pisces Age which is now coming to its end.

Many people feel that there are no more values, but in fact what really happens is that values are no longer hegemonic and are all mixed up. The sensitivity of the Piscean towards the cosmos has been identified with the suffering of humanity and so they practice compassion sacrificing themselves, or withdrawing into solitude to unite with the Universe or God, the latter experienced no longer collectively but virtually, the Great Whole that creates all things, the silence and the emptiness that generate reality, loneliness and isolation foretelling the individuality of Aries.

DISSOLUTION OF STRUCTURES, MASSIVE IDENTIFICATION WITH THE COLLECTIVE, LACK OF INDIVIDUAL LIMITS, SENSITIVITY THAT LEADS TO COMPASSION OR TO WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD AND THE UNION WITH THE VIRTUAL TOTALITY (meditation and mysticism). MADNESS AND DECADENCE, OR INTERNAL EMPTINESS AND DEVOTION, DETACHMENT, COMPLETION AND ASSESSMENT OF THE GREAT CYCLE (the "Final Judgment"), LATENCY (pre-natal period, germination in the darkness) PREPARING THE INDIVIDUAL BIRTH OR THE RESURRECTION OF SPRING-ARIES.

As a conclusion, we reach the final sign that inaugurates the first, the 12 signs deeply related in a cycle: natural, human individual and collective. Aries as the starter, ending up with Pisces, passing through Libra, the cycle middle, the force of Summer and the force of Winter reflecting individual and collective nature of human being, interacting and intermingled for eternity.

Image sources:

Seasons: image provided by the author

Diagram of equinoxes and solstices: dto.

Butterfly: Image by kie-ker from Pixabay

Aries: Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

Cancer: Image by Gerhard G. from Pixabay

Libra: Image by Sabrina Ripke from Pixabay

Capricorn: Image by Ina Hoekstra from Pixabay

About the author:

Manuel Quiles 2021Manuel Ignacio Quiles is an argentinian-brasilian clinical psychologist, trained in Psycho-synthesis, taught psycho-astrology during 20 years, and wrote The Concrete Symbols, Yo Héroe de Mí, A New Concept of Love and Infidelity, Psychology of Death and Beyond, and a lot of articles and essays. Born (and currently living) in San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina, 10/08/1949, 11 pm.

E-mail: manquiles@yahoo.com

Website: http://www.astropsimanquiles.wordpress.com/

Youtube: Manuel Quiles Astropsi

© Manuel Ignacio Quiles, 2021