Holy cow, if there is one thing I love in this freaking world, it has to be Aries, God of War. Just thinking about him makes me want to go insane.
Not only is he the first sign of the zodiac he is also the first principle I turn to whenever life feels dim. If not for Aries taking that first bold step into the void, no other signs would have ever be born. He is the electric current that powers the whole zodiac. You could say he is life itself. I freaking love him.
Aries is one quality (well one of 100) I always seek in people but rarely find. It isn’t that common for people to move forward boldly in a direction of their choosing. Many are pathetically addicted to being on the receiving end of life, seeing this as a form of validation. There are more people who want to be courted & pursued than people who are hungry to continuously pursue someone (or something) who is kicking them in the face. But once you make the connection to Aries and feel his fire in your heart your perspective shifts. A kick really does start to feel like a kiss. There is a reason Jesus said it is better to give than receive. Because the life force flows through the giver.
To be the actor plugs you directly into life’s current. When you act boldly upon this world, electricity from another world begins to flow into you. The receiver looks to this world for his fulfillment, while the giver receives straight from God. Connected to a higher power, it doesn’t matter how this world responds to you. The exhilaration of feeling life flow through you becomes its own reward. It is thrilling to never know what you will do next and what might pour out of you. We call this “being on fire.”
And the fire of Aries is always available to us. Aries is our ability to act independently and assertively, without outside support. By definition, he is there for us any time we choose.
No matter our situation, there is always some arena in which we can engage a little harder and become a little bolder. Always some opportunity to extend further into the unknown, filling your body with tingles. If you are low on tingles it is because you are low on Aries and no amount of external stimulation can bring that potato to life. It has to come from within. Setting aside the need for validation, for permission. Life flowing through you and making the world come alive.
I have in my mind this masculine ideal of someone who is always brave, shockingly bold, moving forward, relentless, caring what no one thinks. After discussing this with many women, Aries seems to be the archetype 90% of us dream of. A strong bold man who sweeps you off your feet despite your protests and you have no idea what is happening. You can’t think straight, your bones have turned to jelly, but still he continues.
And I have experienced this a few times, but the sad truth is that when your life consists of continuously getting swept away by outside forces you eventually turn into a vegetable. Even females need to find the fire within. Sometimes though, it doesn’t feel so much like this fire comes from within, but from someone behind you- the perfect man- filling you up with a fire from another world, giving you boldness even when you know you are a coward. The love he gives you never fades or dims, it just grows stronger the more you use it.
Ironically, the more you let the primal fire flow through you, the more you may attract things to yourself thus fulfilling the vegetal desire to be pursued. But at this point it doesn’t matter anymore because you already have all the fire you can take and it is just holding candles up to the sun.
How many times have you heard that you must love yourself before others can love you? How many have lost large chunks of their life floating around in bubble baths waiting for this to happen? Women often think of self-love as a kind of bifurcated mental state where they are both a priceless object and also the housekeeper who must tirelessly care for that priceless object. With this kind of self-love you break even at best, like preparing an elaborate dinner for one. Becoming the slave of your object self is blah. Becoming the slave of Aries is hot.
To me, self love means connecting with the fire in your heart and realizing that this fire is life itself. No man created it. No man can judge it. The fire created the whole world and everything in it. The fire bows to no one and seeks no approval.
It feels fucking exhilarating as though Prince Charming is standing right behind you blazing a hole through your heart. Life itself is the ultimate masculine principle and He has chosen you to be forever alive. Feeling him there you know how much you have to offer the world because it isn’t the form of what you give or how well crafted it may seem. You are bringing fire itself. Bringing life to life. On fire like this, it feels wonderful to be the one extending your hand because you have already received and been chosen. The fact that you are able to extend is proof that life has found you so desirable he couldn’t resist filling you up with his own energy. A slave to the ultimate man. UGH!!!!!!!!!!! That is how I feel about Aries. Like I said, he makes me go insane.
