Aries heralds the coming of the vernal equinox.  The bleakness of winter is past. As daffodils bloom and new buds of life appear, nature seems to have found renewed hope.

In the northern hemisphere, where Western astrology was developed, the light has triumphed over darkness and with it, life over death.  It is fitting then, that Easter usually occurs in Aries for Easter is a time of rebirth when, as Christians, we begin spiritual life anew.

Aries too speaks of beginnings and turning one’s back on the past. Perhaps if we’re struggling with how to implement our renewed spirituality, it is to Aries that we might turn for help.

Ptolemy, whose work reflects the traditions of Western astrology, listed the following as positive Arien qualities: spirited, powerful, venturesome, keen, headstrong, active, with the qualities of leadership.

Indeed these are the qualities we associate with Aries today.   Aries is the successful entrepreneur, the captain of industry, the true pioneer among men.  What then might Aries have to offer besides a place on the FTSE 100 or one’s name in Who’s Who?

All spiritual traditions emphasize the importance of making that initial decision to live the life of the spirit and warn us that we can’t wait for proof that God exists or that the teachings of our religion are true.  Yet today, many of us do just that.  For as children of the Enlightenment, we have learned to believe only in that which we can measure.

Yet if spirited, venturesome, powerful Aries is prepared to take uncalculated risks in order to reach for his stars, then perhaps we could as well.

And what better time to do so than in Aries when ‘the sun (is) mounting with those stars that with him were, what time the Love Divine, at first in motion set those beauteous things.’  *

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* From Dante’s Inferno reflecting the ancient belief (Albumaser, writing  in the 9th century) that Creation took place when the seven planets–Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn–were in conjunction in Aries.