Aquarius Sun--Zigzagging Your Way thru the Zodiac

Aquarius, I had a dream last night where I was sitting next to Michael Stipe (R.E.M.) and Robyn Hitchcock. Hitchcock turned to Stipe and asked, “You’re Capricorn, right?” and Stipe responded in a hush tone, “We’ll discuss this later.” Then I butted into their intimate moment, as any rock music journalist-turned-astrologer might and I asked Hitchcock if he was an Aquarius. And he retorted, “Aquarius is overrated.”

And true enough while I was growing up in the 1970s, indeed Aquarius was overrated thanks to the Broadway musical, Hair and the song, “Age of Aquarius.” As a child, I thought there were only three astrological signs, Cancer, Capricorn, and Aquarius so when another child said that she was Gemini or Leo, I scratched my head, “Huh?” When I was in kindergarten only one girl (who was also labeled with learning disabilities), befriended me and she was the first Aquarius I encountered. We held hands on a field trip to the beach so I have a water association with the Water Bearer.

Her family moved away, but we reunited in middle school where she had grown into a star athlete and a fashion trend-setter since all the other girls played copy cat and held their bated breath while our local Aquarius was the first to wear Nike sneakers, the first to wear “star” jeans, and the first to shop for fashion at the out-of-town mall. Her slumber parties exhibited equality in action since she invited the popular and the underdog girls too where everyone mixed and mingled as they swooned over their friendship with the Aquarius girl who collected us like other girls collected horse statues. Later, this Aquarian projected her Leo traits onto her rival, a Leo cheerleader, who she had a cat-dog like rivalry with all through middle and high school. I was friends with both women—the cat and the water bearer. 

photo by Patricia Herlevi

Why am I telling you these stories other than waxing nostalgia for my formative years? I’m giving you illustrated examples of how the Aquarius personality shows up in the real world. In my adult years while I was a movie journalist, I interviewed an Aquarius filmmaker from Canada and we struck up a brief long-distance (by e-mail) friendship. And at one point during our first interview, he briefly mentioned that he was an Aquarius, well, he kind of boasted about this with the aside, “You know that we’re entering the Aquarius Age.” Did I know this? Having heard the famous song ring throughout my childhood, how could I not know that Jupiter would line up with Mars and bam, we enter the Aquarius Age?

Is Aquarius overrated like my dream rock musician character believed? Aquarius is the most misunderstood sign of the Zodiac. And not all Aquarius people sport tattoos, nose rings, and green streaks in their hair. In fact, you’ll find people from all Zodiac Signs following those trends. If the room is filled with bikers and biker chicks sporting tattoos and black leather, then the Aquarius person ambles in wearing a business suit or the garb of a Best Buy Geek Squad employee. Aquarius follows the beat of his or her own drummer and if this means they start tends, so be it. They’re certainly not trying to start any trends and once people start copying them, they venture off into new territory and thumb their nose at all those folks who can’t seem to think for themselves.

Aquarius thumbs his or her nose at conventions and traditions, though this doesn’t mean that Aquarius represents progressive types hanging out at peace rallies. They might not care at all about politics or economics unless they are affected directly or take on a cause that involves an underdog or two. Aquarius rules technology such as wind power, rules permaculture and energy medicine along with space travel and far out aliens coming to the earth to share secret knowledge, especially if Scorpio also figures prominently in the natal chart. Aquarius collects friends but doesn’t always know what to do with these diverse friends. They join groups or lead them because remember that people love following  their Aquarius leader, even though a weakness of Aquarius is to not fit in on purpose and then complain that no one gets them. But Aquarius isn’t as mysterious or quirky as they want us to believe.

Aquarius is represented by the Tarot cards The Tower and The Star (although one Tarot Reader I saw on YouTube said that Mars represents The Tower card). Aquarius rules electric blue and lightening and the planet Uranus. Aquarius people don’t move in a straight line, but zigzag through life. Just like lightning strikes unexpectedly, an Aquarius can change direction and this is when they shock us. This is when they show up with a Mohawk dyed green at the business office. This is when they shock moviegoers with strange body language and expressions (James Dean), or the math geek shows up at a party of dilettantes.