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But wait… I need to be honest with you… there is a dark side to my love for aries… there is another side to this coin…
I tend to view life as consisting of two worlds. The physical world we can see and an invisible world of eternal spiritual powers which we can’t see. I view myself as a channel through which the powers flow, descending from that world into this one. This is an Arian view of life, in which I play the dynamic role and the world around me is the dough I act upon. Sometimes I view others as dough people. I have to ram them with my rod til I’m exhausted. Or sometimes protect myself against them. Because I realize other people can harm, but I rarely consider the possibility that they could bring something new or meaningful into my life. I have no hope of finding anything meaningful in my world other than the things I bring into it. And I’m pretty sure that perspective is fucked up.
The upside to this is being able to find meaning in my life regardless of how others treat me or feel about me, because my primary meaning is coming from relating to the invisible worlds. Consider Emily Dickinson, who spent her life writing poems but never got them published. What if she had been concerned with getting them published? Maybe she would have become frustrated & committed suicide. Not caring what the world gives to you puts you in a position of control. Things like other people, over which you have no control, don’t matter.
I guess my approach to life developed in an attempt to maintain equilibrium while feeling overpowered by those whom I could not influence. To be able to grow when normal avenues of growth seemed blocked. But viewing life solely through the lens of what you bring to the world can lead to a sort of loneliness where the only person in your life is you. Not to mention reduced survival skills since you aren’t connected enough to the people and things around you to really understand how they work. And emitting too much energy can keep other people at bay. In fact, keeping other people at arm’s length is probably why I started to emit in the first place.
One technique I learned early in life was to stream out a continuous flow of energy towards those I found threatening… to try and shower them with so many compliments, gifts and helpful observations that they would have fewer opportunities to attack. Like throwing a tiger a steady supply of meat. Love bombing I guess. I would try to fill all the space between myself and others with energy so there would be no time or space left for them to respond. This didn’t stop attacks, but did slow them a bit. It probably had the impact of attracting mostly predators and mooches as well since I was constantly throwing things at people. Money, compliments, clothes, even trading school papers when I knew mine would get higher grades. I flattered others constantly while disparaging myself, but because I paid no attention to what I was or wasn’t receiving from the world, I never really noticed the harm I was causing, nor that I was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit from which I would not be able to escape.
Now I don’t feel as much of a need to flatter, but still obsessively fill space with my own energy. When I stop doing this, it feels as though there is nothing there. I can either provoke others and be attacked or be surrounded by inert blobs of dough.
Hence the need for Libra, Aries’ polarity. The sign of relationships where giving and receiving are in a state of balance. To be Aries is to be an individual. To be Libra is to be in harmony with the world and receive the things you need from other people. I am not going to say much about Libra at this point because I don’t really understand it. I have been fairly productive for most of my life and probably earned less than a thousand dollars. Meanwhile a person with a super strong Libra says something like “What is, is.” and wins a Nobel Prize. Oil barons want to marry them. Because they understand how the world works and know how to position themselves within it for maximum gain. I guess receiving things from life is not an automatic but takes a different type of skill and knowledge, something Aries cannot understand. I want to learn this because I want to survive. And also because everything which isn’t myself is my obsession, even if I can never quite reach it.
So take my enthusiasm for Aries with a grain of salt, because despite his absolute hotness he is just one side of the coin. Without the other side you will not last long in this world.
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*** PS. This is my usual disclaimer that in discussing Aries & Libra I am discussing the signs themselves, as forces in the universe, not those people who call themselves “an aries” or “a libra.” Personally I am a scorpio, despite identifying with aries in this post.
But we all have aries at some place in our chart and this is an area of life where we will exert ourselves with aggression. For me, aries rules my House of Creativity & Self-Expression, so this is the arena where I am willing to step out & assert myself in an independent manner. In other areas of life, not so much. Someone else, like you for example, might have Aries in their house of sex, making them an absolute freak but only behind closed doors.