New Moon on Monday Astrology

18 August 2011

Lots of people are familiar with the elements in Astrology:  Fire, Earth, Water and Air. Not as many know about the qualities: Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable- but they’re just as important.  

The easiest way to distinguish the Qualities is by the seasons.  When the Sun moves through a Mutable sign we are between seasons:  in Virgo we’re moving from summer to fall, in Gemini from spring to summer.  When the Sun passes through a Fixed sign we experience the height of that season:  Leo is the dog days of summer, Aquarius the dead of winter.  

When the Sun moves into a Cardinal sign we get a solstice or an equinox, and thus a season begins.  Cardinal signs are the ones that get things started. 

Remember, there is one sign of each element for every quality:

The Cardinal Fire sign is Aries and it brings the Spring Equinox

The Cardinal Water sign is Cancer and it brings the Summer Solstice

The Cardinal Air sign is Libra and it brings the Autumn Equinox

The Cardinal Earth sign is Capricorn and it brings the Winter Solstice

Cardinal signs like to lead, they like to be the boss of you.  People with a lot of Cardinal energy going on in their chart like to initiate things, they take charge.  They begin a new season.  

Right now we’re just beginning to get untangled from this Summer’s Grand Cardinal Cross - thus named because there are planets opposing and squaring each other in each of the Cardinal signs:  the planet Uranus in Aries, Saturn in Libra, Pluto in Capricorn, and the personal planets, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and Mars in Cancer. (The Sun, Mercury and Venus have moved into Leo.  Mars is still in Cancer but moving into the later degrees so that Cross is beginning to separate.)

The Grand Cardinal cross will be activated every time the Moon is in Cancer for the next few years, and will come to a head once again next Summer, as the personal planets make their way through Cancer once again.  It’s bringing some important, historical times in the world.  It’s starting a whole new season for us all.  

Of course it’s not the easiest adjustment.  People are struggling all over the place.  But  this is one of the reasons I love the astrology stuff so much:  it helps you see the cycles of things, and put symbolism and meaning behind the things that are happening to the world and each of us on an individual level as well.  In times like these, it helps us realize that we’re at the beginning of a brand new cycle.  

Ch-ch-ch-changes, 

Adeline