I recall a game published in newspapers along with the comic strip that asked which object in the  picture didn’t fit into the general scheme which reminds me of the Aquarius Sun. Aquarius people stand out in a crowd because they don’t fit the normal pattern of humanity in that situation. For instance, everyone in the room is dressed in black, white, and gray then the Aquarius person walks in wearing all red or wearing a silver spacesuit, but that’s an exaggeration. When I was a young adult I thought that everyone strange that I met was Aquarius and I was wrong fifty percent of the time. Often times, the most conservative person in the room dressed like Michael J Fox’s character in the television show Family Ties represented the Aquarius person. Sometimes they lead fashion trends (if Venus or Neptune is prominent in their natal chart), but often times they're dressed so strange we turn our noses down at them. "How dare you come to my gathering dressed like that."

In my late teens and early twenties, I had a crush on an Aquarius folk-rock musician from Scotland. He didn’t join a punk band which seemed like the obvious rebellious thing to do during the punk era, but instead wore a fringe leather jacket and played love songs on an acoustic guitar. He claimed to have had David Bowie as an influence, but the only resemblance he had to Bowie was the time that he sported an androgynous hair style dyed red. And if you want to know which musicians sport either an Aquarius Sun or Ascendant, look to the androgynous musicians, who at least have their Venus transiting in Aquarius, if not their Sun, Mercury, Ascendant, Moon or Mars at the time of their birth. Venus rules our fashion sense.

So then what can we expect from an Aquarius Sun person? They’ll never follow a trend and they simply can’t go along with a program for a long period of time. They get away with dressing differently in the workplace because they are brilliant innovators who can focus on their work. They don’t walk in a straight line, but zigzag, and even though they are normally detached sometimes their Leo polarity takes over and they experience sudden drama that leads to breakthroughs. They don’t enjoy the spotlight, but can handle the attention if required though some Aquarius actors have appeared on the silver screen and become legends such as James Dean. And who can forget Aquarius actress Geena Davis in the movie Thelma and Louise or as the quirky dog trainer in The Accidental Tourist?

There are two types of Aquarius, one ruled by Saturn and the other ruled by Uranus since Saturn was the first ruler of Aquarius along with Capricorn. Aquarius people appear in rock bands and on Wall Street. They practice energy healing or work in the arts. They invent new technology or play the role of the absent-minded university professor who gets lost (more like distracted) on the way to the lecture hall. They collect people in their lives, but aren’t so good at expressing deep emotions (unless they have planets in Water Signs in their charts). 

They call everyone a friend except those they have crushes on, and they act mean towards those folks. They certainly have their quirks. They act like humanity is the most important thing, but forget that humanity is made up of individuals who want individual and not collective rights (oh, how selfish of us). And I believe that Aquarius invented the concept of grassroots. Believe it or not, the United States of America sports Aquarius ideals even if it’s Sun is ruled by Cancer (July 4^th).

If we listen to the famous 1960s anthem, we’ll hear that the Age of Aquarius is dawning, not that we are already in it. And this was sung by a colorful band of hippies born when Pluto was transiting in Leo, the opposite sign of Aquarius. Think of what dawning means. Think of the darkest hour before dawn approaches and all we see is a glimmer of light dancing on the horizon or perhaps zigzagging just below the darkness of the night. We too are only catching a glimmer of the Aquarius Age, and true to the nature of this sign, no one really knows when this age will begin. But with all the new technology on the planet to make the Jetsons proud, and energy medicine on the rise (a household phrase), we very well could be close to an Aquarius-ruled renaissance in which we truly feel equal with our brothers and sisters. If we want to capture the true spirit of Aquarius think of the American city Philadelphia, “City of Brotherly Love”.

Famous Aquarius people include: James Dean, Geena Davis, David Bowie (Ascendant), Roddy Frame (Aztec Camera), Ronald Reagan, the television character Michael Keaton, movie maker and Oscar Nominee Philippe Falardeau, Abraham Lincoln, Oprah Winfrey, and most likely the character Harry Potter. As far as professions, the sky is the limit for Aquarius, but whatever they do in life, they bring innovation and a brilliant mind.

Aquarius quirks include, forgetfulness, detached emotions, stubbornness especially when it comes to ideas and concepts, rigidness, too futuristic, rebellious, and too focused on the collective until they lose sight of the individual (Marxist Communism falls under Aquarius). They also give us the impression that we're a special friend of theirs when we are merely an acquaintance or colleague (they might not even remember our names). We’ll all experience these quirky and the positive traits of Aquarius when Pluto begins its transit in Aquarius in 2024.

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